Free A New Life by Stephanie Kepke Page B

his changing table.
    “Let me do that,” my mother said. “I’m here to help you. Why am I even here if you’re not going to let me help you?”
    “I’m only going to have my first night home with my son once. He’s only three days old once. I need to learn by doing. You can give me pointers. Okay? Just watch. Really, I need to do this.” I smoothed my nightgown and began.
    My mother sighed and sat in the glider. She was muttering to herself about not being needed when something warm trickled down my leg.
    There was a red stain on the carpet next to my foot. Blood snaked down my ankle leading to it. My mother saw it a split second after I did. She jumped up and literally pushed me out of the way. “I’ll finish this. You call the doctor now.”
    I cleaned up and grabbed the phone. It was 10:14 p.m. I felt a bit foolish dialing the emergency line. The doctor got right back to me, though. “What have you been doing?” he asked.
    When I told him, he explained very slowly, like I was an idiot, that if I didn’t lie down, I would end up in the emergency room and quite likely back in the hospital. “You won’t be able to take care of your son, your house, or anything then. Call me immediately if you saturate more than a pad an hour or if the bleeding doesn’t slow when you lie down.”
    I lay down, but brought Henry with me to nurse. Zach put him in the bassinet at midnight and he woke at 1:03 a.m. to nurse again. My mother came in when he woke. “Please let me give him a bottle. Look at you, you can’t even open your eyes. You need to sleep. Give him some formula,” she begged.
    Hamlet was rattling his cage to come out too. Hamlet was the one who trained us to wake up in the middle of the night when he wanted to play, which was every night until recently. He’s the one who trained Zach and me to take care of something small and helpless. I put drops in his tiny nostrils and swabbed his eyes with antibiotic ointment for ten days when he was sick just a month earlier. I felt so guilty ignoring him. Zach kneeled in front of his cage, said, “Hey buddy,” and took him out.
    “Thank you,” I whispered.
    Henry was wailing. My mother brought him to me.
    My father came in then. The crying had wakened him. “Your mother’s right. The other girls fed formula. Why can’t you? Denise didn’t even feed the baby a bottle herself until he was a week old. She rested and had your mother and the baby nurse take care of him. Paula adopted and she had a baby nurse. Why you didn’t get a baby nurse, I don’t know.”
    My head was too heavy to reason. I couldn’t explain that if I gave him formula now he wouldn’t breastfeed successfully. I couldn’t explain that I didn’t care that my sisters both formula fed and had baby nurses. I chose to breastfeed and change diapers myself. Paula didn’t have a choice, and Denise had postpartum depression. My nipples were cracked and bleeding, my head throbbed. Henry was screaming and boom…my milk came in.
    “Get the hell out,” I hissed. “He’s my child.” I immediately felt guilty. They traveled hours to get here the day he was born, but it was too late.
    “At least we’re here,” my mother said, her voice cracking. “Not like the others. If you want us to leave though, we will.” At her words Zach put Hamlet in his exercise ball and left the room, not saying a word.
    ****
    Four days before my due date Zach had announced that his parents were leaving for a vacation in the Florida Keys the next day.
    I snorted. “Very funny.”
    We had a running argument for days over whose mother would get to help the most the first few days with the baby.
    “I’m not joking,” he said. “My dad said they need to get away, so they’re going for two weeks. One week if it’s a boy, I guess, so they won’t miss the bris.”
    “You’ve got to be kidding.” I couldn’t believe they would skip town just before their first grandchild was due. It was my parent’s fourth and