By Sandra Charron

I’m a postpartum registered nurse on a high risk unit. This means that I take care of women after they have given birth, either vaginally or via Caesarean section. Since I work on the high risk unit, this also means that these labors were most likely long, arduous, and probably required an epidural from Mom’s belly button to her coccyx in order to get the forceps or vacuum in there to pry the little tyke out.

The babies I deal with, because of the traumatic birth they’ve endured, are a little worse for wear and often take a little longer to perk up. Oh, sure, they cry just like all the other babies, and they refuse to sleep during those long, dark nights, just like the babies who had a gentler, milder delivery. But these little critters often don’t have the first fucking clue what to do with their mother’s nipple when we first attempt to get baby to latch on. And trust me, we attempt. A lot. Those creatures might as well come out of that vagina with a set of teeth because they are so confused on the breast that they leave their mothers’ nipples a sad looking wad of chewing gum.

I work primarily the nightshift, so I spend a lot of time in those hospital rooms with mothers who are exhausted from days of laboring and potentially recovering from a Caesarean section. And despite trying to keep their eyelids open while I explain various techniques we can try in order to get the baby on the breast or to get some nutrients into that baby via various methods, those rockstar moms give their heads a shake, take a deep breath, and follow my instructions right down to the last letter.

Some nights that baby finally figures out where his/her food supply is and will rest until the next sessions at the watering hole. Other babies, however, would rather cry for hours just to see how long it will take for his/her parents to lose their shit. It’s the parents of those children that I have to be very very gentle with. Because it’s the mother of that kid who has chewed his mother’s nipples off; it’s this mother who hasn’t slept in eight days; it’s this mother who hasn’t gotten up to pee since delivery two days ago because she’s scared to move the baby who has finally fallen asleep in her arms after 9 consecutive hours of wailing; it’s this mother that I’m scared to send home.

Because when she goes home, who’s going to hold the baby while she pees? Will she ever pee again? Sure, she has a husband or a partner, but let’s be real: Mom has lightning fast reflexes and can land on that baby after the slightest of whimpers while the dad or partner can sleep through a grenade detonating in the room.

And so, being that I am a mother myself and I’ve been through what this mother is about to go through when she leaves the hospital, I panic a little.

I remember those nights when I held my first born who would not shut up and finally had that moment where I snapped. You know the moment? We all have it whether we want to admit it or not. The moment I punched my sleeping husband in the gut, and as he groggily took the baby that I flung at him (Don’t call CPS; it was 20 years ago, and I think that was allowed back then), I made a grand exit from the bedroom, declaring, “I am not coming back!”

I did come back. Clearly. I still have the 20-year-old. Actually, he’s probably never moving out, so maybe I was on to something back then.

But when I sit with my new mothers the mornings before I discharge them, I always warn them of this moment — of the moment when they are going to want to injure their husband or partner and forcefully hand over that whiny fucking baby.

I give them a full head-to-toe on the anatomy of postpartum depression. I am so thorough with the signs and symptoms leading up to it — I spend so much time stressing the importance of seeking help at the first sign of distress; I spend so much time worrying and begging them to be good to themselves, not only their baby — that by the time I’m done with my schpeel, both the mother and I are crying.

And some part of me always leaves that room wondering if I’ve created a paranoid monster who is going to be worried as all hell about the life she’s about to lead with this little demanding tyrant or how much pain she’s going to inflict on the dad/partner once I’m not around to be a witness.

But hey. At least I am honest.

*****

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