It’s a boy!

Depression set in by the second day in hospital.  I would sit awake through the night and not know why I was crying. Looking at this little baby in the dim light.  Missing my husband so much that I wanted to call him, even if it was in the middle of the night.  Only feeling able to cope when he was with me.  Most of all I knew without a doubt that I was not going to be a good mother.  I wasn’t going to be able to cope.  How could I look after him if I didn’t know what he needed?

This got better and worse after we went home.  At least hubby was there for me, but I didn’t want anyone else but my husband to touch my child.  My nerves were stretched so thin I needed a break, but couldn’t let anyone else take care of my son.  How pathetically happy I was when he had to be admitted at 10 days old for jaundice.  I was happy to leave him in the hospital for the night, because I knew special nurses would be looking after him.

For the first three months, I almost panicked if I had to hand my son to anyone but his father.  Everything inside me screamed NO at the idea. On one occasion I had left Rivan lying on the bed.  He was awake but happy and I took a breather outside on the veranda.  Father-in-law wanted to know if the baby was sleeping and I said no he’s awake.  He then got up and went into our bedroom.  The moment he stood over my son, my baby started crying.  I was so upset.  Couldn’t they just leave it alone?  Why did they have to pressure me into allowing them time with my son.  He’s mine and if I want to let him lie awake who’s he to decide differently.  I was having a nice break until he went and upset my son.

Today I know that what I was feeling was definitely not normal.  Mother-in-law had to hold herself in to not make a scene.  Luckily they realised that I was having difficulty coping and gave me the space I needed to get my balance back.  By the time that he was four months old my mood swings were over and peace had settled back on our house.  Then when he was ten months old, my in-laws moved into the house they had been building.  Even though I love my mother-in-law to bits, every woman prefers to have her house to herself.  Since they moved into the new house, built next to ours on the farm, we’ve been getting along even better than before.

Like I said, by the time baby boy was four months old I had finally decided that I was going to be able to do this motherhood thing.  I might not be brilliant about it, but I wasn’t a dismal failure.  My son was growing nicely, he was smart as any first time mother will tell you her child is.  He was also a cutie pie.  Big blue eyes and permanent smile on his face.  An outgoing personality that had him making friends where ever we went.  I was succeeding nicely with breastfeeding.

Then the four months of maternity leave was over and I had to get back to work.  For the first time ever I wasn’t at all keen on working anymore.  Who do you trust to look after your son while you go back to the office?  Looking at several crèches in the vicinity of my office, I realised that this was going to be a very expensive hobby.  Our final choice settled on a crèche that was situated in the parking area of a hospital.  It was only four blocks from my office and I felt comfortable with the setup that they had there.  They were however the most expensive of the lot and the most uncompromising.

I had negotiated with my employer that I would be working half day, starting only at eight thirty.  This meant that I would not be able to pick up Rivan at the crèche at the regular half day hours and had to pay full time for that extra half an hour.  At that time, both my husband and I, didn’t care what we had to pay, we just wanted the best for our son and this crèche was it as far as we knew.

I started getting used to the routine of dropping off Rivan and picking him up in the afternoon.  The baby room had quite a few babies in it and the system they had in place for everything seemed very well thought out.  About a month after he joined they had three new additions.  Twin babies six weeks old and a little girl that was about one year old.  The teacher still said that the little girl that was crying the whole day was an example of a child that was put in the crèche to old.  They adjust easier if they start going from a younger age.

Month one and I had to take Rivan to the doctor for an infection.  Month two and he was sick again.  I was still breastfeeding and expressing at work, but he was getting a lot more formula per day than before.  As it happened I had left work early on the Thursday to take him to the doctor again.  I picked him up at twelve for an appointment at one.  The doctor gave him antibiotics again and I decided to take him to work with me instead of leaving him at the crèche on Friday.

Each Friday I had to take his bedding home to wash for the next week.  So on Friday afternoon I stopped to pickup everything that had to be washed.  The teacher was in a good mood and we chatted a bit before I left.  That afternoon I got the call that shattered all my illusions.  Being in the parking lot of a big hospital did not help the new little girl.  She died in her sleep from suffocation.  Not that we knew that in the beginning.  The head of the crèche phoned to inform us that the little girl had died in my son’s classroom.  Calling it a cot death.  That there was a chance that the virus that the little girl had could be contagious and that we were to phone someone to get details.

This caused complete panic for me and my husband.  We rushed Rivan back to the doctor.  He did the necessary tests.  But when the results were supposed to be available we couldn’t get hold of the doctor.  After getting hold of the results we needed a doctor to explain it to us, but couldn’t get a doctor to do that.  Finally we found a new paediatrician that was prepared to help us on a Saturday.  He spoke to the police on our behalf and told us that the test results were negative.  After his discussion with the police he was able to explain that the little girl had suffocated on phlegm.

My husband decided that since you could obviously not trust strangers to look after your child, I had to resign.  Again my boss compromised and I was set up with a home office.  This lasted for a year before out of sight out of mind reduced my work load from five solid hours to one a day.  Being paid hourly made it necessary for me to look at other ways of earning an income.  That was the start of my unsuccessful own business.

I’m great at creating systems for companies to follow.  Implementing and refining the necessary documents that are needed to produce all the necessary paper trails for successful business practices.  I’m just not very good at following them.

4 Months old and the best thing that had ever happened to his mom

Chapter 3