Breaking Point

Breaking Point

Everybody has a breaking point, it just takes the right set of circumstances to push a person to theirs. For some people reaching breaking point means getting laid off, bad days at work, or someone nagging endlessly at you. There are different degrees of reaction to all that. For some it means getting loaded on cheap wine, for others it's anger and resentment leading to news headlines. I reached my breaking point yesterday, when Benny was totally inconsolable, screaming and crying on me. I told Sher I couldn't have a screaming baby on me anymore, I needed a break. For me that's a big deal. I define myself as a Dad who is always ready and willing to help with the kids. To say I didn't want to be with or console my son was terrible and felt a little sickening. 

You might well think that since he's a baby, crying and screaming are nothing unusual, and you'd be right. The trouble is he's been crying and screaming on me day and night for what seems like weeks now. When I get home from work it's late in the afternoon and he's tired, about two hours away from bed. I can get a bit of cuddle time in when he's a wonderful, chubby bundle of joy, but then it's bathtime, followed by the nightly round of I'm-NOT-going-to-sleep-and-you-won't-fucking-make-me bedtime battle, where Benny screams, cries and flails about like an enraged seal until he eventually slumps into and exhausted slumber. Now I don't have to do the bath and bedtime routine every night, sometimes I do it just once or twice a week. It's what follows that has just worn me down.

Benny will wake up after an hour, crying again, then again about half an hour later, then again, and again, and again. This will continue with different intervals of time through the entire night. Consequently neither Sher nor I get a decent nights sleep. I can't speak for Sher, but I'm rarely getting into deep sleep because I'm being woken every 2 hours or so. Sometimes he'll go back to sleep quickly with a few pats on his back, other times, like on Saturday night, he'll be up for 2 hours or more. It may be teething or gas that's keeping him awake, we've medicated him recently and that's helped, but he's also a cuddle monster and hates being in his spaciously appointed cot. We have a very cuddly family, a wonderful thing, but we've also created a wee monster who doesn't like being put down. 

It's not the cuddles that have pushed me to my breaking point, it's the nights. I don't remember it being this hard with Carys, and she was a terrible sleeper for a while. Maybe it's the combination of two kids that's making it so damn tiring, they both wake at some point in the night. I don't think I'm more tired than Sher who is working her ass off in the day and still being woken at night. The thing is, saying that I needed a break from my son felt like I was saying I didn't want to be around him, which also made me feel like a shit. I love him desperately, but I can't stand the screaming, crying and flailing anymore. I can't fight him to sleep anymore. I can't go to bed gritting my teeth in the certain knowledge that I'll be woken again in a few hours by a smack from a grunting, crying baby.

Parenting isn't easy. When we first had Carys people would joke about the lack of sleep we would experience. They did it again before Benny was born. It's never really bothered me that my kids wake up at night and need me. It's my responsibility to help them because they can't help themselves. But I've hit some kind of wall and need a break. It feels selfish, like I'm somehow a failure as a parent or a bad person. I feel terribly guilty, as though I'm letting my family down and burdening my wife with extra care of our kids. But here's what no one ever said when they were laughing at how little sleep I would get: sometimes you need to be selfish as a parent just so you can preserve your sanity and maintain a healthy relationship with your family. Being SuperMum or Dad is all well and good right up to the point it starts destroying the other relationships in your life, or the relationship with the child you're working so hard to raise and love. 

So last night I slept on the couch, and I may well be there again tonight because it was quiet bliss. It will make the difference between going to bed tense, gritting my teeth and anticipating a hellish night, and going to be ready and willing to help my wee man feel better. If being selfish for a night or two is what it takes to be a better Dad and husband then that's what I'll do. 

Super Sleep Fighter

My wife and I have been living in a miasma of smug for the past 5 months. When people asked us if we were getting enough sleep, if Benny was waking us often, we would smile a little smug smile and tell them that actually he sleeps through the night. He's a great sleeper and only really rolls over to pop a boob in his mouth. It's fantastic and we're both sleeping relatively well, in fact Sher sleeps far more than me because Carys calls  for me once a night just for a chat.

However the smug has begun to lift just recently; when bedtime rolls around now our sweet wee chublet, Benny is temporarily displaced possibly hurled into a parallel universe and replaced by an alternate version of himself - The Banshee Baby. Banshee Baby screams and cries like he's being flayed alive by the Inquisition, then brutally murdered by Jack The Ripper. Banshee Baby wiggles and squirms like a dying centipede. Banshee Baby flails his arms and kicks his legs with such vigour he could take flight if we let him go. Bashee Baby is a world class planker, able to go from soft and squishy yumminess to Oak rigidness in the blink of an eye. Banshee baby is a chameleon with a colour spectrum disorder, going from cute baby pinkness to angry beet red in just one held breath. Banshee Baby is a Super Sleep Fighter.

It turns bedtime into hell. When 7pm rolls it all starts and will go on and on and on for a minimum of 45 minutes. We use all the tricks, he's too old for swaddling, but we still put him on his side, shush, swing, and let him suck on a boob or bottle. None of it works anymore. He just cycles through the various Banshee Baby tricks. It's tiresome, grating, irritating and totally deflating. Every night I put the Banshee to bed instead of my wee Benny I come out feeling like a failure as a parent. It's not unusual for both Benny and I to be dripping in sweat by the time he goes to sleep. When he's being a Banshee all I want to do squeeze him till his wee head pops off, and I don't mean I'm violent with him but the urge to do something - ANYTHING - to stop him crying is absolutely primal and comes deep down from my exhausted, irritable Caveman self. So I'm not just fighting Benny I'm also fighting myself, conciously stopping myself from holding him too tight or making sudden movements that will likely scare the crap out of Benny and make things worse. I never, ever want to hurt my kids, I don't believe in hitting your kids as punishment and I sure as hell don't believe they should be frightened of you or by you at anytime, let alone at bedtime when they often feel most vulnerable. So when Benny does get scared by something I do, I stop everything I'm doing and start all over again feeling like a total, utter wastrel of a person, undeserving of such a wonderful little boy as I have. When Benny does the long silent cry, tears rolling down his face, I just want a do over to take back everything I've done to upset him. But I can't. Instead I accept that I've probably screwed up and start over, calm and controlled.

I've had to relearn how to put my baby to sleep; I'm much better at it now than I was. I'm calm, relaxed and gentle and unsurprisingly Benny goes to sleep much faster. He's still a Banshee Baby, but the Banshee is cast out far more quickly now. As stressful and trying as bedtime can be, I still wouldn't trade it for anything. For all the stress, anxiety and feelings of failure I may experience as a parent; they are totally and blindingly eclipsed by the unreserved love I have for and receive from my kids. They make everything feel better, they are the ultimate cure all; if I could bottle just how good they make me feel I could sell it and pay off the U.S. debt. There is no emotion stronger than the feeling of love and pride for your child, and it really isn't something you can understand until you're a parent. So I may put a banshee to bed most nights, I may feel awful as a parent, but that's completely erased in the morning when Benny presses the reset button by giving me the hugest smile and giggles the moment he sees my face. In those moments, everything is worthwhile, everything is forgiven and I know I'll do it as many times as needed because I love him with every part of my being and so much more. He's my wee man and I'm still a smug parent, just for different reasons now.

Benny Boo!

It's been 113 days since our second baby arrived so I figured it's high time I wrote about it; thus avoiding accusations later on in life that I love Carys more because I wrote about her birth and not his, but also because the experience was totally different to both our other ones.

Zen Master At Work

Once again it was a scheduled event, we knew right from the start that Sher would be having a C-Section. The fibroids which got in the way of the first pregnancy and birth hadn't magically disappeared, thankfully they hadn't grown either. So we knew there was no way Sher would have a natural birth, it was physically impossible not to mention highly dangerous. Try telling that to the hospital staff at QMH who carried on talking about a natural birth right up until a week or two before the delivery date. Incidentally Sher really, REALLY worked hard to be calm and good natured at the antenatal appointments this time around. There was lots of deep breathing and one word answers. If you know my wife at all, you'll know her tolerance for stupidity, in-the-box thinking or plain laziness is....low. If you put her tolerance or patience for those things on a scale of 1 to 10; 1 being none at all, 10 being a Zen-like mastery of calm and control; Sher would be about about a 1 when not pregnant. When carrying a 7 pound baby inside of her, with a constant need to pee, nausea, hunger, an hour worth of travelling, 90% humidity and 30 degree heat outside, her tolerance drops substantially into the negative. In this way I'm sure she's a lot like most women when they're pregnant. It's always slightly fun to see the startled, deer in a headlights look the staff at the hospital get when she explodes because they've asked her for the 10th time whether she smokes or drinks, or when her last check-up was. I do want to reach across and gently point out the answers to their questions, found on the first page of Sher's file which is often sitting in their lap. Ask a stupid question, piss of a heavily pregnant white woman.

The End

I've been meaning to write about the termination for many months now. I left off with us coming home after a fruitless day in the hospital. Well we went back the next day and finished what should have been started the day before. The small details elude me now, so much has happened in the months since; the important moments remain though.

We arrived and Sher was promptly checked-in to the maternity ward. She was given a bed in a corner of the ward and we soon realised the beds in that particular section of the ward were exclusively for ladies having terminations. It was by far the quietest part of the ward. It wasn't shielded in any way from the rest of the ward so we were surrounded by babies and Mums. It wasn't awful, certainly not for me as I was more focused on Sher, but I can see that it might bother others in our situation.

Sher was given the first dose of medication quite quickly so we settled in to wait. I was really hoping it would all be over by the end of the day, the doctors told us that it usually takes 3-4 doses of the medication before a termination is complete. Unfortunately this didn't happen for us, it took much longer. Having said this, her contractions started incredibly quickly. She was in a hell of a lot of pain but was only given panadol, until she made the nurses realise she needed something stronger. They gave her a shot of pethidine in her bum. Very shortly after that they wheeled her into the labour room because the pain was so intense. Thankfully I got to accompany her.

The next few hours were exhausting for me, but obviously more so for Sher. For the most part I felt useless. I couldn't do anything to help Sher except be there as support. I tried holding her hand or rubbing her back but this was too much sensory input for Sher, on top of the labour pains. So I sat next to the bed and watched. It's a horrible thing to have to sit and watch someone you love going through something so painful and not be able to help in any way. Nothing I could do or say would make things better, or make Sher's 'job' there any more pleasant. Sher had multiple doses of the medication but all she experienced was more labour pain. This continued on into the early hours of the morning, at which point Sher had been given the maximum amount of medication allowable within 24 hours. We would have to wait until morning before they gave her any further doses.

As it turned out though, no further doses were necessary. In the morning Sher needed to go to the bathroom, for the first time in hours. The nurses weren't on hand at the time and Sher was pretty mobile so she took herself off, back onto the prenatal ward, to use the bathroom there. I stayed in our little labour room. I wasn't aware of anything happening outside, the labour ward is separated from the maternity ward by 2 sets of double doors and a corridor, so it was next to impossible to hear any noise emanating from the maternity ward. Having said that though, I did hear a vague bit of shouting in Cantonese but thought nothing of it. Sher was gone for probably 5 minutes, not terribly long, if you've ever had a girlfriend you'll know 5 minutes in the bathroom for a lady is NOT a lot of time. But when Sher was wheeled back to our room in a wheelchair my man brain did go ping!, and I knew something must have happened. I don't remember what Sher said, "It's done" or "It's out". She had delivered the baby in the bathroom. I'm not going to go into a whole lot of detail, that's her story to tell (here if you're interested http://bit.ly/12IuaeC) all I will say is that it was awful, compounded by the near deafening shouts of the nurses on the ward after she came out to show them she had 'delivered'. Why they would react by yelling at one another instead of calmly taking Sher back to her room, quietly asking her a few questions and allowing her to rest after what was probably the worst shock of her life, I'll never know. It's one of those cultural disconnects that happen here in HK, I truly hate it; otherwise intelligent and kinds people can turn into loud, unthinking, insensitive, fools.

They put Sher back in her bed, and called me over behind a curtain. I didn't mention earlier that there was a little basket in the corner of the room, next to the door. Honestly it was a bread basket, but they had put a little blanket inside, turning the bread basket into a dolls bed. I knew, from the moment I saw that little dolls bed, what it was going to be used for. So I wasn't surprised when I came around the curtain and saw the dolls bed was occupied. They had placed our little baby into the basket, having cleaned him off a bit. It was a shock to see him. It was totally evident that he wouldn't have lived had he been born full term. His wee body (no more than 2 inches long) was terribly broken and deformed. They gave me a minute with him. I can't remember if I said anything or did anything except stare. It was quiet and peaceful, and I knew beyond any doubt we had done the right thing. Bringing that boy into the world full term would have been horrifically cruel, to him and us. The nurses confirmed that we wanted an autopsy performed and that we wouldn't get his body back afterwards as there just isn't enough of it after the autopsy. That was all expected and we agreed. They took a photo of him before taking him away and that's the last ever I saw of him.

I'd like to say that was the end of the whole process, that we were able to go home and be with our lovely Carys, that the ordeal was over and we lived happily ever after. Unfortunately not. Once again the system was there, ready to fuck us over. Or rather fuck up my wife. We expecting some waiting around, and sure enough we had to wait several hours before Sher was released; a sensible precaution considering she had just gone through child birth. Before being released the doctor saw us, and prescribed some pain meds for Sher, told her to expect further bleeding and that she might, possibly, pass some of her placenta in the next few days as they couldn't confirm she had already passed it all. This led Sher, quite logically, to ask if she needed antibiotics. The doctor said no. She said no. I repeat that because it's stupid, and because it would come back as a serious problem. If I told you there was tissue that was slowly dying inside of you, wouldn't you expect some form of treatment to avoid say....an infection? As a doctor wouldn't it be best practice to limit your patient's exposure to post procedure infection? This doctor didn't seem to think so. So we walked out trusting this woman's opinion. Within about 2 days we were back in our doctor's office because Sher was SURPRISE! experiencing serious abdominal pain and bleeding. The doctor was very surprised Sher wasn't on antibiotics, so we walked away with a bag full which had to be topped up later on.

We got back to normal quite quickly, but what Sher and I realise now is that we were just ignoring how we felt. Neither of us were alright, we were both incredibly sad. There's a lot of guilt wrapped up in terminating a pregnancy, not to mention finding out your baby has genetic defects. You immediately begin to question everything you did before you knew the pregnancy even existed. You wonder if it's something you did, physically or spiritually, that made this happen. You blame yourself. None of that stops after the termination. It went on and on for me in the months afterwards, I just wasn't fully conscious of it. I could rationalise arguments absolving Sher and I of any blame, but it didn't matter. There's nothing rational about losing a baby. It would take many months for us to realise this and deal with it. The whole experience was heart wrenching and anger inducing for the multiple examples of callous ineptitude. I wouldn't wish it on anyone, and I'm so grateful to the people in my life who were so supportive and kind. That's all anyone can ever be, and that's all I ever wanted. Thank you so much for your friendship. It means the world to me and to Sher.

I'd like to say we're both past it, that's it's over and we've moved on but, personally speaking there's a part of me that's always going to be stuck in that time and place. It will always be a part of who I am. I sometimes think about Devon and it makes me incredibly sad, I miss him. The difference is now I'm not sad all the time, I don't think about it all the time, it's a part of my story.

There is one other huge difference and his name is Benedict who arrived 1 year later. He's an incredibly cute, chubby baby boy. He isn't a replacement, he was a surprise, and he is happiness incarnate. Sometimes you get just what you need, and we really needed a wee baby boy in our lives. I love him to the moon and I'm so grateful to have him in my life.