On Bananas and Self-Pity

It’s pretty safe to say that the summer I gave birth to Annaïs was a special one. And when I say "special" I mean crappy. Sure it was great because I had a baby and all, but it’s kinda the pits when you’re away from home, your other child is a toddler, and all you want to do is give birth so you can start the paperwork to get everyone back to Congo.

Remember me whining about my awful labor? Well I was actually showing uncharacteristic self-restraint and left out my sob story of having surgery a week later. It wasn’t serious surgery, but it was surgery none-the-less. And I was one week postpartum (read: crazy hormonal).

Gosh what a beautiful baby. 1-minute after labor: Not worth it. 2 years after labor: Worth it a million times over. Photo: Jill Humphrey.

Have you ever been around a postpartum woman? After a crappy labor? And about to have surgery? If you hear of someone in this trifecta of misery, stay far far away.

All I really remember is sitting in the hospital room about to go into surgery with newborn Ani sleeping in her car seat in the corner, and Adam beside me (but it’s safe to say I had snapped at him about something so we probably weren’t speaking) and I was feeling unbelievably sorry for myself. 

So instead of taking those final moments before I went under to tell my family how much I loved them, I read one of those shiny hospital magazines that are really just thinly-veiled fundraising attempts. There was an article about the fancy new cancer center. It went on and on about the cancer patients and their fortitude and positive outlook. Cancer patients are obviously very amazing and strong folks. I thought, “Well on the bright side, I’ll never get cancer.” If I can summons this amount of self-pity over some dumb surgery, I would never be able to deal with cancer. I would feel way too sorry for myself and self-pity does not a proper cancer patient make. And thus it will never happen to me. So I got in a little better mood because I convinced myself I was too miserable of a person to get a terminal illness.  

And then the nurses came to get me and they expected me to get all sentimental over leaving my newborn for the first time. I was more worried about leaking breast-milk all over the operating table. Yeah, yeah. See ya baby. Can we get this over with before I get too full of milk? A horribly unloving mother and a terrible future cancer patient. An ultimate low in an otherwise pretty happy life. 

Then for some reason I started thinking about Mupwa the gardener back in Kinshasa. And how he said he was planting banana trees for the new baby. I got kind of teary thinking about the beautiful banana trees waiting for us in our backyard in Congo. I kept my focus there for the rest of that crummy summer. I knew our lives would be happy and normal again when we got back to Congo and had our swaying banana trees.

The morning after we returned to Kinshasa, I looked out our back window. This was the triumphant moment I had been envisioning. We were back. I was healing. I was post, postpartum and ready to be cheerful and have a normal life again.

And there were no trees. “Mupwa, where are my damn banana trees?” Oh they’re there! Look real close. I put on my glasses and there they were. About 6 inches tall and wilting. 

Mupwa laughing in my face for thinking I'd have bananas and life would be normal again anytime soon. (Not really, photo from here.)

Turns out it takes a ridiculously long time for banana trees to grow, not to mention bear fruit. Over the next year or so, our precious newborn baby kept us up every night. And having two children in under two-years nearly killed us. Our lives were not normal. Fittingly, most of my inspirational banana trees (aka very small banana plants) died.   

Then one day not all that long ago, our girls started sleeping all night and playing together instead of screaming and crawling up our legs. We started to emerge from the fog of sleep deprivation. And I swear, I looked out back and one of those damn banana trees had a bunch of bananas on it.   

Yep, there they are.

I jumped up and showed Mama Youyou, who was unimpressed. I told Mamicho to keep an eye on them so they wouldn’t get stolen. They both did their laugh-till-they-cry thing and in between snorts said, “Madame. No one’s going to take your bananas.” Yes they will. Those are very special bananas to me. It is only fitting that they will get stolen.

My bananas still weren’t ready to be picked by the time we left Congo this past summer. A good two years after that crummy (I mean "special") summer when Ani was born. So with the seriousness of telling someone what to do with your remains after you die, I told Mamicho to eat the bananas while we were gone. She looked at me like I was nuts. I assumed her look was because she knew she could never bring herself to eat my “special bananas.” In reality it was because she knew they still wouldn’t be ready for 5 more months. 

Sure enough, they were still on the tree, green as ever, when we got back this year. Our gardener said we had to wait for the precise, right moment to pick them. 

When I got home one afternoon last week, Mamicho ran to me out of breath. “Madame, les bananes!” She said she knew it was the right moment, but couldn’t find our gardener to pick them, so found the next best thing, his womanizing father (hey, we never said all Congolese are saints) and he chopped them down for us. She hoped that was okay. 

This weekend we plopped the whole bunch down in front of Ani. She deserved first dibs. After all, she was the one being born when they were planted. The birth experience probably wasn’t so great for her either. And I was kind of mean to her when I was busy convincing myself I was too pathetic to ever get cancer. 

She ate about 7 and then we made ice cream with the rest. The bananas gave Adam sores in his mouth, Ani got a rash around her lips and I got hives on my feet. But I got to eat my damn bananas. And a very long wait for everything to be normal again was over. 

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A Different Kind of Birth Story: My Kind

On the eve of Annaïs’ first birthday, I’m thinking a lot about her birth. People are pretty into their birth stories these days. There are entire blogs dedicated to birth stories. Jill used to send me links to particularly good entries. Until I had to break it to her how much I hate birth stories. And then she started sending me videos of women giving birth in the ocean. With dolphins. This actually exists, folks.

Most of the time people who write about their births have had candlelit, natural births at home in their organic bathtubs. Or they have dramatic stories of 3 day labors that end in emergency C-sections. I can’t identify with either side of the spectrum. I usually scan for the words “induced” or “hellish pain” to see if I’m interested. But no one really writes about those details.     

We have two identical baby books for our nearly Irish twin children. I’ve done a fairly good job of documenting the supposedly important things like “first blueberry” and "first bird" (so hipster). In fact, I ran out of space writing about Charlotte’s birth. It wasn’t organic, but made for a nice and tidy story for her to read when she’s older.

Annaïs on the other hand, has a blank page. I’m not sure I can spin her story enough to make it nice to put in print. Both of our babies were induced at 38 weeks. Electively induced. No one is dumb enough to write about that. Jill says inductions bring contractions from another universe. I cling to this statement because I’ve found it to be so true.

Jill checked us into our hospital room the day Ani was born and at the end of her shift handed us over to our personally selected labor and delivery nurse. (Proof Jill knew how to be corrupt even before she moved to Congo.) This nurse asked, “Ladybug, do you have a birth plan?” She thought my name was ladybug, for some reason. And that I was the type of person who would have a birth plan. I said my only goal was to be finished when Jill returned for her next shift. This gave me about 12 hours. Charlotte was born in 13, so this was not too lofty a goal.

I think my first mistake was believing all those tales, or reading too many birth story blogs about second labors being a piece of cake. Or at least easier than the first. I spent all morning waiting for my induced labor start. And then within about 3 seconds, I went from zero pain to actually looking around to see who was stabbing me in the uterus. It was bad. However I have some strange personality quirk that only allows me to share with Adam how I’m really feeling. Must maintain ladybug status with hospital staff. Must not show signs of weakness or pain.    

Soon after that person started stabbing me in the uterus, I decided to try laboring in the bathtub, mostly because of all those women who blog about the natural relaxing effects of water. I’m here to tell you they’re all liars. I’m pretty sure I cursed every mommy blogger who’s ever told me how great bathtub labors are. I started visualizing what I would write in their comments section. These weren’t nice things.

Then the nurse asks how I’m doing and I want to remain a ladybug. I say I’m doing totally fine and am really loving the bathtub. Then I’m pretty sure I shoot Adam a death look just in case he starts to think I’m doing "totally fine." She then asks if I’d like some sort of IV pain relief. “Oh okay,” as I’m only getting about 15 seconds between each hellish contraction. She tells me it’ll feel like I’ve had one too many margaritas. And it does. For about 5 seconds. I swear I could even taste the salt. Why don’t I drink more margaritas? After this is over, I’m drinking more margaritas. No more getting pregnant just so I can drink margaritas. (This is a promise I’ve kept.) 

Just when I think it’s not possible, my pain gets worse and I distinctly remember my thoughts. I count all the Congolese women I know and add up all their kids. How do they do this without air conditioning? Or stupid bathtubs. Or water. Oh and Western medicine. Or any medicine at all. And then I start to sympathize with anyone who's ever died a slow and painful death. These thoughts do not make the pain better.

Then I start scanning the room for something to kill myself. Nothing. Hospitals are smart that way. Adam tries to be nice to me. I rescan for something to kill him. Still nothing. Then I start to wonder why there aren’t more news stories about husband-wife murder-suicides during childbirth. Then I convince myself there is a major conspiratorial cover-up because this is surely a common occurrence. I make a note to look into this later.

The nurse comes back in and asks how I’m doing. “I’m totally fine.” Must keep up my ladybug-esque exterior. And then I ask for an epidural. Ya know, not because I need it or anything. She asks if I feel any pressure. Now I’ve read enough birth stories to know this is the trick question to see if you’re ready to push at which point they tell you it’s too late for an epidural. I feel the pressure so I know for sure it’s time to push, so I lie through my teeth and say, “Nope, no pressure at all. Baby’s no where near coming.” I want that epidural. I get it. It doesn’t work because it’s too late. Those damn medical professionals know what they’re doing.

Then I push for hours. In South Africa the nurse told me my doctor would only let me push for 20 minutes before she’d vacuum the baby out. “It’s more humane for the mother that way.” And that’s exactly how Charlotte was born. It was lovely. I put in my 20 minutes of work and then the doctor did the rest.

Ani also refused to be born and at one point my American doctor said, “I could vacuum this baby out, but…meh.” This is an actual quote as I was deep into my second hour of pushing. Thanks, doc.

At one point I glanced at the clock and saw Jill would be returning to work soon. We needed to get this show on the road. Finally after some pretty fancy maneuvers Ani was born. Babies are supposed to be born looking down at the floor. She was looking up at the corner between the wall and the ceiling. Hence the stuckness. And this is what her head looked like:

It’s a conehead on the side of her head. I’ve never even heard of this before. Jill says the nurses noted this in her file. I’m pretty proud of that. We showed this photo to a friend and she told us we really shouldn’t ever share it with people. In fact, we should get rid of it. 

Jill got to work about 15 minutes after Ani was born and took over as my nurse. She asked how my labor was and I wanted to cry to my friend, “That was the worst experience of my life. I already have PTSD.” But Jill looked so happy and professional in her pastel scrubs so I lied again and said it was "totally fine." I remained a ladybug and gestured to Adam rocking Ani in the corner.

Ani just a few short hours later...conehead resolving nicely.

And then I don’t really know what happened, but when the doctor came back Jill and I had turned the room into a “murder scene” to use his words.  I won't give details, but there were bloody footprints involved.

Then Jill took Ani to the nursery. When she cheerfully brought her back to me in the middle of the night to feed her, I was so tired I wanted to tell her to go do her own job. But again, I restrained myself and fed my baby.

Don’t get me wrong. I love my baby and it’s true that even after a hellish labor, you’d do it a million times over again for that love. I think when you’re in that deep recovery room sleep, they inject you with a chemical to make you feel this way. There’s really no other explanation for this phenomenon.  

For my third child, I plan on having a non-induced homebirth with Jill delivering the baby. And then I will submit my experience to a birth story blog complete with beautiful untouched, after-delivery photos. (Am I really the only one who retouches the after-delivery photo?) But I’m still not sure about the organic bathtub. And definitely will not be giving birth with dolphins.

Happy Birthday dear Annaïs. Worth every hellish contraction.

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