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Broke Wife, Big City
All that’s
missing is the white picket fence
By Aprill Brandon
It was a particularly bad day to give birth to a baby.
Or, depending on how you view it, I suppose, it was a particularly good
day to give birth to a baby. Which is why every pregnant woman in the
world decided to do it that morning. In my hospital, no less. A birth
explosion is how one nurse delightfully described it. At one point, I’m
pretty sure non-pregnant women just started walking in off the street
and heading to the maternity ward.
Woman Off The Street: “Excuse me, nurse? I’m not sure how it happened
but it appears I’ve spontaneously become pregnant. And I’m about to
give birth RIGHT NOW.”
Nurse: “No worries. I know just who to bump down the list.”
I was fourth in line. Then fifth. Then sixth. Since my cesarean was
scheduled and I wasn’t in the throes of excruciating pain or
life-threatening complications like the rest of them, that apparently
made my case somehow less urgent.
Pffft. But that’s our broken healthcare system for you.
Actually, when it comes down to it, I didn’t mind the waiting. As much
as I was done (with a capital D-O-N-E) with being pregnant, I’ve never
been the kind of person who was impatient to get sliced in half. In
fact, you’d be amazed how long I can wait to get professionally gutted.
However, I did mind the whole “you can’t have any liquids” rule,
especially seeing as how liquid is one of the main ingredients in
coffee. It had been almost 13 hours since my last cup, which was
bordering on dangerous territory. But the doctor refused to even listen
to my argument that coffee doesn’t necessarily qualify as food or
liquid so much as it qualifies as anti-homicide serum. The arrogant
know-it-all.
Pffft. But that’s Western medicine for you.
Anyway, as you can imagine, the baby-cutting-out crew was all business
by the time they got to me. No one even laughed at my “I gained so much
pregnancy weight, this is more like a double D-section, am I right?”
joke. But honestly, you can’t blame them. The miracle of birth probably
loses some of its miraculousness when the operating room starts to
resemble a screaming cherub assembly line.
However, none of the above mattered. None of it. Because within a few
short minutes, I finally had my daughter. My perfect, beautiful,
angelic daughter.
And as I looked down at my tiny, adorable, baby girl covered in gross
lady part crud, I whispered “And now our family is complete” in her ear
as tears gently slid down my face,
movie-where-a-teenager-has-cancer-style.
I was in love, dear reader. Oh, so in love.
Cut to five and a half weeks later…
My tiny, adorable, baby girl covered in gross baby vomit is screaming
her primal Viking warrior/dying pterodactyl cry at heretofore unheard
of decibels while she has explosive diarrhea all over my hand and 90
percent of the far wall. Meanwhile, my sweet, loving toddler is
destroying the entire house with a cookie he illegally procured while
screaming something about “da poiple cwayon broked in da half.” The dog
is barking at “Serial Killer Has Entered The Home” levels even though
it’s more of a “Light Wind Blowing Through The Window” situation. And
my husband…my husband is…crap, where is he?
Ah, the wifi is down. I sigh. Dramatically. I sigh because my husband
happens to be a man. And when you live with a man, having the wifi down
means nothing else exists until the wifi is back up.
So, my husband is scrolling through the dark web that is the set-up
menu on our smart TV, looking for the ancient rune that magically
brings back the wifi, completely oblivious to the Hindenburg Disaster
happening all around him.
I start breastfeeding the frantically clawing honey badger I’ve named
Mae in an effort to shut up at least one small creature in our house.
My son sees this as the perfect opportunity for me to read him every
single book he owns while sitting awkwardly on my shoulder and the dog
decides puking all over his pillow is the best way to deter the
non-existent serial killer from chopping us all into tiny pieces.
Luckily, my husband is having fantastic luck with Todd, the genius
wizard over at the cable company who clearly deserves a raise, who
informs my husband “uh, I don’t know, man, maybe it’s the router or
something?”
And because the universe needed a good laugh, our air conditioner
chooses this exact moment to stop working. In the middle of a heat
wave. That the local meteorologist described professionally as “just
wicked hot, folks.”
In the midst of all this, I look down at my tiny, adorable, baby girl
now covered in illegal toddler cookie crumbs and smile as I whisper in
her ear “And I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
(Granted, this touching moment was followed immediately by the much
less charming bellowing of “STOP WEARING MOMMY’S UNDERWEAR AS A HAT!”
at my son. But, hey, you take your perfectly happy moments, no matter
how brief, where you can.)
Can’t get enough of Aprill? Can’t wait until next week?
Check out her website at http://aprillbrandon.com/
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