The Dark Side Read online

  “I can’t do this every night when I go back to work,” he warned her, and Zoe looked daggers at him. They were suddenly becoming adversaries instead of allies.

  “She’ll be fine in three weeks,” Zoe tried to sound convincing. The books had told her that healthy babies adjust after the first month.

  “Not if we don’t train her, and you and I don’t know how to do it. We’ve demonstrated that amply in the last five days.” He sounded annoyed too. She was being unreasonable and it seemed ridiculous to him.

  “She’s not a dog, for heaven’s sake, or a trained seal,” Zoe shot at him.

  “No,” Cathy Clark said quietly, trying to calm them, “but babies can be stubborn, and they’re clever little beings even at this age. They know when they’ve got you on the run, and they take advantage of it. They can feel it when someone is confident and experienced. It’s comforting for them. I don’t think it’s abusive to put a baby on a schedule.” Cathy sounded calm to reassure them. “And a good baby nurse could teach you a few tricks of the trade too. Our parents are usually very pleased with them.” She was all in favor of it.

  “I don’t need tricks, I’m her mother. I don’t want her to get confused about who is,” Zoe said desperately, feeling ganged up on.

  “She won’t.” Cathy smiled at them. “You’re the milk producer. A nurse might help you get some sleep, which would be good for you.” She looked at Zoe when she said it, but she wasn’t convinced. They thanked the doctor and left a few minutes later. Zoe was quiet when they got in the car, and Jaime fell asleep as soon as they started moving. She was exhausted from the doctor’s visit, and so were they, after five nights of almost no sleep.

  “Why are you so against at least having a night nurse?” Austin asked her, it seemed irrational to him. His mother thought they should have one too. “My mom had baby nurses for us, and I’m not hopelessly screwed up, or confused about who my mother is. And none of us are axe murderers.” Zoe was being rigid and inflexible, which was new to him.

  “We don’t need a baby nurse,” Zoe said stubbornly. “She has us. I don’t want a stranger handling our baby.”

  “She’d probably be safer with a nurse than with us, if we don’t know what we’re doing, and neither of us does.” Instinct had not kicked in for either of them, or the baby yet.

  “We just have to get used to nursing, without putting her on a schedule. On demand is better for her, even if it’s hard on us. Every book I read said so.”

  “I haven’t slept since the day before you gave birth,” he grumbled. He normally wasn’t a complainer, but sleep deprivation was affecting both of them. They had been arguing all week, about everything, and feeding times were fraught with tension, which he was sure the baby could feel too. His mother had dropped by to visit, and she felt sorry for both of them. They were nervous, stressed, exhausted, and confused. And Zoe didn’t want advice from anyone. She had her own ideas, and intended to stick to them.

  They drove home in silence, and Austin carried the car seat upstairs with the baby sleeping in it, and as soon as they walked into the apartment, Jaime woke up and started to scream. It was time to feed her, but Zoe’s breasts were aching, and the doctor had warned her of the danger of getting a breast infection with cracked nipples. It wasn’t dangerous, but would be even more painful than what she was dealing with now. She had given her a cream to provide some relief.

  Zoe picked Jaime up and took her to bed with her. She settled back against the pillows the way the lactation specialist had told her to do, with one arm propped up on a stack of pillows. She opened her blouse and put Jaime on her breast, and let out a short scream when Jaime latched on, but she was so hungry she emptied both breasts for the first time and went back to sleep while Zoe held her. She looked up and saw Austin watching them with a worried look.

  “How was that? Any better?” he asked hopefully. He felt sorry for Zoe, she wanted to do everything perfectly, as she always did, and this was hard for her. She was determined to be the consummate mother. She hated feeling so incompetent, and she always measured herself against her own mother, who had seemed like the perfect mother to her when she and Rose were children. Everything had fallen apart when Rose died, but before that, Beth had always known what to do. It made Zoe miss her now, she needed her wise advice, but her mother couldn’t come. She couldn’t get the time off from her job in the pediatric ICU at UCSF. And Zoe didn’t want to admit to her mother how inadequate she felt. Her mother had taken care of her child with cancer for four years, and Zoe couldn’t figure out how to nurse her baby after a week.

  Things started to get better in the second week. Jaime was going almost two hours between feedings, although the goal was three. They weren’t forcing a schedule on her, and Jaime was regulating herself, which was Zoe’s goal. She wanted to meet the baby’s needs, not force theirs on her. The theory was good but the reality didn’t work so well. At the end of two weeks, the nursing was still just as painful for Zoe, but at least the baby wasn’t screaming all the time, although she got fussier at night. She had day and night reversed, which Zoe’s sister-in-law said was normal. She’d had the same problem with their twins, one had been fussy in the daytime, the other at night, and they’d been up around the clock with them, but they had hired a nurse. She said she would have lost her mind if she hadn’t, and Eric would have divorced her.

  The one thing Zoe and Austin agreed on was that they could no longer imagine how they could manage a newborn and a toddler, if they had another child. They had always said they wanted three children, but after a year of hormone shots, four rounds of in vitro fertilization, and now a rough beginning with what Zoe still insisted was a colicky baby, whatever the doctor said, the idea of doing it again was overwhelming, and inconceivable to both of them. Austin said it to her one night when the baby was finally asleep after screaming for three hours for no apparent reason, which Zoe insisted proved she had colic.

  “I couldn’t do this again, Zoe. I think Jaime is it for me.” She looked at him sadly for a minute and nodded. It was early to bring it up, but the past two weeks had shaken them both.

  “I’ve been thinking the same thing. I always assumed I could handle two or three children, but with everything there is to worry about, and that could happen to her, I think one is it for me too.” It seemed too soon to make the decision, but they were both sure.

  “Nothing is going to happen to Jaime,” Austin reassured her, and leaned over and kissed her. They had hardly spoken to each other in the last two weeks, except about the baby, or to argue about her. She had completely taken over their lives, and changed their easygoing relationship, which worried Austin. He didn’t want to lose Zoe to the baby. He needed her too. And with more children, there would be less time for him. He could see that now. He felt as though he had lost a big part of Zoe. She was already more of a mother than a wife. He hadn’t expected that from her. Having a baby was so much harder than they’d anticipated.

  Her eyes filled with tears as he said it. “You don’t know that nothing will happen to her. My parents thought that about Rose too. Nothing is sure in life. I learned that a long time ago. I hope nothing ever happens to her. That’s the best we can do, and make sure that we protect her from danger.” They already loved her, and Zoe would have given her life for her, even though the past two weeks had been difficult.

  “You’re a wonderful mother,” Austin said gently, and kissed her, and she smiled at him.

  “I want to be.”

  “You already are. The little vampire has turned your boobs into hamburger meat. Remind her that I want them back one day.” Zoe smiled at that, and they managed to cuddle for a while, until Jaime woke up again. They were slowly getting the hang of parenting a brand new baby, and they were both pleased that she had gained weight.

  The following week was Austin’s last week at home from the office before he had to go back to work. Zoe
had been grateful to have him there to encourage her, and watch the baby when she wanted to take a shower or wash her hair, or do a load of laundry. They had someone come in to clean twice a week, but the rest of the time, Zoe would be on her own when Austin went back to the office. She knew they’d have to hire a nanny when she went back to work herself, but she didn’t want to think about that yet. She realized now how lucky her mother had been to have a husband who worked at home when their daughters were born. Zoe dreaded going back to work now and leaving the baby. Her life of running the shelter seemed like another person’s. She missed the children, but being with her own child seemed much more real.

  She was thinking about how scary it would be without Austin when he was at work, and managing it all on her own, as she looked down at the baby and let out a scream. She startled Austin, who was reading in bed next to her, and he saw panic on her face when he looked up, glanced at the baby, and saw that she was totally still, deathly pale and turning gray. He could tell that she wasn’t breathing, and her eyes looked glazed. He grabbed her from Zoe and shook her gently as though to wake her up. There was no sound or reaction for almost a minute as Zoe’s heart pounded while she watched, and then the baby took a breath and started crying heartily. She was breathing again, but still very pale, as Zoe leapt out of bed and ran to dress, and called over her shoulder to Austin, still holding the crying baby, and he looked as pale as Jaime. She had terrified them both.

  “We have to get her to the hospital, or call 911,” she said as she hastily pulled on jeans and a sweatshirt, put her feet into shoes, and went to take Jaime from him, so he could dress too. “Which do you think we should do?” He thought about it as he put on his own jeans, a sweater, and tied his running shoes.

  “She’s breathing now,” he said in a shaking voice. “Let’s take her to the hospital. It’s only a few minutes from here.”

  Zoe quickly wrapped the baby in a blanket, put a little pink knit cap on her, and grabbed the diaper bag. A minute later, they were out of the apartment, dashed from the elevator on the ground floor, rushed out of the building, and hailed a cab. He handed the driver a twenty-dollar bill and told him to get them to NYU hospital as fast as he could. Jaime wasn’t crying and seemed surprisingly quiet, but she was alert. They were at the emergency entrance to the hospital in minutes and rushed inside to speak to the nurse at the desk and explain what had happened. They were told to wait for a few minutes. Zoe held Jaime, while Austin filled out the forms, and Zoe called her mother in San Francisco. It was an unfamiliar reflex, but her mother was a pediatric ICU nurse, and would tell her what she thought might be going on. Zoe was terrified this could be serious, and Jaime might die. Luckily, Beth picked up when she saw Zoe’s name appear on her caller ID. She was still at work. She was surprised to hear from her.

  “Hi, Zoe, what’s up?” Zoe told her mother, and Beth made a wild guess, based on her recent years of experience.

  “Sounds like some form of apnea to me. It could be a seizure, but I doubt it. I’m not a doctor. And if they want to do anything dramatic, get a second opinion immediately. Don’t wait,” was the best advice she could give her. But she sounded calm, which reassured Zoe.

  “What else could it be?” Zoe was panicked. She had only known and loved this baby for less than three weeks, and already Jaime was lodged deep in their hearts, and Zoe didn’t want to lose her. The thought of that made her feel sick, and think of Rose.

  “It’s probably nothing. Call me after you see the doctor,” Beth said and then had to go back to work.

  An ER doctor examined Jaime carefully, and they were going to do tests. But he said his gut told him that it was some form of digestive apnea, where reflux from her digestive system backed up after she ate and may have caused her to stop breathing for a few minutes. “With any luck, it won’t happen again, but you’ll need to keep an eye on her now after she eats. There are some monitors available on the market that will warn you if she stops breathing. But they have constant malfunctions and false alarms. They’ll drive you crazy all night, and in the daytime too.”

  “I’m with her every minute, I can sit up with her all night if I need to,” Zoe said immediately, already a devoted mom, ready to sacrifice herself.

  “She’s more at risk now, at her age, than she would be as an adult or as an older child, after an episode like that. Eventually her digestive system will mature, and this won’t happen anymore. It happens to some babies, and they grow out of it.”

  “I hope it never does again,” Zoe said with feeling and Austin nodded. He had never expected something like that to happen. She had nearly died right under their noses, and what if they hadn’t been watching her? Thank God Zoe had seen it quickly and reacted.

  They called Cathy Clark and she came to see Jaime too and insisted she wasn’t overly worried. She said bouts of apnea happened to some babies, and often never happened again. They were going to keep an eye on it and see if it recurred before subjecting her to intense testing. Austin liked her conservative approach, although Zoe questioned if they should do the intensive testing now and not wait.

  They spent the night in the hospital with the baby so the staff could observe her. And in the morning, the attending pediatrician told them to keep her upright for half an hour after she ate before they laid her down, which made sense, so her digestive system didn’t back up, causing her to stop breathing.

  Zoe ordered a monitor for her from Amazon right from the hospital on her phone, even though the doctor said it was unreliable. It was better than nothing, and Zoe would rather be annoyed by a malfunctioning machine than lose her only child. And it would alert them in the event of sudden infant death syndrome, SIDS, too. The episode made Zoe think that maybe they should have another child, as protection if something happened to Jaime. But it affected Austin differently. It made him even more certain that he could only deal with the worry over one child, and not more. Jaime was definitely it for him. He was adamant about it now. The apnea incident had terrified him.

  The baby slept on the way home, and when they got back to the apartment, Zoe and Austin talked about it before the baby woke up, and came to an agreement. One child was enough. Maybe even too much for them. They had had a rough start. But they had her now and were both determined to be the best parents on the planet. They owed her that. Austin was only just beginning to understand what that meant, a lifetime of vigilance and dedication to keep her safe. His heart was fully in it, and he was badly shaken by knowing they could have lost her the night before when she’d stopped breathing.

  Zoe called her mother, mother-in-law, and sisters-in-law to tell them how close they came. If she hadn’t been holding her and seen it when she stopped breathing, Jaime would have been dead by then, like the thousands of babies who died of SIDS every year. Austin readily admitted that Zoe was the hero in the story, since she had seen it when Jaime stopped breathing, otherwise they would never have known until too late, which was a horrifying thought. The fact that he had shaken the baby back to consciousness went unmentioned as a minor detail. Zoe had seen the baby stop breathing and turn gray and had screamed. She had won her first gold star as a mother and saved her baby’s life. How many mothers had a chance to do that?

  Her own mother had tried and been unable to turn the tides for Rose. Amelia, Austin’s oldest brother’s wife, had done it when one of their twins choked on a piece of hot dog at a birthday party, and she’d done the Heimlich maneuver on him, and saved him. And now Zoe had joined the elite. She hadn’t worked the nursing out yet, but she had saved Jaime when she stopped breathing. It was a great feeling as she lay in Austin’s arms that night and drifted off to sleep. The best feeling ever. From this moment on, Jaime was alive because of her, she had saved them from tragedy, and the whole family knew it, and so did Austin. Her instincts had finally kicked in. She was a mother after all. It was the best feeling in the world. Better than any she had ever known. Suddenl
y all the pain and confusion she had experienced for the past few weeks were worth it.

  Chapter 3

  Nursing remained complicated for Zoe, more so after Austin went back to work and she had no one to help with the baby. And the apnea episode made it all much scarier. Zoe never took her eyes off Jaime for an instant, and diligently held her upright after she ate, night or day. The breathing monitor she’d bought added a constant note of panic when the alarm went off. As the ER doctor had warned her, it sounded false alarms constantly, and drove them insane, waking them up during the brief times they were asleep, as they leapt to the Moses basket to grab her and would find her gurgling happily, or pink and peacefully sleeping. Austin objected to the monitor and thought it was worthless, but Zoe used it religiously. Their pediatrician, Cathy Clark, had suggested a night nurse again, to no avail, and finally gave up. Zoe was determined to be a full-time hands-on mom until she went back to work. She hadn’t started looking for a childcare person yet, and Austin knew it wouldn’t be an easy process to find someone to satisfy Zoe’s diligence about their baby, but it was too soon to worry about it. Zoe still insisted that Jaime was colicky. Zoe had become an anxious person and worried ever since Jaime was born. It had changed the nature and tone of their relationship from peaceful, happy, and easygoing to frantic, tense, and argumentative. He blamed it on lack of sleep and hoped that he was right.

  Despite the pediatrician’s reassurance that it wasn’t necessary, two weeks after the apnea episode, after doing research on the Internet, Zoe took Jaime to a pediatric gastroenterologist to have him check the baby out for a possible gastric obstruction. She reported to him that the baby didn’t nurse well, usually fell asleep before she got to the second breast, and vomited most of what she ate. But after a conversation with Cathy Clark, and from his own examination of the baby, he deemed further testing unnecessary, unless she had a second episode of apnea after she nursed, or developed chronic projectile vomiting, which was not the case. Zoe had even gone so far as to ask him if he thought a gastric feeding tube might be necessary to nourish her if she continued vomiting, and he looked stunned by the suggestion. He explained that was only for extreme cases where infants were getting inadequate or no nourishment and losing weight steadily. Her baby was thriving and gaining weight, and normal babies vomited. He told her too that he considered the monitor she was using inefficient and unnecessary, but Zoe planned to continue using it anyway, as a safeguard. Although the constant false alarms were unnerving, she had a belt and suspenders approach to motherhood, and wanted to do everything possible to keep Jaime safe. She had the feeling that the gastroenterologist found her anxious and neurotic, but she really didn’t care, if it was for Jaime’s benefit.