In My Blood
Chapter 15:
"Oh my God please stop crying!" I ask, no beg the tiny red baby. Everyone in the NICU loved her, said that she was an absolute joy. I however beg to differ. She had been screaming nonstop like this from the moment we left the hospital. It's been close to two months since we left the hospital, three months since she's been born, and this hell is our existence now. We had taken her back to the doctor's office for all of her routine checkups and then some. Her pediatrician insisted that she was fine, and just colicky when all of the tests confirmed that she is perfectly healthy. No reflux, no genetic conditions, no allergies or other conflations. I had put her in her swing in a desperate attempt to calm her while I warm her a bottle of expressed milk. It was recommended that we switch to a hypoallergenic formula instead of breast milk, to help with the symptoms, but when the formula only made the screaming worse to the point of vomiting and near passing out, I switched her back to nursing and feeding with a bottle.
I pick her up again, gently bouncing her, and when she simmers slightly I latch her, thinking, well maybe she's hungry, but she fusses, pulling herself away from the milk flow. I try again, and she wants nothing to do with nursing. I try the bottle, and she takes a few drinks, and then shakes her head again, coughing, and screaming. I have no idea how we've survived this long. Frustrated I give her a pacifier (which she promptly spits out).
"I love you but you're really frustrating me right now." I say, and she just looks at me and screams more. Finally, I give up. I change her diaper, and put her in a clean sleeper, checking my watch, praying that Mark gets home soon. I offer her the pacifier again, which she refuses. I carry her up the stairs, rock and soothe rock and soothe in the rocking chair. When she still does not calm down, and I make sure that she is safe, lay her in her crib swaddled up nice and snug, and then put on my earphones, taking my phone and turning the music up as loud as it will go. Listening to an upbeat playlist from a popular medical drama. Not hearing her screaming… it's selfish…. But as long as I know she is safe, and not needing anything putting her in a safe place, and not hearing her scream…. It helps keep me from going completely insane and slitting my wrists. I haven't had to do it often, but the times I have… it's helped. My brain cannot handle the constant high-pitched wails. It is like fingernails on a chalkboard, all the time. When your child is crying, inconsolable for days and weeks on end…. that paired with the lack of sleep… It does something weird to your brain. I sit in the rocking chair, watching her, glancing up every few seconds to make sure she's still fine, but multitasking, reading the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology on my phone.
"Addison?" Mark calls, coming in the door downstairs, but I don't hear him. He comes upstairs, and yanks the headphones from my ears, and the phone from my hand, throwing it so hard against the wall that it shatters.
"What did you do that for?" I demand.
"Do you not hear her?" He asks, "Is this how you take care of her while I'm at work all day?" He picks up the screaming baby, and holds her to him, gently talking to her and bouncing her. Within what feels like seconds she has stopped her crying and fallen asleep in his arms.
"She screams from the time she wakes up to the time she goes to sleep Mark, there's no soothing her. She is taken care of yes, but there is no soothing her. She doesn't want to eat, or to be held. She doesn't want to be in the swing or be rocked. She has a clean diaper, and clean snuggly clothes. Her baby music is playing. Its 8pm. It's time for her to be swaddled for bed in her crib."
"You're making way too big a deal out of this." He says, bouncing her in her sleep, and continuing to coo at her in between shooting me dirty looks.
"Who broke whose phone? There is something wrong with her Mark. She's not normal."
"No Addison, You're not normal. What kind of a mother doesn't even love her own child enough to soothe her when she's crying so hard she can barely breathe?" He asks, looking down at Oakley like she's the most beautiful precious thing in the world, like I had not just spent the last 14 hours, without a single break listening to her scream.
"If that's really what you think than you should have let me leave when I wanted to." I shoot back. Anything would be better than this hell.
"Your negative mood wears off on her. You're mad she's not Heavenly and she can feel that resentment."
"She's 3 months old Mark, for fuck sake." I have to give him some credit, it is true there are some studies that show if the parents are upset the baby can feel that, and will become upset as well, but I have not been like that when I am with her most of the time, and he knows that. I have been forcing myself to be loving and affectionate. I feed her, sing to her, play with her. I give her baths and rock her. I tell her stories. Some days are harder than others, especially on the days when he's late coming home, but I have shown an effort 98% of the time, honestly It makes no difference, but I do it anyway. Today was just a hard day. People can have bad days. "DO NOT give her an excuse to need years of therapy."
"Oh, I don't have to, you've already done that."
I grab my shattered phone from the floor, and don't even grab my jacket from the bedroom before walking down the stairs, and without even grabbing my purse, or my keys out the door, slamming it hard behind me, I hear Oakley begin screaming again as I walk down the street, not sure where I'm going, but I end up at Meredith's brownstone without any real clue how I got there. Derek lets me in and leads me to the kitchen I sit down at the table, resting my head in my hands.
"Meredith is putting Willow to bed, I'll let her know you're here." He says, before leaving.
"Addison what happened?" Meredith asked, gently squeezing my shoulder a few minutes later. I guess Willow must have already been mostly asleep.
"I don't know…" I say, "It was a night, like any other night." I say before I completely break down. "Can I sleep here tonight? She cries all the time and he blame me and…. I forgot my bag so the only other option would be sleeping on a bench in Central Park, but I'll do it if…" I am crying too hard for logical speech now. She pulls me to her, and gently kisses me on the top of the head.
"Stay here, we'll figure this out together."
I wake up in the morning and I don't know why I am filled with such dread, and then, when I open my eyes and remember where I am everything comes back to me.
"Are you OK?" Meredith asks, knocking on the door to the guest bedroom, and then coming in.
"I don't know." I admit. "Do I look OK?"
"It's Saturday, you don't have to go home if you don't want to." She says, giving me an out. "Marks called my phone one hundred and fifty-six times since last night and Derek's phone at least double that."
"And he accused ME of ignoring the baby." I say, rolling my eyes. "Why did you want me to stay?" I ask Meredith, not fully woken up yet, but meaning staying in New York, raising the baby, vs leaving her with Mark where she is safe and moving on with my life.
"We hoped things would be different." She says, "We hoped you'd bond with Oakley and things would begin to fall back in line for you. We didn't mean to make it worse."
"She is a spawn of Satan himself."
"I know that's how you feel." Meredith agrees, pacifyingly.
"She's better off without me." I whisper this, I don't want it to be true, but it feels so real. All the effort I've put in to trying to make sure she feels loved and wanted and accepted, has backfired. She hates me. I could honestly right now assure that she is safe and then walk away without even looking back. If Mark thinks he can do things better by her he needs to do them, but if I recall correctly he is the one who begged me to stay. It certainly wasn't my first choice.
"No one is better off without you Addison." Meredith says, flopping herself down on the bed beside me. "Maybe you both just need more time."
"I don't want to have more time." I say, not even able to think of the level of noise I am going to go home to this afternoon. "Maybe I'm just not cut out to be a mom."
"You were a fantastic mom to Heavenly." She points out, and I frown, wondering if this was true. I was an adequate mom to Heavenly perhaps, but I wasn't a good mom. If I was a good mom I would have stayed home with her, she never would have gone to daycare, she never would have gotten shot. A sickening feeling takes over then, as I realize if Heavenly hadn't been there to protect her Willow would have been the one who died. Even I am not heartless enough to wish that things had played out that way. I love Willow, I don't have the best way of showing it, but I love her. Even though Heavenly was my biological child I would have never been able to choose between them. I wish there had been a way to save them both. Mark wanted to enroll Oakley in the hospital daycare where Heavenly and Willow attended now that more security measures are in place. I nearly had a full-blown collapse when he told me that. I don't understand how he could be so stupid to enroll Oakley in the same daycare where Heavenly died? Sure, it was more convenient, but how could you go to work everyday knowing that your baby is playing in the same place her big sister was murdered?
"I want to die because I can't be with Heavenly. Heavenly was my child. This screaming little thing that has taken over my house and my life is not mine." I say but get up and get my purse. "I have to go home." I say. "He is never home to deal with her screaming, and if I'm not home…." I don't even know what I am thinking, exhaustion is taking too much of a toll.
"Are you safe to go home though?" Meredith asks, and I just look at her oddly.
"Yes…." I respond. Of course, I am safe. I am always safe.
"You're not going to hurt yourself, or anyone else?" Meredith asks, and I know it is something that she has to ask. She is my friend first, but she is still a doctor.
"Take a recent course in Psychology did you?" I ask her teasingly and then "I'm not going to do anything; you know me Meredith."
"I just want you to be safe. I love you.." She says, and I can tell she means it, I give her a tight hug before leaving. "I promise. I'm fine."
