In My Blood
Chapter 15
Oakley 3 Months Old
Addison Montgomery's Point of View
"Oh my God. Oakley. Please stop crying!" I beg the tiny red baby, as I look down at her, laying in her crib, completely broken free from the swaddle. Everyone in the NICU loved her, said that she was an absolute joy. I don't see how. Maybe it was just because babies are typically calmer until they reach their due dates. They know they're meant to still be inside. Once they reach that what would have been forty weeks or whatever their true personalities start to come through. It's been two months since we left the hospital, three months since she's been born, and this is our hellish existence now. We have basically lived in the doctor's offices, for her routine checkups and then some. Her pediatrician insisted that she was fine, and just colicky when all of the tests confirmed she is perfectly healthy. She doesn't have reflux or tongue / lip ties or allergies or genetic conditions. I pick her up out of the crib, gently bouncing her as we go downstairs. I sit her in her swing and warm up 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 the formula only made the screaming worse, to the point of her vomiting and nearly passing out. I had no choice but to switch her back to nursing and bottle feeding.
I pick her up again and when we are back upstairs, I sit down with her in the rocking chair, she simmers slightly and I latch her thinking maybe she's hungry, but she begins fussing again, pulling herself away from the milk flow. I try again. She wants nothing to do with nursing. I try the bottle and she take a few drinks and then shakes her head again, coughing, and screaming. I have no idea how we've survived this long. Frustrated I pop her pacifier in her mouth (which she promptly spits out.). Maybe she knows I am the wrong person to be doing this for her. She knows I'm not bonded to her, and this is only making things worse.
"I love you, but you're really frustrating me right now." I tell her. She looks up at me and screams more. Finally, I give up. I make sure she has a clean diaper, put her in a clean sleeper. I check my watch, praying Mark comes home soon. When she still does not sooth after rocking for a few more minutes I make sure that she is safe, swaddle her up nice and snug, turn the lights down and put her in her crib with her white noise machine playing soothing ocean sounds. I put on my earphones and turn up the music as loud as it will go, listening to an upbeat song from a popular medical drama. Not being subjected to her screams is 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 helps me. It keeps me from going completely insane and slitting my wrists to escape the constant high-pitched wails. I haven't had to do it often, but the times I have, it's really helped. My brain cannot handle the constant high-pitched wails. It's like fingernails on a chalkboard, all the time. When your child is crying, inconsolable for days and weeks on end 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 OK, but I'm multitasking. I'm 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. The sounds of the screaming baby flood my senses again.
"What the hell?!" I demand.
"Do you not hear her crying?" He asks, "Is this how you take care of her while I'm at work all day?" He picks up screaming little Oakley and holds her to him, gently talking to her and bouncing her. Within what feels like seconds she settles and falls asleep in his arms.
"Screams from the time she wakes up until the time she goes to sleep Mark. All day every day. It would be impossible for me not to hear her." I move across the room and examine my phone. It's damaged beyond repair. There are small fragments of glass on the floor, and chunks of glass missing from the screen. "There is no soothing her. She is taken care of, yes, but there is no soothing her. She doesn't want to eat or be held. She doesn't want to be in the swing or be rocked. She has a clean diaper, snugly warm pajamas. Her baby music is playing. It's 8pm Mark. It's time for her to be swaddled in her crib."
"There is nothing wrong with her. Look. She just needs to know she's safe." Mark says, gently bouncing her in her sleep, and continuing to coo at her while shooting me dirty looks. "You're making way too big of a deal out of this. She's fine."
"I'm making a big deal?" I ask, scoffing at him. "Who broke whose phone? There is something wrong with her Mark. She's not normal."
"No Addison, you're not normal. What kind of mother hates their child so much that they refuse to sooth her when she's crying so hard, she can barely breathe?" He asks, looking down at Oakley like she is the most beautiful, precious thing on this entire planet. Like I haven't been dealing with her screaming since he left for work at four am without a single break.
"If that's how you really feel you should have allowed me to leave when I wanted to instead of manipulating me into staying with you." Anything would be better than this hell.
"Your shitty mood wears off on her. You're upset that she's not Heavenly and she can feel that you resent her for something she has zero control over."
"She's three months old Mark, for fuck's sake." I have to give him some credit, there are studies that show if the parents are upset the baby can feel that and will become upset as well. I have not been like that when I am with her most of the time. I force myself to pretend. I make myself be happy for her. He knows that I've been trying. I've been forcing myself to be loving and affectionate. I feed her, sing to her, and play with her. I give her baths and rock her. I tell her stories. It's just hard when your energy is met with the amount of screaming, she does. Some days are just harder than others, especially when he is late coming home. I have shown effort most of the time. It makes no difference, but I do it anyway. Today was a hard day. People should be allowed to have hard days without their husband coming home and shattering their cell phones. "Do not give her an excuse to need years of therapy."
"Oh, I don't have to, you've already done that."
I stand up and walk across the room, down the stairs, and without even grabbing my keys, purse, or jacket leave the house, slamming the door behind me. I hear Oakley begin screaming again as I walk down the street, not sure where I'm going, but I don't go far. I end up next door at Meredith's brownstone. Derek lets me in and leads me to the kitchen. I sit down at the table and rest my head in my hands.
"Meredith is just putting Willow to bed, I'll let her know you're here." He says, leaving.
"Addison what happened?" Meredith asks. She puts her hand on my shoulder, squeezing gently and I look up at her, eyes watering. I guess she either traded with Derek, or Willow was mostly asleep.
"I don't... I don't know. "I say. "It was a night just like any other night." I manage before I completely break down. "Can I sleep here tonight? She cries all the time and Mark thinks I'm abusing her or neglecting her. He blames me. I don't have my bag with me. The only other option would be a bench in central park, but I'll do it if..." I am crying so hard now that I can't form logical speech. She pulls me against her, gently kissing me on the top of the head.
"It's fine. Stay here, we'll figure this out together."
When I awake the next morning, it takes me a few minutes to remember why I am filled with such dread. I open my eyes and remember that I am at Meredith's house, not my own and everything comes flooding back to me. I groan and close my eyes again, knowing i'm going to have to go back.
"How are you doing this morning? Are you okay?" Meredith asks knocking on the door.
"I don't know." I admit. "Do I look okay?"
"It's Saturday, you don't have to go home if you don't want to." She says, offering me an out. "Willow would be thrilled to see you, and even more impressed if we have confetti pancakes for breakfast. You should call Mark and let him know you're okay though. Between Derek's phone and my own he's called over two hundred times easy."
"He accused me of ignoring the baby, of traumatizing her." I say, rolling my eyes. He didn't care this much last night when he was yelling at me. "Why did you want me to stay?" I ask her. I'm not fully awake yet, but by stay I just mean stay in New York with Mark and the baby. VS leaving.
"Derek and I hoped things would be different." She says. "We hoped you would bond with Oakley once she was born, and things would begin to fall in place for you. We didn't mean to make it worse for you. It's selfish. I already lost Heavenly; I couldn't bear the thought of losing you too." Meredith says gently.
"She hates me. She is the spawn of Satan himself."
"I know that's how you feel, but it isn't true." She says, pacifyingly.
"She's better off without me." I whisper. There is part of me that doesn't want this to be true, but the bigger part of me still wants to run and never look back. She hates me. All of the effort i've put in to trying to make sure she feels loved, wanted, and accepted has backfired. I could honestly right now assure she is safe and then walk away without even the smallest desire to look back. If Mark thinks he can do better than I can he needs to take that responsibility on. He is the one who asked me to stay. This 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 more time." I say, feeling physically sick knowing the level of noise I will be going home to this afternoon. "Maybe I'm just not meant to be a mother."
"I find that hard to believe. You were a fantastic mother to Heavenly, and second Mother to Willow." She points out. I miss how we raised our girls. We looked out for them as if they were our own. I frown when she says this though. I wonder if it was true or not. 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 would have never been in that daycare that day. She would have never gotten shot. A sickening feeling takes over then as I realize if Heavenly wouldn't have been there to protect Willow it would have been willow who died. Even I'm not heartless enough to wish things had played out that way. I love Willow. I don't have the best ways of showing it, but I love her. I would have never been able to choose between her and Heavenly. I love them booth too deeply. It's like choosing between a set of twins. 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 when he realized I wasn't doing well, and there are more security measures in place now. I don't understand how he could be so stupid to enroll Oakley in the same daycare where her big sister died. Sure, it was more convenient, but how could you go to work every day knowing your infant is playing in the same place her big sister was murdered?
"I want to die." I admit, she physically shivers. "I can't be with Heavenly, and Heavenly was my child. This screaming little hot tamale that has taken over my house and my life isn't mine." I say, but I get up. I look around for my purse and then remember I didn't bring it. "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'm thinking. She doesn't scream like that when he's caring for her. She saves her hatred up especially for me. Exhaustion is taking too much of a toll on me.
"Okay." She says, "But are you safe to go home?"
"Mark would never hurt me."
"That's not what I meant, and I have a feeling you know it."
"I'm safe." I say, I'm always safe. It doesn't matter what I'm doing.
"You're not going to hurt yourself or anyone else?" Meredith asks. I know she has to ask. She's my friend yes, but at the end of the day she's still a doctor.
"Take a refresher course in psychology, did you?" I ask her teasingly and then. "I'm safe Meredith. I don't even know why I said what I did. I shouldn't have. It was stupid."
"Okay." She agrees, after thinking for a moment. "I want you to call me this afternoon though and check in, please Addison. I love you; I just want you to be safe." She says, and I can tell she means it. I give her a tight hug before saying
"I promise. I'm fine." and leaving before Willow can wake up and convince me to stay.
Authors Note:
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