Chapter Summary: Shaun and Lea are overwhelmed taking care of Violet and keeping her alive, which raises concerns from Claire.
AN: So, here is the first chapter that involves Shaun and Lea taking care of their newborn. Hope you all enjoy :)
Snoring, yawning, screaming, crying, baby talk and lullabies, white noise music, a toilet flushing, a faucet running, or a TV with the volume turned down to a sound level under ten were the only noises that could be heard coming from the Dilallo-Murphy apartment since the young couple's new baby had been brought home from the hospital two weeks ago.
At 3:00 in the morning on August 23rd, the only sound that could be heard when Shaun and Lea woke up was the baby crying. Last week, their neighbor, a grouchy bitch (according to Lea) curmudgeon named Beryl, actually filed a noise complaint about hearing screaming from their apartment, saying that they needed to get that baby to shut up. Instead of chewing out the couple, the landlord just recommended that Beryl get earplugs because there wasn't anything he could do about a needy newborn.
Shaun and Lea's nighttime system usually worked like this: both of them would take turns tending to Violet in the middle of the night; Lea, then Shaun, then Lea, then Shaun…and so on and so forth.
It was going to be a long time before she starts sleeping through the night. The only slightly good thing about hearing their daughter scream and cry was that it was a reassuring sign that SIDS or something didn't get her, a fear that Shaun and Lea were still harboring despite doing everything they could to prevent it by following all the guidelines.
Right now, it was Shaun's turn to pick up Violet and see what she was in need of.
"Your turn," muttered a half-asleep Lea to Shaun. "I already just picked her up and fed her."
"I know," yawned Shaun.
As he heard Violet wail, he dragged himself out of bed, rubbed his eyes, and then walked over to Lea's side of the bed to retrieve the swaddled little girl from her pack 'n' play bassinet, which she was going to be sleeping in for the first few months of her life.
"Hey, hey," he whispered quietly in a hushed tone of voice as he unswaddled his daughter, cradled her in his arms, and then sat back down on his side of the bed.
What could she need this time? He wondered as he rocked the baby. She doesn't smell bad, so maybe she doesn't need to be changed. Lea already fed her an hour ago on the correct schedule and we definitely shouldn't overfeed her because that would make her much more irritable and fussy…
Before Shaun could finish putting the puzzle together in his head, Violet's cries softened as he rocked her back and forth.
Maybe she just wanted to be cuddled and rocked, he thought as he stood up, walked over the nursery, and then sat down in the glider to rock himself (so far, it was something she seemed to enjoy whenever he and Lea would do that) and also sneak in some middle of the night cuddles.
As Shaun glided in the rocking chair, he stared down at his two week and two day old daughter.
She may have been a tiny, helpless blob of cuteness, but this little bundle of joy sure did eat a lot for someone with a miniature, underdeveloped digestive system…which was scientifically and logically because her stomach could only hold about 20 milliliters of fluid.
Every two to three hours, Lea would nurse. It mostly involved feeding Violet via her breast, but she would pump sometimes so Shaun could have moments in participating in feeding her (especially when she wouldn't be available), and it was guaranteed that she was going to be exclusively pumping once she returns to work. Every day, there would be eight to twelve feedings.
Basically, all Violet has been doing since she came into the world was eat, sleep, cry, poop, pee, spit-up and vomit, and sometimes suck her thumb.
However, Shaun knew that she was also using her baby brain in mysterious ways that adults couldn't always detect. Her brain cycled between her intently watching her surroundings, moving around and spending time in a drowsy phase, when she's either about to fall asleep or just waking up.
Violet was able to focus on either her father or her mother's face with her sweet little eyes. Speaking of her eyes, Shaun was also aware that teeny blue eyes weren't really guaranteed or permanent…as her true eye color might not become fully known until she was six months old. For all he knew, she could actually end up having teeny hazel eyes like Lea.
One thing that always crossed Shaun and Lea's minds was their fears of their precious rainbow baby dying.
Silent babies were both soothing and scary at the same time. They were soothing because it gave parents a brief break from the baby, but it was also scary because one reason a baby can be silent is that they had died.
The thing was, if a newborn didn't make one sound all night, that wasn't a good sign. A newborn that peacefully slept through the night without crying and waking up their caregivers was something that couldn't exist unless they were dead.
Some nights and days, they would sacrifice some moments that could have been used for sleep to check on Violet and stare at her while she slept go make sure she was still living and breathing. Sometimes, they would even take sleep shifts with watching her sleep. Every time Shaun would wake up from a short amount of sleep, he would check his daughter's pulse and manually take her vitals whenever she was fast asleep and quiet as a mouse.
They didn't want suffocation to take away Violet the way it took away Eleanor.
And it wasn't just SIDS or any other kind of natural suffocation that Shaun and Lea fretted about.
First things first, even though Lea had an adequate milk supply, she often feared that she wasn't producing enough breast milk (and also "bad" breast milk) for Violet even though Dr. Lewin (the pediatrician) reassured her that Violet was perfectly nourished and healthy.
Another thing that stressed them out a bit was umbilical stump care. Violet's umbilical stump appeared to be normal, but Shaun's instincts as Dr. Dad never failed to kick in as he always triple-checked to make sure he saw what he thought he saw every time he and Lea gave her a sponge bath. Even as a doctor that was entering a pediatric surgical fellowship, when he saw just a teeny bit of blood from the stump, he panicked for a while and thought Violet had contracted an infection before remembering that a little bit of blood was normal since there was no pus, redness, swelling, or a pink moist bump.
Most of all, Shaun and Lea could not stop thinking about the other ways that Violet could die, especially things that involved the fear of dropping her and then her landing right on her fragile little soft spot.
Bluntly, everything right now was so exhausting, frustrating, and overwhelming for him and Lea.
After rocking Violet for a few more minutes, Shaun carried Violet back to his and Lea's bedroom, swaddled her back up, and then gently placed her in the bassinet. Then, he got back into bed and lay down after checking her vitals one more time.
He quietly lay awake until he decided to rest his eyes before they finally gave out and put his brain to sleep.
The next morning, a zonked Shaun was sitting on the couch with Violet cradled in his arms and gulped down orange juice, watching the daily forecast for the South Bay Area and Santa Clara County on the Weather Channel as well as the weather forecasts for other cities.
In San Jose, it was going to be 84 degrees, humid, and sunny today and 59 degrees, humid, and clear tonight. As for his hometown of Casper, it was going to be 83 degrees and cloudy today and it was going to be 54 degrees and partly cloudy tonight. As for Lea's hometown of Hershey, it was going to be 86 degrees, cloudy, humid, rainy, and stormy today and 62 degrees, cloudy, rainy, and stormy tonight.
Meanwhile, Lea was sitting at the dining room table, finishing up pumping breast milk. As for Lea herself, the postpartum period sucked. The bright side was that she was already aware of all the fourth trimester inconveniences once she became pregnant with Eleanor, which was due to Theresa informing her about them, having a doctor as the father of her child, and also the beauty of all the information she received from the internet.
She did feel somewhat better compared to last week, but she was still feeling unpleasant, especially with the added night sweats.
She was still bleeding a little bit (last week, it was heavier) and it kind of felt like her days as a rookie menstruator at age 12 all over again because she was now back to using pads.
Her nether regions were still sore and itchy from the sutures plus the hemorrhoids (talk about a literal pain in the ass), which she had been soothing with sitz baths and lying in a frog-leg position. In the beginning, when it was more a bit more acute, her vagina felt engorged, stretched out, and banged up.
For both Shaun and Lea, there have already been many emotional highs and lows since Violet was born. They have been sad and moody (especially Lea), which they presumed to be normal and often dismissed and denied, assuming it would disappear over time.
As they zoned out, they were interrupted by a slightly quiet knock at their door, which they were surprised didn't wake up Violet from her peaceful slumber.
As soon as she detached the breast pumps and covered her breasts back up with her nursing tank, Lea was the one who answered the door and opened it, revealing it to be Claire and Asher nervously smiling with tupperware of food in their hands.
As Violet was fast asleep in the bouncer in a food coma after being fed, Claire, Lea, Shaun, and Asher sat around the table, talking about the parental life (well, Shaun and Lea were). Claire and Asher had brought the new parents some paella and then asked if they needed any help…to which Shaun and Lea stubbornly refused and only asked for them to have breakfast pancakes with them (their shift wasn't going to start until like noon).
When Claire and Asher viewed and observed Shaun and Lea, they looked and smelled terrible in their humble opinions...even overwhelmed and stressed. Obviously, they hadn't showered in days, their hair was greasy and a total rat's nest as it was sticking out in every possible direction, and they had dark bags under their bloodshot eyes, which were red as if they had pink-eye.
Lea had sweat and breast milk lactation stains on her pink tank…and there were a couple days-old dry leaked milk stains around the nipple-areola complex of the tank, which meant that the shirt had not been washed for a while since the last time her breasts leaked. She tried to cover it up with one of her kimono robes, though (which was unfortunately stained with spit-up).
Shaun's clothes were also sweaty and disgusting, and they weren't free of being stained with bodily fluids that didn't belong to him either. For instance, the back of his shirt had stains of vomit and there was definitely a smear of fecal matter on the thigh of his pants. He also was wearing mismatched socks and had some facial hair stubbles, making him almost look like a totally different person.
Neither of them seemed to care too much, though…not even Shaun, surprisingly (given he always had a thing about feeling being organized). Claire guessed that he was probably too tired and exhausted to care too much. This wasn't the first time she had walked into his apartment and saw him sitting around in dirty pajamas - unbathed and unshaven - with a disorganized mess everywhere. Another thing that crossed her mind was that depression could also be a reason he didn't care too much.
They've probably been wearing the same clothes for the past three or four days, guessed Asher, awkwardly trying to not make it look like he was staring at Lea's chest.
Their apartment was also a total pigsty. Unwashed plates, pans, pots, tupperware, and silverware crowded the kitchen counters and even filled the sink. The kitchen's discard bin was flooded with used dish towels and napkins. Their mail just happened to get tossed and unorganized on the center counter instead of sorted into piles on the coffee table (how they usually handled their mail). The diaper pail was full of cloth diapers and wipes that had been rinsed and one of the hampers was filled with laundry yet to be done.
In addition, Shaun and Lea described to their friends what they have been feeling since Violet was born. They informed them that they have felt sad, angry, and cried a lot as well as feeling moody, cranky, and anxious.
"Sometimes, I can't even sleep, eat, or make decisions," shared Shaun. "I can't even concentrate. I don't even feel like eating. I feel more sad and frustrated."
"I feel so hopeless and overwhelmed," added Lea with a sigh. "However, my mom said that it's normal…so she is probably right because she had two children."
"Has she ever lost a pregnancy? Or suffered from postpartum depression? It's been two weeks, and maybe you two need to think about getting help," Claire pointed out, feeling a bit of concern for her friends and also guilty for bringing Lea's mother into this. "I think you both need to take a break and let me and Asher help you for a bit. We can watch over Violet for a while so you can take a nap."
It took a lot of arguing and convincing, but Claire eventually got Shaun and Lea to take a break with a shower and a short nap while she and Asher watched over Violet and worked a bit on the apartment…which did make them a bit late for work.
However, Shaun and Lea refused further help afterward and then kicked Claire and Asher out of their apartment.
"Go do your job," grumbled Lea.
Meanwhile during her lunch break, Claire was doing all kinds of research on certain topics instead of her patient, who had a simple appendectomy with no complications therefore she felt no need to think about him too much.
Claire scrolled through her phone as she googled "rainbow baby postpartum" as well as links for help related to postpartum mental illness.
Postpartum can be harder with a rainbow baby, one article stated, which made Claire even more concerned. She knew that Shaun had to get help for depression when Lea was pregnant with Violet, and Lea did as well.
A few risk factors of postpartum depression did apply to the new parents - a history of depression and anxiety, stressful events surrounding the pregnancy (e.g. Lea's brother's alcoholism), and mixed feelings about the pregnancy.
Besides Lea's difficult pregnancy, she also believed that Shaun's childhood and family background might have played into his depression during Lea's pregnancy besides the previous loss, and maybe it was affecting his mental health right now.
If both Shaun and Lea suffered from postpartum mental illness, looking out for each other was going to be more difficult.
She was worried about both of them, but she also had a feeling that maybe she was just overreacting and overstepping. Lea's mother was probably right that Shaun and Lea's baby blues were completely normal but Claire also had doubts about that.
In hindsight, Claire also wondered if her own mother suffered from postpartum depression.
She continued to debate whether or not she should interfere and tell Dr. Glassman or Dr. Lim about her concerns about Shaun and Lea, especially considering how stubborn Dr. Lim was when she tried to help her with her PTSD.
However, if Shaun and Lea didn't get better mentally in the future, she was definitely going to have to interfere and alert both Dr. Glassman and Dr. Lim while also convincing them to go back to receiving professional help for their sake and the sake of their child.
Another thing that worried Claire was how good Shaun was at masking pain. When he was injured in that bar fight, nobody knew he was injured (everyone but Carly) until he collapsed in the patient's room. When his first daughter was stillborn, he didn't even visibly act like he was still in pain unless he was in front of Lea.
She was worried that nobody would figure it out until it was too late, and it was going to be difficult especially when his wife was struggling mentally herself.
Claire figured that Shaun and Lea might figure out they need help on their own, because they did seek help when they lost their first pregnancy and when they had depression and anxiety during their second. However, she also wondered that because postpartum mental illness is so stigmatized, they might be too afraid and ashamed to seek help, especially Shaun…who admitted that he sometimes had a fear of social services taking Violet away from him because they don't see an autistic person being fit to raise a baby.
"I guess we'll see how they are next week," sighed Claire, hoping that things would work out, followed by a text from Shaun and Lea apologizing for their behavior.
AN: I hope you all enjoyed this chapter and stick around if you want to see how Shaun and Lea's mental health plays out. Please review and share your thoughts.