She has been preparing her daughter's first birthday for more than a week. It seems like a lie. Twelve months have passed since he was born and many remember the moment of his birth as if it were yesterday. Today's the big day. Paula looks attentively and smiling at all the relatives who have come to her party, despite not understanding what is due to so much balloon, so much music and so much food.
The lights go out, everyone looks at the door expectantly and Mom approaches the table with a birthday cake ruled by a lonely lit candle shaped like a number "1", held by a well-known child character.
All attendees start singing in unison. Paula looks amazed at the approaching light without knowing very well what to do. "Blow Paula, blow!" Everyone is full of joy. All except one person: mom. He has lit the candle happy, has taken the expectant cake, has walked several steps with him, focusing his gaze on the candle and at that precise moment he has thought “one year already, one year since he was born, one year since I gave birth”. And at that moment, when he should feel happy and happy for his daughter's birthday, he feels something that digs into his chest and notices the scars of his birth, both physical and emotional, in the first anniversary of a moment too traumatic.
However, it makes guts heart and decides to postpone the affliction. It is not time to sour. Paula does not deserve it.
Night comes and Paula sleeps. Mom strokes her hair and becomes fascinated watching her breathe, watching her face, her hands and her feet, those perfect little feet that she often kisses when she changes her diaper. He decides to resume the postponement, despite being aware that he is going to delve into a wound that is too painful, which has remained dormant all these months, no less than twelve. He feels it is time to think about it and he does it. Try to remember. Try to represent what happened the day Paula was born, removing debris to find passages that she herself had ignored, avoided and buried.
She sees herself at home, breathing, singing, living with contractions. She looks in the car, on the way to the hospital, scared but happy, worried but hopeful, imagining what her birth will be like and she sees herself lying in bed, tied to the monitors, living the contractions in the best way she can.
Ask to get up. He wants to walk a little because he feels pain in his back, and Paula seems to ask him to change his position. “You can't get up. If you get up we will stop hearing the monitor. ” He sighs, changes his position a little, and feeds the hope that everything will end soon and well.
Remember with suffering how several people come in to make several touches. Three, four, maybe more. You have lost your account. She simply does what they tell her, however she doesn't feel calm. It scares him not to know what will happen.
"Your husband must wait outside." The gynecologist comes to make a new touch, since she sees that everything is going too slow. This time it hurts more, "come, that's it, don't move that this is nothing." The gynecologist removes her glove, approaches her history and writes something while she lowers her nightgown. It finally turns. “We are going to put oxytocin to speed up the delivery a little, okay? You don't dilate too much. We already tell your husband to drink something while we put the epidural. ”
She leaves and Raul does not enter. It is true. You have been told to drink something. Look at the ceiling, scared, as she begins to feel guilty for not being able to give birth. "Nine months of the miracle of pregnancy and when it is time to complete the work I am unable to carry it out."
Your body is increasingly connected to the outside. To the monitor cables are added the epidural catheter, connected to your back and the serum with oxytocin attached to your hand. He wants to move, but he doesn't. I could ruin it even more if I did. Wait alone, motionless. Have you notified Raúl?
Minutes A few minutes are enough for the monitor to start whistling like crazy. The doors open quickly and the gynecologist and two midwives enter. They talk to each other and say nothing. Listen to the words "suffering" and "caesarean section" that get stuck in his chest like a stake. He suffers for his daughter. It's going to die? It's okay? So bad have I done it? "We're going to have a C-section, your daughter is having fetal distress, maybe she has a cord twist." She had read that oxytocin causes contractions so strong that many children do not support them and begin to suffer and that the return of the cord is not usually so problematic. It's the same, he prefers not to think about it, because he still feels more guilty if he does. She cries, she is afraid and, to top it all, she is alone.
Come back to the present for a moment. This is too painful. Listen and feel your heart beating too fast. “Quiet,” she says to herself, “you can do it, you must do it. For Paula, for you. ”
Close your eyes, listen to your breathing and in your mind go back to the hospital. She is lying in bed, she feels completely unprotected, with her eyelashes still wet and unable to even stand up (“it's not like I'm going to run away, because I've come here to give birth to my daughter, but it's that even if I wanted to I could do it "). Look at the ceiling in the hallway that leads to the operating room.
"Is everything all right?", "How is my daughter?" "Quiet, come, breathe here in the mask." Look around and see many people. No one answers your questions. She only receives a "quiet", which nothing calms her. Hey voices. Someone is talking "What does it say?". “Yes, he invited me to dinner. Then we went for a while… ” "By God, they're talking about their stuff!"
Finally Paula is "born", they teach her a moment and take her away. How beautiful ... "Is it okay?" He hears her cry and that calms her down, because she knows she is alive. "And my girl, where is she?" He wants to be with her, he wants to hug her, he wants… “We're going to take you to resuscitation. Your daughter will stay here on the floor. ” "But it's okay?". Do not know, no answer.
They separate them. She does not want. He needs to be with her, feel her warmth and how she moves in her body, just as she was feeling a few minutes ago, but no, they separate them. She is left alone, lying down, with a strange feeling of not yet giving birth. Well, in fact it is true, he thinks, "I haven't given birth."
Ask for Raul, "Does he know all this?" "I think so," they answer. "And my daughter, is she alive?"
Come back to the present and allow yourself to cry. This time yes. He doesn't want to stifle tears. He doesn't want to remove them from his face. He prefers to let everything go. He prefers to feel miserable, touched and sunk. Perhaps so, after the storm, calm comes.
"When did I lose control?" She says to herself. “Maybe when I allowed so many touches to be made, causing me to stiffen the cervix. Maybe when I agreed to have an enema, although it is recommended that the baby be contaminated with my microorganisms. Maybe when I let them have me lying all day, even though my body asked me to walk. Maybe when I let the delivery speed up because 'I was dilating little'. Maybe when I felt abandoned and alone, when nobody hugged me or shook my hand. Maybe when nobody explained anything to me about what was happening and I thought I could lose my daughter. Maybe when my daughter spent two hours without me, in a crib, just born. Maybe when I wanted to breastfeed and nobody helped me, even though it hurt me a lot and it made cracks. Maybe when everyone could take her and change her diaper and she had to smile motionlessly from the bed, feeling useless for not being able to take her daughter in her arms. Namely."
A year has passed and Mom has decided that she should turn the page. Remember even those days when you avoided passing in front of the hospital, even by car, so as not to have to remember. You need to know that it did not fail. You need to know that, despite everything, she is a capable woman.
Shouldn't your daughter's first birthday be a magical day? Yes, of course, but sometimes it is the first anniversary of a moment too traumatic.
