Today is Yom Kippur. This Jewish holiday marks the beginning of a clean slate for the new year. On Yom Kippur, we are supposed to right our wrongs and forgive those who have let us down. I’m not sure I’ll be able to wholly forgive and forget my rocky start to my postpartum experience, but as my physical wound heals, so must my emotional wound. It’s time I concentrate on what matters now instead of dwelling on the past.

Some women have difficult pregnancies. Some women have bumpy labors. I’m a woman who had green lights on the whole baby mama highway, but after Madelyn was born, I crashed into a rail, tumbled over a cliff, and rolled into a murky water. It’s been a very difficult ride for me due to the infection I got in the hospital that was dismissed and negated by the on-call physician, Dr. Shlub. For weeks, I couldn’t hold my daughter due to the pain at my fresh incision and I missed out on crucial bonding time. I know Madelyn was in great hands while I was absent and healing, and she will never know of any suffering, but I know I was cheated out of my experience. That hurts more than my open wound.

I’m not breastfeeding. This is a tough subject for me because I always planned on nursing my baby. I was breastfed and I’ve always heard my mom tell me what an awesome experience it was. I was so looking forward to developing that similar relationship with Madelyn. We had our rough moments starting out as most mothers and new babies do, but we finally got our groove on! It was fabulous. We were flowing and she was filling. Chug chug chug and then, bam! Infection and pain up the wazoo. No nursing position was comfortable. I was awake every two to three hours to feed while I was trying to heal. My energy was at a zero and my motivation went kaput. I didn’t want to quit and really had no intentions to, but my doctor told me that healing should be my first priority and if I was in pain or feeling stress from my incision infection while nursing, it wasn’t healthy for either of us. She gave me permission to stop, and after a lot of deliberation, I did. I needed to become healthy because I was no good to Madelyn if I wasn’t.

With every drop of leaked milk on its way out of me, I cried. And cried and cried. I knew breast milk was the best milk for my daughter — at least that’s what I’d always heard — and doesn’t every mom want the best for her children? Some women choose not to breastfeed and I support that just as much as I support those who do. I’m not a lactivist. I was just a mom looking for a unique experience and to provide the best I could for Madelyn. At this point, the best thing for Madelyn was a healthy mom and food any way she could get it. The pediatrician recommended a formula and that hungry little baby gulped it down. She never knew the difference and she was a happy camper. She continued to gain weight and was thriving just fine. Of course, that’s all I cared and still care about. Grow, little Madelyn, grow!

But I mourned. I still do. I looked in the mirror at myself and would think, “I failed me.” My blood boils and my ears resemble an angry, steaming Donald Duck when I think about what could have been. Sure, I might have been exhausted and annoyed about nursing around the clock or submitting myself to the “whoosh whoosh” of the boob juicer, but I never expected it to be a breeze or any sort of convenience. Instead, as I get my six hours of sleep and whip out a bottle of shaken-not-stirred, cow’s milk goodness in a public place, I rejoice in the ease of feeding, but I sulk in the absence of providing. Yes, I know, I’m still providing. Our hard-earned dollars are providing cans of powder via Diapers.com and Babies R Us, but it was ME who wanted to provide. ME. Not my credit card.

And then there’s the guilt. I did nothing wrong, so why do I feel guilt? Why does breastfeeding have to carry such a heavy stigma of guilt or shame when it’s not practiced? And don’t get me started on the jealousy! I see babies attached to their mothers, and I feel like I’ve been kicked in the stomach. Not a hard violent kick. Just a breathlessness of sorts and then my stomach turns and aches. It’s beautiful and I’m thrilled for their relationship — really, I am! — but I still wish I had that, too. All I have to do, though, is look over at my happy baby and it’s fine. It’s fine, it’s fine, it’s fine! Deep breaths. Leveled.

I went on Celexa. I’m still taking it. Dr. Fiiiine thought it would be the best thing for me and I agree. I’m not ashamed of it and that shit works (no, the sales rep did not take me to lunch or shower me with theater tickets for the endorsement). Hormones + shitty recovery from an infected c-section incision = happy pills. I’m feeling better now and I don’t cry eighty-seven times a day so that’s definitely a good indication that there’s something to the drug. I also know that my wound is healing well and I’m no longer in pain 24/7. Madelyn is the cutest baby to ever exist on this planet and my husband is the most awesome father. Things are on the way up. Thanks to the pill? Nah. The pill just allowed me to see this. Forest. Trees. That whole thing. I’m not sure how long I’ll be on it. I’ll admit, I’m afraid to find out what it feels like to be off of it, but I think it will probably be okay. Once the home care nurse stops coming to my house and Dr. Fiiiine has declared me healed, we’ll talk about weaning. I’m in no hurry, but I also don’t want to be on it forever. I’m just taking it, literally, one day at a time. Eventually, postpartum depression has to become past postpartum depression.

So, I know hate is a strong word, but I think I’d still use it in the same sentence to describe my feelings about Dr. Shlub. Without hesitation, I dump all the blame on him for stomping all over my woulda-shoulda-coulda after Madelyn arrived. But I also know that isn’t going to get me anywhere. Which brings me back to Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the year. This has really been my holiest year… period. I’m not kidding. I have a c-section hole below my belly button where my baby came out and it’s still open. It’s closing, though, little by little thanks to the daily medical care I’ve been receiving since August 19th. Dr. Fiiiine says we probably have just a few more weeks of packing the wound before we can call it a day. Or, approximately 80 days. I’m promising myself that when it’s closed, and my crooked abdominal scar is complete, I will stop looking back with such sadness and resentment and try to realize that I’m stronger for overcoming extreme hurdles.

Forgive on Yom Kippur? Ehhh, not really ready to do that. Forget? No, not happening either. Start anew with a fresh outlook? That I can do.

Love is infectious. Trust me, I know.

Recap: So, on August 9th, I was induced, had a last minute c-section, got pampered in the hospital for four nights, went home on August 13th, and the rest is history, yada yada. We all thought the worst part was over. Giving birth — whether it’s from the hoo-ha or with surgical intervention — is never easy or glamorous, but hey, you get a baby as your prize and it’s all worth the cost of admission, right? Well, of course right, but apparently whatever-I-believe-in decided I wasn’t finished paying.

The day after we got home from the hospital, a Sunday, I’d been feeling sore, but it was all the usual c-section recovery soreness and was nothing to blink about. But that evening, I broke out into a fever with the whole shebang: chills, sweats, aches. How could I be so lucky to come down with the flu — in August! — just after having a baby?

Well, it wasn’t the flu. Apparently, it was some gnarly bacteria brewing in me and causing a haywire infection at my incision site. But I didn’t know this yet. Instead, I followed the directions of the hospital discharge papers, called the on-call doctor (not Dr. Fiiiine or anyone affiliated with her practice) who told me “Feh! You’re not my patient. I don’t give a hoot about you. Go to the ER if your temp reaches 101.” Okay, so he didn’t really say that, but it’s basically what Dr. Shlub said because he’s a dinosaur who was annoyed to be on-call after hours and probably shouldn’t be practicing anymore (Oh, hello, hormones and Bitter-Betty feelings! How did you make your way into my blog post?). Dr. Shlub is also the same doctor who discharged me from the hospital and never even looked at my incision site after I told him it was suddenly feeling like OMG FIERY DEATH after three days of no discomfort. Yes, Dr. Shlub he is.

So, since my fever never reached 101 and I am an obedient patient, I never went to the ER. Sunday night passed. Monday came and went. Tuesday morning, I spoke to Dr. Fiiine to let her know that the 2838947298734 Vicodins I was taking a day were really blocking no pain and, oh yeah, I’ve had some fevers, and spoke to Dr. Shlub two days earlier who said, “Until you’re actually already dead, don’t bother me,” and so, ya know, what should we do? And before I could finish my question, Dr. Fiiiine ordered me in that afternoon for a check up, so back on the butcher paper I went for a look-see.

Eyebrows raised, lots of “Hmmmm”s, and aggressive touching left Dr. Fiiine with a diagnosis of cellulitis, a skin infection at my c-section incision. But wait! There’s more! It was the worst infection she’d ever seen in all her years of practicing medicine and only the second she’s had to treat in her eight years of private practice. I’m honored to be the recipient of such an award, but hold your applause, please. We wouldn’t want such esteem to go to my head.

My real prize was two week’s worth of antibiotics, instructions to put a warm, moist compress on the incision for fifteen minutes every four hours, and a return visit on Friday for a check up. She mentioned something about “drain” and “pack,” but followed it with “let’s hope I don’t have to do it and it just clears up on its own.” So I decided to only hear that part.

Sidenote: During the pique of this infection, my body decided it would also be impeccable timing to become engorged in the breasts. This made nursing, on a scale from sucky (no pun intended) to omgkillmenow, MISERABLE, so we were dealing with a boob treatment to help with the engorgement every three hours on top of the hot compress for the infection and my in-house pharmacy of pills I had to take. My mom and Bryan were running a makeshift clinic that would put Johns Hopkins to shame.

A little over 48 hours had passed since my Tuesday morning’s diagnosis and starting the antibiotics and we saw little change. The hot compresses seemed strange because as far as we knew, heat and moisture only creates a more bacteria-happy environment so we doubted its effectiveness in the treatment of my infection. But, joke’s on us, because as I got up out of bed on Thursday evening to go take care of bidness, I started to spring a leak from the incision site and it did not look or smell very good. I’ll spare readers the comparisons and refrain from using some gnarly adjectives, but because it didn’t look healthy, I called my doctor who said it was all a good thing! What? Yes! The heat enticed the infection to the surface and now it was looking for a way out, making it easy to pinpoint where that mofo was festering.

Friday morning, we went in and the “drain” and “pack” words that Dr. Fiiiine had muttered became a reality. Since the heat opened up the incision where I had my own version of Old Faithful the night before, the wound was now open and Dr. Fiiiine tugged and yanked to encourage more drainage. Some hydrogen peroxide not only cleaned the area and deep inside the wound, but also created a volcano that mimicked a first place project at the school science fair. If you think I was still and quiet during Part I of this lovely morning, you would be wrong.

Then we moved onto the packing portion of the fun. Spooled, medicated gauze that literally looks like fettucini was packed into every nook and cranny of my wound using a long Q-tip swab. Shoving and poking the raw skin and lower layers of a surgically-created opening on my body located near no-man’s land (sorry, Bryan) feels REALLY GOOD! LIKE A SPA MASSAGE! WITH LAVENDER OIL!!!!! On Opposite Day.

Waaaaaah!!! I’m sure my screams could be heard worldwide. My poor mom’s hand, forever engrained with my finger nail impressions. And poor Bryan’s eyes, forever blinded by the sight of my insides and face muscles that flexed into unrecognizable figures. This was NO. FUN.

So, imagine my excitement when Dr. Fiiine mentioned I would get to continue this treatment! Every day! Twice a day! For probably over a month!

And that’s where we are. Twenty seven days after Madelyn’s birth and I’m mid-treatment for a rare and nasty infection. I’m glad to say it’s getting better. The infection itself is gone and now my wound is healing. It’s getting smaller and looking healthier. Dr. Fiiiine and the very nice nurse that comes to my house to pack the wound are all happy with the progress. Each packing session is still painful and I don’t look forward to my mornings and evenings when the procedure takes place, but I know it’s only temporary, even if temporary is under two months.

The worst part of this has not been the pain of the infection or the dread of the treatment, but my stalled bonding with Madelyn. I was not able to hold her or help around the house during our first week-and-a-half home. I never thought I’d long for changing a diaper, but as I laid in bed, unable to get in a comfortable position, hear her cries, and the laughing chatter of our visiting company downstairs, I felt like I was missing out on my experience with our newborn. Thankfully, Bryan is an amazing Daddy and took care of her pretty much all by himself. I was (and still am) very angry that I was cheated out of my happy time at home with my daughter and went to a low and dark place I wasn’t sure my mind knew how to navigate. But it did. Because even though I’m now a mom, I’m still a human. I was mad that I was not strong and invincible like my perception of mothers denotes.

I’m in a better place now, though. With the infection cleared and my increased mobility around the house, I’m changing diapers, and I’m participating in feedings, and I’m cuddling with my little M whenever I can. I’m still not as quick to get up and my swaddling skills leave little to be desired, but finally finally finally, I feel like the mom I wanted to be and know that from now on I will continue to be infected. Infected with lots of love for Madelyn and deep appreciation for Bryan.