The Pioneer Woman (30 page)

Feeding her your own milk?

Oh dear.

“Um, yes…,” I answered. “I'm br…I'm breast-feeding.” Tim, could you please go now?

Then he let me have it. “You know, you need to be careful not to get a sour bag.”

I sat there, staring blankly ahead. Little did I know it was but one of the many times my brother-in-law would draw a parallel between me and livestock.

T
WO DAYS
later, on a stifling hot midsummer afternoon, Marlboro Man packed my hospital bags into his pickup, buckled our seven-pounder into her comparatively huge car seat, and helped me into the backseat for our drive back home to the ranch. I should have been so happy—I had the guy and the baby and she was healthy and the sun was shining—but it didn't feel right to me, the whole leaving-the-hospital thing. I wasn't ready at all. I'd just gotten used to the beeping of the monitors and the coziness of the warm, secure hospital room. I'd grown accustomed to the nurses checking on me every couple of hours…and candy stripers bringing me warm meals of stew, mashed potatoes, and green beans. At the hospital, I knew what to expect. In two short days, I'd mastered it. I had no idea what would be waiting for me at home.

When Marlboro Man pulled away from the hospital, it hit me: instantly, I felt desperate and alone. Pressing my face against the window, I acted like I was asleep…and quietly sobbed the whole way home. I wanted my mom, but I'd pushed her away to the point where she was keeping her distance out of respect for my wishes. If only she were at the other end of this hour-long drive, everything would be okay.

We got home to find twenty cows in our yard. “Dammit,” Marlboro Man muttered under his breath, as if this was the last thing he needed right
then. That made me cry harder, and I could no longer shield Marlboro Man from the sounds of my wailing. As he got out of the car, he looked back at me and said, “What's
wrong
?” He moved toward me, more than likely concerned at the unexpected sight of my swollen, red, puffy face. “What happened?”

“I want to go back to the hospital!” I cried. A cow dropped a fresh green load on my daylilies.

“What's wrong?” Marlboro Man asked again. “Seriously…are you in pain?”

That only served to make me feel foolish, as if I would have no good excuse to lose it unless I was hemorrhaging out of my ears. I sobbed even harder, and the baby began to wriggle. “I just don't feel right,” I cried again. “I feel…I don't know how to do anything!”

Marlboro Man wrapped me in his arms, completely clueless as to what to do. “Let's go inside,” he said, rubbing my back. “It's hot out here.” He unbuckled the baby's car seat and pulled her out of the car, and the three of us walked past the cows and toward the house. My echinacea blooms were all missing their petals.
Stupid rabbits,
I thought. I'll kill 'em with my bare hands if they go near my flowers again. Then I started crying harder that I'd even had such a thought.

We walked into our house, which was spotless and smelled of Clorox and lemon. A vase of fresh flowers sat on our dining table in the breakfast nook. Not a thing was out of place. I took a deep breath and exhaled…and suddenly everything felt better. The baby was fussing now—she'd been in the car seat since we'd left the hospital over an hour earlier—so I pulled her out, lay down on the bed with her, and started nursing. Almost immediately, the two of us fell into a deep sleep. When I woke up, it was almost dark. I hoped it was early the next morning, which would have meant we'd slept all night long…but, in fact, only an hour had passed since we'd dozed off.

After I woke up, splashed cold water on my face, and drank nearly a
gallon of orange juice, our first evening home turned out to be dreamy: Marlboro Man and I ate pieces of a casserole his mom had left in our fridge earlier in the day. For dessert we feasted on a homemade angel food cake his grandmother, Edna Mae, had brought by. Edna Mae's angel food cakes were light…fluffy…perfect. She'd gone the extra mile with this one and coated it with a creamy white seven-minute frosting, then chilled the iced cake to perfection. I gobbled down three pieces without even knowing I'd taken a bite. It was lifeblood for my postpartum body.

After dinner Marlboro man and I sat on the sofa in our dimly lit house and marveled at the new little life before us. Her sweet little grunts…her impossibly tiny ears…how peacefully she slept, wrinkled and warm, in front of us. We unwrapped her from her tight swaddle, then wrapped her again. Then we unwrapped her and changed her diaper, then wrapped her again. Then we put her in the crib for the night, patted her sweet belly, and went to bed ourselves, where we fell dead asleep in each other's arms, blissful that the hard part was behind us. A full night's sleep was all I needed, I reckoned, before I felt like myself again. The sun would come out tomorrow…I was sure of it.

We were sleeping soundly when I heard the baby crying twenty minutes later. I shot out of bed and went to her room.
She must be hungry,
I thought, and fed her in the glider rocking chair before putting her in her crib and going back to bed myself. Forty-five minutes after my head hit the pillow, I was awakened again to the sound of crying. Looking at the clock, I was sure I was having a bad dream. Bleary-eyed, I stumbled to her room again and repeated the feeding ritual.
Hmmm,
I thought as I tried to keep from nodding off in the chair.
This is strange
.
She must have some sort of problem,
I imagined—
maybe that cowlick or colic I'd heard about in a movie somewhere? Goiter or gouter or gout?
Strange diagnoses pummeled my sleep-deprived brain. Before the sun came up, I'd gotten up six more times, each time thinking it had to be the last, and if it wasn't, it might actually kill me.

I woke up the next morning, the blinding sun shining in my eyes. Marl
boro Man was walking in our room, holding our baby girl, who was crying hysterically in his arms.

“I tried to let you sleep,” he said. “But she's not having it.” He looked helpless, like a man completely out of options.

My eyes would hardly open. “Here.” I reached out, motioning Marlboro Man to place the little suckling in the warm spot on the bed beside me. Eyes still closed, I went into autopilot mode, unbuttoning my pajama top and moving my breast toward her face, not caring one bit that Marlboro Man was standing there watching me. The baby found what she wanted and went to town.

Marlboro Man sat on the bed and played with my hair. “You didn't get much sleep,” he said.

“Yeah,” I said, completely unaware that what had happened the night before had been completely normal…and was going to happen again every night for the next month at least. “She must not have been feeling great.”

“I've got to go meet a truck,” Marlboro Man said. “But I'll be back around eleven.”

I waved good-bye without even looking up. I couldn't take my eyes off my baby. As she lay there and sucked, I began to feel strange. My entire chest felt tight and warm to the touch, and my breasts, I noticed, were larger than I ever remembered them being—even in the last days of my pregnancy. Once the baby fell asleep again, I made my way to the shower. It was the only thing that could possibly pump some life into my sleep-deprived body. I let the warm water fall on my face and sting my eyes, hoping to somehow wash away the utter exhaustion that had taken over. Slowly, three minutes in, I began to feel better…just in time to notice that the tight, uncomfortable feeling in my chest had returned with a vengeance. I glanced down to find, to my horror, that my breasts had become spigots, both shooting milk eight inches in front of my body.

And they showed absolutely no signs of stopping. They sprayed and sprayed.

If I, the daughter of a physician, had been prepared for the medical side of pregnancy and childbirth, I was completely dumbfounded by this development. Nothing could have prepared me for the horror.

That night, Marlboro Man invited Tim over to our house. I hid in my bedroom the entire time, clutching towels to my bosom and trying desperately to get my now-fussy, squirming baby to relieve the building pressure in my breasts…while at the same time avoiding any kind of interaction with Marlboro Man and Tim. I was way too busy trying to assimilate what was happening with my body and my mind—not to mention my life—to hold any kind of coherent conversation.

They were invaders, anyway—those men in my living room. Invaders who didn't belong in my nest with my new baby bird. They were dodo birds…maybe grackles. I'd peck them if they got too close.
Why were they in my nest, anyway?

Later that night, just as I was dozing off, I heard cries and yells from the other room as Marlboro Man and Tim watched Mike Tyson bite off Evander Holyfield's ear on live TV. The baby, who'd finally, at long last, gone to sleep moments earlier, woke up and began to cry again.

It was official: I was in hell.

M
Y MILK
had burst onto the scene with a vengeance, and eating became the baby's new vocation. The next two weeks of her life marked the end of my life as I knew it; I was up all night, a hag all day, and Marlboro Man was completely on his own. I wanted nothing to do with anyone on earth, my husband included.

“How are you doing today?” he'd ask. I'd resent that I had to expend the energy to answer.

“Want me to hold the baby while you get up and get dressed?” he'd offer. I'd crumble that he didn't like my robe.

“Hey, Mama—wanna take the baby for a drive?” Not no, but
hell
no. We'll die if we leave our cocoon. The rays from the sun will fry us and turn us to ashes. And I'd have to put on normal clothes. Forget it.

I'd kicked into survival mode in the most literal sense of the word—not only was laundry out of the question, but so was dinner, casual conversation, or any social interaction at all. I had become a shell of a person—no more human than the stainless steel milk machines in dairy farms in Wisconsin, and half as interesting. Any identity I'd previously had as a wife, daughter, friend, or productive member of the human race had melted away the second my ducts filled with milk. My mom dropped by to help once or twice, but I couldn't emotionally process her presence. I hid in my room
with the door shut as she did the dishes and washed laundry without help or input from me. Marlboro Man's mom came to help, too, but I couldn't be myself around her and holed up in my room. I didn't even care enough to pray for help. Not that it would have helped; stainless steel milk machines have no soul.

 

B
ETSY CAME
to visit two weeks after I returned from the hospital, though I wasn't sure I cared. She picked up the house and kept laundry loads going and even held the baby for two-minute pockets in between her frequent feedings. With zero assistance or conversation from me, my kid sister cooked chicken noodle soup and tacos and our mother's delectable lasagna. She even learned how to chase the stray cows that made their way into our yard. I waddled into the kitchen to get a drink of water one morning to find her waving a broom and running around the yard.
Maybe she can just move in here and take my place,
I fantasized.
She'd like it out here
.
And she's cute and fun and thin…she and Marlboro Man should get along just great.

Deep in the throes of postpartum desperation, I wanted no part of any of it anymore. Not the cows, not the yard, not the laundry. Not even the cowboy that came along with it, the one working his fingers to the bone day in and day out as he tried to negotiate the ever-changing markets and figure out the best course of action to take for his ranch and new baby and wife, who'd spiraled from the young, full-of-life woman he'd married ten months earlier to someone who hardly existed anymore.

Betsy, seventy-two hours into her visit, had picked up on all of this. She waited until Marlboro Man left to work cattle that morning before giving it to me straight.

“You kinda look like crap,” she said, an ironically sweet tone in her voice.

“Shut up!” I barked. “You try doing this sometime!”

“I mean, I know it's hard and all…,” she began.

I held up my hand. “Don't even say it,” I ordered. “You seriously have no idea.” My eyes welled up with tears.

“Fine,” she said, folding a pair of jeans. “But you need to at least take a shower and put on some cute clothes. It'll make you feel better.”

“Clothes will not make me feel better!” I yelled, cradling the baby close.

“I promise, they will,” she argued. “I'm convinced you cannot be happy if you wear that robe any longer.”

I defied her suggestions and stayed in bed, and Betsy made her way out to the kitchen and threw together some sandwiches. I ate them, but only to keep my milk production going.

I ate four of her chocolate chip cookies for the same reason, then, still grimy and disheveled, climbed back into bed.

Marlboro Man returned home late that afternoon and came into the bedroom, eating a chocolate chip cookie along the way. The baby and I had just woken up from a two-hour nap, and he plopped down on the bed next to us. Without speaking, he stroked her little head with his index finger. I watched him the entire time; his eyes never left her. The room was quiet; the whole house was, in fact. Betsy must have gone out to the laundry room to switch loads. Without thinking, my arm found its way over to him and draped across his back. It was the first time I'd so much as touched him since I'd come home from the hospital. He glanced at me, flashed a faint smile, and draped his arm over my middle…and, magically, blessedly, the three of us fell back asleep—Marlboro Man in his mud-stained clothes, me in my milk-stained pajamas, and our perfect little child resting peacefully between our bodies.

 

W
HEN I
woke up an hour later, something had changed. Maybe it was the sleep…maybe it was the tender moment with Marlboro Man…maybe it was my sister's tough-love pep talk, or a combination of the three. I got out of bed quietly and made my way to the shower, where I washed and scrubbed and polished my body with every single bath product I could find. By the time I turned off the water, the bathroom smelled like lemongrass and lavender, wisteria and watermelon. The aromatherapy worked; while I didn't exactly feel beautiful again, I felt less like Jabba the Hut. I peeked out of the bathroom and through the bedroom door; Marlboro Man and the baby were still sound asleep. So I kept going, brushing on translucent powder and a little bit of pink blush, and adding some putty-colored eye shadow and a good coat or two of mascara. With each stroke of the brush, each wave of the wand, I felt more and more like myself. A light smudge of grape-colored lip gloss sealed the deal.

On a roll, I tiptoed into the bedroom and reached into the closet for my soft black maternity leggings, the ones that had been replaced by nasty plaid pajama bottoms fourteen days earlier. I ran my hands along the line of tops that hung on the rod, instinctively landing on a loose-fitting light blue top I'd been able to wear in the earlier months of pregnancy. It was pretty and light and feminine—a stark contrast to the dark green terry cloth robe that had been permanently affixed to my body in recent days. I sneaked back into the bathroom and changed into my new uniform, finishing it off with a pair of dangly mother-of-pearl earrings I'd picked up in a gift shop in Sydney, probably before I'd even conceived. Not wanting to turn on the noisy hair dryer, I scrunched my hair between my fingers to give it some body. Then I stood back and took a good, long look in the mirror.

I recognized myself again. The pale, spiritless ghost had been replaced by a slightly tired and moderately puffy version of my former normal self. I was no beauty queen, not by a long shot…but I was me again. The shower had been, if not an exorcism, a baptism. I'd been reborn. I shuddered, imagining what Marlboro Man had thought every time he'd seen
me shuffle around in my dingy white terry cloth slippers, my hair on top of my head in a neon green scrunchie. I brushed my teeth, shook my hair, and walked out of the bathroom…just as Marlboro Man was waking up.

“Wow,” he said, pausing midstretch. “You look good, Mama.”

I smiled.

That night, Tim came over. Betsy made wings and brownies, and the five of us—Marlboro Man, Tim, Betsy, the baby, and I—sat and talked, laughed, and watched a John Wayne movie.

I was exhausted and depleted. And it was one of the best nights of my life.

 

I
WOKE UP
at nine the next morning, engorged but feeling alive. Almost as if she'd received some sort of office memo regarding the new optimism in the house, my new baby—wrinkled and skinny and helpless—had slept peacefully next to me all night, waking only twice to eat. I touched my finger to her tiny arm, still covered in soft translucent fuzz, and baby love washed over me in a rushing wave. Since the first night home from the hospital, desperation had moved in and rendered me incapable of savoring a single moment with her. Until now. I stared at her little ears, inhaled her indescribable scent, and placed my palm on her perfect head, closing my eyes and thanking God for such an undeserved gift. She was perfection.

When we finally surfaced from the bedroom, Betsy was stirring a pot on the stove. Marlboro Man was gone for the day, driving with Tim to check on some wheat pasture in the southern part of the state. It was Betsy's last day on the ranch; her summer school class would begin the following week, and she had to get back to the real world. And it was time. Her work here was done.

“What's that?” I asked, looking at the stove.

“Cinnamon rolls,” she said, grabbing a packet of yeast from the pantry.

My mouth watered on the spot. Our mom's cinnamon rolls. They were beyond delicious, a fact confirmed not just by our immediate family, but also by the neighbors, church members, and friends who received them as Christmas gifts year after year during my childhood. It was a holiday ritual, one that lasted almost a full twenty-four hours. My mom would get out of bed early, scald milk, sugar, and oil in separate large pots, then use the mixture to make dough. The three of us would roll the dough into large rectangles, then douse them with obscene amounts of melted butter, cinnamon, and sugar before rolling them into logs and slicing them individually. Then, after baking, we'd drizzle a coffee-maple icing on the rolls and my mom would deliver them while they were still warm in the pan.

They were the best cinnamon rolls in existence. Why hadn't I made them yet?

Later, when the dough was ready and Betsy and I rolled and drizzled, the baby napped blissfully in the bouncer seat on the floor. I thought about my mom, and the countless times we'd made cinnamon rolls together…and all the beautiful memories that were cemented in my mind wherein these beautiful, gooey cinnamon rolls were front and center. And when I sunk my fork into a finished roll and took my first bite, I could swear I heard the comforting voice of my mom, who, I realized, had drenched my childhood with more love and affection and fun than any child should have.

I imagined her smile…and smiled, too.