Frozen Burritos, Brownies, and Lenin.

Two days ago, as the current Snowpocalypse ™ was starting, I was standing in the frozen food isle of our village grocer. I knew I was going to be balls deep in The White Shit for days and dealing with our electrical problems, so I needed something to cook for the children that was quick and easy. My eye fell on the frozen, El Monterey brand burritos. If you’ve ever had the misfortune of eating these, you know they are absolutely disgusting. They literally taste like someone squirted some refried beans and questionable meat into an empty toilet paper roll. Why then did I put them in my cart? And why did I frantically go over to the bakery section to look for brownies? Because there was a period of several months where my family lived on El Monterey burritos and brownies. It was one of the darkest, most difficult times of my life, but we humans are funny creatures. Some times we get nostalgic for bad times.

It was the Winter Solstice of 2010 when the darkest night of the year became even inkier than it already was. Alaska was under a full lunar eclipse, and Corvus Bender was born in Ketchikan General Hospital. We’re pretty sure this means he’s going to have comic book super villain powers, but we love him anyway.

Corvus’ birth was a succession of cock-ups from the staff of KGH that nearly ended in my death. It was a planned induction and things weren’t going as fast as the midwife expected. I asked for some pain relief and she directed the nurse to give me Stadol and said she would go back to the clinic for a while. Not long after our nurse left too, because “there is another lady that’s having a really hard time and she needs me.” John and I were alone in the room for quite a while when Corvus started crowning. There was no baby warmer set up, no cart with necessities. The bed I was in had not been prepped for a birth yet, and there were no professionals around. John freaked out and ran into the hallway to the nurses station. They were gathered around someone’s phone (this is secondhand information I got from John, because I was doped up something fierce and squeezing a 9 lbs. larva out of my private parts at the time). They did not respond to his frantic calls of “Baby! It’s coming right now!”, but fortunately a random doctor in the hallway did listen to him and ran into the room just in time to catch Corvus. It was after the birth that things really went south. I was hemorrhaging. Badly. John tried to attract the attention from the midwife and nurse to this.

“This is childbirth. It’s messy,” was the reply.

The bottom of the bed I was in was almost completely filled with blood and my skin was whiter than the sheets.

“I really don’t think this is normal,” John said. “This isn’t our first rodeo. I’ve never seen this much blood; it is a Niagara Falls of blood.”

“Her blood pressure is fine,” they answered.

It’s when I tried to sit up and my world went black that they finally actually looked. The last thing I heard before I passed out was John yelling: “I told you! If my wife dies I will own this hospital!”

There are no pictures of me from this birth. There were some, but I asked John to delete them. They weren’t pretty. I couldn’t stand to look at them. It’s the closest I will ever come to seeing my own dead body.

The hospital’s fuckery did not end there. I obviously needed a blood transfusion, but they did not have my blood type in stock. Fortunately for me I am type AB+, the universal receiver, and they were able to give me some random blood. I spent two extra days in hospital, receiving transfusions and being monitored, then I was sent home. I looked like something out of a George Romero movie and I felt like a dish rag. It did not help that Corvus was a difficult baby who screamed inconsolably and never slept more than 90 minutes at a time for the first year of his life. I remember telling John: “This one isn’t ours. They gave us the wrong baby.” I knew this wasn’t true, of course, but I was not in my right mind. I felt short of breath. I had no energy. I could barely function. I couldn’t take care of my family. I couldn’t cook or wash their clothes. I felt utterly worthless and hopeless. In this picture of me bathing Corvus, I still look so sick and weak compared to the healthy smiling woman I was just a few days before.

So we ate a lot of frozen burritos. And brownies. I had developed a sudden love for those, even though I never liked them before. I would like to thank the blood donor for life, but I think they also gave me their love for brownies. That’s my theory anyway.

I would cry every time I heated up those burritos. I am a great cook, and I felt so very guilty for serving that crap. I would cry because I yelled at the children so much; exhaustion getting the better of me. There was a moment one early morning, around 4 AM or so, that I almost wondered if Corvus would be better off raised by the wolves out back in the forest. I handed him off to John, lest I do something I’d regret. I had no family nearby, no friends, but I don’t know if that would have mattered much; I was too afraid to ask for help. The home health nurse called incessantly, but I assured her everything was fine. I did not want anyone to see what a mess I was; what a mess my house was. This was not Post Partum Depression. I never had trouble bonding with Corvus. I was physically very ill and I was unable to rest to recover.

I see tenderness in those pictures, but I don’t recognize myself. That is not me. Compare them to a picture taken right after Draco’s birth and you’ll see what I mean.

So why would I buy frozen burritos and brownies? Why would I be nostalgic for such a terribly dark time in my life? Because there was light in the darkness too. That light came in the form of my husband, who never lost patience with me. When I was in bed, crying over what a terrible mother I was, he would bring the children into bed with me and read to us all. He read and read. He read the Hobbit and Lord of the Rings. He read the Prydain Chronicles. His Saintly patience and soothing voice filled me with such love. He always made me feel better.

But I’m certainly not the only person who feels nostalgia for bad times. There are people who have seen much greater hardships than I ever have, and still feel wistful for those times. A great example are some of the stories from Secondhand Time: The Last of the Soviets, by Svetlana Alexievich. It is a difficult read, because some of the stories are so terrible and so painful. John could not finish that book. He found it too depressing, but I enjoyed it, because I could understand why there were still some people who could look back at those times and feel some kind of warmth. Another great example is the movie Good Bye, Lenin! The movie is about a boy named Alex who lives in East Germany. Right before the fall of the Soviet Union and the reunification of Germany, his mother sees him take part in an anti-communist protest, has a heart attack and slips into a coma. When she wakes from her coma, her doctor tells Alex that too much excitement might cause another heart attack. Alex then puts up an elaborate ruse, including making fake television shows and searching the garbage cans for old, East German pickle jars, to trick his mother into believing nothing has changed.

In the end it turns out that Alex’ mother knew all along that the world had changed, and his crazy antics to put on a show for her were really for himself. It was he who was nostalgic for the past, not his mother. It’s definitely worth watching.

I would like to close by saying that if you are experiencing mental health problems, post partum or otherwise, do not be afraid to ask for help. No one will think less of you. It’s also ok to eat bad burritos. It’s ok to eat them often and serve them to your kids; it will cause no permanent harm to children. Some day you might even find yourself in the frozen isle, buying them again for some inexplicable reason.