Guilt and Cigarettes -continued

Hey lovely people after the seriously helpful and inspiring comments I have had I now present the other half of this chapter.... it's not edited it's a first draft and flows on from the other piece I posted. 

I woke up the next day. 

"You've been asleep a good 12 hours ", explained the nurse as she brought me a drink of water. "I think the Pethidine knocked you out completely and even the doctor came by and pinched your toes at one point" 

She pulled the curtains around me and examined my stitches. It felt like I was sitting on barbed wire. Maybe it was a punishment for my misbehaviour. Maybe they'd stitched me right up and I'd  never have sex again, maybe they all hate me. My head was filled with stories , I had to tell myself something to reinforce my feelings of total worthlessness guilt and shame. 

Afterwards, I looked around the ward. There were smiling faces, babies crying, people cooing and families celebrating. 

Then there was me. 

It was as if I was in an invisible bubble that had accidentally rolled onto the ward. I should have been in another room. The one where they put naughty girls who couldn't keep their legs crossed. The one where people would throw scorn on you and look down their noses and sniff at you. 

"I want to see my baby", I asked the nurse. 

She looked alarmed, "that's really not a good idea Joanna". 

"I really want to see my baby", I implored. 

"We are worried that if you see your baby you will bond and it will be more difficult to give him away". 

Give him away. give him away! That's the phrase she used. Like I was giving away a second hand book. Like it was the easiest thing to do in the world. "Oh I'll just give him away, anyone want him?" Give him away implied I didn't care. It suggested I couldn't be bothered with him anymore. 

I felt anger bubbling, I felt distressed, my breasts were filling with milk, my hormones raced, I wanted to scream, to plead to demand, I wanted to be anywhere but where I was. 

"I have to do this, I won't change my mind I promise, I just want him to know I cared", I begged the nurse. 

"I'll check with someone and come back" and with that she left me. 

I tried not to make any eye contact with the other parents around me, I didn't want them to judge me. I didn't want to feel more worthless than I already felt. I didn't want to dissolve. 

The nurse came back with the ward sister. "Come with us and we'll take you to see the baby". 

I dutifully followed the nurses down the ward to the nursery at the end and peered into the window. There were several cots with either a pink or blue bundle inside. Some wriggling some still. 

One of the nurses went in and pointed to a still blue bundle. "This is your baby". 

My heart leapt. I wanted to cry. I wouldn't cry. I didn't want them to think I was weak and helpless. 

The nurse scooped the little bundle into her arms and held him close to her. He wailed and wriggled. He knew. I knew he knew. The nurse was not his mother. 

"Im here, I'm here", I tried to telepathically communicate with him. "I love you please don't hate me".

There is no greater love than that of a mother for her child. In that moment I knew that one look was never going to be enough. I had to hold him. 

A couple of days later the Ward Sister came to see me and said that they were moving four ladies to a nursing home and that I was one of them. I was to go with my baby. 

I sat in the back of an ambulance with three other mothers. I looked down as I cradled my infant son. This was the first time I'd held him. I peered at his dark blue eyes, his tiny fingers and toes. His near perfect nose and rosebud lips. He was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen up to that point in my whole life. 

For a further 10 days I fed him, bathed, and changed nappies. I studied him, I talked to him and one of the other mothers kindly took a photograph of him for me. I still have that photo today. 

The 3 other mothers in my room, never passed judgement on me. They were kind and considerate and told me what a beautiful baby I had. 

The 10 days I spent with my baby seemed the longest 10 days ever. I made the use of each moment ensuring that I could spend as much time as possible with him. For that 10 days I was a mother.  A young inexperienced one, a short term one, but a mother none the less. 

"Doesn't your mummy love you, poor little thing". I caught these words being spoken to my baby in the nursery by one of the nurses. I went back to the room and lay on my bed.  The familiar feelings of guilt and worthlessness slammed into me. I wanted to defend myself but felt incapable. Inside I knew I loved my baby. I wasn't giving him up for adoption because I didn't want or love him. It was because that's how it was, how it had been decided. I needed to tell him. Needed him to know that I loved him. 

I quickly went back to the nursery and picked him out of his cot. "I want you to know I love you, I could never not love you, you will be in my heart, please forgive me." 

I looked deep into his beautiful eyes and hoped upon hope that at some level he knew what I was saying. 

A few days later my parents came to collect me to take me home. I don't recall saying goodbye. 

I have long since buried the pain of that parting. I just know that I cried. I didn't stop crying for days and days. I sank into a depression. I stayed in my room existing on anti depressants, sleeping pills and self devaluing thoughts. I hated myself. I hated my parents. I hated everyone. I couldn't cope. I didn't know how to cope, I didn't know how to feel other than worthless. I was fragile, broken to pieces and alone. 

My parents and especially my mother didn't offer any support other than to reinforce their belief that this was the best outcome for all involved. I should now move on. It was treated like a bad case of the measles. Once the spots had gone it was all forgotten. Everything was fine now. Life could resume. 

The midwife visited me for the first couple of weeks at home. I was in some discomfort as the milk had come into my breasts. So she bound them. This caused more pain than ever but it eventually  stopped the milk production. I imagined it was how one might feel in a straight jacket. 

When I finally ventured out to register the birth and then 6 weeks later sign the adoption papers I looked into every pram I passed, expecting and hoping to see my baby boy. I wanted to take the babies I saw. Just in case one was mine. A baby cried and my heart leapt. A baby cried and my breast yearned to feed.  

Up until the point of signing the adoption papers there was always a glimmer of hope that someone would make everything alright and that the nightmare would turn into a beautiful fairy story. The reality was that I walked into a small office all alone and signed a piece of paper relinquishing my parental rights. If you are a parent reading this imagine someone asking you to do that right now. How does it feel? For me it was as if I'd performed my own open heart surgery.

I left the office with a great gaping wound that was bleeding profusely. 

How I didn't die of a broken heart amazes me. We are far stronger than we believe and whilst the pain was so intense and the wound deep, it was not insurmountable and life carried on as 'normal'. My parents told me I'd done the right thing and that now I should forget it and get on with my life. 

However I had no outlet in which to share my grief and no one with whom I could tell about the pain in my heart. 

Over time I integrated the loss into my life. I never allowed myself to properly grieve for the loss and therefore no healing took place. The grief became buried and festered persistently. It would raise its head every so often and I would push it down again. I couldn't deal with it on my own. I had no idea how to and no one offered me any help and support to work through it. 

The only time my mother ever spoke to me about it was when I was about to get married. She wanted to ensure I'd told my fiancée.

Damaged goods, that's all I was.