Posted on March 2, 2015
Day three
After the horrific ordeal that was my labour (one day I’ll blog about it as a free virtual contraception to any readers still around to hear me complain) my wonderful midwife came over for our first check. She weighed baby and did the usual midwife type things and then she said as she left: “Remember, around day three you’ll suddenly feel very emotional. This is hormonal. And it’s normal. Just be ready for it. If you start to feel out of control just take a breath.”
I immediately forgot this advice while staring at my little bundle of perfection who had been born only eight hours or so earlier.
On the morning of Day Three I was feeling very smug. I still had that adrenaline-fuelled-happy-happy-thank-all-of-the-Gods-I’m-not-pregnant-anymore-look-at-my-perfect-baby rush going on. I was dressed which I felt was a huge achievement. I was still feeling powerful (but in an I survived a massacre kind of way) about my son’s birth. A coffee was all I needed and my day would be perfect.
I turned on my new coffee machine.
The little light with the beautiful little outline of a coffee didn’t turn on.
What the fuck?
I pressed it again, but the little light with the little outline of a coffee didn’t turn on.
I shook the machine. The light. It didn’t fucking turn on.
I took the thing out of the thing. It didn’t turn on.
I hit the machine. It didn’t turn on.
Suddenly I knew with every fibre of my being that this was my husband’s fault. He had clearly broken the machine. Never mind that he doesn’t drink coffee. That was a minor detail. I bet he fucking broke it and didn’t fucking fix it. Probably because he doesn’t drink coffee. And you just can’t trust people who don’t drink coffee, even if you’re married to them.
Then, like a deer about to be hit by a leaking truck fuelled not by petrol but by pure incandescent rage, my husband walked nonchalantly into the kitchen.
“The coffee machine won’t work. You need to fix it,” I told him.
“Can you just have a coffee at my mum’s?” He said in a perfectly reasonable tone. “We are already late”.
“HOW DARE YOU. HOW VERY DARE YOU,” I screeched. “FIRST YOU GET ME PREGNANT AND THEN YOU DENY ME COFFEE. YOU FUCKING MONSTER.”
My husband blinked at me. “Don’t you think you’re overreacting a bit? It’s just coffee. Just have one at mum’s.”
“JUST COFFEE? JUST. COFFEE. WHO EVEN ARE YOU??”
I launched into a 45 minute attack that covered most of his suddenly apparently numerous failings and the fact that there’s only instant coffee at his mum’s. “Why can’t you just fix the machine that you broke so I can just have the one thing I need in this world?” Clearly our marriage was in trouble if he couldn’t do this one thing that would make me so happy. Suddenly I was devastated, I had always thought we had a good marriage. People had commented on how good our marriage was. And now, it was all a lie. We would need to divorce probably. What kind of impact would this have on Christmas? I don’t want to have to fucking drive on Christmas Day when Christmas Day is clearly a day for drinking too much. What if he got a girlfriend? What if he married someone? What if my new baby called her mum????
He picked up the nappy bag.
“Are you leaving me?” I cried.
He stared at me utterly bewildered.
I began sobbing.
I was clearly a terrible wife. I adored him. And I didn’t want to raise two kids on my own. I didn’t want my kids being raised by some other woman who would probably be far more attractive than me. But he did break the coffee machine.
“Umm I don’t know what’s going on with here but I think we should just go to mum’s and we can buy you a proper coffee on the way there”.
We cannot afford a proper coffee I thought. We are so broke. What are we going to do? Now I have no coffee machine. I can’t buy coffee and I can’t make coffee at home. I’ll have to go back to work tomorrow even though it’s Sunday and the office will be closed. I won’t be able to bond with my baby. He will turn into a serial killer. I’m going to ruin my precious baby’s life. I fell to the kitchen floor sobbing.
“I am a terrible mother,” I wailed. “Just leave. Take the kids. They’re better off without me”.
My husband stared at me with a look of confused fear on his face. He walked slowly over to the coffee machine trying to avoid turning his back to me. He maintained eye contact. His movements were slow and deliberate.
He turned the power on at the wall. He pressed the button. The little light with the little outline of the coffee cup turned on.
***
If you liked this, follow me on Facebook for more of the same. I’m on Instagram too!
So accurate, it hit me the feelings like a sledgehammer. And then I laughed. But, seriously. Coffee.
Oh my god this is the best fucking thing I have ever read ever. I want to be your pen pal. Or wife. Whichever.
Oh Luv! Don’t we have those moments! Mine was out and about, trying to get the baby asleep….. Walking in nature….And suddenly I hated my other half!….. I never used to be able to do that, never…. Pesky hormones x
Ha ha ha laughed aloud so hard and quietly my eyes watered . After a full day of scrubbing us and the house because we’ve got fuckin nits. (And my ex refused to treat our son because well she didn’t really look. )
I am so loving your posts!! I’ve read this one twice now and have laughed SO hard! Thank you for making light something that once felt so heavy to me. May your coffee machine always work 🙂
Hahaha I think “May your coffee machine always work” should be the blessing of all parents around the world! Thanks Rebecca <3
So fucking funny!!! I pissed myself laughing! You’ve made my day!
I’ll admit, I laughed over this, but only because I’ve been there. I would be fine, getting everything accomplished, feeling on top of the world… then bam! one small thing went wrong and the whole world crashed around me. Gotta love them hormones… right… On a side note, coffee is very important in this house too!
Reblogged this on Vix's Blogalog and commented:
This woman is a genius. I’ve not had a baby but I’m pretty sure I’ve had one of these meltdowns at some point! Just brilliant.
I don’t have any children but I’m pretty sure I’ve had one of these moments! Fuck women can be hard work! Lol x
Yep. Lol
To be fair, hormones or not, that’s not a wholly unreasonable reaction to not getting your coffee. Source: three year barista veteran.
Hahaha quite true!
Another great post! I love that the machine just wasn’t switched on, that’s baby brain for you!
HAHAHA… Nobody warned me about Day Three! I jumped in the shower for the first time after delivering my baby after a c-section and remembered the delivery nurse telling me to step carefully into the shower when I went home so I wouldn’t slip and rip my incision.
All of a sudden I MISSED her. Seriously missed her like she was a member of my family. I stood in the shower bawling my eyes out. When I finally pulled it together and got out of the shower I chewed my husband’s head off for letting leave the hospital early and not letting me stay with the nurse who would take care of me….The look on his face was a deer caught in headlights. I think I cried in the shower every day for a week after that.
I swear, we are the same person !
My children are grown and I love your blogs!! I remember all the ungrateful comments when ever you had a little complaint about your child. Things are not always easy but they don’t last forever. You have the right to be exhausted and not like it. Grateful my children are out of college and off the payroll and it doesn’t mean I live them any less then the parents who have children in there mid twenties still living at home.
#iamgrateful
Brilliant! I read you have censored your first post and as a mother I shouldn’t approve of bad language but it is hilarious. Keep blogging you’re great
Quiet laughing so hard I may have done a little wee!! So, it starts on day 3…. but when does it end? Before children, I was relatively normal, now I find myself crying at Police Interceptors and raging at Barbie The Secret Door… It’s been 7 years of child-induced instability !
Haha Abi – I don’t know when it ends?? I cried reading Giraffes Can’t Dance to my toddler. That giraffe just wants to dance! Why are the other animals such jerks to him????
They are so fucking mean!! Seriously, how is Gerald weird for wanting to dance but lions doing the tango is totally fine with everyone?
Right? They’re a bunch of judgemental assholes. If I was Gerald I’d just be like “fuck all of you, none of you get to watch my sweet moves”.
This is probably why I’m not an author of children’s books though.
Why do kids authors write such tearjerker stories?! Trying to read past that lump in my throat without sobbing gets painful.It’s been 8yrs…
PS don’t read death, duck and the tulip, it will break your heart
LOL, funniest thing ever….but just wait till you get your period back for the first time…that is what my poor husband is going through at the moment! I have 15 months worth of PMT about to be opened on his ass!
I had that feeling for 18mths after my son (second child) was born… poor husband was the cause of it all! We were both terrified I’d go thru’ it all again with number 3. Luckily it was day 3 and 4 only…but he came to the hospital to take us home on day three and it was all on!! So classic to read others went thru’ it too…. I was scolded by staff and told to grow up 34 years ago… Bless you little mummy!
the midwives hammered us during our ante natal classes: “you will feel like shit on day three. Look out for day three. Dads, bring flowers on day three.” My partner turned up at the hospital on day three, with flowers and cheese and chocolate and lots of smoochy love. We had a lovely picnic gazing at our perfect new baby. Then day three hit on day four. Ouch.
That made me laugh Jess! There’s no dodging Day Three!
My husbands family has a history of l o n g pregnancy’s so I ended up full induction ending in C-sec
‘day 3′ cat comes home, after four days of short rations he weighs’ 6lb soaked nb was 10lb… cats pathetic noise and weightlessness must indicate his imminent death!
I am so glad I found this blog. I have been there, in your husband’s shoes. Laughed a little two hard at those memories.
Just coffee? JUST COFFEE?
Truely a monster.
It was probably still his fault. He shouldn’t have turned it off at the wall. And shouldn’t he be making you, the bearer of his off-spring, a coffee so soon after spitting out that latest one.
I like the way you think Char!
LOVED every word!!!!
Oh god do I remember those days, VIVIDLY. I’ve done it twice and every time I hear prego mom’s talk about what it’s going to be like after the birth I— keep my mouth SHUT! Because I know it’s going to suck, for a while, and they’ll know it then too. Why burst their bubble now!
I can’t even remember how many times I cried upon walking into the kitchen and seeing that the french press wasn’t clean from the day before. It was like someone actually shattered my entire world. I actually threw myself on the floor more than once. It was just a stark reminder that every inch of my being had been rendered so useless through sheer exhaustion that I couldn’t muster the strength to wash one dish. And, I didn’t have coffee at that exact moment. Comments like, “just rinse it out,” from my husband were obviously not helpful.
This is absolutely brilliant! I can relate on so many levels. My day three happened at the maternity unit. I was eating soup and crying because the soup was so comforting. Full on, streaming eyes, snotty nose, ugly sobbing. Couldn’t quite explain that one to darling husband.
my husband walked in to our bedroom on day 3 and found me sobbing my eyes out. “What the fuck’s the matter with you?” was his ever-so supportive response. He then did his best to avoid me in case he had to deal with any more emotions. He is a counsellor by the way.
My husband and I snort laughed reading this. My meltdown moment was triggered by a lack of a fan in my new hospital room. The nurse went and stole one from a midwives office. I still miss my nurse.
keep writing, you brighten my sleep deprived times 🙂
I could read everything you have to say for the rest of my life. All day, everyday.
Don’t ever stop writing…please?
Oh my god, I read this to my husband before bed as I was laughing so much. I remember my Day Three at the hospital, walking outside the room and bursting in to tears at the sight of my husband and the midwife talking at the desk, quickly being escorted back inside and distracted. However, my husband declared that wasn’t really my ‘day three’ apparently it happened a couple of days later when we were going out…I was giving directions, I told him to go right…but pointed left enthusiastically with my left arm. He went with the arm. Bad move. I screamed at him that he should have gone right, and that the traffic we were now stuck in was his fucking fault for not listening. And then I cried until we got to our destination. He said he just gripped on to the steering wheel, stared ahead and turned the radio up, hoping I would recover myself before we stopped.
I found breast pads very effective for mopping up tears!
I laughed so hard! I knew where it was going from the first but it was truly an excellent way to get there. Then the next night I rang my Mum and read it to her over the phone and we both laughed and talked about the exciting few days after my daughter was born (stayed with her for the first two months, thank god!). As a single parent I doubt that I could cope with a husband too 😀 xx
Your writing is awesome. Please, please please write more. I completely understand where you are coming from. I had a moment (well, probably several) where I screamed at my husband that he was stealing food from our unborn child because he was eating the only food that didn’t make me nauseated. You’re a fantastic mum. Thanks for sharing!
Another great post. Love it! The coffee machine meltdown sounds exactly how I would have reacted, and I would have forgotten to turn it on at the wall too x
You must write a book. It’s one I’d read and not just use to decorate my nightstand.
This is just wonderful! I can’t wait to read more!
I had this very meltdown two weeks ago. Freaked the fuck out at my husband for being an instant coffee drinking piece of shit that just didn’t care about the fact that the coffee machine was the best thing to come out of the day we got married, brought a broken second hand machine for waaaay too much off trade me by accident. I finally took my first coffee machine in to get fixed, it took a part so common, they gave it to me for free. Marriage saved.
Ps, I really do love my husband. He just doesn’t understand coffee is all.
Pps, day three is real! I warn all my friends about it (in a super supportive way)
It’s such a hard road when your partner doesn’t understand the importance of coffee.
Seriously. Please write a book! My day 3 was when I left the hospital with my daughter who would not stop crying as I was packing my hospital bags. She settled as soon as the midwife picked her up. I wailed as soon as I got in the car!