Motherhood is a Fiction

I took the backseat with my newborn daughter, looking at nothing in the city, even though I’m seeing it. My memory of it was gone as we sped home.

“Oh, you’re going home already?” Said the nurses. “Yes, we are,” I replied to her with some confusion as we packed. The last time I recall—and that was around a month before that conversation—the package we pay is meant for 3 3-day stay post-labor, and the nurse should’ve known it. We didn’t want to pay more than what we had intended to, and we didn’t know if we could stay longer for the same price. We exhausted our money for our engagement and wedding, which was cancelled because it was set right on the week the world’s mobility was suddenly put on hold due to the pandemic. Even though my husband is sometimes a bit of a positive man on his own right, “It’d be fine, we can borrow some money from my family if we can’t afford the labor,” he mentioned once, but the reality is our family economy was tight.

In parallel with our money, we’ve exhausted our mental and physical energy trying normal labor halfway through before deciding to do a cesarean. I myself couldn’t understand any woman who can get through normal labor without sedation whatsoever. Their mental and hip strength must have been as strong as a tsunami. Constantly doing toilet business on the table every half an hour was miserable enough. For my husband, sleeping on the hospital room’s couch for three nights was a curse of its own. In this pandemic, nothing would’ve changed whether we stayed at the hospital or not; we were both alone anywhere. So we drove home.

I took the backseat with my newborn daughter, looking at nothing in the city, even though I’m seeing it. My memory of it was gone as we sped home. I didn’t long for it too, even though we had missed it for 4 days. My mind was hazily directed to the bundle of a creature in the backseat. Sleeping. Unknowing the world together with me.

We arrived at home around 6 pm, greeted by our yellow frangipani—a tree that most superstitious Indonesians believe as a mystical tree, a host of haunting souls. Not knowing where else to put her in our house, I put her on the dining table within a thin, collapsible baby bed. One of the many baby care tools and objects I’d soon resell for its uselessness. I think coming home at 6 pm during the pandemic era was a bad decision. Natural lights are gone, but the indoor lights don’t have enough dark backdrop to shine brightly to a misty mind. Gladly, our first housemaid was a bright and positive person. She became the first outside the doctors who rejoice in person for the new baby. She said, “Masyaallah, such a beautiful girl.” A simple and soothing acknowledgement that became the point where she sort of turned into one of our women saviors.