Buttered toast
It was 4 a.m. and I was awoken by a piercing shriek of a woman, followed by loud wailing. Then a rush of footsteps and whispers of comfort. I glanced at my baby — a few hours old. He was fast asleep. Though the will was there, there was no strength to investigate what was happening outside my curtains. So I went back to sleep. I woke up around 7 a.m. I had slept 5 hours. After a week of trying to get him out, and 12 hours of labour where I wasn’t allowed to eat anything, I was wheeled into the bay in the hospital an hour after midnight and given a tray of food. My reward (apart from the breathing baby wrapped up) was a buttered piece of toast, biscuits, and tea. My sister-in-law, who had my niece 5 weeks before me through C-section, had said to me that this was going to be the “best buttered toast” of my life. As a lifelong fan of buttered toast for breakfast, but a picky eater (Is the bread freshly baked? Is it thickly sliced? Is the butter French or from a local farm at least), I thought it was doubtful. But oh was she right.
The toast was cold by the time it got to my lips. It was compressed as if someone had pressed hard upon it with cold butter as it came out of the toaster to use the heat to make the butter glide. It’s a tough thing to do. The bread was white farmhouse but not the thickly sliced kind. It was thin and I could almost hear the butter knife scorching the surface of the beautiful browned part that had been lit up by the toaster as I looked at it.
What was surprising to me and my husband who got whisked away as the midwife spoke to me in a hushed voice and I wolfed down the food as quietly as I could, how could this be the most nutritiously dense meal they could provide to me in a hospital after 12 hours of hunger? But I didn’t complain even though my husband looked at me with concern “But it isn’t even French butter and the bread’s not brioche or sourdough!”. He finds my love for artisan, independently produced goods amusing but even he looked past that in this moment. I couldn’t concentrate on anything but eating. After all, it was the best-buttered toast at that moment. It was my reward for getting cut up, burnt, and stitched up to bring a tiny crying baby into the world. I had earned it. I happily accepted my reward.
Before he left (visitors had to leave by 10 pm but the baby had only been born after midnight so he got to see me till the bay), he hastily plopped all the snacks I had gotten for my hospital stay on my table. Alas, my tea ran out (and I felt too conscious to call the midwife for a refill in case she felt I was too demanding) so it was either eating dry Namak paray with water or just going to sleep. I decided to sleep.
Visitors were only allowed from 8 am so around 7 am the midwife came to introduce herself, show me that I had been peeing without realising it (“I cannot believe it — please can you show it to me” and then “Wow this is magic”), and give me pain medication. She told me the breakfast lady would be coming by and that I should try to move my body today and take a shower. The thought of showering was both exciting and terrifying because I didn’t know what would happen if water fell on my scar. Was it going to hurt? Would I be able to stand up? What if I fell? I pushed these thoughts aside marking it “post-breakfast worry” in my mental calendar. I excitedly waited for breakfast because it was still another hour before my husband got to the bay and the baby was blissfully asleep. I could finally enjoy a full breakfast and make use of the carb-fuelled drowsiness to nap some more (my midwife suggested I nap every second I could while the baby slept). As I waited for the breakfast lady (it was never a man), I noticed how my body looked and felt. I had expected my face to be sticky and oily because of how warm the ward was (this is to help newborns who can’t self-regulate their temperatures for the first days). It wasn’t. I looked down on my bruised hand where cannulas had been attempted to be inserted by a midwife until she gave up and an Anaesthesist got it in on the second attempt. It felt heavy, and sore and there was dried blood over it. It felt grim. I dipped a piece of tissue in a cup of water I had from last night and scrubbed it.
That looked and felt better. The pain medication had started to come through so when I moved, it felt less sore. My cheeks felt the radiation of love and relief washing over me as I looked over to my newborn — only a few hours out of the womb — as a voice called out “Breakfast”. Excitedly, I croaked “Yes!”, desperate to get a wholesome meal to give me strength and fill my belly. The breakfast lady parked her tiered food trolley outside of my bay. It was made of steel and though I could see each tier had a white plate on it, the items on it were not visible. She cleaned my table was now crowded with the tray from my buttered toast and pushed aside my snacks and skincare bag.
The white plate was laid down. It was warm to the touch. My mouth watered. I braced myself for a highly anticipated meal. And there it was.
Two slices of buttered toast and a mug of tea.
p.s This post has been written in the spirit of humour.
