Chapter 7 - The Ambulance Ride
I climbed into the back of the rushing ambulance alongside the lead paramedic, holding Lily’s tiny, limp hand in mine. Her skin felt cool, her breathing distressingly shallow beneath the oxygen mask.
“Is she going to be okay?” I sobbed, tears blurring my vision as the vehicle swerved through suburban traffic lights.
“She’s receiving oxygen now, and we’re administering a saline flush to help clear her system,” the paramedic replied professionally, his hands flying across monitors. “The pediatrician caught it just in time. Another thirty minutes under the influence of that depressant and her respiratory system could have shut down completely.”
My stomach heaved with a mixture of grief, rage, and sheer terror.
For seven days, I had blamed my exhaustion, my postpartum hormones, and my own perceived anxiety for the gut feelings telling me something was wrong. Every time I tried to nurse Lily alone, Judith had hovered. Every time I tried to put her down in her bassinet, Judith had criticized my swaddle. And Ryan—my husband—had consistently taken his mother's side, calling me high-strung and overprotective.
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They weren't trying to help me adjust to motherhood. They were trying to take control of my child, molding her into their own domestic doll while drugging her into submission whenever she cried.
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