The Joke Wasn’t Even Funny

We’d been home from the hospital for about a day when Sukari developed postpartum preeclampsia.

A day.

We’d spent three days in the hospital for David’s birth. She was recovering from a C-section. We were new parents, trying to figure things out, and now she needed to go back to the hospital.

I kept thinking I should have known. I should have been more aware of how she looked. I should have recognized something.

But I also had this idea in my head that having the baby was what helped with preeclampsia. Well, we’d already had the baby. So why would I still be worried about that?

I was wrong. Preeclampsia can develop after delivery, even when there were no signs during pregnancy. I didn’t understand that then.

So there I was. A new father with a baby who needed to eat and a wife who needed to feel better. We’d planned to breastfeed. Now Sukari was back in the hospital, and I was trying to figure out how feeding David was going to work.

I had taken a class on how to feed a baby.

But that was a doll. And that wasn’t a bottle of formula with a one-hour clock once the baby started drinking.

The doll didn’t need me to figure anything out. David did.

I hadn’t practiced making bottles of formula. We had a plan, and I’d put a whole lot of trust in that plan.

I do this weird thing where I don’t prepare for the opposite of what I want to happen. Almost like preparing for it would jinx us. As if learning how to make a bottle of formula was the worst thing ever. Thank goodness for the Baby Brezza bottle maker. Seriously, thank goodness.

Saying it out loud, I know how that sounds. Smh.

Thankfully, the hospital offered donor milk and formula. We chose donor milk. It ain’t cheap, but when David was ready to eat, I could feed him.

And I felt accomplished.

There was something he needed that I could do. Something I could take care of while Sukari was dealing with all of this. Anything to help lighten the load. I just wanted her to feel better.

We spent around five days back in the hospital, after the three days for David’s birth. During that stay, as she continued recovering from her C-section, I noticed something.

She’d start straightening things up.

Moving things around in the room. Picking things up. Finding something that needed doing.

I’d be trying to take tasks off her plate, and she’d find another one. She felt like she wasn’t doing enough. Meanwhile, I was looking at her thinking about everything her body had already been through.

I wanted her to take it slow. I wanted her to be able to leave something where it was and let somebody else handle it.

What I needed to say was pretty simple: getting better was enough. She didn’t need to find another job in that hospital room.

But telling your wife to relax can get complicated. Lol.

So I went with humor.

“You keep straightening everything up in here and what will the room staff do when they come in?”

I thought it was funny.

More importantly, I thought she’d hear what I meant underneath it. Please stop worrying about this stuff. It doesn’t need your attention right now.

Instead of saying that directly, I made a joke and hoped it would do the work for me.

A few hours later, she was dealing with incision pain she rated a nine out of ten. She described her insides as feeling like they were on fire.

I looked at her in pain and felt like I should have done more. Been clearer. Said what I meant instead of trying to make it funny.

I don’t know what caused that pain or whether anything I could have said would have prevented it. But sitting there, I kept going back over what I’d said.

The joke wasn’t even funny anymore.

Eventually, we were discharged. Sukari was still recovering, still taking pain medication, and still seeing things that needed to be done.

And honestly, her feeling was natural. There was a lot to do. She wanted to be helpful. Even when I wished she would leave something alone, I understood why she wanted to do it.

Me? I’m gonna let people do it for me until I can’t. Lol.

But we can’t all think the same. My job was to find the words to help her understand that her only job right then was to love the Davids and take a load off.

And because I’m so smooth with my words, the conversation went exactly how you’d expect.

“You needa relax, babe,” I said in my stern voice.

I wasn’t playing around.

“But there’s so much to do. David needs his diapers down here. Is he eating enough? Has he taken a poop today? I need to wash this. I need to fold that.”

Her mother was there. Grandma Cat had come down from Massachusetts for two weeks to visit her first grandchild, and we hadn’t even been home for the first week.

“Ask your mom to do it,” I replied, frustrated that she didn’t immediately understand she was doing the most.

In my head, this made sense. We had help. Let’s give Grandma Cat some of the things we needed done while we spent time with David.

“I’d rather do it myself so I kn—”

I cut her off.

“So you’d know what? That you ’bout to be in more pain shortly after? Just sit here on this recliner and sip ya tea and drink some water. We all know you not drinking enough damn water.”

Interesting approach, David.

I’m not perfect. I’m working on my communication. ::shrug::

After that comment, I strategically walked off, knowing she wasn’t gonna get up to follow me.

She needed a break and wasn’t going to take one by herself. So I helped her, right?

I mean…she ended up taking one.

But getting her to sit down that afternoon didn’t mean I’d figured this whole thing out. I wanted her to trust that I had things handled. Meanwhile, I was getting frustrated because she couldn’t just turn off everything she was thinking about. Diapers. Feeding. Laundry. All of it was still running through her head, even sitting in that recliner.

It wasn’t a smooth transition.

These days, mornings are typically daddy and David time while Sukari goes to yoga, takes a walk, or does whatever she wants to do during her break. That’s a long way from those first days home, when even getting comfortable was work.

I’m still working on how I say it. In the meantime, those mornings give me a chance to show her what I meant by “I got things.”

She can take her break. I’ve got our boy.