Read Love... And Sleepless Nights MAY 2012 Online
Authors: Nick Spalding
I trot over to the chair which Melina vacates. She retires to the couch at the back of the room, no doubt wondering whether this visit was such a good idea.
Laura grips my hand like a vice and squeezes the life out of it as another contraction begins.
‘Jesus, fucking shit, cunt, fucker, bastard, wanker, fucking cunt, double fuck!’ screams my wife.
…just as my mother and father walk in.
With foresight and a level of common sense I’m astounded I’m able to produce at this stage in the game, I usher mum and dad out of the room before Laura can launch into a diatribe about how it’s their fault she’s pregnant because they gave birth to me.
‘I think it’d be best if you waited in the lounge,’ I tell them. ‘There’s a coffee machine there. It’s very good.’
They are allowed to give perfunctory greetings to Laura, Marigold and Melina, but I get them out of earshot before yet another foul-mouthed contraction can begin.
Throwing a couple of out of date magazines their way I once again enter the pit of the demon.
With my hand once more going purple and having the life crushed out of it, I try my level best to help Laura through this ordeal – willing the baby inside her to hurry up and be born.
Finally… FINALLY, Marigold utters the words we’ve been desperate to hear. ‘It’s time. You’re ten centimetres dilated. Time to have a baby.’
‘Excellent!’ I crow. ‘About time too. This has been bloody awful!’
Marigold and a couple of orderlies wheel Laura out of the room and down to the birthing suite, while Melina very graciously stays behind to help me off the floor where I’ve collapsed, having just been punched in the testicles.
Monday, December 2nd continued…
The best way I can describe labour is like being on the biggest rollercoaster in the world, while someone is poking your uterus with a red hot egg whisk.
I know every woman’s labour is different, but if yours was anything like mine Mum, can I just say a heartfelt thank you for not throwing yourself out of the nearest window, and successfully giving birth to me?
My labour comes in waves.
At first the swell is slow and the waves high, but as the minutes and hours go by the sea gets choppier, the waves come crashing in much harder and faster, and before you know it the coastguard is putting out severe weather warnings.
In the end, I was
extremely
lucky and had a short labour of eight hours. I have no idea how women go through twenty plus hours of that shit.
It was the most unpleasant few hours of my life, since we went to see Avatar and got stuck in a traffic jam on the way home.
I have to confess that the pain may have made me just a
tad
difficult to be around.
I know that’s hard to believe, but the lack of an epidural to help with the hideous contractions left me feeling somewhat
testy
.
There’s every chance I
may
have said a few swearwords.
…just a few.
I can’t really describe the chaotic mixture of thoughts and emotions that whirled around my head as they took me to the room where I’d deliver the baby.
Terror, relief, panic, excitement, dread, exhaustion… and a slight worry that I may never be able to have
more
children, thanks to the knock-out punch I’d just administered to Jamie’s testicular region.
‘Right then!’ Marigold says as I’m wheeled into place next to a series of machines I hope I’m not going to need. ‘Feet up, leg’s wide apart!’
I do as I’m bid. ‘Where’s Doctor Abbotson?’ I wonder. My obstetrician should be here. I know he’s busy and has left much of the fun to Marigold, but I’d like him here at least as back-up when this delivery occurs.
As if on command Abbotson appears, shouldering a very pained looking Jamie Newman.
My husband is leaning on the little man so much it’s making him wilt. Any minute now the doctor that’s supposed to bring my child into the world is going to collapse from having to haul around twelve stone of Newman senior.
‘Nearly there, Mr Newman,’ Abbotson says in a soothing voice.
It’s me he’s supposed to be using the soothing voice on!
I scream in the vaults of my mind as I go into yet another contraction.
‘Let’s get you over to your wife,’ he continues and helps Jamie – who is still clutching his groin - to a place beside my bed. ‘There we are. Alright there are we?’
Who cares if he’s alright you silly bastard! I’m the one about to push six pounds of humanity out of me!
‘Yeah,’ Jamie says with a wince. ‘That’s great doc. Thanks for your help. Maybe after this you could find me a painkiller?’
‘Excuse me!’ I bellow. ‘I hate to break this up, but I’m HAVING A FUCKING BABY HERE!’
Abbotson blinks in surprise, perhaps realising for the first time his main reason for existence. Instead of addressing me, he looks at Marigold. ‘How is she doing?’
‘All fine,’ Marigold tells him with a wave of her hand. ‘She’s ten centimetres dilated.’
‘Excellent!’ Abbotson squats between my legs. ‘Okay Mrs Newman, I’m going to ask you to start pushing now.’
This is it. I’m going to have a baby.
Ohshitohshitohshitohshitohshitohshitohshitohshitohshitohshitohshitohshit.
It is, without doubt, the worst experience of my life.
I’m sure you’re expecting me to follow up with something trite like ‘but also the best experience of my life’, aren’t you?
…yeah, I don’t bloody think so.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m very pleased with the baby I ended up with, but I’d cheerfully forego the joy of bringing another one into this world, if it means I don’t need to have my fanny sewn together again - if that’s okay with everybody?
I can’t tell you how long the birth took. Jamie says it was no more than ten minutes. To me it felt like ten years. Ten years of burning, stinging, pressure, straining, sweat, crying, screaming, clenching, ripping and shit.
Yes indeed, childbirth really is a
miracle
, isn’t it?
I’d love to tell you that hearing my daughter cry for the first time lit up my eyes and my heart, washing away all the pain and exhaustion. The truth is I barely registered it to begin with. I was too busy crying my brains out on Jamie’s shoulder.
My head stayed buried there while they took care of cutting away the umbilical cord and the afterbirth. This was the part I’d read about with horror in all the maternity books I’d devoured in the first few months of being pregnant, and I was more than happy to let them get on with it while I pretended I was on a deserted beach somewhere.
Eventually, my wits start to re-gather themselves. The awful, awful pain is mercifully starting to recede, though I still feel like my nether regions have been run over by a combine harvester.
Through the fug of bone-deep weariness I hear the high, sharp sound of a baby crying.
For a second there’s a complete disconnect.
Where’s that baby?
I think.
Can’t its mother get it to shut up? I’m trying to enjoy this beach.
Then it hits me…
I’m
its mother.
I’m
her
mother.
‘Hey girl?’ I hear Marigold say in the softest voice she’s used around me. ‘You want to hold your baby now?’
Yes
.
Yes, I do.
A sudden up-swell of tears rises from the depths of my being and now I start to cry with a combination of relief, awe - and not a little pride, if I’m being honest.
I take the very small package into my arms, feeling the undeniable weight of new existence through every fibre of my being.
In a second I will look at Jamie and bring him back into my life, but just for now - just for this briefest of moments, I want it to be just me and her. Me and the baby I’ve created. The single most important act I have accomplished in my years on this planet so far.
I look into her eyes and she looks into mine. We both stop crying, and share a connection for the first time that will not be broken for the rest of our lives.
It is, without doubt, the first time I have ever felt such peace and contentment.
‘Her head’s a bit lumpy,’ observes Jamie from beside us, ‘and I’ve seen
less
wrinkles on a wet bulldog.’
I should probably be angry at my husband for ruining the moment, but I’m not. In fact, as I look up at his creased brow, I can’t help but start to laugh.
‘Angelica?’
‘No.’
‘Caitlin?’
‘No.’
‘Veronica?’
‘No.’
‘Imelda?’
‘No.’
‘Cathy?’
‘No.’
‘Brunhilda?’
I know full well that my husband is trying to get a rise out of me, but I’m not having it. I only woke from a much needed three hours sleep thirty minutes ago and I’m determined not to have the peaceful haze in my brain washed away by his idiotic name suggestions.
‘No.’
‘Consuela?’
‘No.’
‘Marigold?’
‘Very funny.’
Jamie, sensing his attempts at ribaldry are failing miserably, lapses into silence.
I watch him pick at the bed sheet for a few seconds. Something is obviously going through that warped head of his and I fold my arms waiting for whatever new witticism is clawing its way to the front of his cerebellum.
‘Er…’ he begins.
‘Yes?’ I encourage.
‘I have got one sensible suggestion.’
I cock my head. This is an interesting development. ‘Go on?’
‘Well, you never knew my gran, did you?’
‘No.’
‘No. She died six years ago.’
‘I know Jamie.’ This calls for a softening of demeanour. I know Jamie well enough to tell when he’s switched to serious mode.
‘Well, I never really talked to you about her much, but I really loved my gran.’
My blood runs cold.
He’s going to say he wants to call our daughter after his grandmother.
This would be a lovely gesture, and one I’d be happy to get behind given that I can’t think of a name for love nor money, but Jamie’s gran was called Ethel. I can’t have a daughter called Ethel.