by Jane Yeadon
We smothered a giggle whilst Matron, another tome to hand, was according it equal respect. Whilst her hands obliterated the author’s name, the title in gold lettering was clear: The Student Midwives’ Guide to Midwifery.
‘I’d recommend you buy this textbook because it covers the first six-month part of your course and has all the necessary material for the exam which you’ll have to pass before taking the second part.’
‘The girls may have already bought the Myles’ Book of Midwifery,’ Miss Harvey said. ‘It’s very comprehensive, written by a Scots woman – an Aberdonian, in fact.’
Matron looked her up and down before giving a disapproving sniff. ‘Well, of course Aberdeen has a reputation in its own right.’ Hostility was contained even if somewhere close a shillelagh and claymore might be readying for battle.
As well as having taken up half my luggage, the thick volume that lay on the desk before me had been recommended by The Midwives’ Almanac. I hadn’t properly looked at it, since the photographs of grimlooking nurses with hems trailing the ground were hardly pageturners . Added to that were graphic pictures of so many dire abnormalities in pregnancy and labour it would have had anybody demanding an early exit strategy and clamouring for contraception clinics. No wonder it wasn’t on Matron’s bookshelf.
I couldn’t imagine or want any more information on the subject but the eagle-eyed Margaret had spotted the author’s name on the book Matron was promoting.
‘Pardon me for asking, Matron, but would you have written this?’
‘Since you ask, yes.’ The coy response was a prospect every bit as alarming as the stern countenance befitting the keeper of Belfast’s great unborn, but I wasn’t fooled by the careless shrug. She wanted us to buy that book.
4
A SITE VISIT
‘I presume someone’s putting your name down for you to buy the book?’ Matron asked as Seonaid, legs a blur, was leaving the lecture hall.
‘Ach, no thanks. I’ll buy it when I’ve the money. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve a bit of an emergency.’ She clutched her stomach, rolled her eyes, then sped off. For such a small person she left a big gap.
‘Money management is one of the crucial aspects of operating professionally,’ said Matron coldly, ‘but if the rest of you want, you can put your names down now. Then you can be sure you’ll get this book and have an appropriate reference right from the start.’ She handed out a sheet of paper that we, drone like, signed.
‘They’ll be ready for you this afternoon. My secretary will bring them along. What’s that nurse’s name?’
Miss Harvey seemed to have gone deaf but we got the feeling that Seonaid’s card was already marked. As Matron turned to go, Margaret put up her hand and said, ‘It’d be nice to have your autograph.’
‘Surely that’d spoil it,’ whispered Marie, already checking in her purse. Margaret’s ingratiating way had put my teeth on edge. ‘Sook!’ I muttered.
‘What’s a sook?’ Marie wondered.
I was lofty. ‘Somebody who sucks up to another person higher up, for personal gain.’
A bell with all the subtlety of a Klaxon rang as Matron, giving a gracious incline, left.
‘That’s a sign there’s an imminent birth,’ Miss Harvey explained. She rolled up her sleeves. ‘You need to witness ten and have them recorded and attested in these books before you actually get any hands-on experience.’ She started to hand out small jotters. ‘If you open them you’ll see there’s other things that you’ll need to witness as well as do, so we can be sure you’re getting an all-round practical experience to match the theory.’
The list was formidable and seemed to include everything from breathing to brain surgery.
‘Don’t let it overwhelm you,’ Miss Harvey advised. ‘After all, you’ve a whole year to get through it. Ah, Nurse Fitzsimons.’ Seonaid had returned, looking perky. ‘You’re just in time to collect your record book. Guard this one with your life.’ She tapped it as if typing. ‘There’s no charge, but it’s the most valuable possession you’ll have. If you look inside you’ll see there’s places for signatures from trained staff verifying you’ve completed these tasks. Without this book and without the signatures, you won’t be allowed to sit the finals.’
‘Oh right!’ Seonaid was sanguine as she took the book, tucking it carelessly under her arm. ‘And did I miss anything else?’
‘Only the year’s bestseller. Now don’t lose that one. Right! Let’s get on.’ Miss Harvey swivelled on her heel and pointed to the three words on the blackboard.
Intrigued, I leant forward, wondering what Cynthia and Margaret would make of them. With a bit of luck they’d have a punch-up over the ‘attitude’ one and ease the way to an early coffee break.
The tutor picked up a piece of chalk, holding it like a conductor’s baton. ‘It’s amazing what babies get up to in the uterus,’ she said and sketched a series of differently-shaped balloons, ‘considering the womb – ha ha!’ With a sure hand, she drew a baby in each bubble, beguiling in activities ranging from frolics to resting in angelic slumber.
‘After a little practice, you’ll learn how to identify “Lie”, “Attitude” and “Presentation”. See – this is the best lie, attitude and presentation for a baby to be in before birth.’ She pointed to a little haloed person, perfectly curled up in its bubble, head down and patiently queuing as if waiting for a show to start. ‘Not like this.’ She pointed to a party animal doing a moonie. ‘Not a good way to present.’ She put a cross over its bum sitting over the exit. ‘Breech position! Wrong, babe. Wrong.’ It sounded like a song.
‘Right now,’ she continued, ‘impossible as it may seem, you’re going to learn by observation and palpation,’ her hand described a breadmaking pummel, ‘how a baby lies, and how easy its birth is going to be. Crystal gazing, it is not. No, it’s the practice that’s going to do it, and we’ll make a start this morning after the coffee break when we go to the antenatal ward. Sister’s got a couple of very different patients for us to see.’
The dining room was busy with staff crowding the long easy-wipe tables, some of which flanked a waterfall feature. It had the disconcerting habit of working intermittently.
‘Makes it sound like a gents’ toilet,’ remarked Lorna as we queued at the self-service counter.
‘Too right. Let’s not go near it,’ said Seonaid, loading up her tray with enough coffee and soda scones to feed an army. ‘It’ll make us all want to run at the same time.’
‘That shouldn’t worry you, you’ve just been,’ I said. ‘Anyway, it’s where all the grandees are.’ I nodded at a table full of white coats deep in conversation. ‘They look just as self-important as our lot back in Aberdeen.’
One of the Belfast girls laughed, ‘They’re just the medical students and probably discussing the best place to drink Guinness.’
‘Doesn’t sound too healthy. Think I’ll settle for fruit.’ I smiled at the counter assistant.
‘Pars?’
I looked around. Her look was direct and she was definitely speaking to me.
‘Pars?’ she repeated, beginning to sound exasperated and placing dumbbell arms on her hips. She was short and square and her name tag gave her the unlikely name of Daisy.
‘Could ye make up yer mind? I haven’t all day.’
‘Come on, Janet, we haven’t either. You’re holding us all up. She’s asking if you want a pear.’ The speaker was a young chap queuing behind me. In contrast to his colleague with his jingling change and foxy furrowed face, he had an open, cheerful, relaxed way and leant his back on the counter, hands in his pockets.
Daisy sighed. ‘Youse medical students have no patience. Just hold on, would ye.’ She took a pear, dusted it on her overall then handed it over.
‘Great.’ I wished I’d the courage to ask for one less battle scarred.
‘Grrrreat! Och aye the noo,’ echoed both students, doubling up with mirth.
I could have said they were a right pair but only tho
ught of it when back and following Miss Harvey now taking us into the hospital proper.
Smaller than Aberdeen’s Foresterhill, Belfast’s Royal Maternity felt like an antiseptic railway station where only a train arrival could bring excitement and galvanise the place into action. With its linoleum-grey floor menacing with glitter, the long corridor breathed carbolic whilst the odd notice broke up the putty-coloured walls with suitably improving health and visitor information notices. From a small corridor off the main one came the sound of clinking bottles.
‘That’s where the bottle feeds are made up,’ said Miss Harvey. ‘In the absence of any mother’s home brew, it’s our very own dairy.’
‘But only supplying to babies, I hope, and where’s the main entrance?’ I asked, hoping it was a little more welcoming than the back-door one.
Miss Harvey said, ‘It’s one floor up beside the admission and waiting rooms and of course, as Matron made clear, her office.’ From the cool inference she might have said ‘dragon’s den’ before she continued, ‘People get to the hospital from Grosvenor Road. It’s just off the Falls Road.’
There were wards leading off at the far end whilst nearer was a windowed area looking over a narrow corridor into a glass-enclosed room.
‘That’s the Special Care Unit,’ explained the tutor. We stared into another planet where paper-capped phantoms in white dresses tended to tiny babies in incubators.
Oblivious to all but the one wheeled in its little enclosed world to the corridor between there and the spectating window was a girl in a grubby quilted dressing gown. She gazed through the glass with the concentration of a child outside a sweetshop. As she secured her straggly hair into a ponytail she stood on heeled mules for a better view. She seemed too young to even tie up her own coat.
Enclosed in her bubble, the baby gasped with the stressed endeavour of a newly-landed fish. Occasionally her tiny limbs jerked. A thin feeding line threaded up one nostril and seemed like a gross intrusion on such a fragile existence. The sweetie pink card incongruously announced she was Mary-Jo Fleming. 3lbs. 1oz.
‘Such a big name for a wee girl.’ I was surprised my voice had gone husky, then was clutched by Marie as the girl suddenly froze and started knocking frantically on the window.
‘She’s stopped breathing!’ she yelled. Her fingers scrabbled on the glass. ‘Oh God! Somebody help her. Mother of God, please!’ The cry was heart rending and resounded down that empty corridor where in the distance a baby cried as if in echo.
All bar Seonaid stopped, uncertain what to do whilst she floated to the young woman’s side and took her arm. Miss Harvey had gone ahead but now came back looking puzzled, then pleased, as on the other side of the glass, a turquoise-dressed ball appeared, gently tapped the incubator like a discreet caller and prompted Mary-Jo to kick a leg as if in irritation at being disturbed.
‘Good old Sister Bell, always keeping a lookout,’ said Miss Harvey, noting our collective sigh of relief. ‘Sometimes the premature babies need a wake-up call – they can be so far away they occasionally forget to breathe. She’d have been all right but Mum’s had a fright, poor thing.’
She tapped the girl lightly on the shoulder. ‘Look, my dear, Sister’s signalling for you to see her in her office. See, there’s the door, just down the corridor a bit and I’m sure she’ll put your mind at rest. As for us,’ she looked at her fob watch, ‘we must press on. Antenatal awaits.’
Whoever had designed the ward entrance must have been anticipating either a hurricane, flood or sonic boom. The heavy doors had rubber sealing all the way round, including flaps at the bottom presumably to stop an incoming tide or maybe the noise of screams from the labour ward directly opposite.
From my ward maiding days, I recognised and saluted the hard work and polish spent on the brass handle on which Miss Harvey was now pushing and plainly not expecting the other half of the door to burst open. A burly man in a white coat barged through, practic- ally flattening Cynthia who’d been trying to beat Miss Harvey to it.
‘Mind out!’ he snapped. With the look of a cross turkey cock he shook his wattles and strutted past. His splendour was somewhat dimmed by the following raggle taggle army of medical students, identifiable because my dining room irritants were there and winking as they followed.
‘That’s Professor McQuaid.’ Miss Harvey’s tone was dry. ‘Always in a hurry.’
Margaret fluttered her eyelashes. ‘My surgeon, Jim, used to be a bit like that and sometimes I had to chivvy him a little when he got impatient.’
‘My surgeons were always most courteous.’ Cynthia was indignant. ‘That man’s very rude.’
‘But not as rude as Nurse Macpherson sticking her tongue out at the students,’ Miss Harvey observed. ‘Now come along, class, we’ve work to do.’
5
AN ANTENATAL VISIT
Apart from a couple of women, everybody else was out of bed and being rounded up by a staff midwife in a gender-insensitive pink uniform. Sister Uprichard, labelled and unmissable in red, was handing out vitamin tablets like prizes in a ward that had the congenial atmosphere of a WI meeting where everybody’s jam had set.
She had a kindly way, the rosy cheeks of a countrywoman and the manner of a jolly hostess. Slipping the bottle in her pocket she greeted Miss Harvey with enthusiasm. ‘Top o’ the morn! I’ve just been asking these girls if they’d like to be your guinea pigs,’ she nodded at the two left in bed. They didn’t look too happy.
‘I expect you met the Prof.?’ She slapped her battleship sides and sighed. ‘I’m afraid he was a bit abrupt with them. You know how he can be.’
Miss Harvey cast her eyebrows and gave a laconic, ‘True.’ A word especially suited to a Scot’s accent and making the Irish girls snigger.
Sister Uprichard continued, unperturbed. ‘So I was delighted you and your rookies were coming. You’ll be sure to make them feel useful as well as taking their minds off him saying they’re lucky to be here.’ She gave a vast chuckle gesturing at the ward’s peeling plaster, faded curtains and drab lino. ‘Lucky!’
Long windows gave out onto the blank walls of the general hospital, and from somewhere not far away, plumbing sounds emanated with a clank and splash. Yet, despite these dingy surroundings, the place was full of bright chat.
‘Ach, Sister, you’ve got it like a holiday camp, it feels so free an’ easy,’ said one girl waving the air to let her nail varnish dry. ‘I can’t think why Staff ’s taking us away to relaxation classes when we could be enjoying the craic here.’ In an exhaust of California Poppy scent, she joined the others, a fleet of tug boats chugging past.
‘Better for me but up to you,’ Sister said, starting to pull the curtains round the bed of our first patient. ‘You’ll be running soon enough. But be sure and come back. A wee bird told me some of you sneaked out the other night and came back the worse of the wear. It’s no wonder we’ve confiscated your outdoor clothes. Locked them away until you’re ready to go home.’
‘Ah now, Sister, you wouldn’t want to be depriving us of a bit of fun would ye?’
‘Yes I would – especially if you didn’t ask me to come along and chaperone you.’
The girl chuckled, ‘A bit late for that!’ and hurried to catch up with the others.
‘Girls!’ sighed Sister Uprichard and turned to a very young redhead. ‘Now poor Mrs Campbell here’s not thinking of going anywhere with her first baby making her a martyr to sickness. We’ve had to take her in to stop her from getting run down. A change of environment is meant to be part of the cure, but as you’ll see she’s taken a florist’s shop with her.’
Apart from the chrome sickness bowl taking up space on her locker there were flowers crowded into every possible area, their splashes of colour in bright contrast to the girl’s ashen face.
‘My, but somebody must think you’re special.’ Miss Harvey nodded at a photograph stuck behind the sickness bowl. ‘And would that be your husband?’
The handsome fellow leaning agai
nst the tractor could have been an advertisement for toothpaste or the joys of agriculture.
The girl gave an indifferent shrug and a pout so eloquent I thought I might practise one like it as soon as I found a mirror.
‘That’s William. And he wouldn’t be half as cheerful if he was having this baby.’ She started to retch, tiny shrew-like hands blindly searching for the bowl just out of reach.
‘Quick, Nurse Smythe, help her.’
Cynthia did, looking horrified as vomit splattered her apron whilst at the same time a doctor stuck his head round the screen.
‘Sorry to bother you but d’you mind if I take some blood, Denise?’
He was tall with sleepy eyes which might have explained the lack of observational skills but Miss Harvey made him register with an irritated, ‘This is definitely not a good time, Doctor, so if you want to do something really useful you could take Nurse Smythe here and show her where she can clean up.’
His gaze swung lazily round the group. ‘Oh! Okey dokey. Sorry. Didn’t mean to stop the progress of medical science. Uh, I’ll catch you later, Denise.’ He returned his head and Cynthia followed him at a rate bordering on trot. I handed tissues to Denise who seemed to have perked up. This doctor’s visit was obviously a healthier option than ours.
‘That Dr Welch’s a lovely man.’ Denise twiddled an auburn ringlet then laid it carefully on a shoulder, thin as a chicken wing. ‘He’s so sympathetic about me having all this pregnancy trouble, you’d never credit he’s a single fella himself and when he takes off blood you wouldn’t ever know there was a needle there.’ For a moment, she was almost enthusiastic.
‘That’s good,’ said Miss Harvey in an unimpressed way and advanced, rubbing her hands. ‘And it’s even better that you’re allowing these budding midwives loose on that tummy of yours and, may I just say, what a neat one it is.’
