Labour of Love

by Shannon Garner

  ‘You could start now if you wanted to – it would encourage it, anyway. You should go down to the hospital and ask for a colostrum kit to take home. It’s a packet of one-millilitre syringes you can store the colostrum in. The packet will give you all the info you need to know about expressing and storing it.’

  ‘That sounds great, I’ll do that.’ I sat back, sighing.

  You can start now. My mind fixated on those words, surreal, the birth imminent.

  Allie registered my worry. ‘You’ll be fine. It’ll be a beautiful experience, Shannon.’

  ‘I know, and looking at you now and how well it all went for you, I’m sure mine will be the same. I guess I feel a little helpless with all the fuss about her size. It makes me question if my body’s doing the right thing. Maybe I’ve done something wrong or my body isn’t the best environment for her?’

  ‘Every woman has those concerns when pregnant. Of course the doctor’s going to investigate it, but you have to trust your instincts too. Don’t forget about what you know inside yourself. All the scans have said she’s perfectly healthy and everything’s as it should be, she’s just little. There’s nothing wrong with that – my daughter was born around six pound six ounces and she’s healthy and happy.’

  I lowered my teacup to the saucer and gazed gratefully into Allie’s green eyes. ‘Thank you so much, for everything. You’ve taught me all I know about surrogacy and even new things about myself. I’m so glad that I met you.’

  We hugged goodbye, no longer able to bump bumps, only Elsie left.

  ‘All the best, Shannon,’ Allie said. ‘You’ll be fine.’

  I waved, unsure if I’d see her again, now that her surrogacy experience was over. I hoped our friendship would continue, but I knew very well that life could get in the way.

  The following day I lay on the bed in Dr Wright’s room. Before going in I’d texted Jon and Justin, assuring them I’d let them know of any news straight away.

  I winced when he dug his palm into my stomach, measuring the fundal height. It hadn’t changed; still thirty-two centimetres, which I knew wouldn’t sit well. By the textbook it should’ve been thirty-six centimetres.

  ‘Shannon, this baby’s not cooperating, is she?’ he said, placing his hands on his hips.

  I glanced over at Ashleigh, who stood in the corner. She held her clipboard against her chest, raising her eyebrows in sympathy.

  ‘She’s breech again,’ Dr Wright said, his tone flat.

  I exhaled sharply, exhausted at the thought of trying to move her again and petrified that he’d book me in for a C-section on the spot. When I woke that morning I knew Elsie had turned but I didn’t want to admit it to myself; I’d second-guessed my thoughts, hoping it was untrue.

  ‘Now, I’ve gone over the report from the latest growth scan on Tuesday and she’s been classified as an SGA baby – that means “small for gestational age”. She’s in the bottom tenth percentile on the growth chart. What I have to ascertain is whether this is concerning or if it’s simply her genetic makeup.’

  I closed my eyes, begging the gods to leave me alone and let me birth Elsie in peace, without intervention, with my own strength, my own power. Of course, if there was something clearly wrong I’d let Dr Wright cut me open and take the baby out immediately, but it was still my body – did I want to go through surgery and the recovery time on the chance that something could be wrong? I was torn.

  The thought rose again like the gauge on a pressure valve. Elsie wasn’t mine but the responsibility I carried was heavy, pinning me to the very bed on which I lay. Did a vessel have a voice? If Dr Wright suggested a C-section, would I refuse? Could I, if it meant jeopardising the life of the child I carried? I knew from the outset that I’d put my body on the line when I said I’d be a surrogate, and I knew there were risks, ones I was willing to take to see it through. But in that moment, feeling myself careening towards a birth so foreign to my first two, I felt helpless and out of control, even betrayed, after everything I’d done, trying to make it right, make it perfect.

  Dr Wright spoke again. ‘I think I’m going to leave it for now, scan you again next week and see how you’re doing. If she’s still breech, then it’s a C-section for you and bub. If she does turn, then you can have a natural birth, but I’d like to induce you at thirty-nine weeks. How does that sound?’

  I’d been given a reprieve, more time, but I couldn’t shake my concern for Elsie. Everything I did and didn’t put into my body over the past seventeen months was for that little girl, for her health and vitality, to create the optimal environment in which she would grow, but I knew I couldn’t refuse induction. If I insisted on no intervention and Elsie was born with something wrong with her because of my actions, I’d never forgive myself.

  I said goodbye to Ashleigh, and rang Jon as soon as I stepped out of Dr Wright’s reception area. For the first time he sounded rattled. The term ‘SGA baby’ threw him, and he asked me what the possible problems could be.

  ‘It could be just her genetic size, a small baby, Sereena was, but of course Dr Wright has to think about Elsie’s welfare, so he wants to monitor me closely. As I told you last time, he mentioned that the placenta could be failing or she’s not thriving for some reason, or there could be a chromosomal abnormality.’ My stomach churned as I stabbed my finger on the elevator button.

  Silence hung between us and I looked at my phone, made sure the call was still connected. ‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘I don’t want to worry you. I think we should just concentrate on the fact that every single scan – and let’s face it, I’ve had plenty – has been perfect. There’s no indication that there’s anything wrong with her. She’s just little. Full stop.’

  ‘You’re right, everything has been fine, but I’m going to google “SGA baby” and see what it means exactly.’

  ‘Just remember that some people have little babies, it doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with them. In my heart, deep down I think she’s fine, she’s perfect.’

  ‘Thank you. I feel better now.’ Jon breathed out. ‘If you feel okay, I’m okay.’

  I did feel okay, didn’t I? I stressed about the potential hazards: her size and position, a looming C-section or possible induction. The knowledge that everyone relied on me, on my body, did add pressure. It all came down to factors out of my control.

  I tried to gather my thoughts, the ones that lay scattered on the elevator floor. There was something else I had to tell Jon. ‘The doctor wants to induce me at thirty-nine weeks, so . . . there’s only three weeks to go.’

  ‘Three weeks!’ Jon shrieked. ‘But you don’t want to be induced, do you?’

  I took a deep breath, pausing as the doors to the elevator opened. ‘No, it’s not what I want, but I have to do what’s best for your daughter, and Dr Wright is the professional.’

  ‘Only do it if you want to. Don’t let anyone make you do something you don’t want to do,’ Jon insisted.

  I smiled, touched by his concern for my wellbeing, for my right to have the birth I desired, the smile fading when I realised I didn’t really have a choice and Elsie’s wellbeing superseded everything.

  Jon’s voice softened. ‘So you’ve just gotta turn her, then? Gee, she’s being naughty and she’s not even out yet.’ He laughed.

  ‘Oh, she’s not naughty. She’s just got a lot of room to move. Remember, my two gigantic babies paved the way. She’s probably having a lovely time swimming around.’

  ‘Well, good luck with turning our little girl. I hope she cooperates with you. I’ll talk to you soon?’

  ‘Yep, I’ll be in touch and keep you up to date. Thanks, Jon, I appreciate . . . everything.’

  At home I practised my Spinning Baby technique and had a quiet chat to Elsie, asking for her assistance. Please turn around, baby girl.

  Before I picked up the kids from preschool and day care I decided to investigate the term ‘SGA baby’. The information online said that babies classified SGA had a greater risk of stillbi
rth, neonatal complications and impaired neurodevelopment. As I clicked the mouse, opening another tab with further details, my phone started to ring. Justin’s name flashed on the screen.

  ‘Hi, Justin.’

  ‘Hello, I’m so sorry to bother you but I just wanted to talk to you,’ he said in one quick breath. ‘I’ve just spoken to Jon and he’s been searching the internet about this term “SGA baby”. He’s fretting about things a bit. I wanted to hear from you that everything’s okay, because I can’t get any sense out of him.’

  I went over my appointment with Dr Wright and his suggestions, reassuring Justin that everything was fine. We were both worried about Elsie but we had to trust that everything would be all right – the baby girl we all pictured in our minds was snuggled up, happy and healthy inside my uterus, comfy in amniotic fluid.

  After we’d hung up I closed the screen on my computer, shutting off all the medical horrors that could supposedly lie in wait for Elsie. As hard as it was, I had to accept that the outcome was out of my control.

  26

  Somewhere over the rainbow

  Getting around was proving harder as the days went on. My hips ached, my lower back seizing up at times, legs throbbing. Swollen all over, I was puffy, squishy, but my belly, the centre of it all, was rock hard. My nipples became tender from expressing the colostrum each night. I’d squeeze each breast for about twenty minutes, managing to massage out a few drops, which I stored in one-millilitre syringes in the freezer. Gradually I started to produce more and more colostrum, my body answering the demand, and I’d fill five-millilitre syringes, gaining quite a collection in my freezer.

  I experienced broken sleep most nights, tossing and turning in an effort to find comfort, going to the toilet numerous times. The weather was hot and humid, the mercury regularly hitting thirty-five degrees. Exhausted, I tried to nap when the kids were in day care and preschool, and on the days when they were home I took them out as much as possible, going to the beach, the park and riding on their scooters. I heaved myself around, legs thick and slow. Since my appointment with Dr Wright I consciously ate more, trying to fatten Elsie up.

  I continued to see Kim for acupuncture, and she started to give me herbs that I could infuse in a tea to encourage a natural labour. She also tried to help me turn Elsie with a technique called Moxibustion, using a stick made from dried mugwort to warm specific areas on my body. Kim had been a shining light for me throughout my pregnancy, caring for me through sickness, listening to all my worries about Elsie’s size. Wise and strong, she always knew what to say to make me feel better. She looked out for me and my body when I forgot to.

  ‘You’re tired and you need rest, Shannon,’ she’d say bluntly, her fingers pressed into my wrist, checking my pulse. ‘Your kidneys are tired. I’ve told you that each pregnancy takes more and more ch’i from the kidneys, and you never get it back, you know. What you’re doing is a huge and lovely thing for Jon and Justin, but it’s also taking a toll on your body, remember that.’

  After another appointment with Dr Wright, I met Tenille in a park by the beach. Jaxon and Keira scootered behind me along the path as I waddled towards her. She carried Aurora on her hip, while her son Jhett played in the sandpit.

  ‘So how’d it go? Is she head down?’ Tenille asked, leaning in to kiss my cheek.

  ‘She is!’ I smiled, shaking my hands in the air, showing off. ‘Dr Wright said he’s happy for now and I’m on track for a natural but induced birth.’

  ‘That’s fantastic. What about her size? Did he scan you again?’ Tenille bent down, sitting Aurora on a tartan picnic blanket.

  ‘My fundal height’s still thirty-two centimetres. He did another scan and everything looked fine so he’s sending me off for another growth scan next week.’ I rolled my eyes at the thought of another scan.

  Tenille’s mouth fell open. ‘You’ve had more scans than I’ve had for my four kids put together.’

  I cringed. ‘I know. With Jaxon and Keira I had two each. With this baby I’ve had about seven or eight so far. Precious cargo, I tell you.’ I patted my belly.

  ‘So . . .’ Tenille sat on the rug, opening a plastic container of watermelon for the kids, ‘you’ve got less than two weeks. Are you nervous?’

  As if the kids had a sixth sense, they flocked to the rug, scooters crashing to the ground as they elbowed each other out of the way for a piece of watermelon.

  ‘Careful, one at a time,’ I said, catching Keira in case she fell on Aurora. ‘Ah, I’m nervous about being induced. I’m not nervous about the birth. But you’ll be there with me, right?’

  ‘Of course I will, if you’ll have me still? I’ll take the video. I’ll get you water. I’ll take photos. I’ll do anything I can for you and the boys.’

  ‘I’d love to have you there, repay the favour. Being at Aurora’s birth was just amazing. One bonus of being induced is that there won’t be any middle-of-the-night calls. It will be at a respectable time, I’m assuming . . . or maybe not?’

  ‘I would’ve come in at two in the morning if need be.’ Tenille chuckled, picking up a piece of watermelon, popping it into her mouth.

  ‘Oh, I wouldn’t do that to you.’

  When I’d asked Tenille to film the occasion she’d agreed happily, excited about the chance to watch new life come into the world in such an unusual circumstance. Ashleigh, the student midwife, would be present also, and possibly two other midwives, plus Andrew, Jon and Justin. The thought of all those people watching me at such an intense moment left me intimidated. But with their presence also came support and love.

  The big day drew closer. I spoke to Jon and Justin often, organising the final details. I booked a bikini wax for myself, unsure of just how many people would be inspecting my privates, an area I couldn’t see and one I’d neglected throughout the pregnancy.

  I attended my final growth scan at radiology, laughing at how many times I’d visited the place. I’d come to know the radiographers quite well. Once again, everything seemed fine, Elsie was just small.

  With the birth looming, thoughts sped through my mind night and day, whizzing past before I got a handle on them. I was excited, nervous, anxious, unsure – everything any mother about to go into labour would be. But it was different to what I’d experienced before with my own children. This time I wasn’t the mother, I was the birth mother. I wasn’t to hold the child and take her home. I wasn’t to kiss her forehead and call her mine. I wasn’t to bring her to my nipple and feed her the milk my body produced especially for her.

  But that was okay. I didn’t want any of that for myself. I wanted that for Jon and Justin. I wanted to witness all of that through them – the wonder, the joy and the love. I wanted my gift to be their daughter and everything that came with having a child to call your own.

  That night I lay next to my own daughter, tucked up in her bed in the darkness of her room, our faces illuminated by a night light. I swept the hair from her forehead, singing ‘Somewhere over the Rainbow’. When I was about seven years old, my nanna Agnes – my mother’s mother – would sing that song to me. On her visits to us, I’d be lucky enough to spend the night in the guest bed with my nanna, just the two of us. The memory of how she made me feel as she sang to me was still nestled in my heart, an aura of safety, hope and love shining around us. I recall the tickle of her wiry, dyed-to-death black hair on my cheek, her breath that smelled of herbal tea and her skin of rose oil cream. The way she sang made me feel more important than anyone else in the world, as though every word that fell from her lips was a gift from her to me, an offering that conjured up an image in my young mind: a rainbow, blue birds in flight, the wonder of a dream. I’d lie sleepily by her side, watching as her hands swept through the air, fingers wriggling in the dim light to convey the sparkle of a rainbow. After the song, she’d kiss my forehead and pull the blankets up to my chin, telling me she loved me more than life itself.

  During World War Two, Agnes, aged eleven, and her three brothers were eva
cuees on a Polish warship from Glasgow to Australia, their mother, my great-grandmother, having put them on the boat, wanting to give them a better life far away from conflict. She remained in Scotland, fearing for her children’s lives, fearing the unknown. I often thought about the courage Nanna Agnes would have needed, how scared she would’ve been, not only for herself but for her younger brothers, travelling to a strange country without their mother to protect them.

  I learned a lot from my Nanna Agnes. I learned how to give. I learned the importance of being kind and putting others first. In the years I knew her she was always more worried about everyone else than herself. As a family we’d visit her on the Gold Coast and she’d fuss in the kitchen, yelling out to us through the flyscreen on the window, still with her Scottish accent, ‘Hoo wants a drink . . . some’n to eat? You must be starvin’.’ Nanna Agnes would never sit down until everyone else was happy, content and well fed.

  Even on her deathbed she never stopped thinking of others. I remember the day I walked into the hospital. We’d had the call that she wasn’t going to be with us much longer, her body riddled with cancer. We drove for hours to see her, and when I walked into the room my body stalled with shock, my breath whisked from my lungs. She lay on the bed, fragile and emaciated, smiling as we entered, her bony arms reaching out to us, hands shaking. Her dentures sat prominently in her skull, her skin so thin all I could see was death.

  ‘Hello,’ she mouthed, her voice raspy from the oesophageal cancer. ‘Tea, biscuits . . . do you want some tea?’

  I shook my head, a painful lump forming in my throat, one I couldn’t swallow away. I clenched my jaw, blinked at the tears. My beautiful, thoughtful nanna, offering us tea and biscuits when she could hardly function.

  She slipped in and out of consciousness, delirious at times. She’d smile and gaze through me as if I was a window and she was looking back on her life, at the child she had been, the woman she’d become, gone in the blink of an eye. Then she laid her head back down on the pillows, closing her eyes, escaping. A while later, the nurse entered the room, asking us to leave; ‘Agnes needs rest.’