by Pat Rosier
‘What’s happening?’
‘Don’t worry,’ Why did they always say that? The nurse’s head popped up between her feet and she wanted to throw something at her, she wasn’t worrying, she was asking. ‘I’m just looking to see how it’s all going. When I’ve checked their heartbeats then I’ll call the doctor back, everything is going fine. It will be time soon.’
‘Time for what?’ But she got no answer. And she knew.
When the nature of the pains changed there was only one nurse in the room. Isobel yelped, more in surprise than pain, and the nurse jumped. Isobel wanted to push and had screwed up her face and shoulders in preparation when the nurse said, ‘Don’t push.’
‘But I want to.’
‘Don’t push. Pant. Like this.’ And the nurse demonstrated the short shallow breaths Isobel had learnt in class.
The nurse looked under the canopy of Isobel’s gown. ‘I can see a head.’ She sounded excited and it wasn’t even her baby and she must see that all the time. Another nurse came in and then a doctor and the second doctor. Suddenly there was busy-ness all around her, focused between her legs. She gave herself over to these people who knew what they were doing and panted and pushed as she was told.
‘One more push, a big one, come on, we’re nearly there.' The doctor glanced at her face. ‘We’re going well, we’ll be there in a moment. A head’s coming.’ Isobel thought fleetingly of asking who this ‘we’ was, she was the one doing the work, but she pushed until she had no breath left and there was a slithery squelchy feeling and the doctor was holding up a tiny creature who began making mewling noises, like a kitten. ‘It’s a boy,’ someone said. She didn’t feel anything when they cut the cord, then the baby was passed to the other doctor who put it on that trolley she had worried about, but she couldn’t pay attention, she was being asked to pant again. Everything around her bottom went wet.
‘Great, the second amnio,’ said the doctor. ‘Lets see where that head is. Anterior. This won’t hurt.’ The last at Isobel as he palpated her stomach. ‘There, got it.’ And within a few minutes the second boy was born. They were both declared healthy. Isobel was congratulated and smiled at and patted and someone said, ‘Where’s the father?’ and apparently he had stayed in the father’s waiting room so a nurse went to get him. He came in looking pink and pleased and said how tiny they were, but perfect and patted Isobel and said, ‘Jolly good, old girl, I suppose you’d like a sleep now,’ and went off importantly to ring people. He had a list he had made while he was waiting and showed it to Isobel who was pleased to see that her parents were second only to his, and supposed that it had been his father who drove her here, after all.
Her doctor pressed and squeezed her stomach again until she heard the placenta plop out into a stainless steel dish. He examined it closely. ‘Good,’ he pronounced.
Isobel held the babies for a few terrified moments, she hadn’t expected them to be so very small, and then they were taken away to the baby ward. The paediatrician came in and explained that they were healthy, both breathing well, a good weight for twins, 4lb 6oz and 4lb 2oz, and he was sure they would do very well indeed and she should be proud of herself. She didn’t seem to herself to be anything except emptied out. She looked down at her stomach, which hadn’t got much smaller and smiled weakly at her own joke. A nurse gave her a cup of tea.
‘Shouldn’t it be champagne after that?’
‘Not in here,’ said the nurse, ‘not with our matron. Anyway that’s what the fathers do, except it’s usually beer.' She helped Isobel with the sanitary pad and into a fresh gown and bustled about, chatting away without apparently noticing Isobel’s lack of response. ‘That was a good birth for twins. No trouble at all. Only five hours, and no cutting, that’s one good thing about twins being small, and you were lucky they were both pretty much around the right way, I hate it when the second one starts coming foot first. Would you like another pillow? They probably won’t bring the babies back until tomorrow, you should get some sleep while you can.' Why did people say ‘while you can’ Isobel wondered, I’ve had babies, I’m not here to get my legs amputated. ‘Have I missed dinner?’
‘Yes, you have I’m afraid, but I could get you a sandwich. You’re a calm one now, no tears and asking for dinner.' Isobel nodded yes to the sandwich and was asleep when it arrived.
The next few days were a different kind of blur, made up of learning to breast feed, learning to express milk, learning to let people give her advice in huge dollops and trying to remember it. Isobel felt calm, detached, and grew more confident about what to do.
She and Bob had not talked about names but clearly they couldn’t be baby one and two for long. At father’s visiting time on their second day in the world he announced they would be Neil and Andrew.
‘Why?’
‘I don’t know, I just thought of them. Andrew is my father’s second name and he’ll be chuffed, I just like Neil for a name, had a friend at school called Neil, I think.’
By the time Bob had finished talking they had become Neil and Andrew, except she insisted on Andrew for the firstborn so they were Andrew and Neil because she liked the sound of that better and wanted to insist on something. At first Isobel was the only person who could tell them apart. Even though they weren’t identical twins the nurses looked at the bands on their feet, which got changed to their names before she had told anyone, so they weren’t baby Johnson 1 and baby Johnson 2. She would have to remember that there was no such thing as a private conversation in the hospital, but then she thought she had nothing to be private about, except the fact that she and Bob had never actually got married but she wouldn’t be talking to anyone about that anyway.
Breast feeding was easy after the first awkwardnesses and the babies took to it readily. The paediatrician made jokes about All Blacks. Nurses showed her how to feed both at once, sitting up in bed with pillows, one baby tucked under each arm, as well as how to use a hand pump to express milk so she could have a supply in the fridge and someone could help her at feeding time by doing one with a bottle. It was getting complicated and when Bob finally remembered to bring her in a notebook she started writing things down.
Her mother and Bob’s mother came to visit in the afternoons, evening visiting was just for fathers. Isobel realised the two mothers didn’t like each other, even though they were perfectly polite. They called each other ‘Mrs’ at first, and even when they got to first names kept up a formal kind of tone. Isobel spent one visit trying to work it out and then decided she wasn’t bothered whether they got on or not. She was grateful for her mother’s practicality. The hospital was arranging for Plunket to come, her mother would take care of anything she needed doing for the first two weeks and then see how she was getting on and Bob’s mother kept assuring her that she would help as much as she could, with her health. This was the first Isobel had heard of her having any health, but thought she would probably be glad of any kind of help. Going home was something she tried not to think about until the head nurse told her when the babies were a week old that she would be leaving in three days, the boys were feeding well and gaining weight, and she was well and so there wasn’t any reason for her to stay, she had already been in longer than usual, but they didn’t take any chances with twins.
It was like being in a cocoon in the hospital, everyone was lovely to her, and she was pleased with herself for being able to do what was expected. It bothered her, though, that she didn’t have strong feelings for the boys. She liked them well enough and liked breast feeding and the warm weight of a baby on her shoulder while she stroked his small back to encourage that important burp. But when they weren’t there she didn’t mind at all. There were a few novels in the day room and she pounced on those, reading greedily when she could, being transported somewhere else – the American south, Sussex England, Sydney — sailing along on the waves of a story someone had made up, coasting along on invented lives. She didn’t bother much with other mothers, hardly noticed them in fact, though she s
miled and said hello when it seemed called for. Some of them talked to each other constantly, about babies and husbands she supposed, and she felt no wish to join in.
They would go home, she was told, on Monday November the first. ‘The drying will get better’, her mother said, ‘with summer coming. For the nappies’, she added at Isobel’s startled look. Isobel could feed, burp, change and bath the twins without feeling panicky, so she supposed she’d manage but she hadn’t thought about nappies. Washing them in the bath, like she did their sheets? If she had to, she supposed. The Plunket nurse was coming the next day and her mother offered to stay over the first night, but she said she wanted to manage on her own. She didn’t want to have both Bob and her mother to think about on that first night.
A lot of her time would be spent feeding at first, they said, get into a routine. Routine certainly ruled in the hospital; babies often cried in the nursery for ages before it was feeding time. Isobel was glad she couldn’t hear them from her room. And she was glad the other bed in her room remained empty all through her stay. The charge nurse told her she was ‘good at breast-feeding, maybe she could give some of the other mothers lessons’ and she was ‘lucky to have two easy-to-feed babies and no trouble with her nipples.’ Nothing had prepared her for the physicalness of it, the feel of a baby sucking and the milk flowing, connecting somehow with the whole inside of her. ‘Better than sex,’ she heard someone say in the corridor and knew what they meant but didn’t exactly agree. She liked the feel of their tiny bodies, too, once she stopped being scared they would break, and the way they had a whole repertoire of squirms, and knowing more or less what each meant. When they all went home she would organise the three of them just fine. She had several options for feeding – both at once on a breast each, one feeding with one lying beside her, one at her breast with the other being fed expressed milk from a bottle by someone else. She was pleased when she saw, in one of the books about feeding in the day room, that it was all right to read at the same time as breast feeding. She avoided thinking further ahead than a few weeks, it made her unbelievably anxious.
A couple of times when Bob had come in she had still been feeding, in spite of the efforts of the nurses to get all the babies back in the baby ward before fathers’ visiting hour. The first time, when she looked up she was sure he had tears in his eyes and he gave her such a sweet smile she smiled back in a surge of affection. He came every night, talking about what he had bought or would buy, how he was setting things up at home. She nodded and agreed mostly, it didn’t matter what he bought, she would get things set when she was home and a changing table and a washing machine in the bathroom – it was a big, old bathroom - sounded wonderful – that was one worry she could toss out. Apparently there were six dozen nappies at home, contributed by several people including her sister and his mother. Shirley had also sent a congratulatory card to the hospital.
She showed the card to Daniel when he surprised her, on his own, on Saturday afternoon.
‘Sally doesn’t like to bring the children into a hospital,’ her brother explained, ‘too many sick people.’
‘I’m hardly sick …,’ she was indignant.
‘I know, but when Sally gets one of her notions there’s no point in arguing. So, where did these twins come from then?’
‘I don’t know.' Then Isobel pointed at her stomach and giggled without getting a response from Daniel. She hadn’t seen her brother for months, and not on his own for years. ‘Why did you come?’ she heard herself say.
He flushed slightly. ‘Curiosity I guess. My kid sister with twins.' He hadn’t asked to see the boys. ‘I guess that makes you grown up, eh?’
‘I was holding down a grown-up job you know, well before – any of this,’ she said, irritated. Had he come just to annoy her?
Daniel shrugged, ‘It’s over-rated, being grown up,’ he said, ‘though everyone seems to think I’m doing all right. And Mum and Dad are happy about us all.’
‘Are they?’ Isobel had never thought of her parents and happiness at the same time.
‘Yeah, they like being grandparents. Shirley doesn’t appreciate that — it seems to be harder to communicate from Melbourne to Auckland than the other way around. I thought I might see Mum here this afternoon.’
‘She’s saving herself for when we get home,’ said Isobel.
‘Not to mention that she doesn’t like driving into the city with Dad,’ Daniel said, smiling for the first time.
Isobel told him about the letter she’d had from Shirley when she wrote and told her she was pregnant …
‘And not married!’ He finished her sentence. ‘That wouldn’t impress Shirley. She’s more like Mum than she’d like to admit’. That’s all way too complicated to be trying to think about, Isobel thought. She was suddenly tired. Talking to her brother was hard work. He stood up before she said anything and said he’d look in on the twins in the nursery as he left.
‘We’ll keep in touch, eh?’ He waved from the door and she waved back.
On Sunday night Bob had said he couldn’t come and Pete turned up. He’d run into Bob in town, he said, and thought if he walked in like he knew the place no-one would think he wasn’t a father. When the evening nurse put her head around the curtain and looked at Isobel with raised eyebrows Isobel nodded and smiled and she went away. It was wonderful to see Pete, he made her laugh with terrible jokes about cows and udders and telling twins apart. He was more interested in her than the boys, he didn’t even go down to the baby ward to see them. ‘I’ll wait until they can laugh at my funny faces,’ he said, pulling one.
‘Scream, more like, if you pull a face like that’. The five minute warning bell went.
‘Thank you for coming, Pete,’ Isobel said as he was leaving, ‘I haven’t laughed like that for ages. Will you come and see me at home sometimes?’ She tried to keep the pleading out of her voice and looked away so he couldn’t see her face.
‘Of course. Wouldn’t miss it. Caio, Babe.' And he went out, doing a silly, skipping walk.
Bob suggested that Isobel sleep in their room with the babies at first and he slept in the other bedroom – ‘No point in both of us being awake half the night,’ he had said, awkwardly. Isobel was hurt to begin with, then pleased. It would be easier to have the twins around her in the bed when she was feeding them at night. And someone, she couldn’t remember who, had said putting a baby’s cot next to the bed with the side down was good at night when they were small, you only had to lean over and get them when they woke. Both could sleep in one cot at first she thought, one at each end and they wouldn’t even reach the middle. The cribs her father had made would be okay for the daytime.
Bob baulked at buying a cot while they were so small, even after she explained. Then once it was established that he would not be sleeping with her she thought that putting one crib at either side of the bed might work; she could lift one baby out to feed and put him back without getting out of bed. There was a lot in the baby books about always washing your hands before feeding, but she figured if she washed before she went to bed she wasn’t going to be picking up any germs while she slept. And if they needed changing, she’d have to get up for that, anyway.
~~~
Chapter 10
On the morning of the day for going home all Isobel’s confidence flew away and she felt sick with anxiety. Never mind that after ten days in hospital she was desperate to get out. Then she remembered worrying would maybe affect her milk supply so she simply decided not to and was surprised that her stomach stopped churning.
Bob’s father was to drive them again. They would leave the hospital at one o’clock, so she was there — or rather the babies were — for a final doctor’s round. Bob could go to work in the morning. Both the Plunket nurse and the district nurse would call, said the doctor, and she was to bring the babies in for a check-up in four weeks if everything went well.
‘What if everything doesn’t go well?’ Isobel was anxious again.
‘Call your d
octor — I’ve already sent him everything he needs to know — or the nurse, or in an extreme situation, an ambulance.’
When the doctor had gone Isobel wrote in her notebook:
Don’t panic
Call the nurse
Call the doctor
Call an ambulance.
She looked at that for a moment, then squeezed in at the top of the page, ‘Call my mother.' She had forgotten for the moment that calling anyone would involve going around to the front of the house to use the owners’ phone.
Getting them all into the car was a carry-on. Finally Isobel and the twins were ensconced in the back seat. Andrew was lying beside her asleep as they drove off, but Neil was grunting and squirming in a way that Isobel recognized as the prelude to screwing up his face for full-scale crying, so she undid her blouse and put him on her breast. She saw Bob’s father’s neck redden as he tried not to look in the rear vision mirror.
The cribs and changing table were in the bedroom, carefully arranged so she could easily get to everything, including the great pile of nappies on top of the chest of drawers. Bob had moved his clothes into the other bedroom, he explained, and put the baby clothes in the drawers but she might want to rearrange them. Neil had gone to sleep in the car so she put him in a crib and carried Andrew on her shoulder as she walked through the flat. She stroked the washing machine in the bathroom, grateful even before she had used it, never mind that it was attached to the bath taps and the outlet pipe ran into the bath.
