All things being equal, I guess I would have preferred a homely midwife in her sixties, with a calm demeanour and rosy complexion, but what we got is Marigold.
If nothing else, Marigold knows what she’s doing, and never lets you forget it.
‘Let’s get that skinny arse up into bed madam!’ she tells Laura, who struggles out of the wheelchair and onto the bed.
Once she’s in position, Marigold ducks her head between my wife’s legs for a quick examination.
‘You’re at four centimetres,’ she says, slapping Laura’s calf. ‘Good girl!’
Laura tries to smile but it’s obvious she’s hurting. ‘Can I… can I have an epidural for the pain?’ she says.
‘No,’ Marigold intones.
The room falls silent.
‘What do you mean no?’ Laura says.
‘No anaesthetist on duty. He’s off sick girl.’
‘Are you telling me there’s only one anaesthetist on duty today?’ I ask incredulously.
‘Only one who can give epidurals,’ Marigold says. ‘Welcome to the NHS!’ she barks by way of explanation and laughs.
‘Can’t you give me one?’ Laura asks.
‘Nope. Not qualified.’ Marigold watches Laura’s face darken considerably. ‘Don’t worry girl! You’re young and healthy. Gas and air will be fine for you today.’
Something bad is happening to my wife.
A tremor has started from the tips of her toes and is working its way like a tidal wave up her body. It reaches her head, which shudders briefly, before the tremor finds its voice. ‘I don’t want gas and air, you stupid bitch! I want a fucking epidural!’
Marigold’s reaction is priceless.
Until now she’s only seen the cool, sweet-natured side of Laura Newman. But I know that when angered, beneath that lovely, even tempered exterior beats the heart of a raving maniac.
Seeing this dark side erupt in such a dramatic fashion puts the six foot African warrior woman on the back foot.
Marigold looks at me. ‘You married that?’ she asks. ‘You’re braver than I thought Newman.’
I nod my head and look a trifle sheepish.
‘If you two are quite finished,’ Laura interrupts. ‘I’m trying to have a baby here and need painkillers!’
‘Quit your bellyaching,’ Marigold bellows and wheels over the gas and air machine. She thrusts the mask at Laura. ‘Suck on that girl.’
Laura grabs the mask and takes a deep drag. A few moments go by. ‘Well, that’s not bloody helping at all!’
‘Give it a moment,’ Marigold says.
Sure enough, another five seconds pass and Laura’s face suddenly droops into a vision of drowsy contentment.
‘Fuck me on a rocking chair, this is goooooood fucking shit,’ she says in a dreamy voice. I’ve never heard Laura swear quite so much in such a short space of time.
‘Just take a breath any time you need it girl,’ Marigold says and turns to leave.
‘Where are you fucking going?’ Laura shrieks and points at me. ‘You can’t just leave me with him!’
This sets the tone for the next seven hours of my life.
‘You’ll be fine. Remember what I taught you about breathing and keep taking the gas and air.’ Marigold also points at me. I’m starting to feel like an army private being beasted for no reason. ‘You look after your wife!’
I hurry to the bedside, trying to remember all the stuff from the antenatal classes.
…the ones at the health centre Laura eventually made me attend I mean, not Trisha’s. I wasn’t about to start making whale noises and farting like a whoopee cushion.
Marigold exits the room, leaving me alone with the demon that has possessed my wife.
She (it?) takes another drag on the mask and gives me the stink eye. ‘You know what Newman? This is all your fault.’ Here we go. ‘If you had just bought some mother fucking condoms, I wouldn’t be in this mother fucking mess.’
Strike that last thought, Laura hasn’t been possessed by a demon. She’s been possessed by Samuel L. Jackson.
‘I know. I’m sorry dear.’ I figure there’s no point arguing in this trying situation. Laura is about to painfully squeeze a small human from her body, so I can cut her some slack.
‘Oh, you know, do you?’ She takes a big suck on the mask. ‘I’ll tell you what I fucking know, Jamie Newman…’
For the next few hours Laura proceeds to berate me for everything I’ve done wrong in the past nine months. Then she moves on to everything I’ve done wrong since we met. Then, inexplicably, she moves on to everything I’d done wrong before we met.
The monologue is punctuated at turns by rapidly increasing contractions, and grateful blasts of gas and air. Each time she takes a hit I’m afforded a few moments of peace from the constant character assassination.
Laura is telling me what an evil bastard I am for leaving the fridge door open last night when Melina walks into the room, saving me from this cold, cold Hell of my own making.
‘How’s the mum to be?’ she says excitedly.
‘Get this fucking thing out of me,’ Laura growls.
Melina, having been in this circumstance herself, takes a read of the sorry state of affairs and narrows her eyes. ‘Jamie, why don’t you go and find yourself a cup of coffee?’
‘Okay,’ I agree, and look at my wife. ‘Would you like some ice chips Laura?’
‘Would you like some ice chips Laura,’ she parrots in a high, sing-song voice. ‘No, Newman. I do not want ice chips. What I want is for you to have had more control over your cock nine months ago.’
‘Just leave for a bit,’ Melina tells me softly, like someone standing next to a ticking bomb.
I offer her a look of pathetic gratitude and high tail it out of there, looking back briefly to see Melina sit down next to Laura and brush hair off her forehead.
As I amble off down the corridor I wonder what it would be like to have a threesome with her. This proves – if proof were needed – that men can think about sex at the most inopportune of moments.
The worst cup of coffee I’ve ever had in my life was that mint monstrosity a couple of years ago during my date with Annika the blond goddess.
The one that’s just defecated its way out of the hospital coffee machine runs a close second, though.
I nurse it for a good thirty minutes, forcing myself to drink the entire bitter contents of the Styrofoam cup. Anything is better than being called an evil bastard by your heavily pregnant wife.
It’s only when I get down to the dregs that I decide it’s time to re-enter the dragon’s lair.
When I get back to the room Marigold is once more bent over Laura giving her an examination. Melina is sat back in her chair nursing a bruised hand.
‘Well?’ Laura demands.
‘Eight centimetres girl. Your baby is getting ready to be born.’
‘Not fucking quick enough!’ She sucks down more gas. ‘This shit isn’t working anymore Marigold. You told me it would help!’ Laura fixes the African midwife with a dead-eyed stare of implacable hatred. ‘You fucking lied to me Marigold.’
‘And my cousin had his testicles blown off by a rocket launcher. Life isn’t fair sometimes.’
Even Laura is brought up short by that one.
Marigold notices I’ve come back. ‘Where have you been, you stupid man? Your wife needs you.’
‘No she doesn’t. She needs an exorcist.’
‘Get back over here Jamie!’ Laura shouts at me. ‘I need you to help me with my breathing, you cocksucker!’
Marigold catches my distraught look. ‘Man up Newman. She’s just in a lot of pain. Be thankful she doesn’t have access to sharp implements.’
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 s
hit, 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.
Laura’s Diary
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 b
e 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.
Ethel Newman?
Everyone will think we named her after a movie star from the thirties.
Love... And Sleepless Nights MAY 2012 Page 10
