39 Weeks

by Terri Douglas

  But if your waters break, whether or not you were having contractions, real or of the practise variety, you should go to the hospital straight away, so the baby’s not distressed. So the baby’s not distressed? Never mind the baby, I thought, I’d be bloody distressed.

  My head was swimming with medical terms and Latin names that I’d never heard before but vaguely understood. I re-read several passages to try and familiarise myself with what was virtually a foreign language, luckily ‘So You’re Having A Baby’ had a much more down to earth approach than ‘Now You’re Pregnant’ and was written in plain English that was much easier to understand.

  Both books said it was a good idea to have a ‘hospital bag’ ready, and a list of important phone numbers handy, especially the hospital number so you could warn them you were on the way. Yes I thought, now that is a good idea, so I wasted no time and sorted out a ‘hospital bag’ for myself there and then, and set about writing a list of important phone numbers, although I don’t know if it really qualified as a list as such.

  Top of the ‘list’ was the hospital maternity ward number that I’d been given on one of my prenatals along with a load of other leaflets and such like, about what to take to hospital with me and how they wouldn’t provide nappy’s, or shower gel, or towels, or baby formula if I wasn’t feeding the baby myself, and when the visiting hours were, and who I could take with me for the birth, and so on and so on. Seemed to me that the list of don’ts and cant’s far outweighed the do’s and can’s. Hardly, I couldn’t help thinking, made you feel positive about the whole experience did it?

  Then second on the list was Mum. I hesitated over even putting Mum on the list at all, I mean she’d only start telling everyone, especially me, how they were doing it all wrong and not properly, by her standards anyway. But at the end of the day she was my Mum, and annoying or not a girl needed her Mum at a time like this.

  And then I ran out of people to put on the list. There were several that I’d want to call after it was all over, you know to say I’d had the baby, but no-one I could envisage that I’d actually want there while it was all going on. Shelley maybe, Rob definitely, well maybe waiting in the waiting room till it was all over but he wasn’t really an option anymore was he? My dad? No, after due consideration probably best to just stick with my Mum.

  I put the bag, with the list in the outer pocket, next to the front door and put the kettle on for a cuppa while I pondered on the meaning of life the universe and everything, but more specifically on the impending motherhood status I was about to assume. I wondered if everyone felt like this, I mean on the one hand I was really looking forward to seeing Ella and being able to hold her, and I was looking forward to not being pregnant any more, but on the other hand I was dreading the actual birth itself and having to stay in hospital.

  I made the tea and wandered cup in hand into what was going to be Ella’s room. It was a bit of a mess really with stuff piled up everywhere, and I decided to sort it out and get it ready for Ella when she arrived. Course she wouldn’t know or care if it was tidy or not, but I wanted it for her anyway.

  Shelley had donated a chest of drawers she no longer needed when she and Nick had moved in together, and I started by putting all the smallest baby clothes away in there. I carefully folded the next size up baby clothes and a few next size up after that Marsha had given me, and re-packed them in a bin bag and tied it up. I stored the bag in the bottom of a built in cupboard in the corner of the room. Then on the shelf above I stacked the mountain of baby toys that I didn’t think Ella would be interested in until she was at least two or three months old, and there were some more suitable for six months to a year, so those went on the harder to reach top shelf.

  The pushchair was in the middle of the room so I wheeled that out to the living room, folded it up, and stood it in the corner by the front door next to my hospital bag. It was only when I was about to put the baby car seat next to it, another Marsha donation, that it dawned on me I hadn’t actually got anything to clip it to.

  I abandoned the rest of the baby stuff sorting out, and got straight on the phone to the garage I always use for car emergency’s. Luckily Pete wasn’t too busy and said I could come down straight away.

  Two hours later I was back home again, the baby seat sitting proudly clipped in the back of my car. The baby seat fitting had only taken an hour or so but I’d stopped off to buy a ‘Baby On Board’ sign thing and stuck that in the back window.

  While I was out I’d also bought a pack of four baby bottles and some baby milk formula, that I probably should have bought sooner, but reading up on all that baby stuff earlier had reminded me. I planned to feed Ella myself but what if I couldn’t, what if it hurt too much, or I wasn’t producing enough milk? Although judging by the amount my boobs were leaking nowadays I didn’t think that would be a problem. But even if I was able to feed Ella myself I wasn’t going to be doing it forever was I? I mean I was going to stop sometime wasn’t I and then I’d need bottles and formula.

  I made myself another cup of tea, and a sandwich to go with it, and carried them into Ella’s room. How quaint that sounded, Ella’s room. Whilst munching I unpacked my leaving present ornament and placed it on top of one side of the chest of drawers, then put my old care bear that had been through a cold machine wash since retrieving it from Mum’s loft on the other side. The new teddy I’d bought for Ella on the day of my scan and subsequent visit to Mothercare, I put in the corner of the cot. He looked for all the world like he was just waiting for Ella, which I suppose in a way he was.

  Course looking at that sad little teddy made me think of Rob, he’d been with me when I bought it, and now he wasn’t here to see it in its intended place of honour. I was on the verge of crying all over again, but managed with a will of iron to stop myself somehow. Or maybe, finally, I’d run out of tears.

  I tidied away the last few bits and pieces and surveyed the room. I hadn’t made up the cot, I mean it was all put together ready for Ella to lay in, but I didn’t put the sheets and blanket on, I would do that when she was here. Course the room was still peach but there wasn’t much I could do about that, I definitely wasn’t up to decorating, that would have to wait. But all in all, now that all the collection of baby stuff was sorted out and put away, it looked pretty good. All I had to do now was wait for a baby, my baby, to arrive and complete the picture.

  40

  12th February – Week 37

  Rob was coming back. Marsha told me this morning that Mac had finished his stint up in Edinburgh. The snow and ice that far north had taken longer to clear so travelling was still difficult but he was coming home on Friday. Naturally the first thing I wanted to know when Marsha told me the good news was, was Rob going to be with him. And he was. The first thing I did then was cry. Then the next thing I did was panic.

  In the two hours since Marsha had told me I’d been over that first potential conversation I could be having with him a hundred times already in my head. Should I fall into his arms telling him how much I loved him . . but what if he’s still angry and doesn’t love me anymore? Should I be angry with him for not phoning me back for all those weeks . . a bit of me thought that’s exactly what I should do. Should I be all casual ‘Hi Rob, nice trip?’ as if nothing much had ever happened between us. Or should I wait and see if he comes upstairs to see me, let him do the running, let him apologise to me? Would he apologise to me? Would he even acknowledge that I existed? Maybe he’d just cut me dead.

  I tried for the millionth time to phone him, but as ever his phone was switched off. I asked Marsha for more details. Where had he been all this time? Why hadn’t he phoned Mac or Marsha at least? Had he said anything about me? Her answer to all of it was ‘I don’t know’ but she said she’d quiz Mac when he phoned her later this evening.

  I left Marsha’s at around noon while she was getting lunch ready for the children, she invited me to stay but I couldn’t face food after a bombshell like that and went upstairs to cogitate in peace
, and plan my next move.

  I couldn’t wait for Friday and dreaded it all at the same time. What I should’ve been doing was waiting until after Marsha had spoken to Mac tonight before letting myself think too much. I mean I couldn’t exactly work out a plan of action until I knew a bit more about how Rob was feeling. But not thinking about it? . . well that was never going to happen was it? I was driving myself mad already, just after a couple of hours, God knows what I’d be like by Friday, a total basket case probably. I mean now that I wasn’t working I didn’t even have that to take my mind of everything, I had nothing much to do all day every day except think.

  Okay what I needed was a plan, make that two plans, one for how to behave towards Rob when he got here, and one for how to get through the next few days and work out what the first plan was actually going to be before I put it into action.

  I figured first of all I needed to see Mum, not because she’d be able to help in any way whatsoever with either plan, in fact it was imperative that she was kept totally in the dark about Rob coming back. No I needed to see her today so then I could be fairly sure that I wouldn’t have to see her next weekend, and that she would be less likely to just turn up unannounced. Knowing Mum it’d be just like her to arrive just when things were looking hopeful and put her interfering giant foot right in it, and I couldn’t afford for that to happen.

  I changed into my clean pair of jeans. I now only had two pairs that I could even hope to wear, one just about fitted, sort of, but the other pair were more comfortable because they were your actual maternity jeans. I’d succumbed reluctantly to the dreaded knitted waist insert pregnant jeans that I’d so derided previously, but the truth was yes they were still hideous but they were really comfortable given my current body shape. Anyway with only two pairs one was always in the wash or due for a wash, and I’d be wearing the other pair. I flatly refused to wear a tent dress of any kind, that really was a step too far.

  Anyway I pulled on the clean pair of knitted waist jeans, and a clean tee shirt, one of the Marsha pregnancy donation fund, and pulled a brush through my hair. I probably should have washed it knowing Mum was sure to have something to say about it, but I needed to get this visit over with and didn’t want to waste any time. I mean she was going to criticise something anyway no matter what I did, or didn’t do, so I might as well give her the ammunition, and my not quite clean hair seemed the lesser of the many evils my darling mother might perceive.

  By six I was back home again. The visit had gone well. Mum had gone through her normal ritual, after her initial surprise at my unannounced visit, of disapproval, then her run down of current ailments, and then to my amazement told me she was going on a dinner date with Colin Stoddard. This was the guy who’d serviced Mum’s gas boiler and had hinted at them going out somewhere, and who my Mum had derided as being totally unsuitable. ‘Are you serious?’ she’d said when I’d suggested her going on a date with him. But now apparently she was over, or overlooking, his unsuitableness and had agreed to have dinner with him.

  ‘But you said . .’

  ‘I know I did.’ Mum answered sheepishly.

  ‘So what happened to change your mind?’

  ‘Well you know that eighties thing I went to with your Aunty Mags just after Christmas, well he was there.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘And he was wearing a suit.’

  ‘What! Are you seriously telling me the reason you wouldn’t even consider him before was because he wasn’t wearing a suit?’ My voice had gone up in tone a notch or two in shock, I mean I knew this was Mum but still I didn’t think even she was quite that much of a snob.

  ‘No it wasn’t just the suit, although it did make me see him in a different light. I don’t know he was different somehow, charming almost you might say.’

  ‘Charming?’

  ‘Well yes. And courteous.’

  I guessed that it wasn’t so much a change in this Colin Stoddard, as it was a change in my mum’s attitude after she’d found out about Dad and Stella Frankham. So now the big question was, was she just trying to get back at Dad, or did she really fancy this bloke? Seemed weird beyond belief to think of my mum fancying anyone never mind the gas man, but stranger things have happened I suppose, and even my mum must be susceptible to her hormones once in a while, whether she admitted to it or not.

  ‘So now you’re going on a date with him.’

  ‘I hadn’t really thought about it as a date, I’m a bit too old for dates and all that sort of thing.’

  ‘Um no you’re not, I don’t think you can get too old for ‘that sort of thing’ can you?’

  ‘It’s not like that, I’m not even thinking about that. All that happened was he invited me out for a meal.’

  ‘And you said yes. Sounds like a date to me.’

  ‘Are you angry?’

  ‘No course I’m not angry, just a bit surprised that’s all. I think it’s a great idea.’

  Well this was a turn up for the book, I mean my Mum worried whether I was angry with her for going on a date with someone who wasn’t Dad? I wasn’t in the least bothered by her seeing this Colin, good for her I say and about time she joined the real world, but I was a bit bothered that she thought I might be bothered, that wasn’t like her at all. ‘So where are you going for this meal?’

  ‘I don’t know, Colin’s deciding.’

  And the surprises just kept coming. Colin’s deciding! Okay, I thought to myself, who are you and what have you done with my real mother?

  After that things settled down to a more normal Mum and me conversation, that is to say back to everything I was doing wrong. I breathed a sigh of relief and tuned out while I listened to one of Mums typical lectures on all the many things about me that were not good enough.

  I didn’t mention Rob of course, plenty of time for that if and when he came back and we sorted out our differences. If only it were that simple, sorting out our differences makes it sound like we’d disagreed about what to have for Sunday lunch, or where to go on holiday. My problem was, it wasn’t so much our differences as the great big gaping holes between us that needed mending.

  I left Mums with her promising to phone me on Friday morning after her date that wasn’t a date, and congratulated myself on not mentioning Rob at all, no mean feat that seeing as he was the thing most prominent in my thoughts at the moment, or any moment really, and I hoped I had successfully forestalled any potential visits from her on the weekend. She’d said that if anything happened, and she’d looked pointedly at my Ella bump, I was to phone her straight away and that she’d be straight round, even if it was on Thursday during the not a date, dinner date, with Colin. But I just laughed and said that all that was at least three weeks away yet, so she could relax and enjoy herself and not think about me.

  So now I was back home again and trying to figure out the next part of my plan of action. Marsha knocked at around eight holding her half of the baby monitor, saying she’d had a call from Mac and she had some news about Rob. Course I let her in straight away. She placed the baby monitor in the middle of the dining table, told me to sit and ‘listen out’, while she went out to the kitchen and put the kettle on to make some tea.

  ‘Is he alright?’ I shouted through to her.

  ‘He’s fine.’

  ‘Well where’s he been all this time?’

  ‘He’s been stuck on Rousay, trapped there by the weather.’

  ‘Oh. What’s Rousay?’

  ‘You mean where’s Rousay. It’s one of the Orkney islands.’

  ‘Oh. What the hell’s he been doing there?’

  ‘D’you mind if I have coffee instead of tea?’ Marsha said popping her head round the door.

  ‘No have whatever you like. So what’s he been doing in the Orkneys for the last five weeks?’

  ‘Taking pictures mostly by the sound of it.’ She said as the kettle finally reached boiling point meaning we wouldn’t have to shout anymore over its noise.

  ‘Did you speak to him
?’

  ‘No he finally made it off Rousay this morning and he’s on his way to Edinburgh to meet up with Mac, but he might stay over in Aberdeen or somewhere tonight.’

  ‘Why’s it taking so long?’ I said as she deposited my tea in front of me and sat down in the opposite chair with her coffee.

  ‘Sorry, but I had to wait for the kettle to boil didn’t I? Any sound out of the gruesome twosome?’

  ‘No nothing, they’re still asleep. I mean why is it taking Rob so long to get back to Edinburgh?’

  ‘The weather.’

  ‘But the snow’s all gone now.’

  ‘Not in Scotland it hasn’t. Apparently a lot of the roads up there are still pretty bad.’

  ‘Okay so he’s been stuck on this Rousay all this time, and couldn’t get back because of all the snow and everything, but why didn’t he phone anyone. I mean even if he didn’t want to speak to me he could have let you or Mac know where he was and what was going on, couldn’t he?’

  ‘That’s exactly what Mac said. But evidently, typical Rob, he accidently dropped his phone over the side of the ferry on the way over.’

  Well at least that explained the permanently switched off phone. All those text messages I’d sent and voice mails I’d left, and there must have been hundreds of them by now, all floating around somewhere at the bottom of the sea.

  ‘So why didn’t he borrow someone else’s phone?’

  ‘No signal. Even the land lines were out for a while.’

  ‘Is that true? I can’t believe that no-one in this Orkney island place could make or receive calls. For over a month they were all cut off? That can’t be true, can it?’