by Kris Webb
With a surprisingly small amount of persuasion, Debbie had agreed to drive me to the hospital and to be my birth partner during the initial stages of labour. The one condition she had insisted on was that her presence wouldn’t be required during the actual birth.
Debbie was so serious about her role she had decided on a self-imposed alcohol ban for the entire week before the baby was due. Unfortunately, however, no one had told Sarah that most first babies come well after their due date, and the night before the ban was to start, I found myself suddenly awake. Turning onto my other side I tried to get comfortable. Almost asleep again I felt a faint pain in my belly. Jolted back into consciousness, I sat upright and stared down at where my lap used to be, trying to figure out if this was the real thing.
Fifteen minutes later I had just decided that I must have imagined the pain when I felt it again.
After two more of what I was now pretty sure were contractions, I dialled the hospital number Dr Daniels had given me.
‘Ah, hi,’ I stammered. I tried again. ‘I think I’m in labour,’ I managed, feeling vaguely stupid. I was reminded of the uncomfortable work conferences I’d been to where people were required to introduce themselves by stating their name, job and ‘something personal’. ‘Hi, I’m Sophie, I’m an events coordinator and I’m in labour,’ would certainly have livened things up, I reflected.
‘Just one moment, I’ll transfer you to the labour ward,’ answered the receptionist. Of course, a switchboard. My feeling of stupidity was now not at all vague.
‘Labour ward,’ a brisk-sounding woman announced.
‘Yes, hello. Um, could I speak to a nurse?’ I wasn’t taking any chances this time.
‘I’m a midwife.’
‘Right. Ah, my doctor told me to call when I started having contractions. And, um, well, I think I am.’
The midwife asked me various questions, sounding rather unimpressed when I told her that the contractions were about fifteen minutes apart.
‘Well, I’d say you’ve still got a long way to go, love,’ she pronounced. ‘You can either stay at home for a while yet or come straight to hospital.’
Was she kidding, I wondered?
After informing her that I’d be straight in, I dialled Debbie’s home number. I wasn’t surprised when she didn’t answer and I tried her mobile. Even before I heard her voice, the background music and laughter told me that I’d be needing an alternative form of transport.
‘Hello?’ she answered merrily.
Her inebriated tone changed as soon as she heard my voice.
‘Ohmigod,’ she gasped, ‘but the baby can’t come now, it’s not due for another week.’
Debbie’s hysteria was obviously getting the better of her blood alcohol level. ‘But I can’t drive you. I’m in town and I’ve just had the best part of a jug of margaritas. I couldn’t even find the car, let alone drive it. What on earth are you going to do?’
‘It’s all right, don’t panic,’ I said, reflecting wryly that I should be the hysterical one, not the calming influence. ‘I’ll call a taxi and you can meet me at the hospital.’
‘Yes, yes of course, a taxi,’ Debbie stuttered. ‘But do they take women who are about to give birth?’ she asked nervously. ‘Wouldn’t that be an insurance risk or something?’
‘Of course they do,’ I reassured her, pushing away the sudden worry that she could be right. ‘I just won’t scream in pain as the taxi is pulling up,’ I added.
‘Scream in pain? It’s not really that bad, is it?’ Debbie seemed to have totally lost her sense of humour.
As she spoke I felt another contraction begin. I looked at my watch, suddenly unable to remember the time of the contraction before. Had it been fifteen minutes already, or only ten?
At the thought that the contractions were getting closer together, panic flared. Delivering the baby on my bathroom floor in front of a fireman (someone had once told me they had the fastest response time of all the emergency services) wasn’t what I had had in mind.
‘Sophie?’ Debbie asked and I realised I hadn’t answered her question.
Gritting my teeth, I tried to think of an appropriately calming answer, afraid that my birthing partner was about to stand me up.
‘No, Debbie.’ I took a deep breath. ‘I’m just joking.’
Debbie obviously detected a lack of conviction in my voice. ‘Are you sure?’ she asked nervously.
The contraction eased.
‘I’m fine,’ I managed, more firmly. ‘Look, I need to get going, I’ll see you there, okay?’
‘Okay,’ she answered in an uncertain tone.
After ordering a taxi, I grabbed my toothbrush from the bathroom and stuffed it inside Debbie’s Louis Vuitton overnight bag. She’d insisted that I borrow it, declaring that if I was going to do something as disgusting as give birth, I’d better do it in style.
Ready to go, I sat down at the table. After flicking aimlessly through the newspaper, I stopped and looked around the living room, trying to comprehend the fact that the next time I walked back in the door it would be with a baby.
The taxi tooted outside. Another contraction grabbed at my stomach and I leant against the wall. For a moment my composure left me and I was suddenly terrified.
A cartoon I’d seen years before leapt into my mind. It had shown a pregnant woman being wheeled into the delivery room, proclaiming that she’d suddenly changed her mind. The cartoon had seemed funny at the time.
I forced myself to remember what we’d been told at antenatal classes. Breathing! That was supposed to help. I concentrated on deep breaths in and out, not convinced of their benefit by the time the contraction finished. Looking at my watch, I was comforted to see it was still more than ten minutes since the last contraction. That didn’t seem too much of a change.
The taxi tooted again. Turning off the light, I headed out the door.
‘Where to, love?’ the young cab driver asked cheerfully as I lowered myself onto the back seat.
I assumed he hadn’t seen my profile, as I couldn’t think of too many places a pregnant woman would be going with a suitcase in the early hours of the morning.
‘St Bartholomew’s Hospital.’
The penny obviously dropped and his head snapped around. ‘Right, right,’ he muttered nervously. Throwing the car into gear, he took off so fast that the rear tyres squealed.
‘Ah, could you slow down a bit, please?’ I asked tentatively.
‘Sorry, sorry,’ he apologised, without slowing the pace at all. ‘It’s just that you could have the baby at any moment,’ he continued nervously. ‘I’ve read about taxi drivers delivering babies on the side of the road. A bloody nose makes me feel faint. I don’t even want to think about what a baby would do to me.’
I seemed destined to spend my whole labour reassuring others. ‘It really doesn’t work that way,’ I yelled over the roar of the motor. ‘I’ve spoken to the hospital and they think it will take hours more but they’ve told me to come in just to be safe.’
‘Really?’ he asked disbelievingly, slowing marginally.
‘Really,’ I said forcefully. ‘Do you think I’d want to have my baby in the back of a taxi, miles from a hospital full of people who actually know what they’re doing?’
‘Guess not,’ he acknowledged grudgingly, slowing a little more. ‘Where’s your fella, then?’ he asked in an obvious attempt to make conversation. ‘Meeting you there?’
‘Ah no, he’s moved to San Francisco actually,’ I answered flatly.
‘Oh, right,’ he replied uncomfortably.
Conversation lapsed after that, but I could see him flicking nervous looks at me in the rear-vision mirror.
I looked at my watch. Six minutes since the last contraction. I tried to calculate whether we were likely to reach the hospital before I had another one, concerned that one groan would see me deposited on the footpath.
At ten minutes we approached a red traffic light. The driver slowed reluctantly, tapping
his fingers impatiently on the dashboard.
‘C’mon, c’mon,’ he muttered.
The lights changed and he accelerated quickly.
I spotted the hospital a few blocks away. But instead of the relief I’d expected, I felt a sinking in my stomach and a sudden sense of impending doom. I’d been able to deal with being en route to the hospital, but somehow arriving there felt very different, as if it actually committed me to this whole baby thing. I willed the taxi to slow, but it whizzed along the empty road and pulled into the hospital.
As it stopped, I felt a warm sensation on my thighs.
What on earth? I wondered, looking down.
Realisation dawned as I felt my boots filling up with liquid.
No description I’d read about waters breaking had explained just how much liquid was involved, and the puddle I was sitting in grew and continued cascading onto the floor.
The taxi pulled up at the hospital entrance.
‘Well, we’re here,’ the driver said, in obvious relief. ‘And all in one piece.’
Opening my mouth to enlighten him, I closed it again, unable to bring myself to break the news. Maybe the next passenger would just think someone had spilt a drink in the back seat. After all, drunks threw up in cabs. That was a lot worse than this, wasn’t it?
I leant over and handed the driver a fifty-dollar note.
‘Keep the change,’ I muttered guiltily.
‘Really? Thanks,’ he answered.
Feeling like a coward, I slid off the back seat and out of the car.
Following the signs to the maternity ward, I squelched up to the reception desk and stood there dripping. The nurse took in the situation at a glance (to her credit, not even sniggering) and within ten minutes I was in a hospital room, having discarded my sodden trousers for a pastel-coloured floral nightgown which tied at the back.
Debbie had obviously recovered her composure on the trip to the hospital, because she laughed as soon as she saw me. ‘Oh, very you, Sophie,’ she said. ‘I’m sure everyone will be wearing one of those this year.’
‘You’re a comedian,’ I groaned, feeling more than usually outclassed by Debbie as she clattered into the room on her high heels, wearing a silvery grey sheath, which I knew had cost a fortune.
Once the nurse had hooked me up to a couple of monitors, she left us alone. Debbie wandered around the room, opening drawers and fiddling with various gadgets.
‘So what happens now?’ she asked, her earlier unease returning.
‘It’ll probably take hours before anything much happens,’ I said. ‘I’m getting contractions about every ten minutes, but they don’t last too long and so far they don’t hurt too much.’
‘Right, right,’ she muttered, obviously only half listening.
Her head jolted up. ‘Where’s the doctor?’ she asked suddenly.
I’d been through this with Debbie a few weeks ago but, as I’d suspected at the time, not much had sunk in.
‘He only gets here once I’m into the second stage of labour,’ I said patiently.
‘Run it by me again. You’ve got to be, what, fifteen centimetres expanded before that happens?’ Debbie asked with a grimace.
‘Ten centimetres dilated,’ I corrected her. Only in Debbie’s presence did I resemble any form of expert on the birth process.
‘Well, that doesn’t sound too hard, does it?’ she said hopefully.
Another contraction started and I suddenly tired of my role as calm, collected patient.
‘Debbie, I have no idea, all right? You’re supposed to be keeping my spirits up, not the other way around.’
‘Okay, okay,’ Debbie muttered in an offended tone.
The situation was saved by the entrance of the nurse bearing a pot of black coffee, which I’d requested as soon as I arrived, in the hope of bringing Debbie back to something approximating a sober state.
She took one sip and shuddered, replacing the cup on the saucer. ‘That is absolutely disgusting. It tastes like it was brewed about the time this baby of yours was conceived.’
Alcohol always made Debbie hyperactive and she looked around the room in search of something to do. I saw her eyes light up as she focused on an object over my shoulder. Sensing danger, I turned around in time to see her pick up a plastic mask, hold it over her face and fiddle with a knob on the wall.
‘Debbie, what are you doing?’ I demanded.
I could see her smile even behind the mask.
‘Happy gas,’ was her muffled reply.
She took a deep breath and then took the mask off. ‘I haven’t had gas since I went to the dentist when I was a kid,’ she said. ‘Why do they stick a needle in your mouth rather than giving you this lovely stuff, do you think?’
‘Debbie, you can’t do that,’ I spluttered, ignoring her question and looking nervously over my shoulder towards the door. ‘What if the nurse comes back?’
‘Just one more puff?’ she pleaded.
‘Absolutely not,’ I replied firmly. ‘Put it back. Now.’
Like a sulky two year old, she replaced the mask and threw herself into the chair beside the bed.
Five minutes later she was asleep. Deciding that a sleeping Debbie was better than a drunk Debbie, I left her to it. With a sigh I pulled a magazine out of my bag and flicked it open. I found, though, that I spent the time after each contraction dreading the next one, and soon gave up attempting to read.
Staring out of the hospital window into the darkness I tried to be positive, but a feeling of loneliness swamped me. Dad had been determined that he would be in Sydney when my baby was born, but a month ago, he’d had a minor heart attack. The doctors lectured him fiercely about his high blood pressure and he complained bitterly about the changes to his diet and lifestyle they had dictated, and which Elizabeth enforced with an iron hand. They’d forbidden his flying to the other side of the world.
I pulled out the walkman in my bag. My pregnancy manual had suggested having a nature CD, filled with the sounds of birds and waterfalls, to play during labour. Unable to bring myself to buy such an item, I had, however, included a selection of easy-listening CDs and I inserted one of them.
Within seconds, though, I realised that my weepy mood had abruptly changed to one of anger that I was doing this with only Debbie’s snoring to keep me company, and that the syrupy music was making me feel like punching something. Pulling the CD out, I rifled through my bag, looking for something more in tune with my emotions.
Bruce Springsteen’s Born in the USA went into the machine, and I relaxed slightly. Another contraction began and I cranked the volume up, trying to pretend I was aware of nothing but the music. To my surprise this worked, to an extent, and helped to sustain me through the next hour until a nurse arrived to check the monitors. Depressingly, she informed me that the contractions weren’t strengthening and that there was still a long way to go. I’d been trying to convince myself that every contraction brought the end one step closer, but it seemed that all I was really doing was marking time.
As she left, though, the blackness outside the window began to lighten and the dawn lifted my spirits. I halfheartedly nibbled on an energy bar (one of the ten I’d included in my food pack, which looked like it would sustain me for a three-day hike) and turned on the television, cheered that other people were up and watching the early morning news shows.
At eight Dr Daniels poked his head around the corner.
‘So it’s all happening, hey?’ he said calmly. ‘I’ve just done a C-section and I thought I’d pop in and see how you’re doing.’
‘I’m fine, I think,’ I said. ‘Nothing much seems to be changing, though. Is that normal?’
‘Totally. This stage could go on for a while yet, or things could hot up suddenly.’
As if she sensed the male presence in the room, Debbie stirred and opened her eyes. For someone who had consumed numerous cocktails the night before and had had only a few hours sleep in a chair, she looked remarkably good, I thought with a
touch of irritation.
‘Hello, Doctor,’ she said brightly. Suddenly she sat upright and grasped the arms of the chair. ‘Does this mean the baby’s coming?’ she asked in panic.
‘No, no,’ he reassured her. ‘We’ve still got a way to go. I just dropped in to see how it was going.’
‘Thank God,’ she exclaimed, flopping back into the chair.
Not for the first time, I tried to remember exactly what it was that had led me to believe Debbie would be a good person to assist me through this process.
As if reading my thoughts, she came over and perched on the edge of the bed. ‘Soph. Are you okay?’
Mollified slightly, I nodded. ‘Everything’s still pretty much the same as when I arrived. The contractions feel sort of like a bad stitch.’
Debbie smiled up at Dr Daniels. ‘Have a seat,’ she invited, pulling a chair up to the bed.
‘Thanks.’ He was smiling at Debbie in a way that I recognised and would rather not have seen on my obstetrician’s face.
‘I’ve decided that I’d like to try to manage without an epidural.’
My statement had been more an attempt to interrupt the moment than the result of a lot of thought, but once the words were out it sounded like a good plan.
‘That’s fine.’ Dr Daniels tore his gaze away from Debbie and looked at me. ‘You may want to change your mind later, though, just let me know.’
Debbie glanced at her watch. ‘Eight o’clock! I’d better call work and tell them I won’t be in today. And I don’t know about you two but I’m ravenous. Do they do breakfast here?’
‘What an excellent idea,’ Dr Daniels agreed. ‘I’m sure the nurse will be able to organise something for us.’
‘If it’s anything like last night’s coffee, I’m not sure I’m interested,’ Debbie declared. ‘I’ve got a better idea. I think there’s a coffee shop not far from here. Fancy a walk?’
At first I thought she was talking to me, but I quickly realised that her question was directed at Dr Daniels.
