The Baby Laundry for Unmarried Mothers

by Angela Patrick

  When I missed a second period, I was even more sure I was right: it was symptomatic of the extreme nature of my desire to have a child. I had read extensively on the subject, and I knew these things were relatively common. The mind could play all sorts of tricks on the body, and periods could stop for any number of reasons. It was to put my mind at rest, then, that I made an appointment with the doctor. My suspicions were confirmed: the pregnancy test I’d asked for came back negative.

  The promised period did not appear, however. So I called the doctor again, because I was becoming anxious about having some sort of medical condition. If I wasn’t pregnant – and I had just had it confirmed that I wasn’t – then what exactly was happening to me?

  ‘Give it a week,’ he advised, seeming completely relaxed. ‘Then come back and we’ll do another test.’

  I didn’t tell him that I was being sick in the mornings, because I felt certain he’d start questioning my mental stability. I was worried that the authorities in charge of the adoption would have grave concerns if they thought I was unhinged. I waited the allotted week, then had another test, only this time, when I called to find out the result, I was told something I was convinced I’d never hear.

  ‘Ah, Mrs Patrick,’ the receptionist said gaily. ‘The doctor asked to speak to you himself. Just a moment, and I’ll put you right through to him.’

  I felt anxious then, despite her light tone. Perhaps something bad was happening to me. But when my doctor came on the line, his voice couldn’t have sounded brighter either. ‘Angela,’ he said. ‘I have wonderful news. I’ve got your results in front of me. You’re pregnant!’

  It took several seconds for this information to sink in. ‘Are you absolutely sure?’ I said, not quite able to believe it.

  ‘Absolutely sure,’ he confirmed. ‘As I say, I have the piece of paper right here in my hand, and I can’t tell you how pleased I am for you and Michael. Congratulations!’

  Still I refused to believe him. ‘For definite? I mean, there’s no chance this could be a false positive?’

  ‘Trust me,’ he said. ‘You are pregnant – around three months into it – so very definitely pregnant. Which means I’ll need to see you sooner rather than later. Let me pop you back to my receptionist and she can get an appointment arranged for you. And, as I say, congratulations to you both!’

  I put the phone down with shaking fingers. I had paint on them, I noticed, a constellation of white speckles, where I’d been using the roller in the living room. I could still hear The Jimmy Young Show burbling to itself on the transistor radio. I was pregnant. I had a baby growing inside me again.

  And then I smiled, suddenly remembering the conversation Michael and I had had two days before. I’d been dressing. I was up early for something – I couldn’t remember what now – and putting my bra on. ‘You’ve grown!’ he’d said, winking.

  I sat down on the seat beside the hall table and placed my speckled hand over my tummy. There was nothing to see, nothing to feel, nothing to give me any clues to my condition other than the dispiriting sickness with which I’d been waking each morning and which now felt like the most wonderful thing in the world.

  I did some sums then, counting on my fingers, back and forth, trying to work out all the whens, whys and wherefores of the calculation. The 20th of December, he’d told me. It would be due on the 20th of December. So when had this child been conceived, exactly? My brain couldn’t seem to work it out. I stopped trying to remember. Did it even matter? Of course it didn’t.

  Instead I picked up the receiver again. It was 11.30. Michael would be on the floor of the Stock Exchange right now. But that was okay. The telephonist in his office, a couple of streets away, would answer the phone and transfer it straight through to the Hexagon. Michael worked in the gilt edge section, along with all the government brokers, who went on the floor in their traditional top hats. It made me smile to visualise him there, in the thick of it among them, and his reaction to what I was about to tell him. The phone rang six times before it was answered.

  A baby, I kept thinking as I waited. A baby! It had actually happened. I couldn’t stop grinning.

  I felt a bit light-headed, almost tongue-tied, when I finally heard his voice. ‘What are you doing around Christmas time?’ I asked him. The background noise was deafening, so I had to speak up.

  ‘I beg your pardon?’ he said. ‘What am I doing around Christmas time?’ He sounded slightly short. It wasn’t really on for him to take personal phone calls at work. I didn’t care.

  ‘Exactly!’ I said brightly.

  ‘How would I know? Um, whatever you’re doing around Christmas time, I imagine. Angela, what—’

  ‘Okay, so what are we doing around Christmas time?’ I persisted.

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said, displaying impressive patience at my nonsense. Or perhaps sensing my interrogation had some reason to it. ‘You tell me,’ he said. ‘What are we doing, then?’

  ‘Well, I don’t know what you’re doing, but I do know what I’m doing. I’m going to be having our baby!’

  He had to phone me back. I’d said it at least three times, and we’d whooped and cried and laughed, and whooped some more, but he still had to phone me back five minutes later, because he was so shocked he hadn’t fully taken it in.

  ‘We’re having a baby, definitely? I didn’t dream that conversation?’

  ‘We’re having a baby,’ I confirmed. ‘Definitely.’

  It took a couple more weeks for it to sink in properly for me too. In fact, I don’t think I really allowed myself to believe I was pregnant, at least not till my early symptoms were joined by further evidence it was real. Once my waistline began to disappear and a little bump began forming, I finally accepted it and allowed myself to breathe out mentally.

  There was still the question of the adoption. We realised immediately that it would be very difficult to go ahead with it, as the baby we were adopting was due in late November, just a month before our own child was due to be born. So we waited till my doctor had unequivocally confirmed my pregnancy, and then pulled out of the process, still not quite believing we were having our own child. I think I pinched myself several times a day.

  There was one other person for whom this long awaited pregnancy would, I knew, mean more than she could say, and that was my mother.

  We decided it would be nice to go and tell her and Sam in person, so on a Saturday afternoon, a week or so after I’d seen the doctor, we drove up to Rayleigh, where they still lived in the same bungalow, to tell them both the wonderful news.

  ‘I knew it,’ she said, the second we’d arrived and the words had come tumbling out. ‘I knew it!’ And her expression was delightful to see. ‘I could tell last time you were here,’ she continued. We’d been up to visit a couple of weeks previously. ‘You just had that look about you. I knew it!’

  It had been a difficult few years for my mother, I think. I knew she had felt dreadful when I’d had to be admitted to hospital, once for the surgery on my womb and again after an awful reaction to tests on my fallopian tubes. I knew she felt my heartache at the endless disappointments keenly, as any mother would. I think she also carried a burden of guilt about Paul’s adoption. How could she not? She’d had three children, I’d had just the one and I’d been made to give him up. I had not been allowed to mother him; I was denied the opportunity to watch him grow. And with every passing year that I didn’t conceive another child, I think she must have felt more and more guilty. Even if guilt wasn’t her principal emotion, she was still my mother – how could she not feel my pain?

  That said, she had also been positive throughout. It had taken seven years for her to conceive John after having Ray, so perhaps that had been her consolation. It might yet happen; one day it would happen. And now it had. On the day when we went up to tell her, I got a sense, albeit small, of how much she did care.

  We’d gone into the kitchen, the two of us, to make a pot of tea and cut a sponge cake she’d made for o
ur visit. She still had a look of such pleasure on her face. She was so visibly thrilled that she’d already noticed my condition, in that way only someone very close to you can. She’d never been demonstrative, and wasn’t about to start now, but as she bustled around, pulling out a tray, fetching the sugar bowl and some spoons, she didn’t need to be. The smile on her face said it all.

  ‘You must take care of yourself now, Angela,’ she said firmly. ‘It’s important that you don’t overdo it. All that decorating you’ve been doing. You must slow down now you’re expecting a baby. Angela, promise me you will.’

  I said I would, of course, but I couldn’t help wanting to point out just what gruelling physical labour we had all been forced to do in the convent, right up until our due dates. Had she any idea just how punishing it had been? How exhausted and demoralised and distressed we’d all felt? How much we could have done with just an ounce of compassion? A kind word, some support, a loving hug?

  Would things have been any different if she had known all that? No, I thought, probably not. But I must be fair to her. She hadn’t known, had she?

  ‘I’m so happy for you, Angela,’ she said then. ‘So happy.’

  I believed her, and that was what mattered.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Our baby was born in the early hours of 19 December 1976 at Willsborough Hospital, in Ashford, where it had once again been decided that it would be prudent for me to be induced. The baby was due very close to Christmas, so with me being an ‘older first-time mother’ and staffing levels being an issue over the holiday period, they suggested it might be safer that way. I didn’t argue. It was a long drive from home to the hospital and there was always a risk of being caught in heavy pre-Christmas traffic. So I’d packed a much smaller case with the things I would need for my short stay, including a change of nightwear for me, and a couple of all-in-ones for my new baby – all of it, this time, coming home with me.

  It seems incredible today, but as far as I know, no one knew I’d already had a baby. To the antenatal and maternity staff – not to mention my GP – I was classed as an ‘elderly primigravida’, which apparently put me at risk of various complications, most of which didn’t, in reality, apply.

  ‘Look at you! You’re a natural,’ my midwife said, as my contractions began to strengthen. It was 6 p.m. on 18 December and the drugs they’d administered earlier that afternoon were definitely beginning to make their presence felt.

  ‘You’re doing so well!’ agreed another nurse as I tried to breathe my way through them, being forcibly reminded that the memories I had of childbirth were nothing compared to the reality. She beamed encouragement, however, and smiled broadly as I grimaced. ‘You’ve obviously listened at your antenatal classes, Angela!’

  Oh, I thought, wincing, if only you knew.

  It was odd having to keep up this pretence of ignorance during my labour, but it was all new and different this time. Whereas with Paul I’d felt wretched, alone and only tolerated by the staff, here I felt supported and optimistic. I was also relatively calm, knowing, at least in part, what was going to happen, and so much better able to deal with the pain. I knew what to expect now, both physically and mentally. This time I was also secure in the knowledge that when this baby was born, I would not have to endure the agony of giving it up.

  If anything, what I’d mostly felt up to now was excited – a little scared, too, after the horrendous experience of my first birth. I’d read widely by this stage and had absorbed the mantra that held true in almost all cases: it would be easier – and faster – the second time around. But not that fast, particularly when your labour is started by induction. After dropping me at the maternity unit, and then bringing his parents to the hospital to say hello and good luck, Michael had gone home to grab some dinner.

  ‘We’ll call him,’ the nurse had reassured me as he left. ‘And in plenty of time, so don’t worry. Better for him to go home and have a rest and a meal than hang around for hours. We’ll have him back for the important bit, I promise.’

  That had seemed fine while I was up on the ward, with its congenial atmosphere of calm expectation. But no sooner had I waved him off with a cheery ‘See you later!’ than it was time to get moving myself. I was transferred to the labour ward at seven in the evening, by which time the contractions had been growing steadily fiercer, and my recollections of Paul’s birth similarly lucid. It hurt.

  The new environment didn’t help much either. The hospital was in a state of transition at that time, with the crumbling old one soon to be razed to its foundations to make way for a wonderful new facility up the road, which would be opening, with much flourish, in February. Sadly, I was sandwiched between these two events, and so was billeted, along with all the other unfortunately timed mothers, in a grim ward in a hospital that had once been a workhouse. Close to decommissioning, it was bare of all but the essentials, with the beds crammed in and only separated by curtains – there were none of the private rooms that are so common now.

  The noise was deafening. Next to me, when I arrived, was a girl close to delivery, and her screaming and yelling scared me witless.

  ‘Can you call my husband now?’ I asked plaintively, my previous calm taking flight. ‘Just to be sure he has enough time to get here?’

  ‘Oh, he’ll have time, my love,’ my midwife reassured me, albeit loudly, so I could hear her above the din. ‘Baby won’t be coming along for hours yet.’

  So I lay there and tried to drown out the cacophony around me while I waited for Michael and the next contraction. Those ‘hours yet’ were going to be awfully long ones.

  But, in the end, as often happens when you’ve lots going on, the time seemed to fly by. Michael arrived back, as promised, and took up his place by my bedside. No sooner had he done so than it was nearly midnight and I seemed to be approaching the point where the business of labouring might soon make way for the infinitely nicer prospect of having already given birth.

  This time I was present: I was in pain but not delirious, frightened but with a clear idea of what I was frightened of and, with my husband at my side, able not to panic. The midwife, dashing frantically from bed to bed, popped her head around the curtain.

  ‘I think it might be soon,’ I gasped, ambushed by another wave of pain.

  She shook her head. ‘You’ve got a little way to go still,’ she answered. ‘Just breathe through them. That’s the way. Just breathe through them.’

  I was sucking on gas and air in great quantities now, floating up to the ceiling, then crashing back down to reality, and crushing Michael’s hand every time.

  ‘It’s like Piccadilly Circus in here,’ he observed drily. ‘Is it always this busy?’

  ‘How would I know?’ I wailed back at him. ‘Wahhhh . . .’

  I’d lost all sense of time now, lost all focus on anything, except the way the contractions seemed to grip my whole body and squeeze every last breath from my lungs. And then something else. Something I remembered so clearly – the irrestistible, unstoppable, overwhelming need to push.

  ‘Michael,’ I hissed at him, removing the gas and air mouthpiece. ‘You have to get the midwife! The baby’s coming!’

  I released his hand and he leapt up and shot through the curtains. I could hear him calling out, like an extra from a Carry On film. ‘Nurse! We need a midwife! Where’s the midwife! We need a midwife!’ I would have smiled but my teeth were now clamped tight together. I knew the drill now. I must not push. I must stop myself from pushing. I couldn’t recall why now, because I was dizzy with the need to, but I knew I must not – not till the nurse came. Thankfully, she was back in moments.

  ‘Oh, my,’ she declared, as she examined me. She sounded worried. ‘I can see the head! Nurse!’ she bellowed to someone else I couldn’t see. ‘We need to get Mrs Patrick to the delivery room – NOW!’

  I couldn’t have cared less which room I gave birth in. All I knew was that I was about to, whether I, or any of my baby manuals, liked it or not. Nev
ertheless, my bed and I were rushed out of the labour ward to the delivery suite, and less than ten minutes later our baby was with us. But then I realised not with us, just with me. I looked around, confused. Where was Michael?

  ‘It’s a girl! A baby girl!’ the midwife told me, delightedly. ‘And, goodness me – would you look at that mop of hair on her!’

  Panting and dazed, I looked around for my husband, whom I realised I’d not seen since he’d been running along beside me in the mad panic to get me where they wanted me. What had happened to him? Was he on the floor, having fainted? And then, just as I was about to ask, the door to the delivery room opened. ‘Oh, Mr Patrick!’ one of the nurses said, seeing him. ‘I’m so sorry. Quick, come in. Come on in and meet your daughter!’

  So he did, looking almost as dazed and confused as I was. ‘They shut me out!’ he protested. ‘So I thought I wasn’t allowed in!’ Though there was no annoyance in his voice as he looked at our baby, just an expression of profound relief. By now they’d cut the cord and she was nestled against my chest. He stood and gazed in apparent wonder at this new life we’d created. Then he looked back at me. ‘Good Lord,’ he said, grinning now. ‘She looks like she’s done ten rounds with Henry Cooper!’

  As he was to confess to me only a couple of days later, it would be 2.30 in the morning before it really sank in for him. While he was driving home to bed along deserted streets, Christmas lights twinkling everywhere, Johnny Mathis came on the radio singing ‘A Child Is Born’. Michael cried the rest of the way home.

  We’d had no preference, of course. All we wanted was a healthy child, but when our baby was born I was secretly so glad we’d been blessed with a daughter. I would have loved a son equally, but there was always this nagging sense that, for me, a boy might feel like a replacement for Paul, who was now in my mind every moment. We named her Katharine, and I was shocked at how much like her brother she looked, from the tone of her skin to her cute little features to that same unruly thatch of black hair; both were born on a Sunday, both Sagittarians. I cherished all these points of connection.