by Rosie Lewis
‘Cheese roll?’ Mum said, looking over her glasses incredulously. ‘Bloody cheese roll? Would you fancy a cheese roll if you knew you had to pass something the size of a watermelon before morning?’
Zadie gulped.
‘Ssshhh, Mum,’ I hissed.
‘Well,’ she muttered, rolling her eyes.
Des snickered, not at all offended. ‘It says here that some women can become exhausted. I thought she might need an energy boost.’ He leaned into the living room and angled the leaflet towards Mum so she could see he wasn’t making it all up.
Mum scoffed. ‘Complete tripe. The people that write that stuff have probably never even had a baby.’
‘Mum,’ I said warningly, though I needn’t have worried about Des’s feelings. There was a twinkle in his eyes – I think he enjoyed a bit of gentle sparring. ‘Come on, sweetie,’ I said. ‘I think it’s time we went in.’
Zadie was gripped by another contraction. Her face creased in pain. She leaned over the sofa and moaned. Jamie stood in the hall, shaking his hands at his sides and wobbling his knees as if warming up for a race. Emily sat on the arm of the sofa, nibbling her nails. ‘Can we come in as well?’ Jamie asked.
Zadie’s eyes widened in horror.
‘I think not, Jamie. I’ll keep you all informed. You can take my bed, Mum,’ I told her.
‘Oh no, don’t you worry about me. I’ll be on hot coals until I hear from you. It’ll be the sofa for me. And remember, Zadie,’ Mum called out as Des and I walked either side of her down the hall like doting, expectant grandparents, ‘there’s nothing more natural than having a baby. Those women that scream and shout are just attention seekers making a fuss.’
When I came to think of it, I remembered Mum trying that line on me, when I called her to let her know that my labour had started. It had worked too, until a midwife clipped a monitor to my swollen tummy and winced. ‘Ooh, they’re strong ones. You’re coping very well.’ From that moment the pain kicked in and the howling began. It took three days to get my voice back. ‘I thought you said it was no worse than toothache,’ I had croaked to Mum with a resentful look, Emily beside me in her crib.
‘I never said anything of the sort,’ she’d insisted.
Now, as Des and I helped Zadie down the front steps, Mum gave me a complicit smile. Our breath misted in cold air that smelt faintly of smoke. Des guided Zadie into the passenger seat of my car with a gentle hand on her back. ‘Good luck, lassie,’ he said, leaning over to squeeze her arm. ‘You too, Grandma,’ he said to me, smiling.
At the maternity unit we were greeted at reception by Suzanne, the midwife who had first booked Zadie in, just a few short weeks earlier. I was pleased to see her; she moved with sure-footed nimbleness, like a tigress, and had the sort of face that babies would respond to: open and doll-like, with big eyes and long lashes.
I had called ahead to let them know we were on our way and to explain the situation, so that Zadie could be spared any embarrassing questions from inquisitive staff.
‘Hi, Zadie. Let’s get you comfortable, shall we?’
Zadie nodded, her attempt at a smile turning into a rictus of pain as another contraction rippled through her. Gripping a tight hold on the high reception desk, she rested her head on a pile of notes, breathing through another contraction.
‘That’s what we like to see,’ Suzanne chirped, giving Zadie’s back a quick rub. ‘I can see we won’t be sending you home like we do some. Well done, Mum,’ she smiled, patting my arm, ‘for letting things progress so nicely at home.’
With Zadie’s contractions coming quite closely together during our journey, I had started to feel a little more anxious, so it was lovely that Suzanne gave the impression of such brisk efficiency.
In the delivery suite, Suzanne whipped a sheet of blue paper from the bed and laid a fresh one out, her deft moves instilling me with even more confidence. The room was a pale yellow and lit with several lamps, the low lighting casting a gentle glow over everything, even the enamel sink. Sheer white voile hung either side of a slightly open window, flapping gently in the night air. The breeze did nothing to cool the room, though; the heat seemed to shimmer, and, feeling dizzy, I quickly removed my coat.
‘Let’s get these off,’ Suzanne said after washing her hands. Her tone left no room for refusal and Zadie undressed quickly, removing her headscarf first, then her robe. Suzanne helped her into a back-fastening robe, the name of the hospital stamped in tiny pink and blue letters. Zadie looked even younger and more vulnerable than ever in the large hospital gown, her bump looking alien on her thin body.
Zadie’s contractions were coming regularly, every three minutes or so, and Suzanne had hooked her up to a mobile foetal heart monitor so that she could move around easily. The next one had her down on her hands and knees on the linoleum floor, howling like a wounded animal. I knelt down beside her, rubbing her back and repeating soothing words over and over. When it subsided she sank her head into my lap. ‘This is bad, Rosie,’ she said, her voice woozy.
She remained on all fours and thrashed her way through the next couple of contractions with her head still buried in my lap. When they were over and she rocked back onto her heels, her face was sweaty and her pupils like pin-pricks. Three hours passed in the same way, with Zadie moaning, panting and sighing while her tummy rose and fell. Sometimes she clung to me but then seconds later she would groan and push me away. I tended to her as well as I could, rocking, patting, massaging and singing as she panted, groaned and yelped.
After another hour or so I felt a tempo change. Zadie’s contractions seemed to have strengthened and she withdrew further into herself, becoming so intensely focused that I wasn’t even sure she could hear me. I began to feel uneasy. I knew having a baby was natural, but not this young, not when she was still just a child herself. I tried hard to hide my fear but even with the calming presence of Suzanne, who really was marvellous, I couldn’t shake the feeling.
Another contraction arrived on the tail of the one before, this time with seemingly no warning. Zadie flung her arms around my neck and hung there, her dark hair plastered flat to her scalp. Grateful for a draught from the window, I leaned against the high-backed chair and shook my head a few times, trying to keep myself awake enough to summon fresh encouragement. I wasn’t absolutely sure that my words were reaching her, either that or my well-worn phrases – ‘That’s it, well done, sweetie!’ – were wearing thin. Every so often, as Zadie gripped my hand and panted her way through the contraction, I would glance at Suzanne for reassurance. ‘We’re progressing nicely,’ she regularly intoned in a sing-song voice while moving methodically around the room. I loved the way she said it, as if we were all in the same boat, but I wondered if any of the other women she tended in labour had reacted badly to the comment.
After another hour of regular contractions without much respite in between, Zadie became too weak to continue with her circuits and sank into bed. ‘I can’t stand this, Rosie,’ she complained, her hair ebony against the stark white sheets, skin burnished. Moments later Suzanne strode purposely across the room and my heart sank.
‘Oh no, please don’t,’ Zadie wailed as Suzanne closed the window.
‘I’m sorry, sweetie. It’s getting a bit cool in here and we have to keep it warm for the baby.’
‘But what about me?!’ Zadie cried out, her face tightening as another contraction rolled through her. It was the first time I had ever heard her raise her voice.
Suzanne shushed her briskly and suggested an internal examination instead, to see how close Zadie was to the second stage. It didn’t strike me as much of an appealing trade-off, although thankfully Zadie, at that moment, was blissfully unaware of the fate awaiting her. Gasping on some gas and air, she clenched my fingers tightly, her eyes wide in horror as Suzanne carried out the task. The moment it was over and I saw the midwife’s face as she pulled off her latex glove, I knew it wasn’t good news. ‘Two centimetres,’ Suzanne announced in what sounded like
an encouraging tone, though as she turned from Zadie’s view she grimaced and raised her eyebrows at me.
Zadie, having read up on the stages of birth weeks earlier, wasn’t easily duped, and she took it badly. ‘I can’t do it any more, Rosie,’ she sobbed, laying her head against my chest.
Feeling helpless, I looked at Suzanne.
‘Have something to help then, sweetie-pie,’ Suzanne said. ‘We can give you some Pethidine. It’ll help take the edge off the pain. It’s just a small injection, lots of people have it.’
Zadie looked at me. Her eyes were unfocused, her face flushed. ‘Should I, Rosie?’
I stroked her damp hair back from her forehead. After she had told me that her family didn’t approve of pain relief, and confused by the conflicting information on the internet, I had checked with Sofia to see if there was any religious basis for refusing help during labour. Sofia had told me that some Muslims objected to the use of narcotic pain relief but the general feeling among clerics was that the well-being of the patient was the most important priority. ‘There’s nothing wrong with accepting a little help, honey.’
Moments later Suzanne had drawn the Pethidine into a syringe and was injecting it into Zadie’s hip. Even before the midwife had finished dabbing the jab site with a wad of cotton wool, Zadie began to react. The first thing I noticed was that her breaths were coming in little gasps. Then out of nowhere she went into a coughing fit that left her puce.
I looked back and forth between her and Suzanne, but the midwife was busy examining the monitor displaying Zadie’s blood pressure and pulse. The numbers seemed to be running wildly, all over the place. Bright fluorescent strip lights snapped on overhead and I realised that Suzanne must have flicked a switch to power them up. Without the dimmed lighting the room was instantly transformed, no longer welcoming and homely but sanitised and clinical. Anxiety heightened my senses and I suddenly became aware of a pungent antiseptic smell that I hadn’t noticed earlier. Acutely aware of a sharp change in Suzanne’s demeanour, my hands shook as I poured Zadie some water and offered it to her, but she was wheezing too much to drink it. ‘What’s going on, Suzanne?’ I said, trying to keep my voice steady.
‘It’s all right,’ Suzanne said. Her tone was still sing-song but there was a brisk intensity to her movements. She ran her index finger over the printouts monitoring the baby’s heartbeat, slipped an oxygen mask over Zadie’s face, then calmly pressed a big red button on the wall above the bed. A loud bleep resonated along the corridor outside and a harsh beam of red light was projected in the space beneath the door.
Zadie’s face drained of all colour and then she suddenly whipped off her mask and threw up on the sheet in front of her. ‘There,’ I said with cheery unease, rubbing her back and beginning to gather the sheet into a ball. ‘You’ll feel better now, isn’t that right, Suzanne?’
But she didn’t look better at all, and Suzanne, her concentration narrowed, didn’t answer. It was then I noticed that Zadie’s face was swollen. She began clawing at her throat. ‘I can’t breathe, Rosie,’ she gasped, her eyes searching mine in panic. ‘I’m going to die.’
‘No you’re not,’ I said, trying to breathe away the tight band of anxiety around my own chest. I’m usually good at manufacturing an appearance of calm when I feel nothing of the sort, but my fear was beginning to fan into panic. I pulled myself upright and took a few long, calming breaths. ‘You’re just having a bit of a reaction to the medicine, that’s all, sweetie.’
Seconds later a tall black man burst into the room. Suzanne began speaking immediately, passing on information in a calm but urgent tone. Dressed in a shirt and tie, with a stethoscope swaying around his neck, the consultant gave a curt nod in comprehension. I was relieved by his air of confidence, the way he strode towards us with absolute certainty of what needed to be done. Tipping the bed flat with a single touch, he leaned over Zadie, pressed a crooked forefinger to her brow and the pad of his thumb to her cheekbone and shone a light in her eyes. A blonde, young-looking doctor followed and the consultant barked an order at her, something technical that I didn’t understand. Within moments it seemed as if the whole room was full of people. There were loud crashes as they whipped open drawers, pulling out tubes and rustling white packages with brisk competence.
Each moved deftly around the other and, through my terror, I marvelled at how they managed to keep so many plates spinning in such a pressurised situation. They seemed to know exactly what they were doing, moving around one another with an urgent, methodical calm. It was a perfect choreography that was both stunning and terrifying to watch. I noticed a steel tray being passed through a gap between the bodies surrounding the bed and a drip suddenly appeared in Zadie’s arm. I found myself swept back, away from Zadie.
‘Rosie!’ Zadie croaked, gasping for breath.
‘I’m right here, honey.’
‘Don’t leave me, Rosie.’ There was utter panic in her voice now.
‘I’m not going anywhere,’ I called out. Instinct was shouting at me to go to her and pull her into a hug so that she would know she was loved and that she wasn’t alone in all of this. I tried to touch her hand instead but I couldn’t reach. ‘I’m right beside you, honey.’
Raising myself on tiptoes, I tried to see past the sea of heads. The tall black doctor spoke quickly but precisely; most of what he said sounded like a different language. It was horrifying yet hypnotic and I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the hospital bed. It must have been a few seconds before I realised that the gentle tug on my arm was Suzanne, drawing me away. ‘Let’s leave them to sort her out, Rosie,’ she said, her voice soft but firm.
‘Don’t fight us, darling,’ a disembodied voice said. There were now so many people in the room that I was losing track, although I recognised the accent as Irish. I kept swallowing to rid myself of the panic. Surely nothing bad can happen to her now, I thought, not after everything she’d already been through, as if her traumatic past meant a ransom had been paid providing immunity from future misery.
‘Is she going to be all right?’ I asked Suzanne, my voice quivering. By that point I had given up trying to put a brave face on it.
‘She’s in safe hands,’ Suzanne said firmly, gently clasping my upper arms and ushering me back into the bright white corridor. ‘I’m afraid we’ll have to leave them to get on with it now.’ She showed me to the relatives’ room and assured me that she would let me know as soon as there was any news, but I was too tense to stay in one place. After a couple of minutes I slipped back into the corridor, in time to see some nurses wheeling a trolley swiftly around a bend and out of sight.
The air swirled with the smell of hospital food – boiled carrots, cabbage and roast chicken – so much so that my stomach rolled in protest. At least it was cooler though, I thought, as I headed towards the exit. Distantly, footsteps echoed and there was the sound of a telephone ringing. The cold, early morning air hit me with a rush and I stopped for a moment a few feet from the entrance, shivering. My coat was still in the delivery room, I realised, so I couldn’t even text home to let them know what was going on.
‘Mrs Lewis?’ The consultant who had tended to Zadie in the delivery room was striding towards me down the corridor wearing a pale-blue smock top over wide-legged trousers of the same colour. When he reached me he shook my hand, patting my arm with his free hand. ‘Mother and baby are fine. We had to perform an emergency caesarean but Zadie is conscious now and breathing for herself. We’ll be taking her straight to the intensive care unit to keep a close eye on her.’
I pinched my eyes closed with relief. All the stress of the past 24 hours seemed to melt away, leaving me momentarily euphoric. I could feel all the colour and warmth returning to me. ‘Thank you so much,’ I said, barely able to meet his eye I was so in awe of him.
He smiled, squeezed my hand, then turned and walked away down the corridor. I watched him go, marvelling at his modest, down-to-earth manner and the fact that he had deigned to speak to me at all.
Moments later, as the consultant’s footsteps faded to a dull thud, my energy drained away. With my vision wavering, I leaned my head against the cool white wall and closed my eyes. It was all I could do to keep upright. Light-headed, I realised I had last eaten on Friday evening, which was what? I frowned. I couldn’t even work out how long ago. Trying to summon the energy to hunt for a vending machine, I became aware of the sound of more footsteps. As they drew closer I turned to see a midwife with blonde hair and a blue uniform much like Suzanne’s was walking towards me, her head tilted, her arms cradling a tiny baby.
‘Mrs Lewis?’
I nodded, wincing in the harsh light.
She smiled. ‘Here we are, Nanny,’ she said warmly, planting the tiny infant snugly in the crook of my arm. I looked down at the delicate sleeping face, so like Zadie’s, the crescent of dark lashes so long that they rested on her cheeks. ‘Boy? Girl?’ I asked, realising that I hadn’t even asked the consultant what sex the baby was. My eyes fixed on the little woollen hat that my neighbour had knitted for the baby and Zadie had insisted on packing; the midwives must have found it in her hospital bag.
‘Girl. Five pounds six ounces.’
‘And she’s healthy?’ I asked, subconsciously running my hands over her fingers.
‘She scored 9 on the Apgar. She’s absolutely fine. No adverse effects from Mum’s reaction.’
I let out a sigh and thanked her with a brief smile before returning my attention to the baby. I stroked a tiny hand and her eyes fluttered open. She stared at me with a sort of wonder and I felt a deep clawing sensation in my stomach, almost as if I was afraid. Whether it was fear of what the future held for them or the realisation that they were both so vulnerable, I had no idea. I just knew it was there, a pressing feeling that was to stay with me through the weeks to come, however relieved I was that the birth and all its drama were behind us. I resolved to do all I could to make sure this little one would have the best possible chance of staying with her mother.
