by Isabel Wolff
“Six games to five,” I heard the umpire say. “Hensher leads, final set. Hensher to serve.” Two-headed Alan was prevailing. He was striking a blow for ageing underdogs everywhere. And it had all been done, I realized, with a pang, through the transforming power of love. I flagged down a passing cab.
“Chelsea Harbour, please, and as quick as you can, I’m having a baby!” I said.
“Not in my cab you’re not, darlin’,” he said, suddenly screeching to a halt. “I’m not having that ’orrible mess in ’ere.”
“No, not me, I’m not having one—my friend Sally is, any minute now, so please get there quickly.”
The driver raced down south to Fulham Broadway, thankfully avoiding the crowded King’s Road. Within half an hour we were drawing up outside Chelsea Harbour and I shot up in the lift to Sally’s flat. Joan the midwife opened the door. I felt instantly reassured. Here was someone who knew what she was doing. Thank God, because despite five months’ preparation and seventeen books on childbirth, I didn’t really feel I had a clue. It would be like trying to land a plane having only received training on the ground.
“Where is she, where is she?”
“I’m here, you idiot,” Sally called out calmly. She was sitting on the sofa, watching television, methodically working her way through a box of Quality Street.
“What about your contractions?” I asked, surprised.
“Well, I’ve only had one so far,” she said. “Or maybe it was just cramp. I don’t know. I was just painting the bathroom when I felt this awful twinge. But that was three quarters of an hour ago, and nothing’s really happened since. I think I may have brought you back under false pretenses, Tiffany, I’m really sorry, because I know you wanted to see the tennis, but you see it was rather painful but now it’s completely stopp—” Suddenly she gasped, squeezed her eyes shut, opened her mouth, and emitted a startling noise, like the whine of a jump jet taking off. She held it for ten seconds and then, as the agony eased, her body relaxed again. She looked at me, then blinked, shock shining in her eyes.
“Actually, I think it is starting now,” she whispered.
The midwife nodded. “It’s the first stage,” she said calmly as she took Sally’s blood pressure. “Don’t worry—you’ve got a long way to go yet.”
“Tiffany,” said Sally quietly, “please would you fill up the pool?”
Joan and I ran the hose from the bathroom and into the birthing pool, taking care to make sure the water was quite hot. It took about half an hour to fill, then we put on the lid to conserve the heat.
“Oh God, oh God,” said Sally as she convulsed again. “Uuuuuuuhhhhh! Oh, nooooooooooooo!”
“Breathe deeply,” I urged her as she gripped the sides of the coffee table. “Come on. In through the nose—that’s it.”
“Oooooohhh! . . . hummmmmmmm! . . . Ooooooh! . . . ooooOOOWWWW!” she cried out in pain again. It lasted for about twenty seconds. And then it stopped and she smiled in relief, then turned her gaze back to Songs of Praise. “It’s from Southwark Cathedral,” she explained, as the chords of “He Who Would Valiant Be” struck up. I got out my cross-stitch to calm myself down.
. . . gainst all disaster.
And I realized with a pang that I had had the antique roses kit for almost a year, and had done less than half.
. . . there’s no discouragement, shall make him once relent. . .
I’ll just do a little bit now, I thought to myself, just a thorn or two, and then suddenly Sally was groaning and bellowing again—“Oh God, oh God! This is awful!”
. . . his first avowed intent. . .
“Why don’t you get in the pool now, Sally,” Joan suggested. “You’ll find the water comforting and supportive and that will help with the pain.”
Sally undressed, slowly and painfully, clutching her enormous abdomen. We helped her off with her things, checked the temperature of the water, and then held her hands as she gingerly stepped in and gently lowered herself down. She was so slim and lithe, but with this bizarre bump in front. She looked like a snake which has just swallowed a medium-sized pig. She lay back, gripped the sides of the pool, and tried to relax, twisting and turning her body to try and find the most comfortable position. I put on a CD of some Native American Indian music—but Sally didn’t like it.
“Too bloody depressing—all those wailing voices. Give me the Bach solo cello suites, will you?” she groaned. “I just want to follow one note. It’s in the CD rack, about halfway down.” And as the almost human voice of the solo cello began to fill the room, she closed her eyes and inhaled, snorting the air into her lungs, before expelling it calmly through her mouth. I looked at my watch. It was almost eight P.M. She’d been in labor for about three hours—only another thirty-three to go then, I thought grimly. For a while nothing much happened, Sally just lay back, with her head resting on the side. Sometimes she let herself drop right under the water, which I found slightly alarming. And then she’d surface again, like a mermaid, her hair in streaming rat-tails.
“Oooooooooow! Aaaaaaaaaaaah! OOOOOOOOWWWWWWW!”
I held an ice-pack against her perspiration-beaded brow as her knuckles went white with the pain. The contractions were longer now, lasting up to a minute, during which she bellowed and ululated as if it were death she were encountering, not life.
“Are you OK, Sally?” I asked her uselessly as her jaws clenched together violently. Are you sure you don’t want any drugs?
“I’m fine,” she said, through bared, gritted teeth. “I’m fine, I’m fine, I’m—uuuuuuuuuuuuhhhh! Oooooooooooohhhhhh!! AAAAAIIIIEEEEEEE! Oh God, I want it to stop.” Stop? It had hardly started.
At nine P.M., the midwife put a hand-held electronic monitor under the water and listened to the baby’s heartbeat. “I think we may have a problem,” she said quietly. My heart nearly stopped, but Sally was in the searing spasm of another contraction and hadn’t heard what Joan said. “Sally,” said Joan, when the pain subsided. “You’re doing OK, you’re almost fully dilated, and the baby’s head is well down. But I think there may be a slight problem with the heartbeat, and a chance of fetal distress. Now, I can get you a consultant,” she added calmly, “though I think it would be easier if we went to hospital. But it’s entirely up to you.”
“Oh God, get me to hospital!” Sally groaned. “Just get me to hospital. I want to go to hospital—ooooooooohhhh! Uh, uhh, uuhh, uuhhh, UUUHHH, UUUUUUHHHHH! I like hospitals!” she almost shouted, as we helped her to stand up. “I like them! I never said I didn’t.”
Joan phoned the hospital and told them that we were coming in. “Have you got a taxi firm lined up?” she asked me.
“No. No. Oh God, oh God, I’m sorry, I should have had a number at the ready.”
“There are some . . . cab cards in the . . . drawer by the phone,” Sally said between spasms as Joan helped her to dress.
I phoned the first one. “My friend’s in labor,” I began, but he just said, “Sorry, we’re not a delivery room,” and replaced the receiver. I rang another, but they refused too. “Look, my friend’s in labor,” I said, to a third.
“Oh gawd!” he began reluctantly.
“And the baby’s in distress, you see . . .”
“What’s the address, luv? Give me five minutes.”
Sally was ready now, though her voluminous Nicole Farhi dress was damp from her dripping hair. We got into the lift, supporting her on each side, and stood outside, in front of the marina. One or two of her “neighbors” tut-tutted disapprovingly as Sally stood there, like a Titanic survivor, groaning loudly and shivering, despite the cashmere pashmina which we’d wrapped around her shoulders.
Suddenly a brown Montego screeched to a halt on the forecourt to our left and honked twice. It was as close as he could get. We helped Sally up the steps, Joan spread a contingent towel on the backseat, and sat there with Sally, while I got in the front with the driver.
“Chelsea and Wesminster?” he asked. I nodded. We sped through the backstree
ts of Chelsea and up the Fulham Road, while Sally groaned and whimpered in the back. Ten minutes later we pulled up outside the white awnings of the hospital and Joan and I helped her inside, through the Tesco-style revolving doors. A stretcher was waiting for her, and as we almost ran through the corridors, trying not to look like extras in ER, I quickly took in the airy, white interior with its high walkways and expanses of glass, and enormous colorful sculptures. The lift took us to the third floor, to the Anne Stewart ward, where Sally was whizzed into a delivery suite and quickly transferred to a bed. I waited outside while a consultant obstetrician examined her, and distracted myself by studying a poster promoting the benefits of breast-feeding. After a few minutes the doctor emerged, and I heard Sally’s voice.
“Tiffaneee . . .” I heard her shout. “Tiffanneee.” I parted the floral curtain and went in. Sally was lying on the bed, in the semi-darkened room, wearing a green cotton hospital gown. Great, fat tears coursed down her face.
“He says the baby’s—uh-uh—fine,” she sobbed. “He says she’s going to be all right. Joan just wanted to be on the safe side and I’m glad about that, but oh it huuuurrrrts, Tiffany. It—uh-uh—huuuuurts!” She turned her face to the wall; her neck was distended and veined with pain. What on earth could I do to help? It was awful. I felt as redundant as a vegetarian in a bacon factory. I handed her a wad of tissues and drew up a chair beside her.
“Oh I’m so hot,” she said as she dabbed at her face. “I’m so hot.” I turned on the fan, directed it toward her, and then poured her some juice. While she drank it through a straw I looked around at the birthing suite. It was painted in a restful, pale green, with a stenciled border of purple grapes; it was pleasant, though the occasional Sam Peckinpah splash of dried blood on the curtains engendered feelings of mild alarm. But there was no aroma of antiseptic, no anesthetic tang, and if there were other women screaming in childbirth, we certainly couldn’t hear them. There was a clock on the wall, the second hand calmly ticking away with an audible click. It was eleven p.m.—Sally had been in labor for about six hours.
Suddenly she stood up and staggered around, clutching her belly and groaning. Then she went back to the bed and leaned forward on it. Joan raised it up, so that Sally could rest her weight on her elbows without having to bend down.
“AAaaaaaaggh! Oooooooooohhhh!” she grunted as the contractions began again. “Uuuuuuuuugggghhhhh!” she groaned.
“What can I do, Sally? Tell me.”
“Could you—ooooooooohhhhh!—massage the base of my spine—hard.” Joan passed me some aromatherapy oil, and I pressed the heel of my palm into Sally’s lower back as she groaned with each baby-expelling spasm.
“Ooooooohhh! Could you . . . press harder . . . that’s it. Really hard. That helps . . . oooooooowwww! I don’t know why.” Joan put an Enya cassette in the music center, but Sally was too possessed by pain to find it soothing.
“Do you want an epidural?” said Joan.
“No no no!” she cried.
“Well, have some gas and air, I don’t think you’ve got long to go now.” Joan pulled the air supply down and Sally perched on the edge of the bed, inhaling deeply, almost greedily, into the transparent mask. It seemed to help for a few seconds, before the next wave of pain knocked her down.
“I don’t want to be on the bed!” she wailed. “I don’t want to be on the bed!”
Joan and I spread out two mattresses on the floor, and Sally lay on one, clutching a beanbag to her swollen belly, cradling it like a child.
“Tiffany,” she said weakly. “Tiffany.”
“Yes,” I said, holding a cold flannel against her brow.
“It hurts—oooooOOOOOWWWWWWWWWW!!! It hurts.”
“I know, but it’s not long now, Sally,” I said. “You’re being really brave.”
“I’m not being brave. I’m not. It’s horrible. I, I . . .” Suddenly she began to flail about as though she were literally crazed. Her eyes revolved in her head, while guttural, animal noises issued from her throat. “Tiffany, I want you to go away!” she suddenly barked. “I want to be on my own. I want you to get lost. Do you hear me? Get lost!” What? Now?
“Do you want me to go?” I asked.
“Yes. Yes. I want you to get lost. Just fuck off, will you. Fuck off! Fuck off! Fuck. Right. Off—UUUUUUUHHHHHHH!”
“OK, OK, I’m fucking off,” I said as I retreated, aware that it was the first time I had ever heard her swear. “Look, I’m going.”
She wanted to be on her own. She wanted to encounter the pain by herself. I had read about that in one of the books. I parted the curtain and prepared to leave.
“TIFFANY, COME BACK!” she shouted. “Where are you GOING? Don’t leave me on my OWN!” she wailed. “Come BACK! Come back RIGHT NOW!” What?
“Here I am,” I said, “it’s OK.” Oh God, she was behaving so oddly. It was weird. I didn’t know what to do. I looked at Joan, but she just smiled at me reassuringly and put her forefinger to her lips.
“I don’t want to be on my own, Tiffany,” Sally moaned as the pain subsided, giving her a moment’s relief. Then it began again, the contractions coming every few seconds now, engulfing her in wave after wave of pain.
“OooooOOOOOOWWWWWWW! AaaaAAAAARRRRGGGGHHHH!!! . . . HELP ME SOMEBODY! HELP Me! Oh GOD! Oh GOD! OOOOOOOOOOOWWWWWW!!!”
Suddenly she got up, grabbed me by the shoulders, leaned her head on my collarbone, and held me in a viselike grip. Joan pushed a mattress under her and got down on her hands and knees.
“The baby’s coming,” she said, “I can see the head. It’s crowning. Now push again, Sally. Push. That’s it! Go on! You’re doing really well.” I held Sally under the arms as she bore down with her whole weight, groaning with a violence to match each spasm.
“AAAAAAAAARRRGGGGGHHHHHH!!!!”
“It’s coming,” said Joan.
“OH GOD, OH GOD, OH GOD!!!”
“The head’s almost through, not long now.”
“OOOOOOOOWWWWWW!!!”
“That’s it, Sally,” said Joan again. “Good girl! Good girl! Push again. Breathe through the pain.”
“OOOOOOOOOOOOWWWWW!!!!!! OOOOOOOHHHHHHHH!!”
“That’s it! Just one more push now!”
“AAAAAAAAARRRGGGGHHHH!!!”
“Well done, Sally! Just a bit more. Baby’s coming, she’s almost here . . .”
“AAAAIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!”
“Here come the shoulders. Just one more pu—”
Suddenly I heard a membranous squelch, and then a whoosh! and a splash! and, out of the corner of my eye, I saw Joan’s white-gloved hands catch Sally’s baby. It was over. Sally collapsed onto the mattress, whimpering, legs splayed, her face and mine both streaming with tears. Then Joan snipped the umbilical cord, quickly wiped off the pearly sac, then placed the bloodied infant in its mother’s arms. And as she cradled her child for the first time, clasping it to her breast, a look of total astonishment crossed Sally’s tearstained face. Then she looked at the baby, looked at me, and threw back her head and laughed.
May Continued
“Lancelot,” said Sally, shifting slightly against the pillows.
“Leo,” I replied.
“Louis,” she suggested. “I like foreign names.”
“How about Ludwig, then?”
She gently shifted the feeding baby, and brushed his tiny cheek with her thumb.
“Llewellyn,” she suddenly said, with a smile.
“What about Laurie?” I offered. “As in Lee. Or you could just have Lee on its own.”
“Oh, I don’t know, Tiffany,” she said, stifling a yawn. “I’ve got ages to think about it. But how incredible!” she exclaimed yet again. “The nurse who did my ultrasound said I was definitely having a girl!”
“Well, there are limits to technology,” I said. “Because Leroy is clearly a bloke.”
“Yes,” she said, hugging him to her with an ecstatic smile, “he’s a lovely little bloke. I’ll have to repaint the
nursery,” she added with a giggle, “and I don’t think he’ll want to wear all those little pink dresses, will you, darling?” And was it my imagination or did the baby appear to roll his eyes in horrified agreement?
I looked at the brightly painted sheep gamboling along the wall, then lifted my gaze to the clock. It was four a.m.—an hour since we had left the birthing suite. Suddenly the baby let go of Sally’s bruised-looking nipple. He had had enough for now.
“Tiffany,” said Sally suddenly. “Do you want a cuddle?”
“Sorry?”
“A cuddle. Do you want one?”
“Well, Sal, I didn’t realize you felt this way . . .”
“Not me, you twit—the baby!”
“Oh. Oh. Sorry. Yes. Of course I’d love one.” I stood up and Sally gently transferred him to my arms, where he lay, eyes closed in blissful sleep. I inhaled the caramel fragrance of his velvety head.
“He’s lovely,” I said. “He’s just gorgeous.”
“And Tiffany,” Sally whispered, careful not to disturb the other women.
“Yes?”
“I wondered—would you be his godmother?”
I nodded. Then I nodded again. “Thanks,” I just managed to mumble as his tiny features began to blur. I felt shattered and drained, as though I were the survivor of some dreadful accident. It had been an extraordinary ten hours—or was it ten days? I felt I couldn’t be sure.
“Why don’t you go home now?” Sally said as I handed him back. “Come again tomorrow evening.”
“OK,” I said softly. “I think I will.” I stood up, aching all over. “Time for bed, said Zebedee.”
“Time for Tubby bye byes!” she quipped. And then she said, “Which is the yellow one?”