The Antenatal Group

by Amy Bratley

  ‘Oh no,’ she groaned, resting her head in her hands. In a few minutes she was going to be sitting in the classroom with Alan talking about pain control in labour. This wasn’t exactly the impression she wanted to give. She listened to Katy end her telephone conversation, and presumed she was still admiring herself in the mirror, because all had gone silent. She wondered how she could blow-dry her trousers and pants with the hand-drier without anyone noticing. She groaned again. Katy tapped on the door.

  ‘Lexi?’ You’re not sick, are you?’

  Lexi rolled her eyes. She rubbed the top of her pregnant belly, where something sharp was protruding. Must be an elbow, a knee or a foot. Or an umbrella. Were babies born complete with umbrellas? She patted it, and it moved, which made her smile, despite everything.

  ‘No!’ said Lexi brightly, pulling up her trousers and flushing the loo. She looked at her backside. Her entire bottom and the tops of her legs were wet. How could she explain that away? ‘Everything’s just brilliant in here.’

  After a few more minutes of standing in the cubicle, it was clear that Katy was waiting for Lexi to emerge. Lexi wondered if Katy could read her mind and detect that she had been having lewd thoughts about Alan. She pulled a guilty face and shook her head. This had to stop. Really, it had to stop. Alan was a virtual stranger. Katy was his wife. They were having a baby. She was having a baby. Lexi pinched herself hard and then felt sad. Pinching herself was what she used to do when she was a child and getting carried away in a daydream that made her giggle in class and everyone else stare at her. She sighed. If her boss knew what went on in her head, she’d probably be the one recommended as needing support in the community! Gingerly, she came out of the door, and, after trying and failing to tie her coat around her hips, stood with her back against the wall, her face glowing red, and forced a smile.

  ‘Katy,’ she said, ‘would you mind standing guard for me outside the Ladies’, please? My underwear is all twisted, I must have put it on all wrong this morning and the cubicles are too small for me to change in and I really can’t sit through another class feeling this uncomfortable, so if you—’

  Katy had a smile on her face, and her nostrils were widening then narrowing like billows. Her eyes slipped to Lexi’s trousers and Lexi felt how she had at school, when the pretty, popular girl trapped her in the toilets, inspected her uniform and told her it was from a charity shop. Back then, charity shops hadn’t been remotely cool, so when the popular girl called her a tramp, she hadn’t been able to pass it off as vintage chic, or think of a decent comeback other than to kick the girl in the ankle.

  ‘Did you have an accident?’ Katy broke out into a grin. She put her perfectly manicured hand on Lexi’s arm and began to laugh. Lexi breathed out hard, disliking Katy immensely. Katy would tell Alan this stupid, silly fact about her, she knew it. ‘Oh, Lexi, it happens to me, too! I do hundreds of pelvic-floor exercises every day, yet still I leak like an old lady. I have to wear those awful pads! It happened to me when I was in the gym. I was buddying with this muscle man I know and I quickly had to run to the showers.’

  Lexi’s lips twitched. She momentarily forgot about Alan and laughed along with Katy. Her eyes widened.

  ‘Katy, did you just say you go to the gym?’ she asked, incredulous.

  ‘Yes,’ Katy said. ‘Every day. I’m a little bit obsessed, but I’m like that with everything. I can’t do anything by halves. Anyway, I was just on the phone booking up for Pramaerobics for two weeks after the baby’s born. It’s on Tuesdays, starting from the new pier. You should try it. It’s better than sitting around drinking coffee all day. Fancy it?’

  You should try it. Was Katy having a dig? Lexi frowned. Perhaps it was all in her head.

  ‘I don’t think so,’ she said. ‘I’m not very good at moving unnecessarily, unless it’s to the fridge. And I’m a coffee addict, especially if you throw a pain au chocolat in. Oozing with chocolate.’

  ‘That’s not how the French make them, you know,’ came Katy’s retort. ‘In Paris, the chocolate is just a taste; here, the pastry is stuffed with it.’

  ‘Which is exactly how I like them,’ Lexi said. ‘Anyway, would you mind if I used the hand-drier?’

  They stood looking at one another for a moment, after this uneasy sparring, then Katy laughed awkwardly and gave Lexi a weak smile before walking out of the door. Lexi felt exhausted. She propped herself up on the sink.

  ‘Everyone’s going in,’ Katy said, swinging open the door. ‘Better be quick.’

  Shut the bloody door then, Goldilocks! Lexi mouthed silently, pulling down her leggings and jutting her bottom out under the drier, trying to aim the air at the patch of pee.

  ‘Okay,’ she called. ‘Thanks!’

  Just then, the door swung open again, and in walked Erin, who looked aghast when she saw her.

  ‘Gosh, sorry, Lexi,’ she said, turning quickly into a cubicle and locking the door behind her. ‘You’re not in labour, are you?’

  Lexi’s face turned luminous red. She felt so ridiculous, she burst out laughing.

  ‘Katy was supposed to stop anyone from coming in,’ she explained. ‘I’m so sorry. I was just trying to dry my underwear.’

  ‘Oh, God,’ said Erin. ‘Did you sneeze? That happens to me, too.’

  ‘Really?’ laughed Lexi. ‘Katy just said the same thing. This is like some kind of sisterhood.’

  ‘That’ll be pregnancy for you,’ said Erin, from behind the toilet door. ‘The ultimate sisterhood.’

  In the class, Ginny, dressed today in a strawberry-print skirt, wide belt and low-cut white top, was taking them through pain-management options. She asked the women about their ideal births, and Rebecca was talking about the birth she fantasized about (outside, under an oak tree, at sunset – but she’d settle for a home birth in a birthing pool), the tiny gold dot in her nose glinting in the sunlight as she spoke. Katy thought that, for an earth-mother type, she was a sweet girl. Incredibly beautiful, dreadfully naïve and sweet. She felt a little bit sorry for her today, with Lenny by her side looking like a rogue, with his pen between his teeth as if it were a cigarette, clearly listening to music through one earpiece. Why else would his foot tap so rhythmically? She narrowed her eyes at him, but he was oblivious.

  ‘As I said last week,’ said Katy, when her turn came, ‘I think it’s better to experience labour without any pain relief. If I had the time, I would have hypnosis. But work is madly busy. Basically, though, my birth plan is to refuse any pain relief at all. I know it’s each to their own, but I personally feel I’d be selling out if I had even a puff of gas and air.’

  There was a sharp intake of breath from the other women. Katy knew what she’d said would ruffle their feathers, but so be it. It was what she believed.

  ‘You’ve got to take it easy with work,’ said Alan. ‘You’ve got to put yourself first.’

  Katy tried to hide her irritation. Alan really wasn’t helping matters by telling her to slow down the whole time. Right now, she needed to speed up. Lately, Spotted had taken more calls than ever before from clients looking for various locations for summer events, and she needed to be at the office, or out on location organizing, or they would lose business. Alan seemed to think her pregnancy was disabling and that she needed rest. Yes, she was knackered, but she was successful and knackered.

  ‘How do you feel about popping a paracetamol, Katy?’ said Lexi. ‘Or is that selling out, too?’

  Katy shook her curls and frowned. What was the problem with that woman? Ever since she’d met Lexi there had been a certain brittleness between them. She wondered if Lexi regretted telling her and Alan about the donor sperm last week. But both of them had been fully supportive. She just didn’t get it. Jealousy, she thought. She’s probably jealous of her having Alan, just like most women were. She shot Alan a look and could perfectly understand why women admired him so. There was something very alpha about her husband, but not in a macho way. You just felt, should you need help of any descriptio
n, you could call him up and he’d be there at the drop of a hat. Even when he was miles away on business, he would get things sorted out by people he knew. Well connected, was Alan. He had his weak points, too, of course. But she could count them on one hand.

  ‘Strong pain relief sounds great to me,’ chirped up Lenny. ‘Bring out the class As.’ He burst out laughing at his own joke. Rebecca whacked him with her pregnancy notes.

  ‘Yes,’ said Ginny, jangling her bangles up her arm with an indulgent smile. ‘This is usually the bit that the men enjoy the most. So, when your labour begins, you might have contractions but not be in unbearable pain. This is where you could use the TENS machine, which you can hire from most chemists. Or does anyone else have any ideas about what might help?’

  ‘Moving helps me when I have period pains,’ said Rebecca. ‘Or keeping a hot-water bottle on my lower back. I work as a masseur, and I can imagine that would help – if someone would do it for me . . . Lenny, for instance.’

  Katy noticed Alan’s knee start manically bobbing up and down when Rebecca said she did massage. She placed her hand firmly on his leg.

  ‘Yes,’ said Ginny. ‘Massage is great, and warm baths might work, too. You could be in the early stages of labour for a long time.’

  Katy looked at her watch. She couldn’t be out of the office too long. Though she’d worked a sixty-hour week last week, eating dinner at her desk each night, Anita had made her feel as though she wasn’t taking the agency seriously enough. She didn’t understand what had got into her.

  ‘And at what point do you go into hospital?’ asked Lexi. ‘I’m bothered about this, because I’m probably going to be on my own, although I did contact a doula this week. Do the midwives object to doulas?’

  Ginny shook her head and sat up on the table in front of the group.

  ‘No,’ she said, ‘not at all. In fact, the more people there are to help, the better. And, as for your other question, you should hold off as long as you can before going into hospital, but let the midwives know they’ll see you soon. If you go too early, you may well be turned away. So does anybody know what the other pain-management options are?’

  Katy glanced at her watch again, wondering whether, if she started speaking, she could get this part of the class moving on. Everyone looked so bloody relaxed! Probably they were all on maternity leave by now. That was just not going to happen for Katy. She’d be working up until the moment her waters broke.

  ‘Pethidine,’ she said. ‘Which makes the babies very drowsy. Then there’s the epidural, which too many women end up having.’

  Mel, who hadn’t said anything up to now, cleared her throat. ‘Why do so many women have an epidural?’ she asked. ‘I’ve assumed I’ll probably have one. I don’t think I can cope with the pain.’

  Katy inwardly despaired of Mel. She didn’t seem to have improved since last week. The poor thing seemed to be one of life’s victims. Katy couldn’t help feel impatient with her.

  ‘Mostly, because first-time labours are getting really long,’ said Ginny. ‘We need to be active during birth and, more often than not, women are lying on their backs. If you see the size of the pelvic bone and what happens to it, when you’re standing or lying down, you can see that’s going to slow labour down. Women get exhausted, frightened and don’t feel in control, then out comes the epidural. I’m not against it. I think it’s very helpful in some cases, when women are exhausted.’

  ‘I want everything,’ said Lexi. ‘I’m going to get in there and say, “Give me that epidural now!” I don’t see the point in putting yourself through hell when you don’t have to.’

  Mel put her hand up. ‘Me, too,’ she said.

  ‘It is painful,’ said Ginny. ‘But it’s a satisfying pain. It’s nothing you can’t deal with. I’ve done it four times and loved every minute.’

  Nothing you can’t deal with. Loved every minute. Katy liked the sound of that. She took in a deep breath, imagining herself in birth. It was her body. Her baby. Birth wasn’t going to be a problem for her. She was determined that her labour would go smoothly. She, like always, no matter how hard it got, was going to be in control. Right now, though, she really should get back to work.

  Rebecca wasn’t fearful of the pain of labour, as such. It was more that she didn’t know what to expect afterwards. There was going to be a seismic shift in her life with Lenny and she wasn’t sure how they would fare. She knew labour would be painful, but it was only for a few hours of her life, a bit like running a marathon. Experiencing it was something she wanted to go through as a rite of passage, a personal achievement that would make her feel more like a woman and less like a girl. She looked around at the others. Katy seemed to know even more than Ginny, so she’d be fine, and Erin was having an elective C-section, but the rest of them were equally apprehensive about the pain side of things. In a way, she wished she hadn’t started to come to these classes, but just dealt with it on the day, instinctively. Then maybe she wouldn’t have started to worry about Lenny as well. What would he be like in labour? Would he be able to cope with all the attention being on Rebecca? Her stomach tightened. She began to doubt whether it was a good idea for him to be in there with her at all. What if she did a poo while she was pushing? What if there was blood everywhere? He would probably faint. Her mum, Harriet, would be an amazing birth partner. She was a doctor, completely calm in a crisis. Rebecca felt suddenly homesick, then chastised herself. It wasn’t as if her mum hadn’t tried to contact Rebecca. Just lately, she’d left several messages on her phone, begging her to get in touch. And Rebecca had almost dialled her back, but, at the last second, fear of how her mother was going to react stopped her from going through with it. She’d sent a text instead, telling her that everything was okay. Rebecca sighed, just catching the end of Ginny’s sentence.

  ‘—very rarely things go wrong in labour. A baby can have difficulties, or be poorly, and need extra care. Occasionally, babies are stillborn. I’m sorry to have to bring it up, but I must tell you about every possibility and, sadly, it does sometimes happen. One of my ladies in a class I had last year lost her baby in this way. She wrote to me asking that I talk about it in future groups, because she had no idea it could happen. There’s often no clear reason why it does, it’s just one of those tragic mysteries in life.’

  The room fell silent and Rebecca watched the dust particles shine in the sunlight, her throat throbbing with tears. The women glanced at each other sympathetically, all except for Erin, who was searching through her handbag for something. Rebecca frowned. She didn’t seem to be listening, which must have been annoying Edward, because his expression was black.

  ‘There are many organizations that can help you deal with this,’ she said. ‘And they’re all in the list of support groups at the back of the pack I gave you this morning.’

  Erin stood up, her bag on her shoulder.

  ‘Excuse me for a moment,’ she said, her voice almost a whisper. She didn’t make eye contact with anyone before pushing open the classroom door and letting it swing shut. Edward stayed stock still, clasping his hands together, just staring ahead at Ginny. Rebecca looked at him, and he caught her eye, which seemed to startle him. Ginny, smiling now, clearly felt the tension in the air.

  ‘Is Erin okay, Edward?’ she asked.

  Edward nodded, still wringing his hands.

  ‘She’s nervous about the whole thing,’ he said. ‘We’ve wanted a baby for a long time.’

  Ginny nodded kindly and smiled.

  ‘It’s not long now,’ she said. ‘And, really, there’s nothing to be nervous about. It’s simply my job to make you all aware of some of the very rare things that could happen. Almost always, the baby pops out perfectly healthy and all is well. Does anyone else have any questions they want to ask at this point?’

  ‘What do you recommend taking to hospital with you?’ asked Lexi. ‘There’s a list as long as my arm in the pregnancy book I’m reading, but do you really need disposable pants and a bottle of wa
ter spray?’

  ‘I’ve already packed my hospital bag,’ said Katy. ‘I was saying to Mel that you can order a pack online, if you can’t be bothered to do it yourself.’

  ‘It’s not that I can’t be bothered,’ said Lexi. ‘I’m just asking what is essential and what is superfluous.’

  ‘One thing to remember is that there are never enough pillows in hospital,’ Ginny said. ‘And you need to bring your own towels. It’s not a hotel, it’s a hospital. Disposable pants are useful for after the birth, when you lose quite a lot of blood, but you can use any old pants, if you prefer. Your birth outfit is worth giving a thought to, as well. You need something you can move around in but can take off easily.’

  ‘I’ve had a special labour outfit designed,’ said Katy. ‘Alan’s sister is a lingerie designer and she has a boutique in Auckland. I sketched something I thought would be good and she has made it for me. It’s very cute. A bikini bra top and a little floaty skirt.’

  Rebecca and Mel shared a look. Rebecca smiled, and Mel chewed her lip.

  ‘I wasn’t planning on wearing anything,’ said Lexi.

  ‘You don’t have to,’ said Ginny. ‘But, as well as the midwives who are in the labour room with you, there can be students calling in, plus, a doctor might come in and check up on you, or even the person bringing round sandwiches, should your labour be around lunchtime.’

  ‘Surely there’s no time for a sandwich?’ said Mel.

  ‘You’ll want to drink a lot,’ said Ginny ‘So you have to make sure you empty your bladder every couple of hours. That’s the job of the birth partner, to make sure you go to the toilet, during your labour. Got that, men?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Alan. ‘Loud and clear.’

  ‘Fuck!’ said Lenny, suddenly standing up. ‘I’ve got to go. We’re doing a soundcheck in an hour. Sorry, babe.’