Mama Mia

by Mia Freedman

  SCAR TISSUE

  Voicemail to a girlfriend from me:

  ‘Oh honey, hi, it’s me. I’m so sorry to hear it didn’t work. Bugger, bugger, bugger. I don’t know what else to say except that I’m sending you all my love and support. Call me if you feel like talking…bye…’

  I was pregnant and I felt guilty. Guilty that it had been so easy, an accident. Guilty that with three children, I would have almost an embarrassment of riches at a time when so many friends were confronting huge challenges around babies, and pregnancy and fertility.

  Like the beautiful women they were, they all wished me well and wished me love. I knew from experience though, that when it’s not working for you, there’s nothing quite like the quick jab to the chest you feel when someone in your world becomes pregnant.

  ‘Goodness, this one was a surprise,’ I’d say, almost apologetically. ‘Oh I’m so happy for you,’ they’d reply and mean it and yet still I’d hear something so subtle under their voice that you only recognise it if you’ve ever heard it in your own.

  One friend had just had a miscarriage at fourteen weeks after her fourth round of IVF. Two others were at different stages of grief, having each lost a baby in the past few years, one from SIDS, another from a genetic condition.

  Another was awaiting the results of a CVS test after being told at her twelve-week scan that her baby was at high risk for Down syndrome. Then there’s the friend who was waiting to find out if her second round of IVF was successful. She’d already decided that if it wasn’t, she wouldn’t try again. This was it. Her final roll of the dice at forty-one.

  Another woman I know was desperate to do IVF at age thirty-eight after trying for ten years, but she couldn’t afford it. She was unable to comprehend that her chance to be a mother had come down to a balance sheet.

  At the same time, I had three friends who were grieving in different ways for the mothers they never had a chance to be. They’d always wanted children and would have been extraordinary parents but they just didn’t find the right partner in time.

  Other friends had scar tissue buried even deeper. One friend had two children but came from a big family and didn’t yet feel she was ‘done’. Neither did her husband. After having a son and a daughter in quick succession, she fell pregnant again only to miscarry at ten weeks. Six months later, the same thing happened at fifteen weeks. A year later, yet again, at thirteen weeks. Another year later, at six weeks. Her grief was absolute, and despite the well-meaning platitudes of ‘Well, aren’t you lucky you’ve got two already?’—yes, thank you, she knew that—she carried the intense sadness of the four children she didn’t have. The four babies she lost. Her kids were teenagers now and her window was closed. Her grief wasn’t acute any more but occasionally it bubbled to the surface on the anniversary of her miscarriages or when holding someone else’s freshly baked newborn.

  Then there’s the friend who fell pregnant soon after meeting her now husband. They were just about to go backpacking together. Commitment and marriage would be years into their future. They were young and there was no real indication the relationship would last. They were just having fun. So she had an abortion. Her partner picked her up from the clinic and she cried in his arms. I’m not sure what he thought. He didn’t speak about it much with her although she told me afterwards his relief seemed palpable. She was relieved too in a way because she knew a baby at this point in their relationship would be too much pressure for it to bear. But her small sense of relief was intermingled with grief and a much stronger sense of loss.

  Years later, when she and her partner had their first son, all her complex, unresolved feelings about the termination rushed to the surface. Her grieving process began afresh. As did her questioning of herself. ‘That baby would have been our son’s brother or sister,’ she mused sadly to me during one conversation about it. I nodded, trying hard not to solve, just to listen. Soon, she began doing that thing women are so good at, arguing with herself. ‘But then maybe if I hadn’t had the termination and we’d had a baby so early in our relationship, the pressure would have broken us up and this baby would never have been born.’ I nodded again. There are no right answers in a ‘What if’ conversation about babies.

  Equally heartbreaking, I knew half a dozen women who had watched helplessly from the sidelines as their reproductive windows slowly shut. These were not ‘oops-I-forgot-to-have-a-baby’ career-woman clichés. I’ve never met one of those, never even heard about a real one. Women don’t ‘forget’ to have babies.

  But there are some women, women who always presumed they would become mothers, women who would have been incredible at it but who tragically miss their chance. Damn that biological clock and its inability to always synchronise with the myriad factors required to make a baby. Factors like a stable financial situation. A committed and supportive relationship. Medical problems. A partner who always thought he wanted children but then suddenly wasn’t so sure. A partner who desperately wants children but discovers he’s infertile. A hundred big and little things that divert you from the course of motherhood before it becomes a dead end and choice is no longer part of the equation.

  Against this landscape of hopes and dreams and sadness and determination by so many women in my world, I felt particularly privileged to be pregnant again.

  AND THEN WE WERE FIVE

  SMS to Lisa Wilkinson from me:

  ‘Have to cancel lunch. Sorry. Appear to be giving birth instead. M x’

  Of all the days for Jason to be doing canteen duty at Luca’s school, the day I go into labour is not the best one. It is ten days before my due date and mild contractions have begun early in the morning. I’m not even certain this is ‘it’. That’s why I assure Jason it is fine to go to school and report to the canteen as planned.

  Shortly after he leaves, while timing my contractions, which are still pretty mild, I have a shower and pack my hospital bag. Given this is the third time around, I am surprisingly clueless about what to put in it. Or perhaps I just care less. The other times I consulted lists in books and from other mothers. I bought special new pyjamas for a treat and tops that buttoned down the front for easy boob access. I packed my toiletries carefully and diligently, weeks in advance.

  This time I am slacker. More laissez faire. I chuck in some PJs, tops, trackies, newborn nappies, wipes, wraps, camera, phone, and a U-shaped pillow I can no longer sleep without. And Rescue Remedy.

  Then I call Jason. ‘Come home,’ I grunt. He’s been at the canteen less than an hour and has made several sandwiches. His reason for leaving so soon is was fairly impressive as far as excuses go. He receives a round of applause from his fellow tuckshop volunteers as he bolts towards his car.

  It’s all very civilised doing this during daylight. Our nanny arrives to look after Coco and they wave us off. We are so calm that the midwife I speak to when I call the hospital to say we are coming in tries to dissuade me—I don’t sound like I am in enough pain to have advanced very far into labour. But I’m not having a bar of it. I know what’s happening.

  I quite like this third-time thing. Everyone assumes I know what I am doing. I feel mildly accomplished. An old hand. Still nervous though, which is why I want to get to the hospital. I feel safer there, surrounded by doctors and midwives and machines and monitors. And drugs. I need to be near the drugs.

  It is a different hospital from last time and I immediately feel more comfortable. My name is already written up on the whiteboard and I’ve been allocated a room. An actual room. Not a car park or a public toilet. My delivery room has an en suite bathroom and even a TV. This is good. Very good.

  ‘Hi, I’m Kat,’ says the midwife. She is young and English and chatty. I am still okay with chatty. Just. The contractions are getting stronger but I’m not at barnyard-animal stage yet. Kat examines me and I am hopeful.

  But I’m only one and a half centimetres dilated. Even though I’ve been having contractions for a few hours. On the upside, Kat doesn’t for a moment try to
send me home. Still, I decide it can’t hurt to tell her about Amy, just in case. She listens patiently, pretending to care. I am used to this reaction when I tell the Amy story. It does not deter me. Finally, I am finished.

  She feigns sympathy. ‘Goodness Mia, that sounds dreadful. Anyway, why don’t you get comfortable? Maybe run a bath. That usually helps with the pain.’

  ‘When can she have an epidural?’ asks Jason.

  ‘Any time,’ says beautiful, lovely Kat, whom I already adore. ‘You may want to get things a little more established first because the epidural may slow things down. But ultimately it’s up to you.’

  I look at the bath sceptically but decide to climb in anyway. The heat and the floating help. I haven’t felt weightless in a long time and the novelty distracts me until things kick up a notch and the barnyard animals take up residence in my vocal cords. Jason had popped down to the car to get my bags and returns munching cheerfully on some banana bread. He follows the animal noises into the bathroom and offers me some.

  ‘Noooooooooooooooooo,’ I mooo. He wanders back into the room, makes a few phone calls and turns on the TV. The Beijing Olympics are on. I can feel myself going into the next stage where I become disconnected from him and my surroundings and journey far away to The Land Of Excruciating Pain.

  When I’m having a contraction, I am quite lucid. Every five minutes though, I lose the power of speech and disappear into the abyss. Jason comes in every so often to see how I am going and to say helpful things like, ‘I should take a movie of you now so I can show it to you next time you say you want to have another baby.’ My contraction subsides and I splash him crossly.

  What to do? I want an epidural but I am scared it will slow things down. I am also scared that without an epidural, the pain will trigger the fear in my brain from last time and I’ll slow things down myself. I choose pain relief.

  We’d arrived at the hospital at 10.30 and it is now noon. ‘Uuugghh,’ I grunt to Jason, who translates to Kat. ‘She’d like that epidural now, please.’

  ‘No problem, I’ll get the anaesthetist.’

  ‘How long will that take?’ I ask, fearful of her answer.

  ‘Oh, just a few minutes, I’ll prepare everything right now.’

  And it is that simple. As promised, minutes later, he arrives, jabs me in the back and my ability to chat returns. The next few hours are extremely pleasant.

  There is some confusion about whether my waters have broken or not and Kat and another midwife have a good rummage around, trying to establish that fact. The verdict is ‘yes, probably’. Jolly good. Then there is a bit of concern as to whether there is some meconium in the fluid. The verdict is ‘probably not’.

  I am calm through all this because apart from being pain-free, I am hooked up to a foetal heart-rate monitor. Nothing makes me happier in the world than being hooked up to machines for reassurance purposes. While Jason watches the Olympics, I watch the two graphs with my contractions and my baby’s heart rate. Oh happy, happy day.

  As Kat mentioned, the epidural has slowed my contractions right down. In phone contact with my doctor, he suggests to Kat that we kick them along with some drug or other. Totally fine by me.

  A couple of hours after the epidural went in, Kat examines me again so she can update Dr Stephen, who is trying to juggle my delivery with a caesar he has to do on the other side of the city. We are all stunned by what she has discovered. ‘Oh, goodness, the baby is right here,’ she exclaims. ‘Hold on a sec!’

  Jason summons our parents and the kids to the hospital. It is 3 pm. We’ve been at the hospital for less than five hours. A few minutes later, Dr Stephen walks in and we’re good to go. I feel no pain. ‘Push now,’ he instructs and I do.

  One more push and the baby’s head is out. It lets out a little cry. I look down and register that it is rather extraordinary to have a crying head protruding from my vagina.

  ‘No need to push any more. Just let the contractions push the baby out,’ says Dr Stephen. And they do.

  And that is how, with two pushes, our second son came into the world. Remy. Named by his big brother.

  SMOKY EYE

  Voicemail to the nurse at my local Early Childhood Centre from me:

  ‘Um, I’m really worried. My baby doesn’t cry. Why doesn’t he cry? What’s wrong with him? Could someone please call me as soon as possible?’

  I am nothing if not hypocritical. When I am committed to a particular way of doing something, I will become convinced that anyone doing it differently is an idiot. Until I too choose to do it differently at which point everyone doing it the original way is an idiot.

  And so it is with routine. Luca, as a baby, had no routine. Not because Jason and I deliberately made that decision, but merely as a default position. We were clueless. So our baby fell asleep wherever he lay during the day: in his bouncer, the car, on a rug, in our arms. He fed whenever he wanted to. Slept, woke, whatever. It suited us. And him.

  A few years later when Jo had her first baby, she was very strict. She had a book called The Contented Baby and she followed its detailed daily-routine instructions with precision. I mocked her openly. ‘How can you be bothered with all that? Why don’t you just chill out and let him fall asleep in the car while you’re driving or the pram or wherever. He’ll get used to it and it means you can leave the house.’

  Jo shook her head. She was resolute. ‘It works for me and he’s happy.’ I rolled my eyes.

  Until I had Coco. Suddenly, the only rolling my eyes were doing was out of my head with exhaustion and despair. She was an intense baby. At first, I went with it, applying the same go-with-the-flow strategy I’d used with Luca. I knew no other way. But with Coco, there was no flow to go with. She was restless and cried a lot. She wasn’t even happy while she was feeding. So one day when she was about six weeks and I was feeling desperate, Jo quietly dropped over her dog-eared copy of The Contented Baby. ‘It can’t hurt to try,’ she said.

  I gave it a whirl. And it worked. Well, it seemed to. The carrot it dangled in the way of a promise was that if you applied the magic rigid schedule and followed it precisely, your baby would only wake up for one feed during the night. And that was a pretty damn sexy carrot.

  Immediately, Coco fell into step. I took a little longer to adapt.

  The schedule broke the day into ten-minute bite-sized chunks. I was so tired that I kept losing the book, which was a disaster because I could never remember what Coco was meant to be doing. So I stuck little post-it note reminders all over the house like someone with Alzheimer’s. But Coco wouldn’t follow them. It seemed she couldn’t read and this was most inconvenient. She was always awake when she was meant to be asleep. Jo was my mentor. I sent her a lot of texts like:

  The book says ‘put the drowsy baby in the cot’. But I don’t HAVE a drowsy baby. I have a screaming baby and THE FUCKING BOOK DOESN’T MENTION WHAT TO DO WITH ONE OF THOSE.

  Coco was constantly napping when she was meant to be playing on the mat. Falling asleep on the boob when she was meant to be feeding. Crying when she was meant to be sleeping.

  The book was grave about the dire consequences of such transgressions. ‘Do NOT let the baby sleep longer than fifteen minutes or she will not go down properly at night,’ it warned. ‘MAKE SURE the baby does not fall asleep before 2 pm. OR YOU WILL NEVER SLEEP AGAIN IN YOUR LIFE, NOT EVEN FOR ONE HOUR.’ Or something like that.

  It all made me increasingly anxious, but with Jo’s encouragement and the dangling carrot payoff of only one night-time feed, we persevered. For a little while, apart from my anxiety, it did seem to work. During this brief phase, I decided anyone not doing The Contented Baby was an idiot. It all went to hell at about four months when Coco literally spat the dummy and told the book to fuck off. I don’t blame her. That’s when we developed a splendid new routine where Coco woke me up at every hour throughout the night so I could stick her dummy back in. Those were good times. We stuck with that until she was nearly six months old and the
Sleep Whisperer arrived and in three nights had her sleeping from 7 pm to 7 am and gave me back my life, thank you God.

  After the chaos that was Coco, with Remy I went back to basics. No routine. Go with the flow again. Instinctively, it felt right. I had a primal need to keep him close and he was so easygoing that a routine didn’t seem necessary. He spent those first few weeks literally curled up on my chest. He never cried. He. Never. Cried.

  And so, in the absence of anything to be anxious about, I created something. ‘I’m worried about my baby,’ I blurted down the phone to the nurse at the Early Childhood Centre.

  ‘What seems to be the problem?’

  ‘He doesn’t cry.’

  ‘Right. He doesn’t cry. And that’s a problem because…?’

  ‘Well, why doesn’t he cry? Is there something wrong with him?’

  ‘Is this your first baby?’

  ‘No, my third.’

  ‘Ah. That’s why then. You’re intuiting his needs without even realising it. You’re giving him what he wants before he has the chance to cry.’

  I consider this for a moment. ‘Wait, do you mean…I’m a good mother?’

  ‘Yes! I do!’

  I pause. Briefly. ‘No, that can’t be it. There must be something wrong with him…

  Could she have been right? Could it be right that I have a clue? The thought is a revolutionary one. I’ve spent my entire mothering life feeling guilty and apologetic for my failings. Indeed, I’d created my own internal list of maternal shortcomings. My Crap List. But now I wondered could I actually have learned a thing or two along the way with Luca and Coco? Did I have something to feel smug about—another entry to add to my Smug List of noble parenting achievements? Should I be high-fiving myself at long last? Or was Remy simply a chilled baby?