‘It was a contraction,’ she said. She had started having them the night before and then they had stopped. She was sure she’d be fine.
But at the end of the lesson, I watched her attempting to put her shoes on, grimacing as she did so.
Was her partner home? the teacher asked.
He wasn’t, but he would be back soon.
As the only other person there, I felt I had to give her a lift, to offer to stay with her until he returned. She accepted immediately.
We didn’t even know each other’s names. In the car we tried to make conversation, but as we pulled up at her house, she apologised for not being able to talk.
‘Do you think I should take you straight to the hospital?’ I asked.
She shook her head. Her husband was an auctioneer. He was at an auction. She called him on her mobile and then passed it to me as another contraction began. I left a message, telling him to get home as soon as he could, it looked like his wife was in labour.
Inside her flat, her hospital bag was packed and ready by the front door. She paced the room, managing to tell me that she had hot packs and that she wanted one, as a particularly powerful contraction subsided. I found them in the microwave, and dutifully heated them, although I had no idea how hot they should be.
‘Would you like a drink?’ I asked, remembering Carolyn telling us that women could get very dehydrated during labour.
She just shook her head, her eyes showing almost no registration of my presence, and she leant forward, hands against the wall, swaying back and forth as she moaned.
I took the pack over to her, the warm yeast smelling a little like wet wool, and gingerly placed it on the small of her back. I was no good in this situation, completely ill-equipped to know what I should and shouldn’t be doing for her. I attempted to rub her shoulders and she told me that she was okay, the hot pack was fine. I stepped back. I had flashes of the videos we had watched, the blood and the agony, and I could only reassure myself that she didn’t seem to be that far along.
‘Let me know if there’s anything I can do,’ I said.
She pointed to the hot pack on her back and I took it off and reheated it, relieved to have some kind of task.
The next contraction was even more powerful. I was worried. ‘I think I should get you to hospital, or at least call them,’ I said. ‘I can ring your husband and get him to meet us there.’
She told me that she was okay, she was sure it would be a while yet.
The phone rang and she seized it. I stepped back so that she could talk in private and as she hung up, she told me that it was her husband, he wasn’t far away, and her look of relief was almost matched by my own.
When his car pulled up in the drive, there was no longer any question about getting straight up to the birth centre. ‘That’s everything?’ I asked, pointing to the bag, and she nodded. I picked it up and thrust it into her husband’s hands as soon as he opened the door.
‘I’ll get going,’ I said, as she screamed once more.
He thanked me, and I wished them both good luck.
The husband almost hadn’t made it back in time. I had been closer to delivering a baby than I had realised. At the next yoga class, the teacher told us all that the woman had given birth ten minutes after arriving at the hospital.
‘Yoga,’ our teacher told us proudly. ‘It does wonders for you.’
Although I had felt useless when I was there, I was relieved that the pain hadn’t seemed quite as horrific as I had been expecting. Actually being there was not as bad as watching the video. The experience had eased my anxiety a little, and as the class began – with me now the lemming closest to the cliff edge – I began to feel, for the first time, that I was perhaps capable of dealing with this after all. I saluted the sun, my body remarkably flexible despite its size. I breathed in deeply, surprised at the calm. I was going to be a mother, I thought, and I looked at all of the other women in the room, further behind me but marching straight to the spot where I was now standing, toes curled over the edge, the unknown right there, waiting to greet me.
It was also our last birth class. I had my final ultra-sound earlier in the day and found that my placenta had moved. There was no need for a Caesarean. I did not know whether I was relieved or disappointed.
Carolyn was pleased for me. It was wonderful news, she said, and I agreed with her because I felt that was what I should do.
We sat in our circle once again, and she told us that we were going to devote this class to discussing ‘after the birth’. What would our lives be like with a new baby?
We plotted out a day, slotting in sleeps, feeds, an attempt to stroll to the park, shopping, making dinner; the clock she had drawn up on the whiteboard rapidly filling with a day marked by exhaustion, frustration and boredom. The Texta squeaked as she drew one last circle around the entire day.
‘And that is why women scream at their partners to get home from work,’ she said as she looked at our faces. ‘And why babies get thrust into their fathers’ arms the minute they enter the door.’
I didn’t want to know. Just as I was coming to terms with my anxiety about the birth, I was being asked to face another fear. I had to take this one step at a time.
Carolyn had advised us to write out a birth plan and give it to our partners. I tried but it seemed pointless. The possible permutations of events overwhelmed me, and in the midst of this, I had no idea how I would cope or what I would need.
‘Just let me have drugs if I want them, and look after me,’ I eventually said to Andrew.
We discussed what we should take to the hospital. I didn’t want candles, oils, music or cameras. ‘No photos,’ I kept insisting, until Andrew promised he wouldn’t point a lens in my direction until after the birth.
Virginia said she would bring food, in case she and Andrew got hungry.
Andrew said he would get a supply of water and fruit juice.
I read up about birthing positions and tried to see what felt right for my now heavily pregnant body. I became obsessed with breathing. Everyone talked about it, but I couldn’t find anything that adequately explained what they meant. Was there a special trick that I wasn’t privy to? Were there right ways and wrong ways of taking in and letting out air during each of the stages Carolyn had described? I panicked, certain I was missing out on some secret that would make the pain that little bit more bearable. No one seemed able to answer me.
My due date came and went. Everyone asked me if I was getting fed up. ‘You must just want it out,’ they would say, and I would agree, although I would have been quite happy to stay just as I was, enjoying those last days, and determined to finish War and Peace.
And then, for the first time, my panic shifted into a new territory. Suddenly my worry was no longer just centred on myself, it turned towards this unborn child. I was not anxious about anything going wrong in the delivery (I still had some strange faith that everything would go smoothly), I was worried about what she would be like as a person. My brother’s schizophrenia and my father’s terrible depressive bouts came crashing down on me and I was afraid. Would she also have a fragile place within the world, would she be unable to cope, would I (and again, it turned back to me alarmingly quickly) have to witness what my mother had witnessed with Jonathan’s illness? I wouldn’t be strong enough.
That night Andrew and I went out to dinner, both of us aware that this was potentially one of the last evenings it would be just us. Andrew chose a restaurant on the ocean front. We had a table near the window, the white salty spray crusting the glass, the blackness of the night time sea only broken by a couple of lights from a boat way out on the horizon. He was excited, and I, too, felt rushes of anticipation. I acted as though I wasn’t pregnant, eating oysters, soft cheeses and drinking champagne. I was so far gone now, I couldn’t see what damage any of these forbidden items could do.
The next morning, I went into labour.
I woke at seven-thirty with terrible stomach cramps. As I vom
ited, I remembered Carolyn telling us that this would probably happen. I ran a bath because I thought I would be more comfortable in water, but I couldn’t get in, the pain was too strong. I heard Andrew call Virginia, I heard him tell her that she had better get round to our house, but no, there wasn’t a rush; Carolyn had told us this could go on for hours.
In between contractions I asked Andrew to pile up pillows for me, and I leant across them. I was in the lounge room, the warmth of the sun streaming through the windows, and I remember thinking what an extraordinarily glorious day it was. I also remember thinking that this pain was indescribable; it suddenly made sense that no one had been able to tell me what it was like.
Virginia arrived. I told them both to leave me. I wanted to be alone. I could hear them at the other end of the house, whispering, trying to time my contractions, unsure as to what they should be doing. ‘Call the hospital,’ I shouted as soon as I could catch my breath.
Andrew dialled with an infuriating slowness. He told them I’d just gone into labour, that we’d probably be a while, and then he hung up.
‘Get me up there,’ I said.
‘Not yet,’ he told me. ‘Remember all that Carolyn said about pre-labour.’
I did. I was terrified. If this was pre-labour, there was no way I was going to be able to cope with labour. I had been right. I couldn’t deal with the pain. I just couldn’t.
‘Call the hospital again,’ I said. I was panicking now.
He did as I asked, punching the numbers into the keypad with a little more speed. I could hear him saying that my contractions were coming faster, that yes, he would bring me up.
‘I can’t get down to the car,’ I screamed at Virginia. ‘I can’t get down to the car.’
Somehow, she helped me down the stairs, somehow she held me up in the street while we waited for Andrew, who was, I found out later, looking for the camera.
I lay across the back seat, absolutely terrified now, shouting at Virginia to drive faster in the few moments I had between each contraction. I can’t do this. I can’t do this. The words were embedded in every breath I took.
Virginia pulled up out the front, and Andrew took me to reception.
I shouldn’t be screaming this much, I thought, I shouldn’t be in this much pain.
In the lift, a doctor told me to calm myself, that I would be fine, just take a deep breath, he said. And I looked at him, unable to utter a coherent word in response.
Something was wrong, something was wrong. For it to be this bad this soon, something was wrong.
The midwives took us to a room and told me to put on a gown and to give them a urine sample.
‘I can’t. I can’t.’ I just kept yelling those words, holding the small plastic jar in one hand and the gown in the other.
‘Don’t,’ Andrew told me, and the liberation of suddenly being told that I didn’t have to do what I was being asked to do, that all rules could be thrown out the window, was overwhelming. I threw the jar and gown across the room and then suddenly I heard myself grunting, the sound deep and guttural, totally unlike any noise I had ever uttered before.
The midwives were there immediately.
‘We’re having a baby.’
I heard the words in total shock, as they asked me whether I wanted to squat.
‘No,’ I commanded. ‘Put me up there. Up on that bench. Lift my legs.’
There was only one more push. As Virginia came into the room, weighed down by bags of food and water, Odessa was born.
‘There,’ the midwife said. ‘Look, you have a baby.’ She placed her in my arms, and I wanted only to cry out, Don’t. Just give me a moment. I just need one moment. But I didn’t utter the words. How could I? You weren’t allowed to say that. I had to take her, because that was what I was meant to do. As I held her in my arms, as she sucked furiously, the pain cutting through the shock of the birth, I looked at her for one brief moment. She was big, healthy and strong, I could see it.
You are going to be okay, I thought.
My months of anxiety about the birth were no more than they had ever been, a waste. It was over and I had coped because that was what I had to do. Odessa had shot out, just as I had done (although my mother had taken care to phrase it far more gently) and I was completely unprepared. My body had known how to deal with birth, but I did not know how to deal with this child. Somehow, in the ferocity of what had just passed, I had shattered. I knew it as instantly as that.
The midwife took Odessa out of my arms and gave her to Andrew, and as I looked at him, holding her, crying with happiness, I told him I needed to have a shower. And I pulled myself up, slowly, and left them: Virginia, Andrew, the midwives and the baby.
‘Look,’ I could hear Andrew saying, ‘she has a tooth.’
Then the noise of the shower drowned out their talk as the water drummed hard against the tiles.
‘And then what happened?’ Odessa asks me now, whenever we talk about her birth.
The story I have always told her goes something like this: ‘I woke in the morning, and I knew you were coming. But we almost didn’t get to the hospital in time. You were almost born in the car.’
She loves that bit.
‘We rushed straight in, and ten minutes later out you came, so fast.’
‘And I had a tooth,’ she says.
‘And you had a tooth.’
‘But no one believed it.’
‘That’s right.’
‘But then they came and saw.’
They did.
I show her the photos Andrew took straight after she was born and I tell her how we all held her, one by one. Me first, then Andrew, then Virginia. I tell her how she was bathed, how she screamed, and how the midwife wrapped her tight. But I don’t tell her how alone I felt straight after her birth.
When she was about four, she asked me if it hurt. I didn’t know what she meant.
‘Having a baby.’
‘A bit,’ I told her.
Two weeks later, she told us that she had changed her mind. She didn’t want to have a child. Not any more.
‘Why?’
‘Because it hurts.’
‘It doesn’t hurt that much,’ I told her, uttering the lie without thinking.
She didn’t believe me.
‘It’s true,’ I said, suddenly unable to let it go. ‘There’s a bit of pain. But it’s nothing. And then look what you have at the end.’ I pointed at her.
She refused to believe me. ‘No,’ she said, and she kept saying it for several weeks. ‘I don’t want to have a child.’
She was only four, but still I persisted. Every time she mentioned the pain, I told her another lie, until eventually she gave in. ‘Okay,’ she finally told me. ‘I’ll have one child. Just one.’
I listened to myself in dismay, wondering why I, who had been so afraid of childbirth, was now denying that fear in her. I didn’t want her to think she had caused me any pain. I also love her with an intensity that stuns me. Although it took me some months, I finally came to delight in having a child, I finally came to adore her. And I was doing what my mother used to do to me. I was trying to tell her that no matter how difficult it might be, it was worth it, and she should never choose not to do it because of fear alone.
About four weeks after I had gone into labour, everyone in Carolyn’s class had had their babies. She organised a reunion. She did it for every class. We were to bring some food with us and meet at her house.
I hadn’t been coping. I had just got out of hospital after being sent back there with mastitis. I had blacked out with a fever and was put on an antibiotic drip, with Odessa next to me in a crib. As I begged the midwives to help me settle her, I wondered how low I would have to go before someone would rescue me. On the third night, I rang Andrew at four a.m. and pleaded with him to come and stay. He slept on the floor next to my bed, exhausted and irritable, both of us waking to the drone of the vacuum cleaner out in the ward. He didn’t understand. This was the best time of h
is life. Why didn’t I feel the same? Why was I crying all the time?
I felt I had made a terrible mistake. I shouldn’t have had a child. I couldn’t do this. I wanted to warn everyone: ‘Don’t be fooled. I’m here to tell you that this is not joy, it is not bliss,’ knowing that no words were adequate enough to convey the desolation I felt. Each time Odessa cried, I panicked. I didn’t know her, how could I comfort someone who was a stranger? Andrew, on the other hand, picked her up and held her tight, the delight never leaving his face as he rocked her back and forth until she eventually calmed.
Apart from my visits to the baby health clinic and my stay in hospital, I didn’t leave the house. I was scared that Odessa would cry and I would fall apart, my inability to cope evident to everyone. But I wanted to go to the reunion. I wanted to be able to talk to the other mothers about how hard this was (because surely they were in the same boat as me?). I wanted to know that I was not alone.
But it was not as I had hoped it would be.
They were all there, each with their baby dressed up for the occasion. It was wonderful, the parents said to each other, so amazing, and the mothers swapped birth stories: epidurals, emergency Caesareans, forty-eight-hour labours. When I told them I had been in hospital for only half an hour, they looked at me with envy.
In the kitchen, Carolyn asked me how I was coping.
‘Not that well,’ I admitted, scared that I would start crying.
She smiled. ‘It’s hard,’ she said.
She had a picture of a mother and a newborn baby on her fridge, and as she saw me looking at it, she explained that it was someone from the birth classes she had run just before ours.
‘The baby was born very ill,’ she said. ‘They were told he only had a couple of days to live.’
‘What happened?’ I asked.
‘They took him home. They wanted to have those two days with him in their own environment.’
‘And he died?’
He did.
Carolyn clapped her hands. It was photo time. This was what she did with every class. We lined our babies up along the length of the couch, the newest ones propped up by the larger ones. Odessa was at the end, thriving, awake, healthy; eyes open to the world. The smaller ones were nodding off, falling asleep on the shoulders of the babies next to them. Everyone crowded around, laughing as they took their pictures. The glare of the flash made some of the babies cry, and I watched as one mother seized her child from the midst of the group, the line of her mouth momentarily sharp with tension as she tried to comfort him.
Births Deaths Marriages Page 11