by Jane Plume
‘Hey you,’ I said, as casually as possible. ‘How are you feeling?’
Gina had suffered with morning sickness but it was now thankfully starting to pass. We chatted briefly about that and then I asked if she had had any news from her sister Keri yet.
‘Yes,’ she said excitedly, grinning from ear to ear. ‘I have a new nephew called Nathan. He was born last night.’
We chatted about the new baby, his weight, Keri’s labour and so on, and I asked her to pass on my love to Keri and her family. ‘So how do you feel about being an auntie again?’ I asked while trying to keep a straight face.
‘I can’t wait to meet him…’ she trailed off, then looked at me and finally clocked the beaming expression on my face. Her eyes lit up. Then she burst into tears.
‘Are you saying what I think you’re saying?’ she asked. All I could do was nod, as my own tears threatened to spill over. She was so happy for me. After a massive bear hug, we both started talking ten to the dozen, tripping over our words.
‘What do Kev, Marco and Millie think about it?’ she asked. ‘And why didn’t you ring me as soon as you knew?’
‘Because I literally just found out half an hour ago,’ I replied. ‘And I haven’t told them yet.’
To some, it may seem odd that I chose to tell my best friend before the baby’s dad or my children, but those who knew the friendship that Gina and I shared would understand completely. The conversation did not stray away from babies all lunchtime, which was fine by both of us, and as we said our goodbyes it dawned on me that I would now have to wait a few more hours to tell my family the good news.
I was so looking forward to telling Kev that he was going to be a dad. I spent all afternoon planning what I would say and do to make it really special. On the way home, I bought an ornament of a small family – a man, woman and baby. As I waited for him to come home from work, the hands on the clock seemed to stand still. Finally, I heard his key in the door and, as he walked in, I handed him his gift.
‘What’s this for?’ he asked, confused.
‘So you never forget,’ I replied.
‘Forget what?’ he asked.
‘The day that I told you that you were going to be a dad,’ I said, trying to keep my emotions in check.
Kev grinned and pulled me to him. ‘So you’re pregnant?’ he whispered in my ear. I nodded, choked with happiness.
Marco and Millie were so excited when I broke the news to them, after telling Kev. The first thing Millie wanted to do was to ring Auntie Gina and tell her she was going to have a new brother or sister, so I didn’t let on that she already knew.
Gina and I already shared most things, and to top it off we were pregnant together, which meant that our children would be born close and hopefully grow up together.
Life couldn’t be more perfect.
CHAPTER 3
BOUNCING BABIES
The summer of 2005, when both Gina and I were heavily pregnant, was red hot. One scorching afternoon, the kids and I were round at Gina’s while the men were at work. They had plans to join us for a barbecue later. Gina had been to buy some big bags of ice cubes to keep the drinks cold and we sat in the garden, trying to stay in the shade while the kids played in the paddling pool.
Suddenly Gina said, ‘I’ve had enough of this.’
‘What?’ I said.
‘We can’t drink anyway,’ she said.
‘What do you mean?’ I asked.
She didn’t reply. She just stood up, went into the house and came out with two washing up bowls full of ice cubes and told me to put my feet in. Laughing, I plunged them in and it was bliss. We were instantly cool but, naturally, the ice cubes melted and she had no more left in the freezer for the drinks, but we were frazzled and past caring.
After a while, we started to get ready for the barbecue and tidy up a bit, and Gina poured what was left of the ice cubes that had been cooling our feet into a bucket and then put Shaun and Kev’s beer in it to keep it cold.
‘Let’s keep it between us,’ she giggled. ‘Don’t tell the boys.’
That was typical of Gina. She was mischievous. Mischievous in a lovely way.
Gina’s baby was due in August and mine in October, so we prepared for the imminent arrivals together, shopping for essentials like clothes, nappies, toiletries. We even packed our hospital suitcases together and we spent hours trawling through books of baby names, joking about the really old-fashioned names, trying out various suggestions with our respective surnames – and laughing at some of the results. We would string names together that all started with the same letter. For example, Harold Howard Hibberd or Rupert Ronald Richardson. Gina nicknamed my growing bump Zebedee, after the character in the children’s programme The Magic Roundabout because the baby was constantly moving around.
As our due dates approached, the midwife became a little concerned that Gina’s baby may have been breech, so the hospital organised an extra ultrasound for her quite late on in her pregnancy. But Shaun couldn’t get the time off work to accompany her. So Gina asked me to go with her – and it was such an honour. You could easily make out the shape of a little baby, arms and legs moving as much as they could in the little space that was left. The baby didn’t seem too happy at being prodded and you could see him squirming as the nurse ran the transducer over Gina’s tummy. But I remember how bright Gina’s eyes were as she looked at the blurry but beautiful image wriggling around on the screen in front of her. It’s something I will never forget.
On the morning of 27 July 2005, shortly after five in the morning, my phone beeped, alerting me to a text. I sat up with a start. Why would anyone be texting at this time of the morning? I panicked, thinking something must be wrong… but no. It was quite the opposite.
‘My waters have broken, here we go,’ Gina had texted.
I felt my heart jump with excitement and I quickly texted back, ‘Are you getting contractions yet?’
‘No,’ she replied. ‘We’ll be over to yours soon.’
We had arranged that when Gina and Shaun needed to go to the hospital, I would have Lewis at my house for as long as necessary. She didn’t wait long to come over, either. At 7.10 a.m., there was a knock on the door. I opened it to see Gina’s big beaming smile, with Shaun standing calmly by her side.
‘Get the kettle on then,’ she said. By now Gina was getting just very mild contractions about every twenty minutes.
‘Is it okay if I just stay here till we have to get to the hospital?’ she asked.
‘Don’t be silly,’ I scolded. ‘I can’t think of anywhere else I would want you to be, you don’t need to ask!!’
I will confess a part of me was jealous she was in labour – because I couldn’t wait for it to be my turn. My ever-growing bump was making me tired and, if I’m honest, a bit grouchy at times. I had taken early maternity leave as Millie had been born prematurely and the consultant didn’t want to risk the chance of the new baby being born too early as well, so I was playing a long and boring waiting game.
We sat chatting in the living room together and it was obvious that Gina’s labour was progressing, albeit slowly. Hours passed and still not much was happening.
‘I’ve got an idea,’ I said, and walked out of the room with a curious Gina watching me. When I returned, she burst out laughing. I had brought in a big rubber gym ball, the kind you use for doing exercises on.
‘Bounce on this,’ I said. ‘It might help speed things up.’
One of our favourite activities of late had been to watch programmes on midwives and babies in anticipation of giving birth ourselves and this was one of the things we had seen. She did as she was told and I sat on the floor in front of her while she gently bounced up and down. It didn’t take long for the contractions to become stronger and more regular and, as she was in pain, I helped Gina set up the TENS machine that she had hired.
After an hour Gina was starting to struggle. Shaun wasn’t confident talking to strangers on the phone, and he knew t
hey would want to speak to Gina, so I rang the number from the hospital paperwork for him and explained the situation as he paced up and down constantly, not quite sure what to do. He was so racked with anxiety that I’m not convinced he could have sat still long enough to hold a conversation with the midwife. After I told them what was happening, they spoke to Gina and advised that it was time for her to go in, so we packed up the car and I dropped them off at the hospital. Lewis stayed in the car so he could come home with me. As I drove away I turned to see Gina’s head buried in Shaun’s shoulder as she waited for another contraction to pass before they made their way inside.
‘Next time you see Mummy and Daddy, you will have a new baby brother or sister,’ I told Lewis, excitedly. Unfazed, he calmly asked what I was cooking for his tea.
Back home I made dinner for Lewis, Marco and Millie, tucked them all up in bed, put on a DVD for them to watch in the bedroom and kissed them goodnight. I kept anxiously looking at my phone to check I hadn’t missed any calls. Just after 7 p.m. the call came.
‘It’s a boy,’ gushed a delighted Shaun. ‘They are both doing just fine. We’ve decided to go with the name Ashton.’
They had chosen Ashton from a baby book and given him the middle name of Jack, after Gina’s granddad. Gina had said she could shorten it to AJ if they wanted, and she liked that.
‘He can’t wait to meet you all,’ Shaun continued.
I couldn’t wait either. I asked Shaun to give Gina and Ashton a kiss from me and told him to keep me updated. Three hours later the phone rang again.
‘We can come home,’ said Shaun, delighted.
We arranged that Kev would go and collect them from the hospital and I would take all the children over to Gina and Shaun’s house in Loughborough to meet them there. I went to wake them up and tell them the good news. Marco, who had been wide awake when Shaun rang the first time, had been so excited he hadn’t slept. He jumped out of bed and quickly dressed himself. Millie and Lewis were a different matter. I gently coaxed them out of a deep sleep and helped them to put dressing gowns over their pyjamas and slip their feet into slippers. They both looked pretty disgruntled at being woken up and didn’t appear to understand what all the fuss was about, but I managed to load them into the car and we were on our way.
I was as excited as a kid at Christmas. I couldn’t wait to meet Ashton and have a long cuddle, even if his sleepy sibling seemed unconcerned at his arrival. For a while the two little ones were quiet, half-slumbering in the back seat of the car. But halfway to the house, Lewis seemed to come to his senses and he suddenly exclaimed, ‘Auntie Jane, have I really got a new baby brother?’
‘You sure have, sweetheart,’ I said. ‘And I bet he can’t wait to meet his big brother.’
‘I’m going to be the bestest big brother ever,’ he replied.
I couldn’t help but smile.
We arrived at Gina and Shaun’s about ten minutes before they did. I closed the curtains and put the lamp on to make sure that everywhere was nice and cosy, and the children sat sleepily on the sofa. But they soon woke up when the beautiful new baby was carried into the living room in his car seat, wrapped in a soft white blanket. He was perfect. He was the double of his brother – in fact he looked like Lewis had been put in the tumble dryer and shrunk to baby size again.
Lewis was thrilled to meet his tiny sibling. Shaun placed him gently into Lewis’s little arms and Lewis kissed him attentively on top of his head while Marco and Millie fussed over him. He was dressed in a simple white Babygro with a little hat on, and as I gently pulled the hat off, I noticed that he had lovely dark hair – just like his mummy and daddy. I went and put my arms around Gina, who was shattered but thrilled, and we were soon both in tears as we looked at all the children together. Shaun was grinning like a Cheshire cat.
‘I’m so proud of you both. Congratulations,’ was all I could manage to say. Then it was time for cuddles with the gorgeous little Ashton.
Obviously, having a new baby and a six year old to look after, Gina was busy in the weeks that followed – but that didn’t stop us spending just as much time together. Sometimes, she would put her hand on my bump and say, ‘Hurry up, baby. Auntie Gina wants to meet you and Ashton wants a playmate.’
Eventually, on 19 October, I started getting ‘niggles’ and I couldn’t wait to ring Gina and tell her. New baby or not she was at my house within an hour. We spent a couple of hours together as my labour progressed until she had to go and get her boys bathed and in bed, and my brother Mick arrived to babysit my two for the night.
At last, in the late evening, it was time to go to the hospital. I remember Kev teasing me at 3.45 a.m., ‘If you hurry up I can ring Shaun before he goes to work!’ Shaun was working as a lorry driver back then and would leave home at 4.15 a.m. most days. At the time, racked as I was by labour pains, I really did not see the funny side. Nonetheless, our beautiful little girl, Anni-Mae, obliged – arriving at 4.10 a.m. Kev’s mum was present for the birth but, apart from her, Shaun and Gina were the first people to hear the news. I still remember talking to Gina on the phone before they had even finished sorting me out and her voice was so bubbly and full of excitement for us.
Like Gina, I was told a couple of hours later that I could go home. Marco had still been up when I went into hospital the night before, so he knew the baby was definitely coming, but we hadn’t told him that Anni-Mae had arrived. As we got out of the car on the driveway, he ran to the door and opened it, saw her little pink hat and grinned broadly.
‘I’ve got another little sister,’ he exclaimed. Then he looked at her face and laughed. ‘She’s all wrinkly, Mum.’
He was right: she had a very cross expression on her face. But one of the things I had noticed as soon as she had been born was her lovely, deep red full lips which, luckily, she still has now. Wrinkly or not, she was absolutely beautiful.
Millie, who had been asleep through the whole happy drama, was still in bed. By the time she got up, Marco had Anni-Mae cradled in his arms. She walked into the lounge, rubbing sleep from her eyes. She looked at Marco, then at me and my smaller tummy, then back at Marco, then promptly burst into tears. She was overwhelmed by excitement.
‘This is your little sister, Anni-Mae,’ I said gently.
Once she’d got over the shock, Millie was all smiles and couldn’t wait to hold her baby sister. She soon had Anni-Mae in her arms – nervously at first, like she was afraid the baby would break, but once Anni-Mae opened her mouth and bawled loudly to inform us she was hungry, she realised that if the baby wasn’t comfortable, she would definitely let us know.
With Anni-Mae on their laps, Marco and Millie posed for endless photographs, which was unusual as neither of them liked having their pictures taken. They were even a little miffed when Mick asked if he could have a cuddle because neither of them wanted to put her down.
Gina arrived at my house just after 9 a.m. – and she couldn’t wait to get through the door! She handed Ashton to me and scooped Anni-Mae up in her arms. ‘Hello, princess,’ she said, smothering her with kisses. ‘I’m your Auntie Gina.’
Princess was a name that Shaun used for one of his own nieces, Chelsea, and Gina used for her niece, Rebecca. It confirmed what I already knew: to them we were family. After that, ‘princess’ stuck, and both Shaun and Gina always referred to Anni-Mae that way. All cards and present tags would read ‘To our little princess, Anni-Mae’.
From that moment on, our two families merged and grew together. It was great being able to talk to Gina about sleepless nights, teething, milestones the children were reaching and all the things that matter to parents. We never did run out of things to talk about. It really was just like one big happy family.
In early 2006, we decided to make that family connection official. Kev and I opted to have Anni-Mae christened and there was never any doubt who we wanted as her godparents. We knew Gina and Shaun wouldn’t object but we arranged a rare night out, just the four of us, so that we could ask them f
ormally anyway. They agreed instantly and were really honoured to have been asked. We also asked Kev’s brother Andy and their auntie Sue, as well as my nephew Stephen.
Gina was a great support, helping me prepare for the day. She designed the invitations on the computer and printed them out for me, helped me choose Anni-Mae’s christening gown and went through the arrangements for the day with me. Shortly before the christening, she said she wanted to get Anni-Mae something really different for a gift.
‘You don’t need to get her anything,’ I told her. ‘Having you as her auntie and godmother is the best present she could have!’ I knew it fell on deaf ears, though.
Anni-Mae was christened on 16 April 2006, which was Easter Sunday, at the age of six months. She looked so angelic in her long silk cream christening gown and smiled on cue for all the guests. Gina had a huge grin plastered across her face all day, especially when she stood at the front of the church to repeat her vows as a godparent after the vicar. Anni-Mae was very well behaved but she did start to get a bit grumpy towards the end, just when we wanted to take photos. But as soon as she was in Gina’s arms she was smiling again.
Gina and Shaun did not have Lewis and Ashton officially christened, but if anyone asked who I was she always said ‘The boys’ godmother’ or ‘The boys’ auntie’.
Later in the day, it was time for Anni-Mae to receive her gifts. Gina had meant what she said about the unusual present. Their gift was wrapped in pretty pink paper with ribbons and bows, and ‘LADY Anni-Mae’ written on the tag. As I opened it and saw the contents, I was thrilled. It was so unusual and had obviously been thought about a lot. They had bought her a little piece of Scotland, literally. Anni-Mae has a lovely certificate that states she is a ‘Lady’ and that she can officially use the noble title if she wishes.