In a Moment

by Caroline Finnerty

  “Ooooooh!”

  “What’s wrong?” Adam had looked at her worriedly. Every twinge he greeted with concern these days.

  “Nothing, nothing. I think I just pulled something getting in the car there.”

  “Jesus, don’t do that to me! I’m a bag of nerves as it is.”

  They drove along and she chatted about how much she had planned to do to pass the time for the next two weeks until her baby was due. She was convinced that she would go overdue, first-timers usually did she was reliably told by her doctor. Her to-do list included giving the house a good clean from top to bottom, going to get waxed so that her lady-bits were looking good for everyone that would be seeing them in the hospital and meeting some friends for lunch – plus she had a stack of books on her bedside table that she wanted to get through.

  “What about relaxing like you’re supposed to be doing?” Adam asked.

  “I’ll have loads –” She felt her whole bump tighten again and she took a sharp intake of breath. “Oooh!”

  “What is it?” Adam looked at her in panic.

  “Jesus, I don’t know but it’s bloody sore. I thought Braxton Hicks contractions were meant to be painless?”

  “You don’t reckon it’s the baby, do you?”

  “But I’m not due for two weeks yet!”

  “Yeah but maybe it’s coming early?”

  “Nah –” But before she could finish, she was gripped with pain again. “Fuck, Adam, I think maybe you’re right.”

  “What will I do?”

  “I don’t know. Start timing them or something!” she snapped.

  Almost immediately the contractions had started getting longer and the time between them shorter.

  “Emma, the last two were six minutes apart.”

  “Jesus, I thought they were meant to start off slow!” she said through gritted teeth. She was just getting over one before another would rise through her again.

  Adam felt utterly useless. He was driving around in circles, not concentrating on where they were meant to be going. “Remember your breathing,” was all he could think to say but Emma’s glare told him she didn’t find it helpful. They pulled over to the side of the road and, as the contractions started coming closer together, she would grab the dashboard with a white-knuckly grip until it passed. He desperately tried to remember what they had told him in the antenatal classes about when they should go to the hospital – was it when there were ten minutes or five minutes between each contraction?

  “I think we need to get to the hospital!” Emma said through clenched teeth before she grabbed hold of the dashboard again as she got caught up in another wave of pain.

  “Okay, okay.” He tried to pull himself together. He got his bearings, took a deep breath and made for the maternity hospital on the other side of the city. The rush-hour traffic inched forward before coming to a frustrated stop once again. When Adam looked over at Emma he realised he didn’t have the luxury of time so he cut into a bus lane and zipped up oneway streets. It was the kind of driving the ten-year-old boy in him had always fantasised about but now that he was doing it for real, in these circumstances, it wasn’t fun. He felt powerless and scared.

  Outside the hospital Emma tried to walk out of the car but she had to double over in agony. A porter spotted what was happening and rushed over with a wheelchair and they sped off in the direction of the labour ward, leaving Adam frantically running behind.

  “I forgot my overnight bag!” she wailed at no one in particular when they reached the labour ward.

  “Don’t worry about that, we have everything you’ll need here,” a kindly midwife called Jenny told her. “Now I need to examine you, Emma, okay?”

  Emma grimaced as the midwife did an internal examination and prayed she would remove her hand in time for the next contraction or she didn’t think she could cope.

  “I need an epidural!” She looked at Jenny desperately. For the first time Emma understood the power that drug lords held over their addicts. She was totally at the mercy of this woman: she had the drugs and Emma needed them. Her fate was in her hands.

  Jenny removed her hand. “Emma, love, you’re almost fully dilated. I’m afraid it’s too late for that.”

  Emma felt her world had ended and she zoned out on what Jenny was saying as the realisation hit her that she was going to feel every inch of her vagina stretch to allow her baby to pass through. She didn’t know if she could do it. She couldn’t handle any more of this, she was afraid the pain might actually kill her.

  But almost as if she could read her thoughts, Jenny said, “Now don’t worry, women the world over do this day in day out and most do it more than once, so you can do it and you will be okay. Do you hear me?”

  Emma nodded vigorously at Jenny. She had no choice but to put her trust in her. She felt the pressure of her baby bearing down on her and she knew she couldn’t hold it back.

  “Now what I want you to do is listen carefully to everything I say,” said Jenny. “When I say push, I want you to push with all your strength, right down into your bottom. If you feel like you’re going to do a poo, that’s good because it means you’re pushing properly. When the head is crowning I will instruct you to take short pants. If you keep your eyes on me and listen, we’ll be fine. Yeah?”

  Emma was nodding.

  “Now then, Adam, I want you to grab hold of one of Emma’s legs here and I will take the other.”

  Adam looked like he was almost about to faint. The blood had drained from his head. He wasn’t expecting it today – even though he’d had eight and a half months to get used to the idea, it was still a shock that it was happening now.

  “Okay, everyone ready? Now on the next contraction I want you to push, Emma. Push!”

  Emma summoned up all her strength into pushing; she just wanted it over with at this stage.

  “Grrrrr-ahhggggh!” She breathed out.

  “And again, come on, Emma, come on, Emma, come on, Emma!”

  “Grrrrrrrr-ahhggggggggggh!”

  “And again, one big push, Emma!”

  For fuck sake, would they not allow her catch her breath at least?

  “Grrrrrrrr-ahhhhhhhh!”

  “Good girl, Emma, that’s it. Keep it coming.”

  “Aaahhgggggggggggggggh!”

  “Good girl, well done. I can see the head. Do you want to touch it?”

  She shook her head emphatically and Adam thought he might get sick.

  “Okay, now just pant for a few moments like this . . .” She blew gentle little streams of air.

  Emma let her body recover for a few seconds before Jenny was back at her again.

  “Now one more really big one this time and the head should be out.”

  “Grrrrrr-aaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhh!”

  “That’s it, that’s it. There you go, well done.”

  Adam looked down at what looked like anything but a baby. It was covered in blood and vernix with a scrunched-up red face. Only the matted hair gave away the fact that it was a baby.

  Emma caught her breath.

  “Now for one final big push and you should be holding your baby, okay?”

  “Grrrrrrrrr-aaaaaahhhhh!”

  She felt the baby slither out of her body. And when she opened her eyes, miraculously there was small, wrinkly bundle on her chest, his skin red from his entrance into the world. Of course she knew that she was having a baby but it was still a shock to see one actually lying on her chest.

  “It’s a boy!” Jenny announced and then their baby stretched his lungs and gave a good hearty cry. “Oh, that’s a good cry! Well, little man, you were in a hurry, weren’t you?” Jenny cooed as she took him over to be weighed. “We don’t normally see first babies come this fast!”

  A boy! Shock was being heaped upon shock. Emma had been sure that she was carrying a girl. Everyone had commented on her neat bump and she was sure it was a girl.

  She tried to get her head around the fact that three hours ago she had been packin
g up her desk in work and here she was now holding her baby in her arms. She was stunned by the speed of it all. It was almost like he was saying ‘Okay, you’ve done that job, now it’s time to have me’. She looked at his dark tufts of hair and a face so familiar, just like Adam’s.

  They had listened in amazement to the strength of his cry, a primitive animal sound roaring through an O-shaped mouth and watched as his pink hands furled and unfurled like a peony rose, in complaint about having been disturbed from the comforts of what had been his home for almost the last nine months. They named him Fionn.

  * * *

  When Adam had gone home later that night, Emma had pulled the curtain across her cubicle to give her privacy from the rest of the ward. It was the first time that she was alone with her baby. She had found herself staring in wonderment at the contented little face sleeping peacefully beside her, almost forgetting about the pain of the delivery. Already his face was less mushed and had opened up more, to reveal long eyelashes and pouty lips.

  He was feeding like a dream. He was a hungry baby so she found it hard to keep up with his suckling demands, but she knew she should be grateful that he was like this when she listened to other women in her ward as they struggled to get their babies to latch on. She looked down at him when he fed from her breast, his rosebud lips attached to her and his blue eyes open wide, staring up at her contentedly. It was an indescribable closeness that she had never experienced before. He was so utterly small, so totally dependent on her.

  In the days that followed Emma was detached from the tedious reality of everyday life and existed only in her own bubble of bliss with Fionn. When she had been pregnant everyone had told her how her life would be changed forever but nothing could have prepared her for the intensity of this feeling. She was buoyed up high on a wave of euphoria. She felt there was a beam radiating from her heart, directed into the cot of her infant son beside her. She would just breathe in his warm milky scent and, if she was a comfort to him, he was as much to her. Hours flew past just staring at him and then she would wonder where the time had gone to. The sound of his cry made her milk leak and tore at her gut, making her physically upset too so that she had to react immediately and do everything in her power to attend to his needs. She was convinced too that he was smiling up at her and even though the books said it was just wind, she liked to think that he was.

  * * *

  Adam had missed them both dreadfully while they were in the hospital and he couldn’t wait to take his baby son home so he could get to know him too. The day he came to collect them, he was beaming with pride and excitement. He ensured the car-seat had been fitted correctly and they drove the slowest journey of their lives that day with Emma sitting in the back with their precious cargo.

  He’d had flowers and balloons waiting when she walked into their hallway and told her to go upstairs to their bed for a much-needed few hours’ sleep while he minded Fionn. He had sat in their living room as his three-day-old son lay sleeping in his arms, too afraid to move in case he woke him. So he just sat there, staring at him, thinking about how much lay ahead for them. He swore he would be the best father he could be. His love for him was almost physical and he knew from that point on he would lay his life down for this baby even though he had been in his life only for a few days now. He also knew that forever more he was vulnerable as a person; how would he ever cope if anything should happen to his son? It was as if his Achilles’ heel had been exposed for the world to see. He would do anything to protect this little person that he had been entrusted with. It was exhilarating but breathlessly terrifying at the same time.

  44

  It was days after the accident before the numbness began to subside and the awful aching took over her whole body. Emma ached so much to hold her baby that it felt like an elephant was compressing her chest. Sometimes the weight of her longing made it difficult even to catch her breath.

  The fogginess of the drugs was beginning to clear and her mind was starting to process thoughts. She had so many questions that she needed answered. What had happened for a start? They had tried to explain it to her. They said something about a driver not stopping at a junction and hitting Adam’s car on the rear left wing where Fionn had been strapped into his car seat. Adam’s car had tumbled off the road and landed in the back garden of a nearby house. But to her it didn’t explain anything, instead it just threw up more questions.

  She had asked if the other driver had died. She had wanted to hear that he was dead too, tit for tat, a life for a life. He had wiped out her family with his carelessness and he should have to pay. But he hadn’t even stopped at the scene. They were still trying to track him down. She was so angry, like a force had gripped hold of her body and wouldn’t let go.

  Someone had asked her if she wanted to go and see Adam. He was in Dublin County Hospital. And it was only then that she remembered Adam. Adam had been in the crash too. They had tried to persuade her, especially her in-laws, saying that it would do him good to hear her voice but she didn’t want to go. They persisted with asking her daily if maybe she felt up to visiting that day and she would shake her head. There was only so much her mind could deal with. She couldn’t even contemplate what had happened and she wasn’t able to process the demands being made of her.

  She missed everything about Fionn, every part of his perfect babyness. His satiny hair, his plump newborn skin, his scent. His fingernails, his long toes, his rounded tummy. His neck folds that began to smell when milk got trapped within them. The way his joints were swallowed up with baby-fat. His defined chin. His sticky-out ears. She couldn’t believe all of those parts of him that she had loved so dearly were gone. He was gone. She couldn’t accept that she would never again hear his gurgling high-pitched squeals coming over the monitor in the mornings. She had been able to identify each syllable and, when he uttered a new one, she instantly recognised it as that, as if all his sounds were automatically programmed into her brain.

  Sometimes the anguish and pain felt so sharp and overwhelming that she felt she might die too.

  All she had been left with was a bag containing his “effects” as they had termed it. She didn’t like that word; it seemed so clinical, so impersonal. The bag had the Babygro that she had dressed him in that morning, his white cotton vest and his soother. All those inanimate articles survived without a mark but Fionn didn’t. She had slept with the Babygro placed under her cheek every night since; it was damp from her tears. She would bring it up close to her nose and breathe him in. She couldn’t bear to wash it and wash away the scent of her baby. They had asked if she wanted a lock of his hair in the hospital and initially she had said no. She couldn’t accept that this was all she would be left with and somehow felt by accepting this piece of hair she was accepting what had happened. She hadn’t wanted them to touch him, not even a hair on his head, but her mother had told her that she might regret it so they had kept a piece anyway for her and now she was glad she had that small piece of him because as the reality dawned that he wasn’t coming back, it was all she had left.

  Sometimes she woke in a panic because she could not remember his face, exactly how it was. It was as if her brain wanted to torment her and purposely block out the very pictures she wanted to remember. She would beg: Please let me remember his face. Don’t take that away from me too. Some parts of him would be wrong, the smile wasn’t quite right or the eyes were different and she would look at the photo again to be sure but even that didn’t capture him whole. It was missing his essence. She couldn’t breathe when this happened and became filled with fear and panic. All she had left were the memories and if they were gone too then she would have nothing.

  The room which had once been a sunny nursery, decorated with cream walls and white billowing curtains, now had an empty and dark feel to it even when the sun shone in through the window. His teddies sat in an orderly row on the shelf. She would go in there just to sit and remember, desperately trying to smell the sheets in his cot or anything that migh
t still have some trace of him but as the weeks went on, his smell became less and she desperately clutched for something else. Babygros and vests stayed folded in the drawer, bibs and muslin cloths too. Tiny socks would no longer fall off tiny feet. Blankets with no one to wrap still lay in the cot along with a comforter that comforted no one.

  45

  The voices surrounding him had finally gone quiet. Sometimes they just kept talking – talking to him, talking about him, talking to each other, always talking and not allowing him to rest. Between the voices and the machines that bleeped all day long and the rumble of trolleys being pushed along the corridor, he felt like shouting at them all to shut up and leave him in peace. The fragments flickered past his eyes. He tried to summon the will to force them open. He felt his muscles twitch from the exertion. Almost there. He tried harder still. He felt pain. A deep pain that couldn’t be isolated to a particular region because it was all over. It was as if every nerve ending and synapse was on a heightened state of alert, rapidly transmitting the pain until it radiated throughout his body. He didn’t know what was going on. He forced his eyelids open even though they stung as he did so. The room was too bright, sunlight reflecting off whiteness. He saw a woman rush towards him. Don’t touch me. He wasn’t sure he would be able to cope with the pain if she touched him. He closed his eyes again and braced himself.

  “Adam, Adam, can you hear me?” the woman asked softly but there was an urgency in her voice. “Adam, come on, love, I know you can hear me. Adam.” She wasn’t giving up.

  He opened his eyes again.

  “Adam!” Her face lit up. “Oh Adam, you’re awake! Thank God! Thank God!”

  He looked around and took in the cream-painted steel bed frame, the equipment and wires and bandages, the white plaster cast on his left hand and the woman. The woman he knew, he tried to place her. He looked around to see a circle of familiar anxious faces. He searched for the people that he wanted to see but couldn’t find them. The faces began crowding in on him and he wanted to back away but he couldn’t go anywhere with the amount of tubes, wires and bandages that were tying his body to the bed. The woman reached out to grab his hand. Ouch. The pain radiated throughout his body. She bent her head into his arm and started crying and for the first time he noticed they were all crying. He was confused and bewildered by their actions.