And Baby Makes Two

tree.

Les borrows a pen from the barman and starts to write me a note on the back of the card.

Dear Lana, he writes. How are you and the baby? How’s the weather? It’s sunny here, but it might as well be raining. I miss you. You’d really like it here. The hotel’s well posh. Carpets and chandeliers, the works. There’s a hot tub and a jacuzzi and a whole room of arcade games. Plus, you’d love the food. And there’s a disco every night. I was thinking that we might come back here together some time. Like on our honeymoon or something. What do you think?

I thought the baby was trying to tear his way out of my body, that’s what I thought.

A pain ripped through me that was so strong I screamed out loud.

“Jesus,” I said to no one.

I didn’t want to go to the next thought. The next thought was that something was wrong. Pain like that couldn’t be normal. I would’ve heard about it. Madonna would’ve said something. Or Hilary Spiggs. She wouldn’t miss an opportunity like that.

Then the pain stopped. I reckoned that it was just some kind of glitch. You know, the baby got his feet caught in a corner or something like that.

I went back to imagining our honeymoon.

At the disco, Les and I had a spotlit dance to ourselves, because we were newly-weds. He was wearing a white suit, and I was wearing a silver slip dress and silver stilettos. Then, light-headed with love, Les stuck my shoes in his pockets and we linked arms and strolled up the beach beneath a fat, round moon the colour of Flora. Something happy was playing in the background. Maybe ABBA. I’d liked “Dancing Queen” since I saw Muriel’s Wedding.

Les was telling me how, when he’d been there before, he used to stand at the edge of the water every night and pretend he could see across it to London. He’d picture me in my black jeans and my sparkly silver top that he liked, going into McDonald’s with my shopping.

I screamed again.

It couldn’t be the baby kicking, unless he was already wearing boots. Maybe something was wrong. One of the women in the antenatal clinic knew someone whose baby choked to death on the umbilical cord while it was still in the womb. Would it feel like that if it was dying? Would it hurt me more than it hurt him?

I sipped my tea and tried to think what to do. I could phone my mother and see what she thought. But it was already after midnight. I didn’t want to wake her if it really wasn’t anything. I couldn’t ring the doctor. I’d only just seen her. She’d think I was being hysterical.

After a while, the pain was coming sort of regularly. Stab … rest … stab … rest … stab … rest…

I heaved myself off the sofa and shuffled across the room to get my preggers leaflets.

According to the Going Into Labour section, if what I was feeling were contractions, then I should be timing them. Stab … rest … stab … rest…

It would give me something to do besides wince and scream.

I focused on the clock on the video. It was one-thirty in the morning. I couldn’t ring Hilary at one-thirty in the morning. Not if it wasn’t an emergency.

And it didn’t seem to be an emergency. I mean, it hurt, but it didn’t hurt that much now I was getting used to it. Plus, I wasn’t bleeding or anything. Or only internally.

At two o’clock I gave up timing the contractions. I had no idea what I was timing for. Ten minutes apart? Five minutes apart? Three? Then what?

I tried to remember everything I’d ever heard anybody say about having a baby. I knew it was meant to hurt, but hurting was one thing and having your insides pushed out of you was another. I was sure I’d remember that. Mostly what I remembered was what Charlene told me about getting to the hospital and having a needle and not feeling anything more. That I did remember. I could see a woman with a big smile and sweat on her forehead, cradling a newborn infant in her arms. In this image, the newborn infant was not holding on to the woman’s intestines.

I tried to sleep, but it wasn’t any use. It was like trying to fall asleep during a police interrogation.

At two-thirty, I had to go to the loo.

Doubled over, I sort of crept out of the living-room. I was almost afraid to move in case I broke something. Or broke something else.

I was taking large, deep breaths, to ease the pain. I almost wished I’d gone to the birthing classes after all, partner or no partner. Then at least I’d know how far apart the contractions had to be before you should call the doctor.

I don’t know how I made it to the bathroom. But it didn’t matter much, because I didn’t make it very far into the bathroom.

I opened the door, but then I just stood there, holding on to the knob.

It was like someone was testing nuclear bombs underground, only I was the ground.

Wham! Something exploded inside me. I was so shocked that I didn’t respond until I realized there was water dripping down my legs.

And I knew straight away what was going to happen next. I was going to die there, all by myself, that was what was going to happen. I caught my reflection in the mirror. I was pale and sweating and sopping wet. All I could think was, thank God Les isn’t here. I wouldn’t want him to see me like this. It was bad enough that the ambulance men who came to take me to the morgue would see me like this.

I burst into tears.

“Oh, my God!”

Even though I was dying a horrible death, I could see what was happening as if I was watching a film.

Les was standing in the doorway. He’d come back because he missed me. No, he’d come back because he had a feeling that I needed him. He’d left his friends sitting by the pool and got the first flight back to London. He was wearing a Greece T-shirt and a straw hat. He dropped the bag and rushed to take me in his arms. “It’s all right, darling…” he crooned. “I’m here now…”

But it wasn’t Les. It was my mother. She was standing behind me in a blue woolly hat with a face the colour of a dead fire.

“Lana! I had a feeling—”

“Don’t just stand there yammering at me!” I screamed. “Do something!”

And then I really started to cry.

Post-Partum Blues

I really loved being on the ward. It was painted pale yellow and the curtains had little bears all over them, so it was really cheerful. There were three other new mothers on the ward with me: Ellen, Anne and Sam, so there was lots going on all the time and lots of chat and laughter. It was almost like a party.

I told the others all about not knowing about the contractions and the doctor telling me I wasn’t due and my waters breaking and everything.

Unlike Hilary Spiggs, who’d wanted to know what planet I came from, they all sympathized. And then they told me their own horror stories. It was incredible anybody ever bothered to have a baby really.

Ellen had her second in John Lewis. She called him Lou.

“It was either that or Ladies’ Lingerie,” she said. “I didn’t think Ladies’ Lingerie would go down well when he went to school.” She laughed. “You have to be careful about names.”

I felt like I belonged to a club or something. Except for Anne and me, all the others had had babies before. Ellen had three.

“Really?” It was like doing your GCSEs. I couldn’t imagine going through it more than once. “You’ve already got three kids?”

“Boys,” said Ellen. She grinned. “We wanted a girl.”

“I’ve got two,” said Sam. “One of each.”