I was fully clothed and half-lying on the bed. One of my feet was still on the ground. My wife was lying on her side with her back to me. She let out a big full sigh of air. ‘Dan, how long was that?’ My eyes shot open. ‘Um…’ I peered at my watch bringing it up close to my face studying the long hand. With my finger I traced it back round the dial. ‘Um...7 minutes.? Or maybe it was 12….I don’t think it was 22’. She gave a short sigh which finished with a tut. ‘You’re rubbish! You’re supposed to be timing the space between them!’ ‘I know, I know, I just keep falling asleep. I can’t remember which number I was counting from’. My wife is staring at the blue curtain a few inches from her face. It has a design printed on it, a graphic of three people holding hands making a ring. It looks like a crown. Under each crown four small words are printed - Kings College Hospital Trust. ‘I am just keeping fixed on the crown,’ she says.
A nurse walks down the small side ward we are in. There are only six beds here, the curtains are pulled round the other beds but ours is open. ‘How are you doin’, darlin’?’ She is in her late fifties, small, with a Jamaican accent and a scuffing, shuffling walk as she makes her way down the line of beds. ‘It is pretty painful’, my wife says, ‘pretty strong.’ ‘Ah, ya just nigglin’, darlin’, just nigglin’!’ She shuffles off. ‘Bloody hell. Just niggling... I must have a really bad memory if this is just niggling,’ she sighs, ‘I don’t remember it being as bad as this’. Her face is red and open as she looks up at me, her eyes bright.
Four months before this I had been sitting in the kitchen of a friend’s house. I was talking to Chris, the husband of my friend and his face lit up as he spoke. ‘The moment you first look in to your child’s face is amazing. You look down and you see your whole family there. You can’t believe it! You see your parents, your grandparents, your siblings, they are all there in this little face… It’s beautiful!’
Back in the hospital it is 5am and we are moving towards the lift. My wife walks very slowly and carefully and I am supporting every step. The corridor is dimly lit, there is stillness all around penetrated by the occasional cough from a bed or the small cry of a newborn baby, shakey, frail. We edge towards the large wide silver doors. A few minutes later Jane is lying on her back, the doctor has just inspected her and now he is standing with two women, a midwife and a new nurse, at the end of the bed. ‘Well, you are fully dilated’, he says. ‘You did well. You haven’t had any drugs or gas or anything, have you?’ ‘No,’ my wife answers, ‘and now I know why it was so bloody painful!’ She turns to me. ‘Just niggling, eh?!’. ‘The good news is that your baby is no longer sideways - but it is now the wrong way up. And more than that it is a ‘footling’ breach,’ he says. ‘This means the baby’s feet are pushing down to get out, not it’s bottom’. ‘So…’ my wife’s voice is slow and tentative. ‘….what are the options?’ The doctor takes a moment. ‘Well it is possible to attempt a delivery of a footling breach but it has its complications. We don’t recommend it - it can get quite tricky. Or you can go for a caesarian which makes it much easier.‘ We turn to our midwife who we have known for the last 6 months. She smiles apologetically and says ‘I’ve never delivered a footling. It really doesn’t happen very often now’. We turn back to the doctor. ‘If it was your child what would you do?‘ my wife asks. He pauses. ‘I would choose a caesarian.’ My wife looks at me. I shrug. ‘What do you want to do?’ I ask. She turns back to the doctor. ‘Ok,’ she says, ‘I think we should go for the c-section’. There is a beat. Then suddenly everyone starts moving very quickly and purposefully, someone is barking out orders, ‘Let’s go, let’s go, c’mon’, and the bed is being wheeled away into the delivery suite.
Jane is lying on the operating table. I am sitting up by her head. There are six or seven people in the room now all busy with different activities, preparing Jane, preparing the operation. They are putting up a fabric screen across her chest. ‘You can look if you want to’, she says. ‘No, no,’ I respond,’ I am here for you…’. I lock eyes with her. We stay this way for the next 45 minutes.
Suddenly a female voice addresses me ‘Your baby is being born now’ and I look up to see a small handful being lifted up above the screen and taken away to the other side of the room. There is silence, then a small gurgle. A moment later the bundle of yellow blanket is brought across the room and the nurse hands it to me. ‘You’ve got a baby girl’, she says. I fold my arms around the bundle taking the weight and holding it to my chest. I look at the small face in the crook of my arm, bordered by yellow material tight like a nun’s headdress. I look at Jane and then back down to the face.
‘Who the hell is this?’ I say.
