A Telling Labour
Look away now if you're squeamish, or pregnant, or both.
I've dedicated this poem to the mothers who conceived a child in one coronavirus-induced lockdown, only to give birth to them during another.
I would advise against reading it if you are squeamish or pregnant, or both.
Mr Braxton had been joining Miss Hicks in creating a little flutter. “Just a quick check to see if all is OK, Mrs Rutter.” I knew from prior partitions it was a mere taster of my imminent, inevitable uterine caper. The ultrasound had been a relief, after the obstetric intrusions of earlier weeks. My husband squinting at grainy images of a male foetus, his excitement in mistaking the umbilicus for a penis. An epidural or gas ‘n’ air? A water-bed or plump cushions here and there? A fitness ball or birthing pool? My precious plan seemed so cool. Choices they pretend you’ve been given, but in the end to hospital I’m driven. Waters are broken, as first warning, no blackbird accompaniment. I labour in fits and starts, pacing the corridor’s length. My sperm donor calling out the intervals, his presence a limper tower of strength. A guinea to any fool, who on wifely contraction, does not squeeze a tear in reaction, when they mistakenly choose to offer a reassuring grip, by thinking their hand inside the mother’s should slip. Another miner 49er inspection with probing lights. The midwife between my public loins, reporting once again my stubborn tyke still pokes two fingers up whenever she’s in sight. A camera intrudes, my Hitchcock on the loose. But Schadenfreude comes quickly, after I’m induced, when his dearest’s bleeding becomes too raw, and my errant film-maker crashes to the floor. I’m reassured again my angel will appear, with no lack of options if he’s breeched to the rear. But if bum-first is indeed his choosing, I know my insides will receive a bigger bruising. And so it is. Speculating spectators, now separators, forceps their way through the expectant crowd. To ensure a head, not an arse, will finally come around. Another heave, another breathe, the midwife is doing her best. Getting this effing child out would put any fertile mother to the test. “The Ventouse!” they cry. “Why French?” I think, the appliance making me more than blink. The obstetrician’s toolbox is at his full dispose, and – why not? – he aims to use it all, no matter my delicate pose. My revenge is swift, a meal eaten pre-parturition, playing its part as more than a fart, a pungent gift to the gods of lithotomy, a precedent from my exposed territory. The crowd now gathered are unanimous. How can the light at the end of the tunnel not be irresistible to the little sod stuck fast? Foetal passion for my dingy womb as waiting-room won’t last. But Nature isn’t on my side and dread episiotomy still beckons. Without a snip, he’ll be too tight a fit, they reckon. As scissors slice, an endorphin cocktail tricks my body into adding no more pain to his cervical high jinks. A final shuddering groan and he exits, to general jubilation. A kinder snip, two clips, and an end to my blasphemous oration. A vigorous rub, little lungs inflating, cries spurring precious milk to leak. My head falls back, sheen on my brow, as round the door a husband peeks. Just a needle remains to be thigh-struck, to expel a placenta I no longer need. I refuse strange entreaties to fry it as good luck, my ashen mouth it will not feed. Before taking the swaddled infant from a white coat, I quietly mutter, “Doctor, what colour is my latest little Rutter?” He proffers my bundle of yellful joy, ready to be suckled, “Does it really matter?” he says, with a knowing chuckle.