My Sister's Daughter

Lorraine H Jenkins

The idea was to go along to my sister's scan, see the new baby ghost-like through her stomach and then head off to our favourite Italian restaurant and stuff ourselves on food we could never recreate. Nature decided against our plan though. The tired looking doctor told us that my sister was four centimetres dilated and would have to stay put. I will admit that my first thought was those steaming hot meatballs that I would now be missing, but, excitement overtook hunger as I tried to remain calm in the face of my mother's rising panic.

'She hasn't got anything with her' my mother protested as though that would somehow halt proceedings.

'It's OK mum' I said; 'I'll go get her bag and things.' To be honest I was really glad to have something to do. A peck on the flustered cheek of my youngest sister and I was off. I don't think I released breath until I stood at the taxi rank outside the hospital. I can't remember much about the journey to mum's flat, the view from the window blurred into a high speed blend of muted colours. I just remember not wanting to be at that hospital at that point in time. I had only just had my own labour experience four months previously and wasn't sure that I wanted to see my sister go through that. I had been so relieved when she told me, shame faced, that she wanted my mum to be her birth partner.

At the flat I managed to gather together the things a woman just can't live without in the hospital, I was about to lock the door on the way out when I received an anxious phone call from my mum. I held the phone to my ear as I locked the door, not really listening, just mum getting worked up.

'There's something wrong with the heartbeat' she was saying. 'Whose heartbeat - Karen's?' I asked, not getting what she was telling me. 'The baby's' her voice seemed foreign to me, she didn't sound like herself. 'What's wrong?'

I have since recognized that this is the point that a lifetime compressed itself into a day. I remember every millisecond of the journey back to that hospital, every mother and child waiting at traffic lights, every grey stone building that had seen better days, every half-naked Glaswegian man taking advantage of the slither of sunshine on that July afternoon. If I close my eyes I can even see the shoes on their feet.

When I got back, my mother's face was ashen, my sister was nowhere to be seen.

'They've taken her to the operating suite' mum said without meeting my eyes.

'What happened?' I let the heavy bag I was carrying fall at my feet.

'I don't know...they were monitoring her...that thing round her stomach, you know...and they couldn't find the heartbeat...so they did a scan and they just said the baby was in distress' there was a look of wide-eyed distress on her face, of hopelessness, like she'd already accepted the most awful outcome.

'Is it serious?' I asked stupidly. I couldn't think of anything else to say. There was nothing I could do but swallow my fear and wait with my mum until they came and told us what was happening.

We waited for an eternity.

I could tell by the solemn look on the surgeon's face that it was not good news; '...not breathing...resuscitated...next twenty-four hours...abnormalities...distress...cord ...'

That cold green hospital corridor seemed to stretch itself into infinity, I looked across at my mother who was nodding like she understood what was going on, the doctor put his hand gently on her shoulder and I saw her collapse. I've never seen a person implode before, but, that's what my mother did, right before my eyes the last piece of hope she was grasping at just floated away and she was left emptied. I couldn't open my mouth, how could this be happening? She was supposed to be having a run of the mill check up; this was supposed to be a day of joy.

'She's in the special baby unit, it's the best in the country, the best people...we'll monitor her closely' he tried to reassure us. But, I could see in his eyes that it was pointless, the man must have had to go through scenes like this every day and he was trying to give hope where there was none.

'Thank you' mum grasped his hand and squeezed tightly; 'can I see my daughter?'

'She's still groggy at the moment, but, you can sit with her, if you like.'

Ushered into the private room that is reserved for difficult cases we saw my sister weeping in her sleep. The nurse said the anesthetic did that sometimes. I didn't believe her. My sister knew what had happened, she was awake but she didn't want to open her eyes to it.

We were eventually allowed to see Jadyn, my sister's daughter. She was tiny and surrounded by a mountain of machinery. They told us later that night that she was not going to survive. The strength my sister showed then is phenomenal to me, she arranged everything, family gathered to say 'hello' and 'goodbye' in the same breath, a priest baptized the baby, photographs that would have to last a lifetime were taken. I did nothing but look blankly into the camera and hold that child in my arms with no words sufficient to appease my grief or my guilt. I knew when I went home I would have a perfect baby girl to hold. I wanted that for my sister, the brave creature standing beside me telling me it was alright, it would all be alright, deserved her child to survive.