Not Just Beans

Dorothy Baird

I thought it was the beans we'd had for tea. Too much wind in my nether regions. But you'd have thought I'd have twigged: nine months is long enough to get used to things. But there is getting used, and getting used. And I was quite used to my belly. To its vast tautness that stopped me seeing my feet; that got in the way of the sink; that caused people in lifts to edge away from me, fearing I would pop like a bursting bag all over the floor and they would have to help; I was used to shifting in bed from flobbery side to flobbery side, never finding a good place to rest the huge bulk that contained - so the doctor said - a baby. Well, my baby, to be exact. And that was where the problem lay: it's all very well getting used to humphing an enormous belly around the place, it's quite another to actually believe that the taut skin is wrapped round a living creature that will one day find its way out into the daylight.

So, on the night itself, I went upstairs to bed with my flatulence. Too many beans for tea. Obviously.

And then the pains came. Not PAINS like in the films or on TV. Just a gripping, like a belt tightening and relaxing. Nothing more than I'd been having on and off for weeks. So I stayed up, calm as a granny who'd seen everything, read the paper, watched the news, did my breathing, squatted on the linoleum next to the washing machine. Not long back from India, it was easy. Nine months (always that many?) of squatting every day in cramped toilets had given those muscles super powers and now they were happy to be doing something they'd grown used to.

Only around seven in the morning did I wake the man. Let him sleep. A good move as once awake, he began rushing round, Dad's Army style, muttering 'Don't panic! Don't panic!' to the wallpaper. But we made it to the hospital, me cringing as the car's suspension crashed and crashed again over the million and one pot-holes the Council inflicts on expectant mothers, my eyes rammed shut in an odd timeless darkness.

Then into the wards. Where everything stopped. That's right. Simply stopped. Well, when I say everything, obviously I don't mean EVERYTHING... the lights were still working, the hospital machines were still bleeping, nurses were still scurrying about in their uniforms, and no doubt in small curtained rooms, women were still pushing and panting and somewhere a small thin cry must have been entering the world for the very first time, but in the world of my belly, which, right then, was my entire existence, everything ground to a halt. No pains, no tightening of belts, no angular shifting, nothing. 'Can't find baby's head,' said one midwife and rang the bell for help. Visions of a headless baby drifting like jetsom slashed into my exhausted brain. Just get this thing out of me. I never wanted to come here in the first place. Who wants a baby anyway?

My man helpfully suggested a hike up Arthur's Seat. Too early in the morning for a curry.

In desperation I got off the bed and squatting down beside the magazines and the unwashed coffee cups on the table. That did it. Something about that squat reminded my body what it had to do. Kick-started it into action again. And back came the contractions. With a vengeance. Only dimly aware (fortunately) of my dressing gown flapping beltless and open, I staggered down a corridor into another room. Once in, I hunkered down again.

And then something unexpected happened. Somewhere in the distance, I heard a strange deep sound like monks in India chanting their prayers of 'Ohmmmmm'. It was my voice, singing through my contractions, whilst somewhere in the depths of myself I swam, floated, so deep I lost connection with the room, the midwife, the man, and definitely with the child. And then my belly, began to push, rising to a peak, following its instincts and the Ohmmms grew louder and stronger and I heard them as if I was elsewhere, but holding on to their rhythms like an anchor.

A voice interrupted, 'Do you want to feel baby's head?' But, lost in this strange world, the words were meaningless and I retreated to the darkness. Then a final heave, a white-hot tearing, a cry that split the world. And there it was, this thing. Rubbery, purple and white, legs and arms and weirdness in its solidness. I slipped back into that comfortable underwater darkness. Another voice. 'It's a boy. Do you want to hold him?' A weight landed in my shocked arms. I nearly dropped it.

When I forced myself to open my eyes, I couldn't believe them. It had happened. There was a baby. So peaceful, they had to tickle the soles of his feet to make him breathe properly. As he lay there, his eyes opened and for a moment we held each other's gaze before his lids drooped shut again. As if, in that moment, he'd scrutinised this strange woman whose voice had sung him into birth. Sized me up. And maybe I'd passed. Maybe it would be all right...