Birth in Suburbia, Carol Falaki [electronic reader .TXT] 📗

had already acquired through her own reading.
The second part of the evening was more fun. They all, men included, practised some pelvic rocking, disguised as gentle belly dancing movements, and accompanied by middle-eastern music. Then they crawled around the floor, ‘to help the baby into an anterior position.
“You can get a lot of back ache in labour if your baby is in a posterior position,” the midwife explained. “And your labour can be longer.” At this point they were kneeling next to Liz and Leo, who appeared to be having a great time.
“Now, I’d like you all to imagine you are drawing a pear with your bottoms,” the midwife said with a smile on her face, illustrating her expectations of the group's
reaction to this request.
“I think I’ll have to practise this at home,” Leo remarked to Liz, “to make sure you don’t forget, love.” He was playing his role to the full and Liz was laughing until her sides ached. She had to concentrate on laughing silently, so as not interrupt the session.
“Don’t worry, Liz,” the midwife said to her. “I have met ladies who have found laughter, even in labour, very good for helping them to relax.”
The women tried different positions for use in labour, one of which included a standing hug with your partner, where you were encouraged to rock your pelvis. They also learned some simple massage techniques, focusing on the sacrum, the triangular shape bone at the bottom of the spine.
“There are some shiatsu pressure points in the sacrum, and massaging can help relieve your pain,” the midwife said.
“Shoulder massage during labour can help relieve tension and can make you more comfortable. It’s very difficult to imagine right now, how you’ll feel during labour. We are doing all of these exercises in a pain-free environment, and it is likely to be different for each of you,” she continued. “But remember a woman in an environment where she feels free and safe to move around will not spend most of her labour on a bed. She will instinctively rock and move into different positions, eventually she may come to a point where she feels so tired that she wants to lie down. If it helps she might
also moan or shout; she should feel free to do what comes naturally to her.”
The session ended with Debbie and Sean sitting on the floor, Debbie in front of Sean’s open legs. She leaned back and rested against him and they both had their hands on Debbie’s stomach. Gentle music played in the background. This included the sound of flowing water and unfortunately reminded Debbie of a need for the bathroom, but she managed to relax and melt into the visual journey of looking at and connecting with her baby. Debbie felt the satisfaction of knowing that Sean could feel the movements of their baby beneath his hands.
“Can you feel that?” he said.
“All the time,” Debbie smiled to herself.
There was a queue for the toilets after the session. Couples were chatting and holding hands. Debbie and Sean walked over to their car with Liz and Leo.
“I haven’t laughed so much for ages,” Leo said, “any idea why a pear and not any other fruit?”
“Glad it wasn’t a banana,” Sean said.
A rapid deterioration in the tone of their conversation followed, with Sean adding the only pair he could concentrate on belonged to the woman kneeling opposite him, and melons were the fruit they brought to mind. Debbie scolded him.
“Just kidding,” he claimed.
Liz changed the subject by complementing Leo on his massage technique, and Sean wanted to know how he had measured up.
“You were fine,” Debbie said, her tone was positive. In fact his efforts at massage had felt half-hearted and had irritated more than soothed. She hoped they could make more of this experience together. “And when you’ve been practising you’ll be brilliant.” An innocent remark but Sean lowered his head; Debbie bit her lip and silence came between them again.
“Mum was working so couldn’t come, and I didn’t want to go on my own,” Liz explained, when they reached their car.
“It was Tom who suggested Leo should come with me, he was working late. We are just going to collect him from the station, then we are going to the pub. Fancy coming?”
“No thanks,” Sean said, “I have to be up at six.” He took Debbie’s hand in his for the short walk over to their car.
The silence of their journey home was thoughtful and Debbie was comfortable with this. Just feeling comfortable was progress, and she had no desire to risk spoiling it by saying the wrong thing.
They had tea and toast before bed, and limited their conversation to familiar and simple practicalities, an unspoken pact; neither of them appeared to want to raise any issue that might cause

dispute. They lay in bed and Sean turned to her and held her close, his hand on her stomach for the second time that night.


Chapter Thirteen


Induction


Nigel was very nervous. They arrived at the hospital, and he made finding a parking space an excuse to leave Helen at the entrance, while he drove around the hospital car park to calm himself. Helen knew what he was doing and waited patiently by the door. There was a bench to sit on and the sun was shining. It was eight thirty in the morning. She had butterflies in her stomach, and began biting her lip. Her feelings were a mixture of excitement and apprehension.
Nigel kissed her and they walked up to the ward in silence, Nigel carrying the bags, Helen a bottle of mineral water. She was entering a world where the business of having babies was conducted. She put on a brave face and tried to suppress her fear with thoughts of an ending. This was it, soon her baby would be born and she could go home.
On the ward Helen was shown to a bed and asked to sit down and wait for her midwife. She was in a bay with four beds. It was clean and pleasant, but
clinical, with a desk and storage area containing equipment in one corner, bedside lamps and lockers and brightly coloured curtains at the windows. Two of the beds were empty with the sheets turned back expectantly. The bed next to Helen’s was occupied but the curtains were drawn around it and voices could be heard from inside.
Helen was torn between curiosity, and an awareness of the need for privacy, not least her own. She couldn’t help but overhear what was being said. The woman behind the screen was being monitored, and for Helen this was the beginning of a period of time when the constant hypnotic droning of a baby’s heartbeat was to be the audible focus of this part of her stay in hospital.
Now, it was obvious, the woman behind the curtain was having an internal examination, and was finding the experience discomforting, although her words were a combination of apprehension and hope. “Yes that’s okay, can you tell? Is anything happening?” the woman said to her attendant.
Nigel took Helen's hand and pulled her up to stand next to him. They stood at the window, his arm around her shoulder looking out onto the busy hospital grounds, watching people and traffic coming and going, while they stood still.
“Helen?” It was a friendly voice. They turned to see a young midwife, who greeted them with a smile. She introduced herself as Sue and asked Helen to go with
her “for a minute” to have her “wee” tested, and to show her the showers, toilets and dining room.
“I’ll go and buy a paper.” Nigel grabbed the opportunity for escape. “I’ll be back soon.”
By the time he returned from the hospital shop, Helen was reclining on the bed attached to a monitor, and the sound of their own baby’s heartbeat was competing for attention with the heartbeat of the baby in the next bed.
“Is it okay?” he asked Helen, eyes fixed on the machine. “One hundred and forty, is that alright?”
“Fine, the midwife said it's fine.” Helen replied.
“What happens next?”
“I have to be monitored for a while to check that the baby is okay before they can give the Prostin. This is used to soften the neck of my womb, my cervix. It’s what the midwife will insert into my vagina. She has to do a vaginal examination to put it in,” Helen explained.
“When she does the internal she will be able to tell if my cervix has ripened since Monday. It has to be soft and ripe before they can break my waters and start me off. When it’s done I have to stay on the monitor for a while longer to check that the baby is okay.”
“Then what happens?”
“Nigel, we’ll have to wait and see. Try and be patient if you can, we are in for a long day. You know that.”
“Yes, I know, but it’s difficult when you don’t know what’s going to happen.”
“But we do know we are going to have our baby.”
Helen watched Nigel open his newspaper with a bemused indulgence. He skimmed through a few pages, stood up examined the radio and earphones, poured a glass of water, took a sip and then offered the plastic glass to Helen, examined the monitor again, looked out of the window, sat down, opened his paper and closed it for the second time, all in a matter of a few minutes. She took his hand in hers, this big strong man who, in his working life, was deputy-head of a large comprehensive school, and was used to responsibility and making difficult decisions. Today he appeared lost.
“We’ll be fine,” she said.
“I know, love,” he replied, and leant over to kiss her forehead.
Sue came behind the curtain carrying a small container. “Do you want your hubby to stay in while I do this?” she asked, but Nigel was already standing at the curtain’s edge, ready to go.
“I’ll wait over here,” he said.
“You need to slip your pants off, Helen,” Sue said, her voice was soft with a faint Irish lilt. “And sit back with your legs bent and heels together.”
Helen knew the position to take from her previous experiences. She did her very best to relax, while Sue put her gloves on, applied some lubricant to her fingers, and then proceeded to find and assess Helen’s