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

“No, you’re not,” Rachel had a hand on Liz’s lower abdomen.
“I’m just checking your uterus. Good, feel that Gemma.”
They helped Liz into her dressing gown, one arm at a time, while she held her baby against her skin, the umbilical cord hanging limply from her baby’s naval, a connecting thread which reached deeply into the heart of her uterus, once priceless, now of little value. It had stopped pulsating.
“Would you like to cut the cord yourself?” Rachel asked her.
“No, I don’t think I could. Mum you do it?” And so it was that Maggie cut the cord.
Gemma placed some pillows behind Liz’s head and she rested back against the end of the bed, still on the futon on the floor. Her warm fleecy dressing gown was wrapped carefully around her enclosing her baby in a nest of warm skin and soft towelling.
“She is rooting already; we’ll have her on the breast before we let the men in, I think,” Rachel said.
“What are you going to call her, Liz?”
“She is called Arian.”
“That’s unusual,” Gemma said.
“It’s from a Celtic legend. Arianrhod spins the thread of destiny from the tower of inspiration and this baby has changed my destiny,” Liz said, smiling down at the wide bright eyes of her baby.
“Hello Arian,” she whispered.
Rachel helped to aim Arian’s mouth in the right direction and in a few minutes she was sucking vigorously at the breast. “This will help with the expulsion of the placenta,” Rachel explained to Gemma. “The breast-feeding will trigger the release of oxytocin, which will cause the uterus to contract, and this will help to curtail bleeding.
“I’m sorry about all the noise,” Liz said.
“What noise?” Rachel asked her.
“I was shouting.”
“Did it help to shout?”
“It did actually.”
“Then what are you sorry for?” Rachel said, and Liz smiled.
“Can we let your dad in for a moment?” Maggie asked.
Liz looked down at herself, she was decent, Arian was breast-feeding and Liz was revealing less cleavage than with some of the dresses she had worn this summer. There was a bit of blood on the mattress and she asked her mum to cover it with a sheet. She nodded. “Let him in,” she said, and Leo, we can’t leave him out.”
They came into the room, cautiously, unsure
of what they might see. Instantly, their uncertain facial expressions were transformed to expressions of delight.
“Thank God", Harry said.
“Look at those fingers, and hair, she has hair.”
Leo’s eyes brimmed full. Harry kissed Liz on the forehead and gazed at Arian. “Well done, love,” he said. “Your friend Debbie just telephoned; can we ring her back and let her know?”
Liz nodded: “Tell her we’re fine and I’ll speak to her tomorrow, or later on.”
Then Harry said: “Come on, lad,” to Leo, who had sat on the floor next to Liz and looked like he was settling in for the duration. “I think we had better go and sort those goldfish out, and let these ladies get on with their job. Anyone fancy a cup of tea?”
“Yes please.”
“Not for Liz, just yet,” Rachel said. She whispered to Leo: “Now can you see why we do this job? Incredible, isn’t it?”
Leo smiled, nodded, and gave her a hug.
When they had left the room Rachel came to Liz to look for a small trickle of blood from Liz’s vagina. This would be a sign that the placenta was separating.
“Don’t despair, Liz, you’ll get your cuppa once your placenta is out,” she said. “You deserve one more than the rest of us.”
Maggie took Arian from Liz, a reluctant Arian, who would have been happier to stay on the breast.
“You can go straight back to your mummy in a minute or two, darling,” she said, enjoying cradling her grandchild for the first time. Rachel fetched a small low stool and together, she and Gemma helped Liz to sit on the edge of it, creating a short drop to the floor, just in front of Liz’s vagina.
“A bit of gravity can help,” Rachel explained.
Gemma saw the cord lengthen.
“I can feel it coming,” Liz said. She had a mild backache, like a period pain, but it didn’t really hurt.
“Give a little cough,” Rachel said. Liz gave a voluntary cough and her placenta, a soft bloody organ the size of small doughy pizza, slid out of her and onto the floor, followed by a trickle of blood. Gemma collected the placenta and put it aside for her and Rachel to check; they would ensure that it was complete.
“A small piece left behind might result in heavy bleeding or infection,” Gemma explained.
Then they asked Liz to lie down while Rachel checked her uterus again by placing her hand on Liz’s stomach. “Lovely, just like a cricket ball,” she said, and asked Gemma to feel Liz’s well contracted uterus again.
“I want to examine you now to see if you need any stitches, Liz, but I’m afraid it might be a little sore so you may want to use the gas and air while I check. I need to have a good look inside,” Rachel explained.
Liz was not really prepared for this, she thought that it was all over at last, but Rachel assured
her this examination was necessary, and so she took the gas and air and tried to relax while Rachel checked her perineum for tears.
“You weren’t kidding Rachel,” Liz said. “It stings even though I can tell you’re trying to be gentle.”
“You will need a few stitches,” Rachel pronounced eventually, “but I will put some local anaesthetic in so it shouldn’t hurt. You must tell me if it does, and I’ll put more local in.”
“Do I have to have stitches?” Liz asked.
“No, you don’t have to have anything you don’t want, but I would advise it because there is a tear in the muscle and it is bleeding, not a lot, just a little trickle, but the suturing will stop this.”
So Liz agreed. Having the local anaesthetic put in was painful for a minute.
“It is similar to what they do at the dentist," Maggie explained, “Once you are numb it will be fine.” She was right.
Afterwards, when she was all done, Arian was brought back to her mum for another feed. This time Gemma helped her to latch on.
While Arian was enjoying her feed Liz glanced up at the sepia photograph of Bill and Dora on the wall; another memory for this room.
Liz had a wonderful restful bath while Rachel and Gemma finished their notes and cleaned up. Arian was taken downstairs for communal cuddles. She had weighed in at a respectable seven pounds nine
ounces.
By seven forty-five, Liz was sitting up in bed, relaxed, comfortable and happy, cradling baby Arian who just one and a half hours earlier had still been inside her. "Incredible," she thought. She knew she had been fortunate. Throughout the whole of her labour any one of a number of things could have happened that would have had her taken off to the hospital, such as failing to progress, asking for an epidural, meconium in her liquor and other signs of fetal distress, but now she also knew that for her, staying at home was the right choice.
Downstairs, in the kitchen phone calls were made, tea, coffee and an occasional scotch were imbibed. Maggie suddenly felt very tired.
Rachel and Gemma said their goodbyes. They would call tomorrow.
Leo and Harry helped to load Rachel’s car. Gemma couldn’t wait to call her friends and tell them her wonderful home birth story, and exhausted but satisfied, Rachel went home hoping to spend time with her children before they went to bed.


Chapter Seventeen


Last But Not Least


Debbie decided to wait until eight 'o’clock to wake Sean. Meanwhile she sat with Scooter reminiscing about the times they had spent together, talking to him, feeling he could understand everything she said. She recalled the time, when he was a puppy and she woke him to take him out to the garden to wee. He was just beginning to learn how to cock his leg and was so sleepy, when he lifted his back leg he fell over into the wet ivy. How she wished she had had a camera. Then there was the time when he had panicked, thinking he had lost her on the beach, daft thing. She watched him run back to where they had started their walk. He ran the whole length of the beach, Debbie calling his name frantically, and Scooter running off in a panic in the opposite direction. She had caught up with him eventually and scolded him, but she could never be cross with him for long. He was too good at looking sad.
When she first met Sean, he and Scooter took to each other straightaway and they became
great friends. Together the three of them were a family.
When Debbie woke Sean, he got out of bed immediately and ran down the stairs in his shorts, to see Scooter.
“Hello, old man,” he said to Scooter, gently patting the top of his head. “Debbie what time does the vet open?”
“Eight thirty I think, although it’s Saturday, so I’m not sure. There was an emergency number, but I didn’t think he was bad enough to call them out.”
“No but he needs to be seen today, and let’s hope it’s not too serious,” Sean said.
“Okay, we’ll take turns to sit with him and get ready, and try the phone again at eight thirty.” At nine twenty, when Nigel phoned to announce the birth of baby Chloe, he was surprised to get the answer machine. Debbie and Sean were already in the car with Scooter, on the way to the vet.
“I will have to do some blood tests,” Mr Davies told them, when they arrived at the surgery.
“He has a temperature, so I will give him an intramuscular antibiotic and some tablets