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

baby she had delivered in room seven only twenty minutes earlier.
It was a warm night and the office was stifling. Leaning forward, with one cheek sandwiched between the palm of her hand and her heavy head, Ed’s left elbow pained at the point where it pressed into the desk; she leaned back in the chair. The computer screen glared at her, interrogating, intruding, even through closed lids. Bed, its white sheets and soft white pillows beckoned but a moment later, this image retreated to the remoteness of the artic circle when a bell rang and a voice was hurled out from a delivery room down the corridor
“Room four, take a baby; bleep the paediatrician” She sighed, her tiredness the familiar tiredness of a
succession of night shifts in a busy unit short on staff and long on hours. Ed had not slept well that day. She never could. Frustrated, she felt like a sow with more piglets than nipples
Ed picked up the receiver, made the call and rushed to room five, where a light flashed urgently above the door. Inside she glanced at the monitor, nodded discreetly to Jacqui her colleague, checked the rescuscitaire, and prepared to receive a baby whose heart trace showed evidence of distress. The woman, in advanced labour, was on the narrow bed on her back with her knees bent and legs open. Her face was contorted. The effort of pushing her baby into the world jig-sawed from her open mouth, cutting through clenched teeth and filling the room with its immediacy. Within minutes the baby was born; a big chubby boy who lay still on the green sheet staring, eyes round and deep, mouth tense and silent. One voice spoke quietly; it was Jacqui. She rubbed down along the baby’s chest with a dry towel and blew her own breath over his face.
“Come on you big fellow” she whispered. She continued to dry and rub the baby.
“I’m just giving him to my colleague. He needs a whiff of oxygen,” she explained to the silent woman and her motionless partner.
In a timeless moment Jackie clamped and cut the cord and handed the baby to Ed. Ed laid him on the rescuscitaire, checked his heart rate - good
100 plus, dried him and gave him oxygen via a mask.
“He’s pinking up,” she called over, “And his heart rate is good. What can you see with those big eyes?” The baby responded with a squeak then took a breath and cried. It was a quiet lonely cry, bubbling with mucous and brimming with the confusion of a new voice. Real time began again. Ed noticed her hands were shaking. It happened every time, but always after and never during the event. The paediatrician arrived, baby Justin was given to his mum, skin on skin, while the new father smiled, cried and felt in his pocket for the comfort of his mobile phone. Ed went back to the computer to finish her notes and her cold tea.
“Is your lady ready for the bath?” Tanya, the Health Care Assistant was at the door of the office
“Yes, if her baby has finished at the breast. Thanks Tanya.” Sandy, the midwife in charge, strolled into the office dropped a pile of notes onto the table and turned to look at Ed. Ed could tell, because Sandy was smiling, that she wanted something. The only time Sandy ever smiled was when she wanted something. Ed sighed and began to tap the rhythm of ‘Scotland the Brave’ on the keyboard, but Sandy, as smart as she was, apparently failed to notice.
“Ed, there’s a primip’ term plus one coming in, sounds like she’s doing something, would you mind taking her when she arrives?”
“Sure, if someone can sort my room out; I need to get these notes done.”
“Thanks, her name is Debbie Johnson, full term, no problems and Ed,”
Ed noticed that Sandy was still smiling.
“Yes Sandy?”
“Would you take a student midwife? I’ve had to send Barbara home she’s sick, leaving her student with no one to look after her, names’ Gemma, nice girl, good student from what I’ve heard.”
“Okay, send her along. I’ll take care of her.” Ed didn’t mind too much. Having a good student to work with could be useful and it meant staying in teaching mode all night. No time to remember how tired you are. Ed finished her notes and took ‘her lady’ and baby girl up to the post-natal ward handing her care over to the midwife there. By the time Ed returned to the labour ward office Gemma, the student midwife, was waiting for her. She shyly introduced herself to Ed.
“Hello, I think we met for that emergency section the other night.”
“Yes we did. Have you had a break?”
“Not yet”
“Is Debbie Johnson in?” Ed asked Rose, one of the midwives who was sitting at the desk busily compiling her notes
“No, she hasn’t arrived yet.”
“Who took the call?”
“I did, about an hour ago; she was having contractions one in five to ten, said she was okay and might have a bath first.”
“Rose?”
“Yes?”
Rose was a fervent believer in women staying at home for as long as possible during the earlier stages of labour. Ed knew she had a good point, but she knew that occasionally women took Rose’s idiosyncratic turn of phrase too literally.
“What did you say to her?”
“The usual, you know.”
“You told her to come in when her eyes were watering?”
“Yes.” Rose turned to look at Ed, her attention caught by Ed’s apparently amazing telepathic powers.
“How did you know that?” Ed touched the side of her nose and smiled.
On the way to the staff room with their microwave pasta dishes and mugs of tea Ed said to Gemma,
“After we’ve had our break we’ll give Mrs Johnson a ring. The last woman Rose advised to ‘wait until her eyes were watering’ came in fully dilated.”
A warm night breeze drifted through the staff room diffusing the smell of burnt toast.
Joan, a theatre nurse, sat in an armchair in the corner of the room, her feet up on the chair opposite. She appeared to be sleeping; her tea-cup, half-full and balanced with one hand, rested precariously on her knee.
Ed eyed Gemma with interest. She saw a young woman, in her early twenties, who seemed
pleasant and not too full of herself.
“How far into your training are you Gemma?”
“I’m just in my second year.”
“Enjoying it?”
“Mostly, although it’s really hard work, especially with having to find time to study. I like the labour ward best.”
“How many deliveries have you had?” Ed knew Gemma needed forty deliveries before she could qualify as a midwife.
“Sixteen so far including a home birth yesterday. That was something else, it was amazing,” Gemma replied.
Ed nodded
“I thought she was brave choosing a home birth. I was petrified at the idea of not being in hospital; until afterwards, when I knew everything was okay.”
“It’s a difficult choice for any woman.” Ed agreed. “Many don’t even know they have a choice.”
“I know there’s always an element of chance. You might have to get transferred in during labour” Gemma said, “but you can predict problems, can’t you?”
Ed nodded, and took a sip of her tea before saying,
“There’s less intervention at home.
Animals birth their babies on familiar territory, not people though. We’re too clever for that aren’t we? All stuffed with the notion that science can control nature.”
“Yeah,” Gemma agreed. “My aunt is a vet, and she told me that if you take a cat, who’s in labour, out of the bed she has prepared for herself, and place her in a room with strangers, bright lights and unknown smells, her labour stops, because she is afraid. Instinctively her body reacts to danger by perceiving it is no longer safe to have her kittens. My aunt says her labour coming to a halt is linked to an instinct for survival.”
“Do you think we are different from other animals?” Ed said
“In some ways,” Gemma replied. “And in a hospital you feel like a patient and you’re treated by strangers, mostly.
“And we wonder why things don’t go smoothly.” Ed sighed, and paused to take another sip of tea. “Chemistry,” she said. “Think about the chemistry of lovemaking. Imagine a young virgin.” Gemma smiled.
“Okay, put yourself in her place if you can.” In the corner of the room, Joan’s head turning was almost imperceptive. She opened one eye to look at Gemma then closed it again. Ed continued.
“Imagine Gemma, it is your honeymoon. You are in a hotel.”
Ed took a sip of tea, eying Gemma over the rim of her cup.
“What would happen if people, experts who knew how it should be done, decided to come into the room, unannounced and at regular intervals, to see how you
and your new husband were getting on? Imagine,” Ed peered over the top of her glasses.
“Oh I see, only reached the petting stage, carry on, we’ll come back later. You should at least have your knickers off by then.” Gemma laughed.
“It would put me off.” Joan opened her eyes, and added, “Having said that, I’d rather have a cup of tea.” Ed continued.
“The point is, we disturb the chemistry of childbirth with our technology and interference. Joan drink your tea, before you spill it.”
“What helps create the right chemistry for childbirth?” Gemma asked.
“Respect, support, privacy and safety, is the stuff of successful childbirth, and allowing time; not making her feel like she is having to race against the clock. They cost nothing, and you, the midwife, have the power to give it or the power to take it away”
They sat in silence for a few minutes. Then it was time to move.
Gemma was the first, and got up to wash her cup. In the corner of the room Joan drained her cup stretched and stood up. Ed fetched her cup, and while washing it found she was comparing Gemma’s neat young hands with her