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

own well worn pair.
“Come on Gemma, tonight is Debbie Johnson’s night. Let’s see what we can do to help bring the right chemistry to her labour shall we?” Gemma dried her hands straightened her uniform and followed Ed.


Chapter Nineteen


Time to Go


Debbie had a long bath, making sure that the warm water covered much of her stomach, so it was high enough to be effective. Sean came in with a mug of tea for her, and after she had finished the tea he used the same cup to pour warm water over her stomach, aiming the stream at her belly button, which had been an ‘outie’ for the past couple of months.
“Will it go in again, or will it stay like that?” he asked.
“Pouring water over it isn’t going to make any difference is it? Now if you’re going to do this, do it properly. Pour it slowly over all of the part that’s out of the water and stop messing about.”
Debbie smiled; she could tell Sean was both excited and nervous. The contractions were what she had expected, except stronger and more painful, but the strange thing for Debbie was that she didn’t feel afraid, and she had expected that she would. There was an apprehension, which came with the start of
each one. It was at this moment that she had to steel herself to relax and accept. She tried to remember what it was that Liz had said to her.
“Stay with it, Debbie, and believe you can do it. Just do one contraction at a time and it will come to an end.”
What was this next one going to be like? Some were stronger than others, some lasted longer, and some were quite short and sharp. All of them began with what was now a familiar ache in her lower back, which soon gripped her stomach and then took the whole of her. When the pain was gone it was gone, and she would have minutes of pain-free time to talk and joke with Sean.
She felt happy. She thought ahead for a moment and her stomach churned. To feel happy seemed quite ridiculous in view of what she was about to go through. After all that had happened today between me and Sean, of course I feel happy. Just do one contraction at a time Debbie. It will come to an end. She would try.
Sean helped her out of the bath, and that was a struggle. Debbie would have found it amusing had she not found herself suddenly gripped by another contraction. She remembered the slow out breath and regained a sense of control. “They are getting stronger,” she said to Sean. He dried her back and they went to the bedroom where he applied her TENS machine, following the instructions and diagram from the package.
Scooter had wandered up the stairs, curious at the unusual amount of activity for the middle of the night.
“Hello, old fella. You must be feeling better,” Sean said to him and patted his head. “Your bag is by the door, Debbie, but I think we will have to get a taxi. I drank too much to drive. I’ve put a spare key and a note through next door’s letter box to ask them to pop in and let Scooter out for a pee. Is there anything else I can do?”
“No, thanks love, just rub my back when I get the contraction, like they showed us in the class. Shall we go downstairs and put the television on, or try and rest a bit up here?”
“It’s your call, Debbie, you decide.”
So they watched TV in the bedroom, although neither of them were able to recall later what had been on, except for one brief moment when Sean trawled onto an old series about a vet, unfortunately at the moment when a calf was being pulled into the world by rope tied around its feet. He quickly switched channels, but wasn’t sure if Debbie had noticed. He said nothing and went for a glass of water and a slow out-breath of his own.
“I can do this,” Debbie said to herself, because doubts came, like snowflakes, at the beginning of a contraction, followed by the threat of an avalanche as each contraction neared its peak; disturb it too much and it would all fall down taking her resolve, with it. She
knew instinctively that she must tread carefully, stay calm and breathe each contraction gently away. “I can do this,” Debbie said to herself again.
When Sean returned to the bedroom she was leaning over the dresser, rocking her hips. He took her in his arms and held her close. They rocked gently, side to side, together.
“Don’t you think we should go now?” he asked her.
“Are my eyes watering?”
“Did she mean for us to take that literally?”
“I don’t know, perhaps we should ring again.” Sean nodded and stroked her hair. There was contraction coming again. Slowly they rocked from side to side again. Scooter barked, startling them both from another world.
Sean took him out to the garden, which is what he wanted. Then when he came up to find Debbie in the throes of another contraction, he decided it was time to ring the labour ward again.
“Every three to four minutes,” he told the midwife on the other end of the telephone. “Okay.” He replaced the receiver and picked it up again to dial a cab.
The realisation that it was time to go to the hospital marked another phase. For Debbie this meant a rise in her level of anxiety. She made her way to the bathroom again. Sean came in. Debbie was coming to the end of yet another, increasingly powerful contraction. He helped her to put her knickers on.
The taxi had arrived. Sean had to reassure
the driver that Debbie was not going to ‘drop one’ on his newly upholstered seats. He avoided the driver's eyes when Debbie stopped, halfway along the drive, to hold onto the wall, while gently rocking her hips in the grip of a contraction, all the while wishing they had gone to the hospital earlier. The petrifying vision of himself delivering his own baby in the back of a taxi brought him out in a cold sweat.
“My pillow,” Debbie said in a panic, “Have we brought my pillow?”
“Yes, I’ve got it,” Sean said. Debbie had told him she wanted to bring something from home, with familiar smells and associations. “You’ve got me don’t forget.”
“I have, haven’t I?”
“We are going to be fine,” he said to Debbie, but loud enough for the taxi driver to hear, who Sean noticed was mopping his forehead with a cotton handkerchief.
“We have plenty of time yet,” he stated; as much to convince himself as anyone else.
The TENS machine was on full by now, and Debbie used the booster for each contraction. She had three during the ten-minute drive to the hospital.


Chapter Twenty


Debbie Johnson’s Night


Ed and Gemma were preparing Debbie’s room when Sandy took the message and advised Sean to bring his wife in.
Ed had moved the bed, from its central position in the room, up against the wall and brought in the floor mattress, a beanbag and some cushions. She set the lighting to low and asked Gemma to put on some soothing background music.
This was very different from what Gemma had experienced with other labouring women she had cared for in hospital.
“Remember what we were talking about at break? How fear and an unfamiliar environment affect the labour hormones? I always try to make the room feel more homely, if there’s time,” Ed explained. “That’s why it's important to Make it appear less clinical. Some hospitals do try to make their delivery suites
more homely.
The problem is, although many of the midwives have a lot experience caring for women in labour using monitors and all the other equipment, they can lose their confidence to work without the technology. It is a difficult situation, with the present shortage of midwives, and they all are bound by hospital protocol, by fears of litigation, as well as being stressed and tired from the day-to-day pressures of the job itself - you can see why they're not always inclined to let go of those crutches and let the woman's body do what its supposed to naturally.”
Ed checked the rescuscitaire and continued,
“Being a midwife means, supporting the woman in labour while being aware of all potential problems, and acting on them, if and when they arise. It means believing in her and helping her believe in herself. Instead too many women are left on their own, unsupported, attached to a machine.
“What music do you want?” Gemma asked.
“You choose, but don’t forget to ask Debbie if she approves, or if she has brought something of her own to listen to. She may just want peace and quiet.”
Debbie had seen Gemma in antenatal clinic, and it was nice to see a familiar face in the tiny, windowless admission room, which was bare, save for a trolley with some worrying clinical packaging on it. She had never met Ed before and thought the midwife
looked a little stern at first, but was reassured by her gentle voice and her unhurried approach.
“We need to palpate your abdomen to assess the position and lie of your baby,” Ed explained, between contractions. Debbie was now kneeling forward on the bed. It was too painful for her to lie on her back.
“We will also listen in to the baby’s heart and check your blood pressure, temperature and pulse. After that we need to examine you vaginally, to see how you are progressing, is that okay?” Debbie nodded, silently praying that she was not going to be just two centimetres dilated after all this.
“Don’t worry about how far on you are,” Ed said, prompting Debbie to wonder if this midwife was a mind-reader. “In this game you could be three centimetres and have your baby in an hour, although for a first baby that would be unusual, but not unheard of, or you could be eight centimetres and still take a number of hours. You never can tell.”
“I need something for the pain,” Debbie grimaced, descending from a contraction while trying her utmost to maintain some sense of equilibrium. “The pain feels worse,