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

when you smile like that. I don’t know what you are thinking.”
Her heart would sink. Already she knew the rest of the night was set in stone. If she played it right Liz could get home first and lock herself in the back bedroom, she kept the key in a secret place in her handbag. Or she could hide. If he was drunk enough he would give up looking for her, and crash out on the couch, or the floor.
Liz remembered how he would always be so very sorry after his cruel outbursts, buying her chocolates and flowers and appearing desperate for
her forgiveness. This became meaningless when the same scene, and the same cruelty, would be repeated again, over and over; the glaring maleficent eyes inches from her face; his face threatening, exploding with anger; saliva spewing from his mouth with verbal humiliations and obscenities, followed again by the desperate apology and excuses.
“Please forgive me, I didn’t mean it. I had a shitty day at work. You always take it out on the one you love. Isn’t that what they say?”
Too forgiving, that was her weakness. Then she became pregnant.
When Liz told him he blamed her. How had she got pregnant? Had she done it on purpose?
No, she hadn’t. She was sure of that. There was no way she wanted to bring a baby into that environment. Liz had been on the Pill. The doctor said it was probably the antibiotics that caused them to fail, and Liz hadn’t realised that she needed to use extra precautions while taking them.
“I’m just not ready for kids. Can’t you do something about it?”
“What do you mean by that?” Liz asked him, stunned.
“You know what I mean, get rid of it. It’s easy these days isn’t it?”
“It’s not easy for me!” Liz yelled and threw the cup out of her hand at his head, missing, by just a few centimetres.
What Jack didn’t know was Liz had already had an abortion, many years earlier before she met him, when she was still at school.
It was something she would not do again. This was a painful memory. There had been so little time to decide what to do, then afterwards a moment of relief followed by forever to think about it. There had been one kind doctor.
“Whatever circumstances you find yourself in, in the future,” the doctor had said, “Never forget your circumstances today; things will change; your life will be different and you will look back. You are having an abortion now because of the reasons you have now.” This helped, but Liz still looked back, and wondered.
After the cup throwing Jack left the flat to go to the pub and Liz rang her mum. Before Jack returned Liz had packed everything she valued into her car and was on the motorway heading home to her mum and dad. She left him a short note.
Contact me, and you’ll end up paying for this baby until he or she is eighteen years old. Leave me alone and you won’t. Liz knew his weakness too.
That had been in February, and Liz had not heard from him since. She suffered no regrets about leaving him and was relieved at his lack of effort to contact her, which clearly exposed his feelings or lack of them. Her feelings for Jack had left her numb. Then, gradually, over the past few months, she had begun to
feel more relaxed, her confidence was returning. Liz was learning to believe in herself again.
She had envisaged problems with work but Cathy had been very understanding.
“I always said you were too good for him. Good riddance I say, but don’t you be a stranger Liz, we will miss you here. If there’s ever anything I can do, just pick up the phone.”
With her contacts in London and the reputation she had for hard work and innovative design, Liz planned to work freelance, but for now all of her energy was focused on her baby and, in a strange way, she was almost looking forward to the birth.
The pain of labour held no fear for her; although a few people had told her that she was being unrealistic. Liz knew this was not true. She was not expecting it to be easy, but it was just one day, one day of hard work and pain, with a reward at the end of it. She would know what to do when the time came.
To Liz it felt like a club she hadn’t joined yet. The ‘what’s it like to give birth club'. She wondered if it would be worse or better than she expected.
“Possibly both,” her mum, Maggie, had said, and she should know.
Maggie had plenty of personal experience of birth. Liz had three brothers, all of whom were older than her. Maggie was 55, 5 foot 2 inches in her stocking feet, possessed a swallow-tail smile and short wiry hair, cut neatly to frame her oval face.
Maggie was sharp. Her belief in the ability of women to do most things better than men, encompassed the rights of women in childbirth.
Maggie worked in the local Citizen’s Advice Bureau. After Liz had her abortion, Maggie had become a lay member of the local Maternity Advisory Committee. This decision was born from her desire to help and support pregnant teenagers.
Being on the advisory committee had given Maggie an insight into local maternity care, especially regarding areas of confliction between the hopes and expectations of women and the reality of what was available to them. When Liz told her mum she was pregnant, and she was happy to be pregnant, Maggie’s own beliefs and preferences were made very clear to her.
“Nowadays,” she told Liz, “women having a baby are considered to have a condition which requires some form of medical treatment, when often but not always, time and patience will work just as well. Birth, without intervention, has become a mystery, even to many of the so-called experts. What you need is a good midwife, support from someone you trust, and belief in yourself. You also have to be prepared for a tough day; labour is rightly named. It is hard work.”
“What about the doctors?”
“You need to be signed up for your maternity care, regular checks and all that stuff - that way problems can be identified, if they arise, but you will need a
doctor if you have problems. The midwife can, and will, provide all the care you need for normal pregnancy and childbirth. Childbirth is a dynamic aspect of nature,” Maggie told her, “Powerful creative and beautiful, something that belongs to women. It is not the manufacture of goods on a production line. Nature does not work by the clock.”
“Did you know that I have the right to choose where I have my baby?”
“Yes,” Maggie’s reply was hesitant; she thought she knew what was coming, and held her breath.
“I want to have my baby at home, Mum.”
Liz set her jaw in such a determined manner; Maggie could see she was anticipating opposition.
“Will you go into hospital at the first sign of a problem?”
“Of course I will. I just want to try and do everything right this time. I hate the idea of being in labour in hospital.”
Hospitals always made Liz feel nervous. Her boss Cathy had first mentioned the idea of home birth and immediately Liz warmed to it.
“Okay,” Maggie nodded her head slowly, like this decision had added to the weight of it. It was a test of her beliefs, of the ideals she had argued for all these years, the right of a woman to choose. Having committed herself, Maggie decided she would do her best to help Liz get what she wanted, and offered her support.
Since becoming pregnant Liz had developed an insatiable appetite for any information about pregnancy, birth, and caring for her baby. She explored every available source; books, the media, the internet and her friends and contacts. Some of the topics, particularly those about dealing with the complications of labour, left her feeling cold. Still, in order to prepare herself, she wanted to know what to expect. It was more than that. She needed to know. Somehow, she felt knowing what to expect would help protect her. It became more and more important to her to make the right choices, and to avoid the imposition of treatments or interventions she didn’t want.
Liz and Maggie spent many hours planning and anticipating. The worst thing about it all was the uncertainty.
“You are travelling from pregnant woman to mother, but it’s like spaghetti junction, there are so many routes, and any number of hazards,” Maggie said to her one day. “Remember; you are the one at the steering wheel and there are ways you can maintain your sense of control.”
“Try not to be afraid of the pain,” she continued. “I know that is easier said than done, but the pain of childbirth does have its uses, like letting you know it is time to find a safe place to have your baby, and not allowing you to think about anything else. Without the pain of childbirth women would have their babies in some very awkward circumstances.”
“The pain gets worse as the birth comes closer, so you know it is coming closer. You know you are making progress.”
“If you are standing, or kneeling, during labour the pain causes you to move your hips, you know rocking and swaying, you’ve seen women on T.V. doing it. Weight-bearing on your pelvic joints helps to make a little, and sometimes vital, extra space for the baby to get through your pelvis. The movements you make also help you handle the pain.” Maggie read the doubt in her daughter’s eyes.
“I know I am right; look it up, what do you think your pregnancy hormones do? They soften the pelvic joints so that when you are weight-bearing, standing or kneeling and moving or rocking, extra space is made for your baby to fit through. There is purpose to the pain.
“Giving birth is a right of passage, Liz. It is a life-changing event, terrible and wonderful at the same time and I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.”
The more Liz read the more she realised that her mum’s ideas and beliefs were shared by many women, and confirmed by much of the research on normal labour.
They tried to include Harry, Liz’s dad, in their conversations, but he’d just say, “Women’s stuff, leave me out of it,” and retire into