Babies in Waiting (26 page)

It seems you have to make a plan, and write it down, and make multiple copies to give to anyone who comes anywhere near you in the hospital. I didn’t really know what to put in my plan, to be honest. I didn’t have very strong feelings one way or another about most aspects of labour. Despite the intense debate on the site, I thought I’d just go with the flow, see how I felt, maybe have drugs if the pain was bad, maybe not have them if I was coping. Or that was what I was thinking when I went for my first antenatal class. But then I met the other women. Our poor teacher, Donna was her name, the nicest Scottish midwife you’re ever likely to meet . . . well, she ended up with the stroppiest, most opinionated, argumentative antenatal group in the history of pregnancy. The later classes were to include husbands and birth partners, but the first one was supposed to be just for the women.

At first, I was the youngest one there, for certain. All of the women looked like they were in their thirties, and one or two looked even older. Where we live is nice, but some of the surrounding bits are crazily posh, and I’m sure loads of the women were bankers or traders or lawyers or something. Lots of them were in business suits, neatly tailored over their bumps, and a few were expensively dressed in lovely summer maternity dresses. I felt a bit scruffy in my maternity jeans and flowery top, but I’d got
to the point where I was just living in the few things that were comfortable, and sod fashion.

I say I was the youngest there at first because about five minutes into the class, little Gemma, the teenage mum, arrived. She was with a tall, dark, older woman. At first I assumed it was her mum, but they looked, I don’t know, kind of awkward together, and when everyone introduced themselves, the woman said her name was Hannah and her son was the baby’s father. I knew she was a lawyer because Gemma had told me she was when we were at the disastrous lunch at Louise’s. And she wasted no time wading in when the arguing started, which it did pretty much straight away.

You’d think that in most antenatal groups, the women, who are generally all having their first babies, would sit quietly and listen to the midwife telling them what to expect and what their choices are. But these women had come prepared. They all seemed to have typewritten lists of questions (or they read them off their phones or iPads). They weren’t going to listen to a lecture. They all knew what they wanted from their birth experience, and, basically, they wanted to know if they would be allowed to do it, and what they had to say to get it.

They all had very different expectations. One beautiful blonde woman, who was wearing a floaty, white dress that I was sure cost more than my monthly Travelcard, said she wanted an elective Caesarean. ‘I’ve done my research,’ she said, ‘and one in four births needs medical intervention. Those odds are too high for me. I want the
highest level of control. Also, I have family coming over from Sweden for the birth, and I need to be able to predict the date of the birth so they can book flights.’

James always teases me that my face hides nothing. I thought she sounded barking and that what she’d just said was, frankly, hilarious, and I’m sure that opinion was written all over my face in big capital letters. I looked around the room, sure I would see expressions of disbelief to match my own, but quite a few women were nodding in agreement. Some were looking at her in disgust, as if she’d suggested something obscene. Then one of the business-suit women looked up from her laptop and said coldly, ‘Don’t you think, by undergoing major surgery for no reason other than your own flakiness, you’re putting you and your baby at more risk?’

Donna, the midwife, tried to get her to take the ‘flakiness’ comment back, but Floaty Dress waded in with a flood of statistics, and then Business Suit started yelling other statistics back about the process of natural birth clearing the baby’s lungs, and health risks to mothers and babies from caesareans. And she finished by using the dreaded phrase ‘too posh to push’. Well, I thought Floaty Dress was going to drop her baby right there, right then. Donna the Midwife was wittering gently, trying to get them to calm down, and then another business suit, who looked like she was about forty, fiercely organised and as if she probably ran a country, chipped in. ‘I’ve done all my research,’ she said, ‘and none of the pain-relief options seem completely risk-free to me. What’s your view on water
birth and hypnobirthing?’ Well, Donna the Midwife never got to give her opinion, because at least four other women had opinions and statistics about that. Hypnobirthing sounded a bit weird to me . . . like I’d have to give birth on stage with some dodgy bloke swinging a watch and telling me I was a chicken, but it seemed there was more to it than that. I’d never read about it on the baby website, but I made a note to find out more.

After a while, Donna the Midwife stopped trying to run the class and just let the women argue with one another. It wasn’t like she could have stopped them. I used the chance to edge my way over to talk to the woman who had asked about hypnobirthing. She looked a bit intimidating: she was very tall, with quite a severe face, but when I hesitantly asked her if she could tell me something about it, her expression got soft and she looked all enthusiastic and much younger.

‘I’m so not a self-help book person,’ she said, ‘but a friend who gave me a whole heap of maternity clothes also gave me a book on hypnobirthing, so I read it out of curiosity. It makes so much sense, not in a hippie, New-Age way, but just sensibly. You trust your body to give birth, and you work with it. And it’s painless, or it can be.’

‘Painless? Are you joking?’

‘I’m serious!’ she said. ‘Search for it on YouTube. There are all these videos of blissed-out women, breathing their babies out. I saw one video of a woman asleep on the sofa, and the baby just came out.’

‘Asleep? I’ll have some of that!’ I laughed.

She smiled at me, then dug in her bag. ‘Here’s my card – I’m Susie, by the way. If you want to know more, drop me a line and I’ll give you the details of my hypnobirthing coach.’

Gemma was sitting across the room, listening to all the women yell and argue. She hadn’t said anything yet. Hannah, Gemma’s baby’s grandma, seemed to think she should shout louder than everyone, as she had actually had a baby. She seemed to be very much in support of the pain-relief argument. ‘It’s there,’ she yelled at some poor pro-waterbirthing mother-to-be. ‘It’s been invented. So use it! What do you want for doing it with no pain relief? A medal? Some kind of bravery award? That’s just stupid!’ I smiled at Gemma then, and she grinned back. I was sure Hannah must be telling Gemma how she should give birth all day, every day.

At the end of the class, Donna finally wrestled control back and told us firmly what we’d be doing in each of the following classes. There was one on pain-relief options (and when some of the natural-birth lot started muttering she just spoke straight over them). Then we’d be doing the stages of labour, a class on breastfeeding (cue more muttering), and a beginner’s nappy-changing-and-bathing-the-baby class, using dolls. ‘Unless one of you has popped by then and wants to bring in your baby for us all to practise on!’ said Donna brightly. Well, that went down like a lead balloon with the humourless crowd. I felt sorry for her, I really did. It was like trying to teach a class of grumpy, pregnant velociraptors.

Everyone sped off as soon as we’d been dismissed, tapping on their phones and jumping into 4x4s, no doubt hurrying to take over companies or knit their own duvet covers or something. Susie waved goodbye to me and waggled her fingers like she was typing, to remind me to email her. Hannah was having a very forceful phone conversation in reception, so as I faffed about packing my stuff it was only Gemma and me left in the room. She came over and sat elegantly on the arm of the sofa as I shoved things into my bag. I struggled to get up, half rolling onto my knees and hauling myself up, panting slightly. I was grateful that she didn’t try to put a hand under my elbow or anything.

‘What bloody sadist holds a class for heavily pregnant women on squishy sofas?’ I said, to cover my embarrassment. If Louise makes me feel awkward and hefty, Gemma’s about a million times worse. She is so tiny and fine-boned, and so graceful. She doesn’t waddle at all when she walks, and she’d just leapt up off the sofa like a slightly startled gazelle or something. I didn’t really know what to say to her. We’d shared pregnancy chat at Louise’s disastrous lunch, but I don’t have a clue what to talk to a teenager about. It seems a bit silly, because it’s only seven years since I was a teenager myself. And in fact, Gemma is closer in age to me than Louise is. Still, I thought I’d make some polite excuse and duck out. I’d have to walk out into the street and catch a bus.

‘I must be going . . .’ I started to say, but she interrupted.

‘You don’t have a car, do you?’

‘Er, no, actually. I was just headed for the bus stop . . .’ I pointed vaguely in the direction of the main road.

‘Only I came in my own car and met Hannah here. If I say I’m giving you a lift home, we can leave now and I don’t have to wait for her. Please. I don’t know what to say to her and I don’t want to be the last loser left hanging around here.’

I remembered her smart new Mini. ‘Are you sure? You don’t really have to take me home . . . you can just fling me out at a bus stop along the way. I’m pretty spherical, so I roll quite easily.’

‘Where do you live?’

‘Kingston. Down towards the river. It’s not too far, actually, if you’re in a car.’

‘Well then, I’ll take you home. I’m sure you’d rather not have to walk from the bus stop at the other end.’ She started to walk towards the door.

‘It’s not too bad, actually,’ I said, waddling behind. ‘We’ve never had a car, so I just don’t really think about it.’

As we walked through the reception area, Gemma did complicated sign language to tell Hannah she was going and driving me home. I waved goodbye to her, but she looked right through me and turned away, barking something about lost briefs. I was pretty sure she didn’t mean knickers.

We got into Gemma’s cute little car and she punched my postcode into the sat nav. She was a good driver, as far as I could tell. She certainly didn’t seem jumpy or inexperienced. We drove in silence for a bit, and she suddenly burst out laughing.

‘What?’ I said.

‘Oh, I was just thinking about my mum saying the antenatal group would be a wonderful place to make friends. She says everyone she knows stayed friends with their antenatal friends for years after the babies were born.’

‘Everyone she knows didn’t end up with the antenatal class from hell like we did.’

‘Oh my God!’ Gemma squealed, and for the first time, she sounded like a girl her own age. ‘They’re awful! They’re like sharks.’

‘I was thinking carnivorous dinosaurs.’

‘I’m sure most of them will just eat their babies if they misbehave.’ She giggled again. I liked it when she laughed . . . it made her seem less like a fairy princess and more like a normal human being.

I found myself prattling on. ‘They’re just all so
definite
! I mean, I just haven’t made up my mind about the birth yet. And I don’t know enough about babies to be absolutely sure how I’m going to do everything once it’s born. Am I a bad mum because I don’t have my birth plan all laid out and laminated and a nursery all colour-coordinated and fully kitted out?’

‘Oh, we’ve got the nursery, but only because my mum just called in an interior designer and it got done. I didn’t really get a say in it at all,’ said Gemma, but funnily enough she didn’t say it in a snobby way. I suppose in her world everyone has interior designers.

‘Wow,’ I laughed. ‘Well, I have a husband I dragged around IKEA, and a list as long as my arm that I keep
scribbling on. I don’t have a nursery, I’ve got a spare room, with some flatpack stuff still in boxes leaning against the wall, five packs of nappies and a giant green teddy I couldn’t resist buying that takes up half the room.’

We were about to turn into our road when my phone beeped with a text. It was from Louise.

‘Hello, stranger,’ it said, a bit tentatively for Louise, I thought. ‘Around for coffee sometime?’ I just dropped my phone into my lap. Gemma glanced over. ‘Not going to reply?’

‘Not really.’ I hesitated for a second. ‘It’s Louise. I haven’t spoken to her since . . . the lunch, and I’m not sure I want to.’

‘Why not?’

‘Well, in the whole time we’ve been friends, she never once told me that the father of her child was married. I just feel . . .’

‘ . . . that she’s a heinous, disgusting betraying bitch?’

I looked at her, very surprised. ‘Wow . . . no . . . I was going to say that I feel a bit uncomfortable. But you obviously have issues with it.’

‘Women who sleep with married men are scum,’ Gemma said harshly.

‘So, I’m guessing you’re not planning to see Louise again any time soon?’ I asked.

‘If I never see her again, it’ll be too soon,’ said Gemma, as she pulled up outside our house. ‘I texted her and told her not to call me again . . . ever. She’s a witch.’

Gosh, I found myself thinking. Gemma seemed to have
forgotten that Louise had helped her and supported her and been a friend. Now she’d made one mistake, it was game over as far as Gemma was concerned. Things are very black and white when you’re a teenager. There’s no room for someone to have made a mistake, to have been lonely, to have wanted some closeness, and chosen the wrong person . . . and then I remembered that I’d said the same and worse about Louise when I first found out about Brian being married. I didn’t feel so good about myself then. And I suddenly remembered Louise telling me something about Gemma’s dad. She seemed to think he was a bit of a player. So there was more to this situation for Gemma than met the eye. I wasn’t going to get into any psychology with her though. We’d only just met.

Gemma hesitated for a moment, then she said, ‘Listen, if you wanted someone to go shopping with for baby stuff, I’d be free, I mean . . . I’d really like to.’

I smiled at her. ‘Yeah, me too.’ We swapped mobile numbers, and I even gave her a quick kiss on the cheek. She’s a bit hasty, a bit judgmental, but she’s not so bad.