When you first arrived in the world, after those first sleepy, beautiful cuddles, a midwife rolled me onto my sides and placed you next to me for your very first feed. Ten weeks later, here we are — me coaxing you to sleep in our bed, the big bed, because your bed is not your favourite place at the moment.
Shall I tell you about being born? Your experience was different to mine, I know.
I was convinced you were going to come early. Convinced. This, in hindsight, was less convinced and more impatient as all hell.
The weeks ticked by. I sat at home, my belly growing and growing, and with each mirror selfie, I wondered when you’d arrive. “Today,” I’d say to your dad, willing those contractions to start. “Maybe this’ll be the one that does it,” I’d tell my midwife hopefully after yet another stretch and sweep. (We did four of those. FOUR.)
And eventually, the calendar rolled around to 41 weeks. You were exceptionally cosy in there. So, nervously, your dad and I went to the hospital, armed with everything possible. It was mostly snacks, to be fair. Snacks and clothes for you. They’d start trying to induce you that night. A balloon catheter to start, which didn’t do much. Hurt like the dickens, but you inherited my stubbornness. In you stayed. And, no room at the inn — we went home the next afternoon, and would come back again the day after for the main event.
Between waters breaking, side walking up and down stairs, and sternly talking to you in utero, I was sure you’d get a wriggle on. And you said, emphatically, absolutely not. Maybe you knew about the state of the world, and had decided inside was safer (fair). But either way, they loaded me up with a cannula and a hormone drip, and we waited for contractions to kick in.
15 minutes: that’s all it took for contractions to move from ‘a bit of pain’ to ‘words actually can’t describe this without screaming’. Your dad was massaging my back, hips, thighs, trying to stop the pain. I had a TENs machine — didn’t take the sides off. I was huffing the happy gas like it was the only bit of oxygen in the room. I stomped around, telling your dad he was divorced.
You had a student midwife named Laura. She arrived for the birth and I almost cried. “You have to take me home,” I told her. Begged her. “If I stay here, I’ll die.”
“I can’t take you home. I’m sorry.”
“Please? I can’t do this. I’ll die.”
“Divorcing her husband. Thinking she’ll die. She just needs to scream for her mum and she’s got the three,” another midwife said.
“I DO WANT MY MUM,” I wailed. (Note: Nanny wouldn’t have done much, except tell me I was being dramatic.)
You’re asleep. I’ll finish this story tomorrow.
letters to my roo 
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