It’s still hours before dawn when I wake up. Alice is sat up in bed next to me, a look of anguish on her face. We’ve already had one false alarm with contractions a week ago, and I don’t panic immediately.
“I think this is it,” she tells me. At that moment her waters break, and the bed is covered in amniotic fluid. I help her up out of the soaked sheets and into the bathroom to clean up whilst I head downstairs and make a call to Mike. He answers after half a minute, his voice slurred with tiredness.
“Brian? What’s up?”
“Hi Mike, I think Alice is in labour.”
I can hear Camille’s voice in the background, and then she’s talking on the phone. For a new mother nursing a month-old child, she sounds bright and alert.
“Brian? Can you get her to the hospital alone?”
“I don’t know if she’ll make it Camille, her waters have broken already and she says the contractions are every minute or so.”
“Okay sweetie, stay right there. Mike’s going to call the hospital and get the doctor out to you. We’ll be there as soon as we can, just keep her calm and get her lying down.”
I don’t even have time to reply, the last thing I hear is Camille’s voice ordering Mike to get himself dressed before she puts the phone down. Upstairs, Alice is busy trying to get dressed.
“Hey gorgeous, I think we might be better staying here. Camille and Mike are on their way, and they’re bringing a doctor.”
“Shit.” She’s almost in tears. “Shit shit shit.”
I take her by the arm, guiding her back to the now bare bed. There are spare sheets in the drawer that I fling across the mattress. Her body is a pale silhouette in the lamp light, tan highlights and shadows picking out the bumps and curves of her body.
“It’s going to be just fine. Lie back here and just let me take care of things.”
“Don’t you leave, don’t you fucking leave me.”
“Wouldn’t even dream of it. Now, what can I get you?”
Her face screws up in agony, and her breathing becomes a series of pants. I let her grip my hand, partly for reassurance, and partly to help her focus on something other than the pain. She almost crushes me as another contraction hits her.
“I don’t know. Some morphine would be nice,” she says when the pain subsides a bit.
“I think we’re all out.” I am mentally estimating the distance between Mike’s house and ours, via the hospital. It’s a good three kilometres, about forty minutes if they have the kids in tow. Longer if they have to wait for the doctor to be ready. I don’t think Alice ca wait that long.
“Okay, come on let’s breathe and relax, Cam and Mike aren’t going to be here for a little bit, so don’t do anything rash okay?”
“Rash? I am having a fucking baby and it’s coming right now.”
She’s not kidding. Already she’s dilated several centimetres and I know that at this pace there’s no chance she can hold on for long enough.
At that moment Chris walks into the room, his eyes blurred with sleep. I can’t imagine what the scene must look like to a six year old.
“Dad? Why are you and mom shouting?”
“Hey Chris, mom’s about to have her baby, and we need your help. Can you do me a huge favour and go and turn the hot tap on in the bath?”
“Are you okay mommy?” His tired face is a picture of worry and concern.
“I am fine Chris-o. Can you do what daddy asks?”
“Yes.” He casts a glance up at me and runs out of the room towards the bathroom.
Alice raises a questioning eyebrow, and I explain that it’s for hot towels to help relieve the pain of contractions. She doesn’t seem convinced, but it gets Chris out of the way for a minute or two.
“Do you want him in the room?”
“I don’t want anyone in the room. I want your child out of my body and I want to be trim and healthy and now swollen in every place imaginable, and I want this to stop hurting so damn much.”
“That’s a no then?” I ask, and she allows herself a smile.
“Too dramatic?”
“A touch, but still very convincing.”
“Might be better if he stays, he’s only going to worry if we leave him alone whilst I am screaming and swearing away in here.”
I agree, and Chris creeps around the door a few moments later.
“Is the bath running Chris?”
He nods, his eyes not moving off Alice. She beckons him over and starts explaining what’s happening to her body whilst I duck out to prepare some hot towels.
The water is about as hot as I can bear, which is about perfect for what I need. A couple of terry towels in the bathroom cupboard are folded and soaked, then wrung out, remaining damp and retaining the heat of the water. I hold them with the tips of my fingers, carrying them back to Alice who is talking to Chris through gritted teeth. He’s stood beside her head, counting seconds between contractions, and barely makes it to fifteen before Alice groans in pain. I fold the towel into a triangle that I place across her abdomen, the point of the triangle covering her pubic hair. I can see she’s very dilated now, and the baby is going to be crowning any moment. She draws in a breath through her teeth at the heat of the towel, but it obviously distracts her from the pain of the contractions. She smiles at me, and I sit on the bed besides her legs. My hands are trembling. All I can think of is the night Christopher was born, the night I lost Clare.
As if reading my mind, Alice reaches out and grabs my hand. Rather than the painful grip that I am expecting, she rubs her thumb around the joint between my thumb and index finger, a little gesture that we use all the time when reassuring each other.
“I am not going anywhere, so stop moping. You’ve got a little baby girl to deliver, and she’s not going to wait.”
From that point on things happen in a bit of a blur. Alice manages the pain of the contractions as well as can be expected, but the effort of pushing out a baby is a type of pain I can’t begin to imagine, and she screams with each push. Chris is clearly scared for his adoptive mother, but does an incredible job of keeping her focussed whilst I try to deliver our child. The process feels like it takes an age, but in reality scant minute pass until a final push and a scream of agony and relief finds me with a blood covered baby girl in my hands, the umbilical cord trailing back between Alice’s legs. I ask Chris to pass my a pair of scissors from the bedside drawer, and he does so, his fascinated gaze not leaving his tiny sister’s soaking body.
I cut the cord, leaving a good length hanging from the infant’s belly. The purple tube hangs limp in the air, and I panic briefly as I realise that my child isn’t breathing. Alice is panting, and reaching for the baby, but I can’t remember what to do next.
Cradling the tiny body in my hands, I tip her upside down and tap her back, lightly at first and then more firmly. I can hear the rising panic in Alice’s voice, but I know that I can’t pay attention to her concern. I repeat the patting, and finally, when all seems lost, I feel my daughter take her first tiny breath, and give a scream that is her first contribution to the world.
Mike and Camille burst into the house with a young doctor in tow ten minutes later. I’ve cleaned up as much as is practical, but our daughter is covered in drying patches of blood and I am still removing towels that are soaked in afterbirth. Chris is still stood at his mother’s head, talking to his sister as she suckles at Alice’s breast. Mike convinces Chris to help him with some made-up errand in the kitchen whilst Camille and the doctor, whose name I learn is Gregory, set about the task of clamping and tying off the umbilical cord, and applying stitches to some minor lacerations that Alice has sustained. She suffers the indignity of the stranger working between her legs with grace that I know is more due to exhaustion than an even temperament.
I am slumped in the corner of the room by the head of the bed, and it’s not until Camille passes me a tissue that I realise that tears are streaming down my cheeks. The doctor is kindly pretending not to nice whilst I blow my nose and dry my eyes.
“Looks like you’ve had a busy night there buddy,” Camille says.
“Yeah, you could say that. How did I do?”
Doctor Gregory looks over at me and shakes his head. For a moment terror grips me, and I think that I’ve made some horrendous mistake. My fears are short lived.
“If you ever want a job, come and talk to me. We could do with more people who can do what you’ve just done.”
“See?” Camille jabs my shoulder. “No sweat. I wish Mike could have kept his head like you have.” She turns to Alice. “You want to hold on to this one, hon. He’s a keeper.”
Alice smiles, her face glowing, beautiful even in the dim light. “Let’s not do that again for a while though?”
“It’s a deal,” I tell her.
“What’s her name?” Camille asks Alice.
“Clare,” she replies simply.
I reach over to kiss her, and she squeezes my hand. “Told you, I am not going anywhere.”
“I’ll hold you to that.”
Some hours later, when the doctor has declared both mother and child fit and well, I head downstairs to join Mike and Chris. My son is sound asleep on the sofa, and doesn’t stir when I collapse next to him. Mike hands me a glass of whisky and takes one for himself. He raises his glass, and I clink mine against his, then take a sip. It’s exactly what I need.
“Everything okay upstairs?”
“Yeah. Alice is sleeping and Cam’s keeping an eye on them. Where are your two?”
“Left them with Mrs Ellis next door. She adores them, and we planned this a while ago. Didn’t expect it to happen in such a rush, though.”
“You got that right. I think I am going to sleep for a week.”
“Don’t blame you bud. I reckon Alice won’t object either after what you did tonight. I don’t mind saying, I don’t think I could have done that.”
“Didn’t have much choice really. I get the impression that Clare’s going to be doing things on her own schedule for some time to come.”
“Clare? Damn.”
I raise my eyebrows, and he explains.
“I owe Cam a week of house chores. We had a bet on what you’d call her. I had my money on ‘Rose’. She was absolutely certain it would be ‘Clare’. Guess she knows you guys better than I do.”
“Don’t worry about it,” I tell him, “I spent the first eight months betting it would be a boy. I am stuck cooking for the rest of time now.”
He laughs, and we keep drinking. I don’t make it through a second glass before falling asleep next to Christopher.