True Stories (34 page)

In delivery suite they mill about their big station with its desks and computer and filing cabinets. They are forever drawing up rosters and equipment order lists: ‘Can we please please please please
please
get some smaller cannulas? I've rung and rung and
rung.
' The fluorescent light is harsh and wearing. At times the foetal monitor in one of the rooms is turned up so loud, to reassure a labouring woman, that it thuds through the nurses' station like a funky bass-line. Otherwise, the PA faithfully seeps out tired old hits. After a couple of days in here, you not only get used to the radio but start to like it—even to depend on it. It's better than muzak. It's an infusion of the outside world, which is in danger of being forgotten, in all this intensity. Day and night lose meaning, here. What land is this? You could be anywhere.

Midwife Sandy, square-set, short-haired, ironic, does a boppy dance-step between desk and shelf. Listening to an account of Nik's triumphant caesar, she remarks dryly, ‘I was pleased to learn, in general training, that
even thin women
have globules of fat.'

From labour room number six comes a low, strangled cry. Everyone looks up. Sandy walks steadily and without haste towards the room. The woman's cries intensify, breaking as they go up the scale, the way Ricki Lee Jones sings. The other midwives go on talking and joking, grumbling as nurses will about people who
don't put things back.

A harsh rising howl bursts from room six. Tremendous grunts of effort and strain. A pause. Then—so quick!—the choking, protesting, stuttering squall of a new-born baby. What amazes and moves a stranger is all in a day's work, round here.

And outside, it turns out, there
is
still an ordinary world. As the sun goes down over the immense, rain-puddled carparks of Penrith, the air fills with the aroma of grilling meat. In the 6 p.m. queue at the Sizzler, the madly excited small son of two recent Polish immigrants clambers up the barricade and peers over it at the scores of tables. ‘Ai caramba!' he shouts to his embarrassed parents in perfect Bart Simpsonese, ‘this place is packed!' The waitress offers a choice of seats: near the salad bar, or the window. ‘Lots of people,' she says helpfully, ‘prefer to sit near the window. To keep an eye on their car.' Coaches roar up to the Penrith Panthers Leagues Club and disgorge troops of touring Japanese. The pokies whirr late into the night. At breakfast time a solitary gambler is still slumped on a stool, confronting his fate in the machine.

At eight in the morning Linda, too, is sitting alone, with her bare arms resting on the cold formica in the delivery suite tearoom. She's been on call all night. One of her socks is twisted, its heel poking out over the top of her shoe. She is coughing, her skin is pearly with exhaustion, a cold sore on her lip is daubed with cream. But her eyes are lively and she's smiling.

‘I sectioned Mala at three-thirty,' she croaks. ‘We bailed out. She got too tired. She'd had enough. We were a well-oiled team. Got baby out in two minutes. Twenty-seven minutes go to whoa. The midwives were fantastic. They gave me a hot pack and I went to sleep curled round it.'

Mala, upstairs in a ward, is tired and weak. Her husband is still at her side. Their baby son, in a crib near her bed, writhes in his sleep. His long nails scrape the pillow. The change, the deepening in Mala's face is sobering. Yesterday a girl, today a woman. Her face, as Patrick White once put it, has ‘received the fist'. She is sorry, her husband courteously explains, but she can't eat the hospital food. Linda is gentle with her: ‘the first day is the worst day'. She checks the wound. No problem there. The husband is concerned because at home they've got too many steps.

Out in the hall, Linda says, ‘I'm anxious about Mala. She seems flat. No sense of pleasure in the baby. Hope it's not postnatal depression coming on—the signs of it are so subtle. And her community sees itself as a very closed one. With Hindus, the caste problem makes it kind of delicate even to choose an interpreter, when we need one. We'd like to help, but we feel we can't intrude into their lives.' Later that afternoon Mala's husband, head bowed, carrying an airways bag, trudges down the hospital drive, going home alone.

Downstairs in delivery suite, a box of special new protective glasses has arrived. Midwives and doctors jostle for the coolest styles and model them, to each other's mockery. ‘Vanity, thy name is Nik,' says another resident crossly. The big doors from the hall burst open and a wheelchair zooms in. Everyone stands up. They know her. It's Melissa. She's having twins. Her waters broke four days ago, seven weeks prematurely, and she's been in a ward, waiting. Her husband and two girlfriends follow her chair into the labour room.

Inside, the room is breathless with surprise. The two friends, very bright-eyed, keep doubling over with excited laughter. ‘Youse have had kids,' Melissa tells them solemnly. ‘Youse know what's gonna happen.'

Linda examines her: fully dilated, but with no urge to push. Her husband, in the peaked cap, old boots and deep reddish tan of an outdoor worker, can't find a spot in the room where he's at ease. Under his tan he's pale. He keeps smiling but his lips are pressed together. They've already got two girls at home: oh, how they want a boy.

Melissa's bare feet knot in a contraction. She starts to breathe and blow, like a swimmer. ‘Action stations!' calls Linda. Two resuscitation trolleys glide into the room. Linda and Nik put on their new protective glasses. The room is filling up with people. The midwives stand still with folded arms: they are used to waiting.

‘Ow,' says Melissa. ‘Ow ow ow
ow.
' Her husband gives a histrionic shudder and turns his back. The foetal monitor is turned up. The babies' heartbeats sound feathery and yet deep: an intimate, steady, authoritative throbbing.

‘I can't lay on this side,' says Melissa. ‘Sorry.'

‘Beanbag!' calls Linda. Melissa leans back on it, belly bare, legs apart, an awkward, powerless posture. Her face ripples with expressions of comical self-deprecation. She looks focused on something that no one else can see or hear. Her hair lies flat against her head. She's stripped down for action. She's not scared, but she's respectful—preparing herself for what's about to go rampaging through her. A gust of stifled chatter and laughter breaks out among the midwives: it's like being at a party, or an outing to watch the sun rise.

‘Shhh,' says Linda. ‘Bend your legs, Melissa, and give us a push.'

Melissa's face is white. The skin around her eyes darkens, her gaze gets blanker. Between her contractions, a watchful quietness fills the room. A green flourish as the doctors robe up and the sterile tray is opened. One of Melissa's girlfriends holds her hand and tickles her inner arm with her fingertips. ‘I'm uncomfortable?' says Melissa. ‘On m' back? I need to lay differently?' She turns on to her right side and lies with her bent legs open like scissors, in running position. She's giving little rhythmic sighs with a touch of voice in them: ah, ha, ah, ah.

The composition of figures in this room might have been arranged by a mediaeval painter. There must be a dozen witnesses gathered round the labouring woman, in attitudes of alert waiting, all turned inward to her, focused on her and the immense power she's host to. And yet at the same time it's all completely casual: it's work.

Linda, in sterile gown, gloves and glasses, sits half-stunned with fatigue on a chair beside Melissa's bed; the tip of her nose is pink, her eyes are glazed with waiting. With each contraction Melissa starts to breathe deeper. Each breath becomes a groan. Between groans, though, she is calm, almost conversational. ‘Give a little push,' says Linda. ‘Does that feel better?'

‘Yes.'

‘Means you're ready to push. Put your legs up, Melissa, and give us a bit of a push.'

Her husband leans against the wall. His booted foot taps in a fast, nervous rhythm. Melissa's on her back now, with her legs sharply bent up and her chin right down on her chest. With each contraction she strains downwards. Her face screws itself up, she bares her teeth with the force of it.

‘Keep it coming,' says Linda. ‘Make those pushes last about ten seconds.'

‘OK,' says Melissa, in a voice faint with the desire to co-operate—but she is in control here, it's her team, she is the star. Her single-mindedness is awe-inspiring.

Another push. ‘Chin on chest, Melissa.
Hold
it, Melissa.
Use
it all. Fantastic, Melissa. Well done.' They are urging her to the best of her strength, calling to her loudly, as if she were somewhere else, far away, needing to be shouted to across some divide. A small dark hole between her bent-up legs starts to expand and broaden. Her husband clutches at himself and giggles anxiously. ‘Hold your breath like you're taking a dive: says a midwife. Melissa's friend strokes the hair back off her sweating face. Melissa calls out her husband's name.

‘I'm here!' he shouts, pressed against the wall.

‘Get angry,' says Linda. ‘You're backing away from the pain. Get mad.
Fight.
' Melissa shoves tremendously, silent, resolute, efficient. The dark hole between her legs keeps getting bigger. Surely it can never be big enough—can there be room? But yes—it's the top of the baby's head, you can see the curve of it, and someone grabs a mirror and holds it out so Melissa can watch as her baby crowns. She shouts, ‘It's coming! I've got the urge to push!' The whole room explodes in laughter.

Two more shoves and a purplish silvery blunt-headed thing shoots out of her, face down. Faster than the eye can follow, the baby is freed from her and whisked across the room to its high trolley. A pale grey twisted tube hangs out between Melissa's legs.

‘Is it the cord?' she gasps. ‘It feels slimy.'

‘Like an eel,' says her husband. With his arms folded, he walks to the baby's trolley and looks at it as they work on it—it's a girl. Without expression he returns to his place by the wall, then approaches the baby again. ‘Netball team's lookin' good,' he says in a low voice.

A midwife brings the wrapped baby to Melissa who's still in the thick of it but keen to see. ‘Oh, look how
small
she is—hang on—can I just get rid of this cramp?' She is incredibly composed and well-mannered. She is almost professional.

A quick internal tells Linda that twin two is in breach position. The tension has slackened in the room—and in the uterus, which must build up again its expulsive force.

‘Any pain?'

‘Not pain,' says Melissa, ‘just—' ‘A horrible sensation?' says a midwife sympathetically.

Soon Melissa is back on the job, good-tempered, determined, utterly focused. She's on her back, with her legs bent, heaving away. This is how it got to be called
labour.
It's slog, it's the laborious completion of something.

‘Don't let the pains go, Melissa,' says Linda. ‘
Use
them. Big long strong pushes. Good girl. And another one. Hold it there! Don't let it slip! This is
brilliant
, Melissa. One more, if you've got it. The baby's coming down bum-first.'

‘Gonna hurt more, isn't it,' gasps Melissa.

‘Nup,' says Linda, ‘gonna hurt less.'

Melissa's pelvic floor, with each push, is absolutely bulging. ‘I want to do a wee,' she says faintly.

‘Go right ahead,' says Linda, ‘it's part of labour. No one cares.'

‘I care,' grunts Melissa.

‘
Do
it!' cries her girlfriend, ‘just
do
it!'

In a sudden hush, piss gushes out and runs down in a clear stream over the swollen dark hole, making a tiny musical rilling sound.

‘Good,' says Linda. ‘I was worried about your bladder. Now
—show
us something, Melissa. Come on
—show
us the baby.'

‘My legs are getting tired,' says Melissa. Her friends, one on each side, rush to lift up her legs: they bend her knees up to her shoulders, and give her their hands to brace her feet against.

‘That's better,' says Melissa, faint but business-like. ‘Ohhhhh kay—here comes another one.' Her face is clenched tight with concentration. Linda leans over, slides the white plastic amnihook into her, and ruptures the second twin's membranes. ‘Are you right?' Melissa calls to her husband.

‘Am
I
right?' he answers, incredulous, almost laughing. ‘Yeah,
I'm
right—are
you
?'

Melissa doesn't speak. She draws a breath and utters a long, slow groan.

In a flash the midwives uncouple the lower section of the bed and whip it out of the way. One kicks the discarded half-mattress right across the room, while others draw Melissa down what's left of the bed so her bottom is level with its end. She's yelling at them: ‘Hurry up! Hurry up!' They lock the stirrups into place, and raise her legs on to them. In a green blur, blond bob flying, Linda leaps between her legs—and out bursts a bum, feet, torso, shoulder-tip. Linda grabs the baby with a cloth, twists it once, twice, flips it up and over onto Melissa's belly, and draws out the head—and Melissa's husband, craning forward, sees that it's a boy. Oh—a
boy.
He didn't know there was a boy in there. Melissa knew but hadn't told him. She wanted to give him this surprise. His lips clamp into a hard line. He turns his wind-reddened face away and folds his arms across his, chest. His eyes are full of tears.

Next morning, in a ward where the sun lies in squares on the shiny floor, a teenage single mother is learning to bathe her baby. The girl is hollow-cheeked, with long dark hair, and a row of silver sleepers in each ear. But her face is full of surprised tenderness, as she gingerly cradles her baby's head in one palm, following the nurse's example. The baby cackles, it gives gasping, quivering cries. The nurse murmurs something to the girl, who shivers and says in a loud, cracked voice, ‘Eeeeww
no
. I don't
want
to breastfeed. No
way.
Eeeewww
yuk.
I don't feel good about it.' Water sloshes gently in the pale plastic bath. The nurse's soft voice soothes and soothes.