Once Upon A Time in the West . . . Country (31 page)

Juan.

If you don’t go for the ridiculous guttural, gobbing sound that the Spanish employ with Js (just showing off), then it’s near as dammit ‘One’. If it turned out to be a boy, then that was my current favourite. If we ever have a second, then we’d have to call it Two, but we’d need to be innovative with the spelling. We’d need to make stuff up, claiming that it was the Vietnamese name ‘Tooh’, meaning ‘beautiful waterfall’ (who is going to check?); or spell it ‘Tout’, the French word for everything – because our child means everything to us. We could provide sick bags for people when we explained it to them.

Florence Nightingale’s parents had an interesting system. They named their children after the places where they were born. Florence was named after the great Tuscan city of her birth. Her sister wasn’t so lucky – she was named Parthenope, after Parthenopolis, the Greek settlement in Naples where she popped out. Their brother got the really raw deal though, born in a little village in Worcestershire. I guess that’s why we hear so little about poor Bell End Nightingale.
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***

Preparation for birth became more of a talking point in our house, partly because my publishers had sent me every book that they’d ever printed on the subject. Certainly for something that ought to be as natural as natural things come (I mean hadn’t we been giving birth for tens of thousands of years?
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), there seemed to be a lot of varying methodologies on offer.

The approach that we were to end up following turned out to be governed by Fran’s decision to attend ‘pregnancy yoga’ classes, and it was through conversations with her teachers that she began to learn about ‘natural childbirth’.

Natural childbirth. It’s odd that such a name should even exist, implying as it does that childbirth could be
un
natural. However, exist it does, and it advocates that an adequately prepared woman can give birth at home, without routine medical interventions.

‘What is “adequately prepared”?’ I asked Fran, as we discussed the matter over dinner one night.

‘I’m not certain, but we’ll both find out at the birthing class I’ve booked us on.’

‘Ah yes. Forgot about that,’ I said. ‘Perhaps I’ll read around the subject a bit before we go. Don’t want to show myself up.’

So it was that I started to read fervently about childbirth. My father’s generation would have frowned upon this interfering approach. Birthing was ladies’ business and men should stay out of it. Indeed, that used to be the way in years gone by. Men didn’t really start to get in on the birthing act until religion urged them to do so. According to many a scholar who has done far more research on the subject than I have, in the Middle Ages midwives were singled out as witches by the patriarchal society and Roman Catholic Church, because these women had immense influence in the community. Influence that they wanted to usurp.

This was exactly what happened to those poor lasses in Bideford in 1682. They’d been delivering babies using natural remedies, and without any help from men, so they’d had to pay for it. The priests wanted to be around at births, in order to be on hand to nab the souls of the newborns before anyone else got in there. Slowly, a naturally female domain was permeated.
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The infiltration continued with the medicalisation of birth. Medical technology has moved on greatly, and let’s face it, for the most part this has been a good thing. Maternal mortality fell substantially during the twentieth century. However, obstetricians have increasingly taken over responsibility for normal births, in addition to their involvement in complicated births, especially in parts of the world with thriving private practice. (Surely they’re not intervening because this is where greater profit lies?) Intervention has become the norm, and there is increasing evidence that each intervention, though solving one problem, actually
causes
another.

The fear factor plays a big role in this, too. The NHS in the United Kingdom faces such a huge bill each year for medical negligence that it is reasonable to ask whether professionals are encouraged to act ‘defensively’ (particularly as 70 per cent of litigation is involved with obstetrics). Most obstetric cases are connected with labour-ward practice, and 99 per cent of these relate to ‘failure to intervene’ or ‘delay in intervention’. The Scandinavian countries and the Netherlands, who did not follow the trend towards steep increases in Caesarean sections during the 1990s, have a tradition of perceiving birth, above all, as a normal physiological process, and of valuing low intervention rates.

Ah, the Dutch and the Scandinavians. They’re so cool. So often do I end up citing their practices when arguing for a sensible, calm, and yet still courageous approach to social policy. They don’t overreact. They look at the facts, and they decide on the best thing to do. Then they
trust
in it. One wonders if the
Daily Mail
were on sale in Scandinavia whether it would sell any copies.

At the end of my period of extensive reading on the subject, I offered my conclusion to Fran.

‘I think
trust
is the issue.’

‘How do you mean?’

‘We need to trust in your body and in our baby’s ability to negotiate his or her way out of it.’

Clearly, I had become a complete hippy. I could imagine the peels of deriding laughter were I ever to express these views in any public forum. For now, however, this was my position. Perhaps I’d change my mind after Karin’s home birth preparation course, and after I’d been made familiar with every last detail of what was involved in getting the baby from womb to world.

Things kicked off with everyone introducing themselves and outlining why they were there. An awkwardness permeated the air, but a certain amount of ice was being broken. The other two couples did a pretty good job of explaining how they’d learned that a home birth can make for a very positive start to a child’s life, and why they wanted to learn more today. I was last to go, just after Fran, so I had a bit of time to think about what I was going to say.

‘There’s been some terrible mistake,’ I said, when it was finally my go. ‘I thought this was going to be a discussion about football.’

It had been a risk – attempting to inject some humour into proceedings, but there was just enough laughter, albeit of the nervous variety, for it not to have been an embarrassing blunder.

‘No, seriously,’ I continued, ‘I’m here with Fran for us to find out whether a home birth will be right for us.’

The use of ‘No, seriously’ is rarely a sign of supreme confidence in either oneself, or one’s audience. It marks a belief that the listener is so out of touch with your humour that they need instruction as to when it is being implemented, otherwise how will they know that everything you say isn’t an attempt at being funny? Thus, your serious comments need flagging up. Another example of this is the expression, ‘Just kidding’, which I’ve noticed Americans like to use a lot. Instead of saying, ‘Just kidding’, I think it would be more honest if people said, ‘I’ve misjudged my attempt at a witty quip so badly, it’s not clear that what I said was meant in jest, unless I immediately identify it as such with a short statement herewith.’ It’s not as punchy, granted, but it’s somehow more honourable. Americans are also big fans of declaring, ‘That’s funny!’ at great volume. What I don’t understand is why, instead of doing this, they don’t just
laugh
. I think you’ll find that’s the correct procedure.

If this had been the Middle Ages, then Karin – our delightful and gentle teacher of this active birthing class – would have been rounded up and floated or drowned until either her guilt or death was established. During the course of the day, she talked us through what happens when a woman gives birth. Doesn’t sound very heretical, does it? We were shown how the baby navigates its way out of the body, going into clever little turns at opportune moments, to accommodate the fact that its head is rather large for the task in hand.
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We learned about the different stages of labour, nature’s way of pushing the baby down through the cervix and deeper into the pelvis. We discovered that oxytocin and endorphins are produced by the body to ease this process, and how adrenalin – the body’s chemical that puts us in fight or flight mode – can be an enemy of the process, if it arrives too early on the scene. The adrenalin is required for the final stages, when the body needs to be readying for birth. Until that stage, being relaxed and calm is what really helps the process along.

A thought occurred to me. When does being relaxed and calm
not
help us? Well, maybe when we’re in extreme danger, which is exactly the time that the adrenalin in our bodies kicks in naturally and shuts down the thought processes, leaving us to work on instinct. It overrides our other feelings. (No one is depressed when they are running away from a bear. Although I am not advocating this as a form of treatment. Tempting though it might be in some cases.)

But how often in our life are we in extreme danger? And how often are we calm and relaxed? In one of the tea breaks, I took a moment to wander away from the others and ponder this subject. For just how much of my life was I relaxed and calm? Was I actually relaxed and calm at this moment, here at this class, drinking this nice cup of tea? Probably not. All this information about what Fran would soon have to go through was challenging. If it was challenging for me, then what would it feel like for her?

How calm and relaxed am I now as I write these words? I suspect not as calm and relaxed as I could be. Maybe there’s some anxiety about whether I’ll deliver the book on time. Some concern about whether people will like it. Perhaps I’m anxious that there will shortly be some spelling mistakes and that the proofreader of the book won’t spit them?

I decided, as I washed up my cup and then headed back into the class, that it’s the mind – the great controller – that we need to master, whether we’re rewiring a plug, commanding an army, or giving birth. The mind controls the body, and the body, most of the time, does as it’s told. Except now, when for no reason it has typed the words tit and cock.
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It became clear that I was to be Fran’s birthing partner in all this. This meant that I would be on hand to provide water, snacks, massages, and loving encouragement during the labour. One particularly tricky point was going to be ‘transition’. This is the point when the adrenalin kicks in for the expectant mother. By all accounts, it’s a frightening time for her and she commonly announces that she ‘cannot do this anymore’, or that she needs painkillers. She’d need helping though this challenging stage. In order to do this, I’d been given a very complex brief, the gist of which seemed to be:

When ‘transition’ happens, try to find the right words to comfort and soothe your partner even though with every word you utter, she will try to kill you.

Hmm. That was going to be fun.

‘I’d like to try hypnobirthing,’ said Fran as we drove home, our heads brimming with birth info.

‘Really. What’s that?’

‘I heard about it at pregnancy yoga class. It teaches you techniques that can help you through the challenging stages of labour.’

‘Sounds great.’

I was up for anything that would protect me from having a knife driven through my chest during the birthing process.

‘You’ll be fine,’ I added. ‘I’m completely relaxed about this “transition” business. Together we’ll crack it, no worries.’

TIT AND COCK.

15

All the Sixes, 666

‘
I’m going down to Reg’s in the tractor, wanna come?’ asked Ken, after I’d popped round to borrow a tool and ask for some advice.

I did this on an impertinently regular basis, knowing that nine times out of ten, Ken would simply come round and do the job himself, rather than allow me to flail around with dangerous devices or utensils.

‘Reg wants to see my Massey
1
,’ he continued, ‘and it’s a lovely day, so I thought I’d take it down there.’

It was indeed a wonderful spring day, the kind where you dared to tempt fate and announce that the winter was behind you. Too many times had I done this over the years, only to be battered by hail and sleet at Easter.