Once Upon A Time in the West . . . Country (40 page)

‘COME ON, FRAN, ONE MORE PUSH! YOU CAN DO IT!’

Try to think of a hundred variations on this theme and I’m pretty certain that they were said in that room over the next ninety minutes or so.

Yes, ninety minutes. More probably. Fran gave it her absolute all every few minutes for over an hour and a half, and, despite the manuka honey refuelling, the poor girl was close to exhaustion.

The baby was close to arriving. ‘Down there’ was opening up and we could now see the hair on the baby’s head, but Fran was just not quite able to force the head out.

‘One more go,’ said Fiona.

The contraction began, as did the accompanying chorus of encouragement – sounds not dissimilar in nature to those that might emanate from the stands at some great sporting spectacle:

‘GO, FRAN, PUSH!’

‘COME ON, FRAN, YOU CAN DO IT!’

‘THAT’S IT, THAT’S IT, FRAN. GIVE ME ANOTHER PUSH LIKE THAT!’

‘YES! YES! ONE MORE!’

My heart sank as I could see that this last push from Fran didn’t make a significant difference in the movement of the baby. I began to fear the worst; that the transfer to hospital Fran so wanted to avoid was now going to happen. Fiona had other ideas.

‘Fran, how do you feel about us making a cut?’

‘What?’ managed a shattered Fran.

Fiona explained that they could perform an episiotomy – a small, diagonal cut in the vagina that would increase the exit route for the baby.

‘We’ll give you a local anaesthetic,
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so you won’t feel anything.’

To my surprise, Fran agreed immediately. She was clearly at a point where she had very little left in the tank and needed to give birth soon.

Knives appeared. A small kit of sharp instruments was passed to Fiona, along with a needle and syringe. The anaesthetic was injected, and the cutting began. I looked away. Fran didn’t even wince. The wonder of modern medicine. This would have been the point in years gone by when the mother would have been in absolute agony, and when the lives of both mother and baby would have been at risk. Gwyneth was able to step in and check the heartbeat of the baby and, to our great relief, reveal that it was still healthy.

When the next contraction arrived, the coaching recommenced and Fran pushed for all her worth. Baby’s head was nearly there.

‘Next time, you’ll have your baby, Fran. Hang in there.’

These words seemed to inspire Fran and when the next contraction arrived, she found one more reserve of energy and produced a push – at least for Fran and me – of historical proportions. Something extraordinary happened. In what seemed like a fraction of a second, out whizzed the baby, like it had been fired from a piece of industrial machinery. It plopped into Fiona’s waiting hands, umbilical cord wrapped around it. It was crying. It was covered in gunge. It was an unbelievable sight. And it had a cock and balls. Probably a boy then.
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In only a second, our lives had changed forever.

Fiona handed the baby boy to Fran, who clutched it to her chest. Hers and the baby’s eyes met. Love at first sight. Pure joy. Nine months of preparation for this moment. Mother meets baby. The enigmatic lodger has shown his face at last. Exhaustion and love mixed on Fran’s face to create the warmest smile I had ever seen.

And me? Well, I had been busy filming these first precious moments on my phone, conscious of activity around me, the midwives doing what midwives do at this point, the joyous sounds, a crying baby. I waited for my own emotional release – the tears of joy – and yet they didn’t come. I still felt like an observer, oddly distanced. I stroked Fran’s hair and congratulated her. I looked down and saw that the baby was already on Fran’s breast. A very English lad. It was nearly four o’clock, so he knew it was teatime.

I was offered the opportunity to cut the umbilical cord, which had now stopped pulsating and was ready to be clamped. I declined the offer politely, because for me this was no big deal. I would sooner have someone do it who had done it before.
My
special moment was still to come.

‘Are you ready now for the third stage, Fran?’ asked Gwyneth.

Ah, yes – the third stage. I’d forgotten about that. As if the rigmarole of birth had not been testing enough, the mother now had to go through the further duty of birthing the placenta. Once again, Fran turned down the offer of the drugs that could facilitate this process, and she opted for a physiological third stage. Gwyneth suggested that they all went off to do this in the bathroom, and I was told to take my shirt off and to lie down with the baby and get some ‘skin to skin’ time. The baby was passed to me and I took it in my hands. Immediately I felt the fear that I have always felt when handling a baby – what if I drop it? I was expecting the fear to be diminished by the fact that, for the first time, this would actually be
my own
baby I would be dropping, but in reality the fear was more intense. Dropping somebody else’s baby was stupid and careless, but dropping your own made you an abuser, and it probably had an accompanying prison sentence. I held on tight as I lifted the baby towards me and laid him across my chest, his little eyes looking up at me.

This was the moment. I became lost in his features, all-consumed by his presence. Here was the tiniest human being I had ever seen, who until a few minutes ago had been inside my partner’s belly. Now he was beginning a life, and I was one of his protectors; I was to be his guide, his mentor. In this moment, the enormity of the task didn’t overwhelm me – rather it filled me with pride. I would give my all and I would rise to the task. I had a strong sense that the past counted for nought. This was the real beginning. This was life’s remaining challenge – to welcome this distinguished guest, to entertain him, to keep him peaceful and happy.

My eyes focused in on the baby’s mouth and I could see that it looked like mine. Confirmation, if I needed it, that I was truly holding my genetic offspring. In some primal part of me connections were made, and whatever these connections were, they led to my tear duct. Slowly I wiped away the tear of joy. My first real tear of joy? Maybe. Our lives are full of firsts. The first time we walk, the first time we talk, the first time we dance, the first time we drink alcohol, the first time we make love. This was the first time I had ever stared at someone for forty minutes. This minuscule being had me transfixed. I barely noticed the sound emanating from the bathroom, where brave Fran was completing the placenta birthing procedure. A midwife appeared and assured me that all was well and that Fran would soon return to put the baby to her breast. Then we would begin family life together.

I hadn’t looked once at the midwife during this last exchange. I was still caught in the headlights of the reclining life form before me, the beautiful, perfectly formed baby boy. Our Devonian son.

What now? I thought.

A split second of sheer panic. Aaaaaaaah! I had no idea.

Then I calmed down.

It was OK. I’d ask Ken.

Epilogue

The baby – we still didn’t have a name
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– slept on my chest for that first night, because Fran was so exhausted that she was out for the count, and nothing, but nothing, would wake her. A simple thing, you’d imagine, sleeping with a tiny, little human being on your chest, but it was both exciting and terrifying in equal measure. Each time he went quiet, I needed to check his breathing. My night sleeping with Titch in Tavistock hadn’t prepared me adequately for confident fatherhood, and somehow I couldn’t yet trust that this baby was built to keep on going.

In the morning I arose, convinced that I had bonded with my boy, and punch drunk with weariness, I began to ready myself for my role in these next few weeks.

House nurse.

Whilst Fran recovered, I would attempt to run the house. Such a task was daunting for a fresh and vibrant version of me, but the sleep-deprived idiot who was attempting to navigate his way around the kitchen cupboards felt overwhelmed. It was shaming. Fran had gone through this extraordinary physical feat of carrying a baby and giving birth, and yet I was struggling with the fear of making breakfast, lunch and dinner, and operating the washing machine, dishwasher and vacuum cleaner. Putting off a start on the housework, I took five minutes to text friends and family with news of the birth. Then I picked up the phone.

‘Ken?’

‘Yes?’

‘It’s Tony. We’ve had a little baby boy.’

‘That’s marvellous news. You wait till I tell Lin. She’ll be thrilled. Well done.’

Ten minutes later, I looked out of the window. There were blue balloons all the way along our front fence. A car went by and beeped its horn. The village had now been informed. Forget all the modern technology. Sod email, Facebook and Twitter, the balloons were up and the message was clear. A little baby boy.

The phone rang. More congratulations? No, it was Fran, using her mobile from upstairs. I didn’t know it yet, but this method of communication would mimic the old-fashioned bells that rang when the aristocracy wanted something from the staff below stairs. Could I bring Fran a drink? You bet. I rushed up with a cup of tea (not before knocking several things over first) to see my heroine proudly holding our new baby. Taking care not to crush baby, we managed our first family group hug. Wow.

Later that day, Lin popped round and took all the linen, sheets and general detritus of the birth and shoved it all through her washing machine. I’m not sure what model it is, but it must be a good one, because everything returned looking spotless.

Throughout the day cards dropped in through the letterbox and presents appeared in the porch. All were resolutely blue.
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Fran and I were touched by just how many people in the village cared about us. If we needed confirmation that we had made the right call moving here, then here it was – in blue and white. The offers of help that accompanied the best wishes were tempting. When I read ‘Let us know if there’s anything we can do to help’, I wanted to reply, ‘Yes, come and cook every meal for us, change the nappies, do the washing and sort out all the shopping. Take Saturday mornings off.’

The R word more than ever loomed large at the start of every day; confirmation that our lives had changed forever. It occurred to me that becoming a parent is a great leveller. Never mind the career or life achievements you may have notched up so far in your life, from now on it was all about how loving you could be. You may have been a brilliant scholar or virtuoso musician; you may have made a fortune as an astute, hard-working entrepreneur; you may have even written a bestselling book involving eccentric journeys with white goods – but all that would count for nothing in your parenting henceforth.

All that mattered now was how much love you had left for those around you, and especially this brand-spanking-new, little human being. It was as if somebody had taken all the values you’d held until this point in your life, and tossed them up into the sky. You could reach out for them as they fell back down through the air, and you might catch one or two on the way down, but ultimately you were starting again.

***

Fran and I handled those early weeks as best we could, given that we had read the equivalent of a small library’s worth of books on childbirth, but nothing at all on what to do with the thing once it had ‘popped’ out.
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Armed with a valiant ignorance, we bumbled and dithered our way through with a touching clumsiness – at least, we hoped that young Hawks would have found it so, had he been able to recognise what was going on. One day I’ll attempt to tell him, and he’ll show as much interest as I did when my parents attempted to do the same.

We found ourselves following our instincts, whilst at the same time trying to filter the diverse and contradictory advice that was constantly on offer from those who had walked this road before us. I can’t remember the number of times we were warned against doing something, because we would be making ‘a rod for our own backs’.

Don’t feed them when they’re hungry, otherwise they’ll keep expecting food when they’re hungry.

Yes, well, that’s just inconsiderate and we’d definitely need to stamp out that kind of behaviour.

A few times, we were told that we would have to be careful, otherwise our baby would ‘manipulate’ us. Yes, and there’s some sound reasoning behind that theory, too. Everyone knows that the main reason why babies can’t stop the poo coming out of their arses is because all their attention is going on spinning an elaborate web of schemes and stratagems that will enable them to get what they want. We would have to be vigilant. We wouldn’t want to offer our baby comfort when he was crying, if actually what lay behind his tears was a desire to get the bedroom painted a colour that better matched his favourite Babygro. Yes, we’d be on the lookout for that.