Secrets My Mother Kept (29 page)

After what seemed like an age, the doctor arrived with a nurse who we hadn’t seen before. They came in, and as I looked at their faces I knew that this wasn’t going to be good news.

‘Mr and Mrs Hardy, good afternoon,’ the doctor began. ‘Now I’m afraid that your baby has a few problems.’

My mind was going into overdrive now. A minute ago it had been a little problem; now it was ‘a few’ problems.

‘Let me explain,’ he continued. ‘Baby’s windpipe and food tube are joined, and that needs sorting out.’

Colin and I exchanged looks and I saw my fear reflected in his eyes.

‘How?’ Colin asked. ‘How can it be sorted out?’

‘Well, Baby will need to have an operation to separate the two. The condition is called tracheoesophageal fistula or TOF for short,’ the doctor said, speaking slowly as though we were stupid and wouldn’t understand. I sat and stared at him, trying to make my muddled head focus.

‘When?’ Colin asked.

‘As soon as possible,’ the doctor replied. ‘We will need to transfer him to London today. The ambulance has been ordered, and the operation will be done either tonight or very early tomorrow morning.’

I knew I was going to cry then, and sniffed back the tears as Colin put his arm around me.

‘Can we go with him?’ he asked.

The doctor gave me a pitying look ‘You can,’ he indicated to Colin, ‘but I’m afraid your wife will need to stay here until the midwife signs her off. We need to look after Mum too, don’t we?’

I felt patronised by the doctor but I knew that he was trying to be kind.

‘But I want to go too,’ I said, the tears becoming heavier as I spoke.

The nurse then came forward and took both my hands.

‘Look now, you have had a rough labour and you’re exhausted. You need to get your strength back for when Baby comes home from hospital.’

‘He’s
not
Baby,’ I almost shouted. ‘He’s called Sam!’

‘All right then,’ continued the nurse calmly, ‘then Sam will need you to be fit and well when he comes home. We’ll get the midwife to get you stitched up and then she can assess when she thinks you will be well enough to travel to London.’

I gave in and then hated myself for doing so. I was weak from a long labour, and had been torn badly so needed a lot of stitches. I felt nauseous from the drugs, and from the news that we had just been given, and there was a familiar dull ache beginning behind my eyes. The doctor arranged for me to be wheeled down to Special Baby Care to see my Sam one more time before he left. He was in an incubator now and there were tubes everywhere. He was too fragile for a last cuddle.

Then he went off to London in an ambulance with his daddy, leaving me behind.

45

The Terrible Fear

I was put in a side room. When Colin came back to see me after Sam had been operated on we sat and cried together, our arms around each other, clinging on desperately but not saying a word.

No one else came near me except for the occasional midwife. I had been stitched and cleaned up, and they had offered me food that I couldn’t eat, conversation I couldn’t take part in, and kindness I wasn’t interested in; then I was left alone. The other mums probably assumed that my baby had died, so they would creep past my door, and sneek a pitying glance, but never come in to talk to me. Colin was back and forwards between Chatham and London to see Sam, and my family stayed away. I felt abandoned. No one sent me a baby card, there were no excited congratulations, and the doctors still refused to let me out of hospital.

Then Mum arrived. She came bustling into the ward looking dishevelled and determined, and I’ve never been so glad to see her. She brought me grapes. I probably would have laughed any other time, but instead I only just managed not to cry. Mum never liked overt expressions of emotion, and crying was always referred to as ‘being silly’, so I kept my tears in check.

‘Hello love,’ she said. ‘Where’s Colin?’

‘He’s gone up to the hospital to see Sam,’ I answered. Saying our baby’s name was still hard. It didn’t sound real; it was as though I was talking about a stranger, someone I didn’t know.

‘When will you go up there with him?’ Mum asked, moving the things around on my bedside cupboard, keeping busy.

‘Well, I haven’t seen the midwife today yet. She should be round any minute now; hopefully she’ll be able to tell me.’

Mum shuffled her feet and fidgeted about. I could tell she felt awkward, didn’t know what to say.

‘How did you get here?’ I asked, as though I really cared.

‘Bus and train and then another bus.’ She had always been resourceful, and she was comfortable travelling on public transport even though Pat had passed her driving test many years before and had a nice car now.

We continued to talk about other unimportant things, until she suddenly said, ‘You won’t lose him, you know.’ She looked at me directly and I believed her; despite all of my fears, I believed what she was saying. At that moment the midwife arrived and Mum said her goodbyes and shuffled out of the room back to Dagenham without a backwards glance.

It was two weeks before I was able to join Sam at the hospital in London. Although I was allowed a tiny room of my own that I shared with him and his little incubator, the walls were glass and the lights were on all night. I was desperately trying to feed him myself. It was difficult, as my milk had almost dried up by then, but somehow we managed. It was the neonatal ward for very sick babies, many of whom died while we were there, so it was not a very happy place.

By the time we were discharged, and allowed to take our baby home, I was terrified. I didn’t feel like he belonged to me at all, and I was also afraid that I wouldn’t know how to care for him, that I would get it wrong. The truth was that I was still afraid he was going to die.

It was on the day of the royal wedding of Charles and Diana that we had our first outing as a family. Colin wanted to take Sam to see his mum, who still lived in their family home in Balham. It was a Victorian terraced house, old-fashioned and dilapidated, with flaking paint outside. Inside was always neat and tidy though, with a huge aspidistra taking pride of place in the middle of the front room. Throughout the journey I’d been on edge. When we arrived we found that Colin’s mum had, as usual, put on an enormous spread.

‘I’ve just made a few things,’ she said, indicating the vast array of sandwiches, pastries and cakes that were laid out on the ironing board. The table itself was already heaving with two places set for a huge roast dinner.

‘I’ve had mine already,’ she said. She always ate before we arrived. I think she was either shy, or wanted to free herself up to run around after us, despite our protests. Colin’s mum Beat (short for Beatrice) was now in her late seventies, but she was very active and independent. She ushered us in but didn’t attempt to take the baby. I think she was probably a bit scared, as were most people.

‘How are you, Kathy?’ she asked, busying herself with the preparations.

‘I’m fine,’ I lied, smiling back.

‘Let’s have a look at the little chap then.’ She pulled back the shawl that the baby was wrapped in. ‘Oh, he’s a lovely little fellow, aren’t you?’ she said, stroking his face gently.

Sam opened his big blue eyes, and gazed at her earnestly. He was beginning to squirm around looking for food, so I decamped into the front room and sat in the armchair to feed him. For the first couple of minutes he was fine, drinking greedily, then suddenly he stopped and pulled back with a jerk. As I looked down I realised with horror that he was motionless and didn’t appear to be breathing. Shaking him, I shouted for Colin, who was still in the other room chatting to his mum.

‘Quick, he’s stopped breathing! He’s stopped breathing!’ I screamed in panic. They both appeared at the door and rushed in, Colin grabbed the baby and banged his back, while all the while Sam was getting bluer and bluer. I was in a state of complete breakdown at this point, shivering and crying, with Colin’s mum desperately trying to calm me down and phone for the ambulance at the same time. Finally Colin turned Sam on to his front and gently gave mouth-to-nose/mouth resuscitation. It worked. Sam gave a few short gasps, and then began to breathe normally again, so that by the time the ambulance arrived just a few minutes later he was calm and so were we. It had seemed as though hours had passed, but in fact it had all happened in a few short minutes. We were taken to hospital so that the doctors could check Sam, and were kept in overnight. It didn’t happen again and the doctors assured us that it was probably just a normal choking accident that could happen to any baby.

I knew better.

Over the next few weeks the same thing happened again and again. The pattern was set. I would be feeding him, he would gasp, stop breathing, turn blue and then come round after resuscitation and be fine by the time the ambulance arrived. Thank God that Colin was on school holidays. I could never have coped alone, and worst of all I knew the doctors didn’t believe us.

‘They think we’re making it up,’ I complained to Colin, as once again the ambulance had arrived to find Sam breathing normally. ‘They think I’m paranoid, I know they do.’ I was so upset and frustrated the tears slid down my cheeks. ‘I can’t bear it. If he’s going to die then I just wish he would; I can’t go on like this.’ I dropped my head into my hands crying, ashamed that I could say those words. But I meant them. The misery of holding my baby in my arms only to have his life threatened time and time again, with no one taking any notice . . . it was intolerable.

Then it happened in hospital.

Sam’s consultant had finally admitted him to Great Ormond Street to do some checks. For the first day he was fine, and then they put a special tube through his nose and asked me to feed him as usual. As soon as I began to feed him, he made the now familiar gasp, stopped breathing and began to turn blue. I rushed out of our little room with him still in my arms and called for help. The nurse took one look at him and shouted to her colleague, ‘Press for the crash team!’ and then everything burst into life around me, Sam was whisked away and I was ushered out of the room and restrained by a nurse, all the while knowing what was happening to my baby.

I was almost glad. At last they believed me.

46

Finding Sam

Sam had a second operation, which thankfully solved the problem of his breathing. It was a new beginning for us as a family, but as I brought him home, he still felt like someone else’s baby. I was afraid to love him.

My friend Sherry had got pregnant about six months after me and had now had a baby boy of her own called Tom. Colin and I were desperately trying to sell our house in Kent so that we could move nearer to our friends and family. We needed their support so badly. Finally our house sold and we were faced with the problem of finding a new home fast.

My sister Margaret had seen a little cottage for sale in a village about twenty minutes from where she and Tony now lived. The problem was it was a wreck and in need of total refurbishment. Our friends Sherry and Colin came up with an answer.

‘Come and live here with us, lass, while you do up the cottage,’ suggested Colin B in his broad Geordie accent. ‘That way you and Sherry can help each other with the bairns, and the hospital is only about twenty minutes away. It’s a win win.’

We agreed before they had time to change their minds!

One morning we had just put the babies down for their morning nap and were looking forward to a coffee.

‘I’ll put the kettle on,’ Sherry offered, and I settled myself down at the big wooden kitchen table with a pile of post. As I flicked through the letters I picked out one addressed to me that was postmarked from the Isle of Man. My heart beat fast as I held it tightly in my hand.

‘What’s wrong, Kathy?’ Sherry asked, and I suddenly realised I had frozen and was staring at the envelope.

‘I’ve got a letter. I think it might be from my sister.’

‘Oh, which one?’ asked Sherry, pouring the hot water into the percolator. She wiped her slim hands on the front of her dungarees, and sat on the chair opposite mine.

I swallowed heavily. ‘Sheila.’

‘Sheila? I don’t remember you mentioning Sheila. Which one is she again?’

I wanted to rip open the letter and devour its contents, but I was almost scared to read it.

‘Well, it’s kind of a long story,’ I said, ‘but if you’re interested . . .?’

Sherry nodded slowly. ‘Only if you want to tell it.’

I closed my eyes for a minute, took a drink of my coffee and began to fill her in. About the split. About Sheila choosing to live with her father and blanking Pat in the playground when they were both at the Ursuline. About the others being sent to children’s homes.

‘Poor little things!’ murmured Sherry.

‘They never talk about what happened there . . . but they were very unhappy. Anyway, Margaret and I wanted to know about Sheila, so we wrote to her publishers to get her address. She writes romances, you know.’

‘Look, why don’t you take it upstairs to read?’ Sherry suggested. ‘I need to go and get a few bits of shopping anyway. Do you mind listening out for Tom?’

I agreed readily, relieved that I was being given the chance to be on my own. I wasn’t sure what the envelope contained, but whatever it was I wanted to have some time to think about it.