Bundles of joy, p.18
Bundles of Joy, page 18
‘I was wondering if I might be able to increase my hours, only …’
‘Yes of course, Linda. I understand. What do you want to do and when do you want to start?’
I was astonished it was that simple, and in the spur of the moment I took the opportunity to ask for more than I’d intended to.
‘Four days please,’ I replied, unable to suppress a grin. ‘And I was hoping to apply for a community post, when one comes available.’
‘I can put you up to four days on the postnatal ward immediately, and I shall take note of your interest in the community. How does that sound?’
‘Ideal. Thank you very much indeed!’
I couldn’t believe it. A community post had appealed to me for a long time, although I’d never asked about the possibility before as I knew very well that community midwives had to do a four-day week, which hadn’t suited me until now. I would not have asked for it today had Miss Travis not been so accommodating, and now I was thrilled to bits.
I’d never forgotten my exciting first forays into the district with Mrs Tattersall as a pupil midwife, riding my moped across cobbled streets to addresses scattered all over Ashton. There was something very down to earth yet at the same time incredibly exciting about this type of midwifery. It was so very different to delivering a baby in the clinical, sterile surroundings of the hospital. You never quite knew what you would find in each woman’s home. Who would be there with her? Where would she be labouring? And of course, the biggest question of all: How many cups of tea would the father-to-be brew? That was something Mrs Tattersall and I laughed about so many times, because every expectant dad seemed to launch himself into tea-making mode the minute his wife went into labour, and very often didn’t stop nipping out to put the kettle on until after the baby was born.
I didn’t have to wait long for a post to become available. I was interviewed in September 1991 and was offered to start work as a community midwife in the November. It felt like the pieces of my life were falling back into place quickly after my marriage breakdown.
Coming off nights in the meantime actually proved to be very enjoyable, too. I did several months on the postnatal ward as I waited for my community post to begin and, as I’d hoped, I did appreciate spending time with the new mums without experiencing the high drama of the labour ward. I missed delivering babies, but I made the most of the calmness for a few months, knowing I would soon be out in the district.
My increased hours meant I could comfortably afford a mortgage of my own, and I moved into a three-bedroom house in Meadway, Stalybridge, with Jonathan and Fiona. Stuart had already moved into his own place by this point, and was working at a travel agency in Romiley. Everybody seemed settled, and I felt very happy about the changes in my life.
As November approached I was very excited about the prospect of working in the community again. It felt so right for me, and I just knew I would love it. Building a relationship with the expectant mum, sharing her journey and being a part of the miracle of birth was what I enjoyed most of all about being a midwife. Yes, I adored giving the babies a cuddle and a bath, or helping the new mums establish breastfeeding on the postnatal ward. It was a very rewarding part of the job, but in the long term I wanted more. I wanted to get to know the mums in the exciting build-up to the birth. I wanted to be there with them when labour started, and more than anything I longed to feel the warmth of a newborn emerging into my hands once more.
I will never forget my very first day out in the district, because I was reminded straightaway of the very warm welcome the community midwife typically receives. When I was a pupil midwife, shadowing Mrs Tattersall on her rounds, I’d enjoyed seeing the smile spread across people’s faces when they announced appreciatively: ‘The midwife’s here!’ It made me feel very proud of my job, and it made me realise how important the role of the community midwife is.
Now it was early in the morning of 25 November and I was listening to GMR, a local BBC radio station, on my car stereo as I approached Shirebrook Park in Glossop. Although Glossop is technically in Derbyshire, it fell within the radius of my rounds, and still does today. I’d been called out to a lady who was having her third baby at home, and the house was up in the hills.
I remember hearing the engine of the little red Fiesta I drove at that time straining up the country roads, and I felt a little anxious that I might break down. It was just coming up to 6 a.m. and was very dark and cold, and there were very few cars on the road. In those days I had no mobile telephone. Mobiles were just about in use by then, but were very expensive and were about the size of a house brick, and nobody I knew had one.
I had no SatNav either, as that was many years away from being invented. This meant it was just me and my little A–Z street map, out there in the wintry morning air, driving to the aid of a pregnant woman. I didn’t feel so very different to how I’d felt as a student, riding my moped through the streets of Ashton in 1970 to meet Mrs Tattersall at the home of a labouring mother. I still had the same adrenaline running through my body, filling me with a mixture of excitement and nervous anticipation about how the delivery would go, or whether I would actually get there in one piece, or indeed in time for the birth. I was in my element then, and I was now. One difference was that I was on my own now, but that didn’t alarm me. I had two decades of experience under my belt to help me cope with whatever the day would bring, and though Mrs Tattersall was not with me in person, I never forgot her words of wisdom.
When the 6 a.m. news came on my car radio I was dismayed to hear that Freddie Mercury, lead singer of Queen, had died of AIDS the night before. I wasn’t a Queen fan, but I’d loved some of their greatest hits like ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ and ‘Don’t Stop Me Now’. I think the news distracted me somewhat, because it wasn’t until I eventually arrived at the address and parked up outside the house several minutes later that I realised one of my tyres was flat. The car hadn’t felt quite right but I’d put it down to the hilly climb. It wasn’t until I felt the car wobble and buckle a little beneath me as I pulled into the kerb that I realised what was wrong.
Lifting a delivery pack out of the boot, I silently acknowledged that I would have to sort that problem out later: Mrs Leadbetter’s third baby was the priority right now; there was no time to think about the flat tyre. As I approached the large detached house I noticed the curtains twitching in the bedroom window of the house next door. The neighbour, a middle-aged man, gave me a smile and a nod when I caught his eye.
Mrs Leadbetter was forty-one years old and married to a bank manager. It had been made clear to her that, being over forty, she was not an ideal candidate for a home birth, as older women were considered to have a higher risk of developing complications and she might indeed end up delivering in hospital. According to her notes, Mrs Leadbetter had put it in writing that she would take responsibility if the birth did not go to plan, and as a result her home birth had been agreed by one of my superiors. Unfortunately, Mrs Leadbetter had then gone three weeks overdue and had refused to be induced, meaning we now had two indications running against us – her age as well as her being extremely overdue. What with the bitter cold and the sad news on the radio, not to mention my flat tyre, I found myself shivering and feeling a little frazzled when I rang the bell.
I felt instantly better when Mr Leadbetter answered the door, however. He greeted me like a long-lost relative, and though he did not actually sing out: ‘the midwife’s here!’ as I’d heard so many others do in the past, he might just as well have done.
‘Do come in!’ he said enthusiastically. ‘I am so glad to see you!’ He shook my hand firmly, offered to carry my bag and showed me briskly up the stairs to the master bedroom of his smart, spacious home. I couldn’t help smiling. This was what I loved about this job. I was back in the community and in the heart of this home on such a special day. It was a huge privilege.
‘Belinda is being very brave indeed. Here she is!’
Mr Leadbetter pushed open the bedroom door, placed my bag inside and said: ‘I’ll leave you ladies to it. Tea, anybody?’
I was pleased to see that Mrs Leadbetter appeared to be doing very well indeed. She managed to give me a smile and thank me for coming, even though she was panting quite a bit. I noticed her breaths came in a very controlled way, which somehow seemed to fit in with the whole environment I’d walked into. The bedroom was absolutely immaculate with not a speck of dust in sight, or an item out of place.
Beside the bed there was a copy of Dr Benjamin Spock’s Baby and Child Care, which had a bookmark neatly tucked in the back cover, almost as if Mrs Leadbetter had reached the final page just in time to give birth. Clearly, she was an extremely organised lady. Her bed linen appeared freshly laundered and pressed, and the thick cream carpet beneath my feet still had tracks in it where the Hoover had been pushed around.
‘I hope this is not a false alarm, but I think things are happening,’ Mrs Leadbetter told me, looking extremely pleased with herself. ‘I think I am almost about to push! Poof poof pooooooffff! I’d like to have this baby out before Thomas and William wake up for nursery and school. Foooof. Ooof. Oooooooof.’
I smiled as I prepared to examine Mrs Leadbetter, thinking she may be being a little ambitious to think she could deliver this baby precisely at her convenience. I noted that she’d placed several large towels and a plastic sheet beneath her, to protect the luxurious bedding, and I sincerely hoped all her best-laid plans would come to fruition as she wished.
‘Let’s have a look, shall we? Goodness! I can see the head. Well done, Mrs Leadbetter. You’re right. It is time to push. Just keep breathing steadily for a moment whilst I get my delivery pack opened. You’re doing really, really well.’
Mr Leadbetter arrived with two glasses of fruit juice, and apologised for not making a cup of tea. ‘I think we’re out of tea leaves,’ he explained, which prompted Mrs Leadbetter to gasp in alarm as well as pain as a long contraction gripped her abdomen.
‘I – need – to – push,’ Mrs Leadbetter intoned politely, biting her lips bravely.
Mr Leadbetter hovered at the side of the bed, wringing his hands and tapping one of his feet, which was clad in a dark brown suede slipper. He stayed like that for several minutes, peering in amazement at his wife as she gave just four extremely controlled pushes before a warm, noisy little boy emerged into my hands. Being overdue, the baby’s skin was a little dry and wrinkled, as the protective vernix covering his body had been absorbed during his extra time in the womb. His fingernails and toenails were longer than usual, but he was a sturdy and handsome little chap with a mop of thick black hair.
‘Congratulations, Mrs Leadbetter! You did ever so well. It’s a boy!’
I went to wrap the baby in a towel but Mrs Leadbetter indicated that she wanted him placed directly on her chest. ‘Read an article,’ she smiled, gazing adoringly at her son as she held out her arms to take hold of him. ‘Skin-to-skin is good for bonding.’
This was something midwives were becoming increasingly aware of at this time. The many benefits of skin-to-skin care were several years away from being fully acknowledged in the UK, but so-called ‘Kangaroo Care’ was nothing new. A Colombian paediatrician called Edgar Rey had first used the term in 1978, when inadequate incubator care in the hospital where he worked prompted him to encourage women to effectively ‘incubate’ their own babies by snuggling them to their bare chests. This proved effective for maintaining the baby’s body temperature as well as encouraging bonding and breastfeeding.
Mrs Leadbetter was clearly an educated woman who had read up on the subject, and I was very pleased she had. Her newborn son’s initial noisy cries subsided into a contented snuffle as he nestled into his mother’s chest. As if by magic, he latched on and began to breastfeed immediately. There was no fuss or anxiety and none of the awkwardness that often accompanied a baby’s first attempts at breastfeeding. It was a wonderful, heart-warming sight, and I couldn’t help thinking what a far cry this was from the days when Mrs Tattersall placed the baby in the cot a few minutes after the birth, and then thought nothing of sharing a cigarette with a new mother.
Mr Leadbetter kissed his wife tenderly on the forehead as she continued to breastfeed. ‘Well done, darling,’ he said before kissing the baby, too.
‘What will you call him?’ I asked.
‘Possibly Peter,’ they replied in unison, before bursting into peals of laughter.
Mr Leadbetter explained that they had talked at length about choosing the name Peter should they have a third little boy, but their response showed they were still both a little undecided. About half an hour after she gave birth, Mrs Leadbetter felt able to get up and go to the bathroom, and she placed ‘possibly Peter’ in a beautiful mahogany swinging crib beside her bed.
‘Will you help me change the sheets quickly?’ I asked Mr Leadbetter. ‘We can have it done before your wife gets back.’
He looked a little surprised, but dutifully helped me remove the bloodied towels and replace the fitted sheet. He then took the soiled laundry downstairs, and was out of the room when Mrs Leadbetter returned.
‘Oh, thank you!’ she said as she settled back into the freshly made bed. ‘You did that very quickly.’
‘Your husband helped,’ I replied, which prompted yet more peals of laughter from Mrs Leadbetter. ‘How did you manage to get him to do that?’ she snorted. ‘I’m absolutely flabbergasted.’
It turned out that Mr Leadbetter never lifted a finger around the home. He had never once made the bed before, and Mrs Leadbetter said she wouldn’t mind betting that the reason we’d only had orange juice instead of tea earlier had nothing to do with the fact there were no tea leaves in the house; Mr Leadbetter probably couldn’t find them, as he rarely put the kettle on either.
‘How on earth did you get him to help?’ she asked.
‘I just asked, and I suppose he didn’t like to say no,’ I giggled. ‘Men don’t tend to argue with midwives!’
We were both laughing our heads off when he reappeared a few minutes later with the two little brothers in tow, who stared in wonderment at the sleeping little bundle of joy that had arrived whilst they slept. ‘What time is your mother arriving?’ Mr Leadbetter asked his wife rather forlornly.
‘Don’t panic, any minute now,’ Mrs Leadbetter replied, looking at her bedside clock. It was almost 9 a.m. and, as everything was as it should be, I would be on my way shortly. I didn’t need Mrs Leadbetter to explain that her husband was relying on his mother-in-law to keep the house ticking over while she recovered from the birth; that was obvious. Mr Leadbetter was clearly one of those high-achieving and no doubt high-earning males who held down a fantastic job and, in return, was absolved of any responsibility in the home.
As I said goodbye to ‘possibly Peter’ and his family and walked down the garden path, I suddenly remembered about my puncture. It had completely slipped my mind, and my first thought was that if Mr Leadbetter couldn’t even make a cup of tea he was unlikely to be able to help me change a tyre. I was just wondering what I was going to do next when Mr Leadbetter darted out of the house in his fancy slippers and caught me up on the path.
‘Totally forgot,’ he blustered. ‘Donald next door changed your tyre. Colin opposite helped. They saw you arrive. Lucky you had a spare. Hope you don’t mind, you left your key in the hall and when Donald knocked it wasn’t a good time to interrupt …’
‘That’s so kind,’ I beamed. ‘Is Donald the man next door, at number 46? I saw him looking out the window when I pulled up.’
I drove away on a real high that morning. What an uplifting experience ‘possibly Peter’s’ birth had been, and what wonderful neighbours the Leadbetters had. Donald and Colin had both gone off to work, but I would call and thank them personally when I came back for one of my home visits. They had really put the icing on the cake for me that day, and I felt terrific. I had found my niche, I was sure of it. It was like my whole life had been leading up to this point, and this was what I was destined to do.
Chapter Twelve
‘Shoo you great oaf!’
Out in the district, I was very fortunate to work in a team with two other community midwives called Betty Simpson and Carol Porteus. Betty was ten years older than me and had a very motherly disposition and a matronly figure to match. She had short grey hair, a smiley face and a bad knee that meant she couldn’t kneel down very easily. Betty had four grown-up children and had entered midwifery later in life, but she was a complete natural in the job. Carol, on the other hand, was ten years younger than me and was slim and pretty with it. She was extremely modern in her outlook, articulate and forthright, too. Married to a Ghanaian called Asam, she had two young children and lived in Stockport.
Between us I reckon we made a great team. Betty was a solid, dependable force who was a realist and always kept our feet on the ground, while Carol was very forward-thinking and constantly had her eye on how we could improve our service and change with the times. I felt very comfortable working with both of them. I was forty-three years old by now and was probably something of a mixture between the two of them, having been a midwife for more than twenty years but still being young enough to feel constantly excited and challenged by my job, particularly as I was re-learning the ropes out in the community after so many years in the maternity unit.
‘I’m really glad I’m working with you,’ Carol said during my first week as a community midwife. I’ll never forget it. I was in the kitchen near the labour ward and Carol had appeared with a copy of the rota, which we call the ‘off duty’, in her hand.
‘That’s a nice thing to say,’ I smiled. I was just about to go on and thank her for giving me such a warm welcome when she added, ‘I know your children are older and your uterus is in the bin.’
So much for the compliment, but Carol went on to explain that, as her children were still very young, she would like to have the school holidays off and was glad that I was past that stage with my family and would not be competing with her to work term-time only. This was true, as Jonathan was seventeen and Fiona thirteen by now.
