Bundles of joy, p.21
Bundles of Joy, page 21
Fiona, on the other hand, had her heart set on becoming an accountant, and was doing her A levels at Ashton Sixth Form College. Looking back, Fiona tells me that what she loved most about my job when she was growing up was that it meant the subjects of contraception and pregnancy were always openly discussed in our house, and if ever Fiona’s friends needed advice or information she could generally provide it, after asking me first.
The three of us really enjoyed each other’s company and shared some really good times. My mum used to say we were like the ‘three Musketeers’, as we made a great team together and always had lots of fun in the house in Stalybridge. Home was like a haven for me and I always enjoyed putting my key in the door after a long day at work.
I didn’t tell Fiona and Jonathan everything about my work, of course, because some stories I felt were just too sad to bring home. Not long after Stacey’s water birth, in fact, there was one such birth that sticks in my mind. I arrived at the maternity unit to collect some equipment in June 1995 to find one of my old colleagues, Annie, drying her eyes with a tissue on the corridor.
‘Whatever’s the matter?’ I asked.
‘It’s Charlotte Cook. She had the baby tonight.’
My heart sank. I knew Charlotte’s history, as it had been discussed by many midwives over the previous few months.
‘How brave,’ I think every single person who heard Charlotte’s story said. ‘What an amazing woman.’
When Charlotte had her routine blood test at sixteen weeks, it was discovered that her baby had a condition known as Potter’s Syndrome, which is a severe chromosome abnormality. It was explained to Charlotte that her baby would not survive for more than perhaps a few hours after delivery, and very sadly she was offered a termination. Annie had been the midwife to break the awful news.
‘No, thank you,’ Charlotte had replied straightaway. ‘The baby will die when it’s ready to die, naturally.’
Charlotte was a lovely young lass who lived with her new husband in Dukinfield. They were not regular church-goers, but Charlotte had been educated by nuns in a convent school and had told Annie that her conscience could not have allowed her to go through with a termination.
‘I can’t explain it,’ Charlotte had said to more than one midwife. ‘I don’t really see myself as religious, but this just feels right. I will carry the baby as long as I can, and fate will decide how long he or she lives.’
I remember Annie telling me all this, and I felt very moved. I had never been in such a dreadful situation myself, but I felt I could identify with Charlotte’s reaction to her misfortune. Having also been educated by nuns, I still felt guided by their teaching, even all these years on. Sometimes, even today, I look up to the heavens and ask God what is the right thing to do, and I always follow my instincts, just as Charlotte did.
Annie cried as she told me she had delivered Charlotte’s baby earlier this evening. Charlotte had gone into labour two weeks early, at thirty-eight weeks, and fortunately the baby was delivered quickly. Charlotte cuddled her little girl until she died peacefully in her arms three-quarters of an hour later.
Annie subsequently asked me if I would accompany her to the baby’s funeral, as she didn’t want to go alone, and I agreed.
‘I can live with myself now,’ Charlotte told us poignantly as we stood paying our respects in a windswept cemetery, after watching the smallest coffin I had ever seen being lowered into the ground. We both nodded, and she didn’t need to say any more. Charlotte’s words were incredibly encouraging to hear in such a bleak setting, but they didn’t stop both Annie and I shedding a great deal of tears.
I never saw Charlotte again, although I later heard from Annie that she fell pregnant very quickly afterwards, and went on to deliver a healthy little boy within the year.
‘She deserves every happiness,’ I remember saying to Annie. ‘I will never, ever forget her.’
Just a few weeks after the funeral I found myself in tears once more, this time on hearing an inspiring story from one of the community midwives, Cathy, who I bumped into in the office. There must have been about two or three members of staff taking a break at the same time, but you could have heard a pin drop as Cathy told her story.
‘I had a terrible shock when I walked into the bedroom,’ she said. ‘There was the new mum, crying her eyes out, dropping big wet tears all over the baby’s blanket as she rocked him in her arms.’
For those of us who didn’t know the background, Cathy explained that her patient, a well-educated lady called Amanda Stubbs, had given birth to a baby with Downs Syndrome very recently. The condition had not been identified whilst she was pregnant, as she had declined screening. Also, because Amanda was only in her mid-thirties, she would probably not have been considered in a high-risk category, and therefore had not been encouraged to have the relevant tests.
Cathy told us that when she delivered the little boy at home she suspected straightaway that he might have Downs Syndrome. He had a shorter neck than usual and his eyes slanted upwards a little, but, most tellingly of all, he had a large, deep crease across the palm of each hand. An experienced midwife can recognise these signs, but they are not absolutely definitive and so Cathy said nothing, knowing that there was a chance she might be wrong and that tests would need to be carried out in the hospital.
Cathy explained that she had been bowled over by Amanda’s reaction when she was finally told by the paediatrician, more than two weeks after his birth, that little Terence did indeed have Downs.
‘She was absolutely amazing,’ Cathy said. ‘She didn’t seem fazed at all. She and her husband said it didn’t change a thing. They were thrilled to bits to be parents, and they loved Terence dearly. In fact: “This little baby is a gift to us” were Amanda’s exact words to me.’
‘I don’t understand,’ Betty the auxiliary said now, looking puzzled. ‘Why the big tears today?’
‘That’s exactly what I asked Amanda,’ Cathy replied. ‘I had a horrible feeling that she was going to say she’d had a delayed reaction to Terence’s condition … but it was nothing of the sort. Quite the opposite, in fact!’
‘What, then?’ another midwife asked. We were all intrigued, itching to hear the end of the story.
‘Well, Amanda had just received more test results from the hospital. It turned out that Terence has a small hole in his heart and needs surgery. She was just so upset for him, worrying about the operation and the pain he might go through.’
We all let out a collective sigh. What a lovely women Amanda was, and what a lucky boy Terence was to have a mother who was clearly so besotted with him that she put his feelings first despite the turmoil she must have been going through herself.
‘Some women are incredible, aren’t they?’ Betty said, straightening her apron and crunching on a custard cream.
‘You can say that again,’ I replied. ‘Makes it all worthwhile when you hear things like that, doesn’t it?’
I felt very humble after hearing about the experiences of both Charlotte and Amanda. As ever, encountering such moving stories made me hold my own family that little bit closer to my heart, knowing how very precious they were to me. Even though I’d been single for the longest time ever in my life, I felt very happy and fulfilled, because of my children.
Whenever we chatted about their careers and hopes and dreams for the future, I was always very keen for Jonathan and Fiona to follow their hearts and make their own decisions. When I looked at my brother John and myself, our paths could not have led in more different directions, with him still forging ahead very contentedly with his journalism career. We both enjoyed an enormous amount of job satisfaction, and I wanted the same for my children, and for my niece and nephew.
John’s son Kerem was about to turn twenty-five and had decided to follow in his father’s footsteps, which was entirely his choice. He had a job working for the Associated Press and was doing extremely well, living in London. I’d been lucky enough to see more of him in recent years, as he spent some time studying at Manchester University and would come over and have his tea with us, which was always a pleasure. He had a lovely girlfriend called Lisa who now lived with him, and his life seemed perfect. My niece Tijen had attended a dancing school in London and had now joined a small group of dancers travelling the world. Everybody, it seemed, was happy, and following their heart.
Though Jonathan and Fiona had no interest in following in my footsteps, they were usually the ones who encouraged me to tell stories about my job, rather than the other way around. I vividly remember the two of them roaring with laughter when I relayed the story of the ‘barbecue birth’ as I called it. This happened in the very hot August of 1995, when I was called out to the home of one of our local GPs in Glossop. He was hosting a barbecue for friends in his back garden, and one of his guests was a heavily pregnant lady called Annabelle Rolfe.
‘Thank you ever so much for coming, Linda,’ the GP stuttered when I arrived. ‘One minute poor old Annabelle was helping my wife cook sausages on the barbecue and the next minute she just started saying she needed to push … I think the other guests expected me to swing into action, but I’m so glad you’re here …’
He led me through a conservatory attached to the back of the house and into a huge garden. Several guests were gathered in a gazebo close to the conservatory, and I could see Annabelle and the GP’s wife at the far end of the garden. Annabelle was lying on the ground, crying out in pain.
‘It’s all right, everybody,’ the GP called as we passed the group of guests. ‘The midwife’s here! Everything will be all right now!’
I had to smile to myself. Here I was being swept across the lawn at the home of one of the most highly respected GPs in the area as if I were a guest of honour parading down a red carpet. It amused me that even someone like him thought the magic words ‘the midwife’s here’ made everything instantly better. I was a midwife, not a miracle worker! It was a thought that crossed my mind on more than one occasion, and I always ardently hoped I would be able to live up to expectations.
Annabelle was having her second baby and had planned a hospital birth. ‘Can’t move. Too late. St-st-stay-ing here!’ she told me. I dispatched the GP and his wife to fetch a blanket and towels and to take the guests inside. The garden was very long and nobody could see exactly what was going on, but it didn’t seem right for the guests to be sipping Pimm’s and eating hotdogs in such close proximity.
Within a couple of minutes I had removed Annabelle’s underwear from beneath her expensive-looking Blooming Marvellous smock dress, and had seen that the baby’s head was visible. Three pushes later and a noisy little girl plopped out perfectly onto a brand new Marks and Spencer beach towel. I wrapped her up immediately as, despite the blazing hot sun, she was no doubt crying partly in protest at being born into a gently blowing August breeze, which would come as quite a shock after leaving the warmth of her mother’s tummy. The smell of burnt sausages in the air might also have disturbed her a bit, as she was born literally within a few yards of the abandoned barbecue!
‘Bravo!’ I heard the GP cheer after his wife popped down and then went inside to spread the good news. ‘Congratulations, Annabelle. Congratulations, Linda!’ he called. I heard a round of applause break out, and Annabelle laughed with relief as she cradled her daughter in the sunshine.
‘Did the guests carry on with the BBQ?’ Fiona asked when I told her the story for the first time.
‘No, I don’t think so,’ I replied. ‘But I think one or two might have had another stiff drink to get over the shock of it all!’
‘Honestly, Mum, you’ve got such a crazy job,’ Jonathan often said. ‘But I love telling people you are a midwife.’
Chapter Fourteen
‘Linda, I’ve got some terrible news’
At 8 a.m. on the morning of 2 May 1996 I received a call from a lady called Julie Bevins, whom I’d been looking after antenatally. She was booked on the Domino scheme, which meant that I would visit her at home during her early labour, accompany her to hospital when she was established in labour, deliver her baby in hospital and come home from hospital with her about six hours later, all being well. This meant mothers like Julie received the same continuity of care as home birth patients, but with the peace of mind of having a hospital delivery, which is what many women wanted. I really like the system and we still use it today. It means we get to know the woman very well prior to the birth, which makes for less anxiety and uncertainty on the day of the delivery.
Julie was a care worker and this was her second baby, as she already had a little girl. When I arrived at her house in Hadfield and examined her, Julie was already six centimetres dilated and had her bag ready by the front door so we could dash straight to the hospital. It had taken me twice as long as it should have done to travel to her home because of the rush hour traffic, and at 8.30 a.m. I made the decision that we should call an ambulance to take us to the hospital as quickly as possible.
‘Are you sure we’ll get there?’ Julie puffed.
‘Of course we will!’ I replied as I helped her into the ambulance soon afterwards.
Julie was experiencing strong contractions but she was coping really well and still managing to talk calmly as we set off on our short four-mile journey via Stalybridge to Ashton. Julie had a full four centimetres yet to go, and I was confident we’d have her safely on the labour ward well before she was ready to push. Normally this stage of labour, dilating from six centimetres to fully dilated at ten centimetres, takes a couple of hours. This would give us plenty of time to get to the maternity unit.
Julie told me that her daughter was being looked after by her grandma, and that her husband was following on in the car.
‘That’s good. Everything’s under control,’ I said.
‘I want to PUSH!’ Julie suddenly blurted out as we passed Mottram Moor, which was only about halfway into our journey.
‘Right, then. Please try not to push, Julie. Take some big deep breaths for me. We’re not far away from the hospital …’
The ambulance made an abrupt turn and Julie grabbed her abdomen and cried out in pain. ‘I have to push. I have to PUSH!’ She was wearing leggings and a pair of knee-high boots, and I decided we should try to get them off her as quickly as possible, although this proved rather difficult as I was being thrown around a bit in the back of the speeding ambulance.
There was one ambulance driver in the back with us, and he started trying to pull off the leggings before we’d got the boots off.
Julie actually managed to laugh because it was all such a muddle, but I decided we needed to stop the ambulance.
‘Stop! Can you stop, please?!’ I shouted to the driver, and he pulled over immediately. I wasn’t worried about being bounced around, but I was concerned that if this baby really was about to be born, which now looked very likely, I wouldn’t be able to deliver it safely. We had stopped at a set of traffic lights on Acres Lane and the driver put the claxon on. I could hear cars driving around us as our siren rang out and hazards flashed. I whipped off Julie’s boots, leggings and underwear as fast as I could and saw the baby’s head advancing.
‘You are going to have the baby here in the ambulance, but everything is fine. Just do as I say and keep breathing. You are doing really, really well.’
I could hear noisy car exhausts and the sound of tyres on Tarmac, but instead of the smell of fumes and warm rubber I typically associated with the rush hour, my nostrils were filled with the sterile smell of hospitals. We most certainly weren’t at the maternity unit, though, however familiar the smells were, and it was quite disconcerting to be delivering a baby in the middle of a busy road, albeit in the back of an ambulance.
‘I don’t believe this …’ Julie groaned.
‘Don’t worry. It’s fine. Can you just give me a very big push when I say so? Right, wait a bit, there you are. Push now, Julie!’
She was absolutely brilliant, gritting her teeth and following my instructions to the letter. Just a few pushes later she gave birth to a perfect baby boy. I wrapped him up in a blanket and tucked him down the jacket Julie was still wearing, to keep him warm.
‘Thank you!’ I called to the driver. ‘You can carry on now and take us to the hospital! I shall deliver the placenta when we get there.’
‘Will do. Congratulations!’ came the reply, and we drove steadily to the hospital.
Julie looked ecstatic as she kissed her little boy’s forehead. He was a good weight, very alert and was wriggling and having a little cry just as a newborn should. It warmed my heart to see mother and son looking so contented and bonded just moments after such a dramatic birth.
‘I am going to call him Ayrton, after Ayrton Senna,’ Julie told me later, and she did. I am pleased to say we are still in touch to this day, as Julie is a good friend of a nurse I know. Julie was also my father’s carer months before he died in August 2009, at the age of 95, which was a great comfort for me.
It took quite a few years for us to be able to see each other without mentioning the ambulance, as it inevitably had a big impact on both of us, but we always agreed that, as unlikely as this may seem, it was a lovely experience.
Several months later, in January 1997, Tameside Hospital’s maternity unit celebrated its official twenty-fifth anniversary. The Coronation Street actor Bill Tarmey, who played Jack Duckworth, made an appearance to mark the occasion, and some of the first babies born at the unit gathered to cut a cake and pose for the local press. Amongst them was a tall and handsome young man named Jarrod Randle. He attended with his mother Kathleen, who looked just as proud as she had in December 1971, when she had the honour of becoming the first mum ever to have her baby in the newly opened unit, several weeks before it was officially declared open at the start of 1972.
