‘Thank goodness I don’t have to do that again,’ I murmured.
The Indian nurse looked surprised. ‘But there were only three contractions,’ she pointed out.
‘Oh but what contractions!’ was all I could reply.
I soon recovered enough to ask the baby’s weight. Relief flooded over me when I heard she weighed six pound five ounces. This was not an abnormally small weight; it was only seven ounces less than Robert at birth—and I was a small woman, not meant to produce large babies.
When the little one was placed in my arms, I saw at once that her arms and legs were plump and shapely, and the tiny fingers and elbows dimpled like those of a doll. And now that I was a better judge of the screwed up faces of newborn babies, I could see that she was quite a beauty.
Before I had left the delivery room, Michael strolled in unhurriedly. I saw at once that he had no idea the baby had arrived. I tried to bluff it out for a few moments, but I couldn’t keep it up. I had no strength for games at the moment. I was nauseous and drained and faintly irritated with myself for allowing errors in judgement to spoil the last moments of birth. I felt regretful, too, that Michael had not arrived half an hour earlier; even he could not have become impatient during the seven minutes in which time our daughter entered the world.
Sister breezed briskly into the ward the next morning.
‘So you have your little girl again,’ she said, placing her into my arms; I smiled contentedly; it was too early for ecstasy; contentment was all that I could manage.
Despite trying to remain on an emotionally even keel, I nevertheless experienced several ‘downs’ during the next few days.
The first was brought about simply by a nurse talking about Amanda. I had tried studiously to avoid bringing the matter up—the sudden death of a baby is not a subject to be discussed at length in a maternity home, and I thought it was tactless and unkind to introduce the subject in front of another mother. As far as I was concerned, it brought the death of Amanda inescapably into my mind, when I had tried to leave it behind for the moment. When my neighbour left—for she only stayed forty-eight hours—I was left alone in the room for a night, and fears for my new baby enveloped me. I was ill at ease, and had difficulty getting to sleep. But in the morning, all was well and my daughter joined me once again.
A new mother then arrived, a plump Cockney girl, at twenty-one about to produce her second child. She had rather a noisy labour, but within minutes of the birth had recovered her equilibrium and was practically bouncing with joy at the birth of a son. I couldn’t help being amused at the sudden change in her, and rather wistfully compared my own exhausted state the previous day with her ebullience.
This then
, I thought,
is the difference that ten years makes.
I had toyed with the idea of giving the baby a name very similar to Amanda—Amy, Amabel, Annabel and so on; but in the end I gave her a completely different first name: Karen. It seemed right that a new personality should have its own name—its own separate identity. I had searched her round face for dimples like Amanda’s and found none at all, and I was strangely glad; this was a new child, my third child, not a reincarnation of my second. But there was no reason why she should not bear her sister’s name in addition to her own—Karen Amanda had a nice flowing sound, and the time would come when I would wish to explain the reason to her.
Several of the relations accidentally called her Amanda in the next few weeks, but I was never hurt by that; two of the most hurtful remarks I experienced were actually made in the first week in the maternity home by a doctor and by a midwife.
The doctor, temporarily in charge of me, but hardly knowing me, obviously felt that some pleasantry was called for at the end of his examination of the baby. Glancing down at my case notes, he said casually, ‘And will we see you back here next year?’
I was so shaken and angered by his question, that I could hardly speak, succeeding only in replying through gritted teeth, ‘I sincerely hope not.’
To me his question had implied one thing—that something might happen to this baby, although I am sure he meant no such thing. With the passing of months and years the offence seems trivial, but it overshadowed me then for hours. No doubt in glancing down, he had seen the years set out—1967; 1969; 1970; 1971 and now 1972. He had assumed I had borne a child in each of those years, and would probably go on to produce more in subsequent years. It was not a difficult mistake to make; but I couldn’t forgive him. He should have read the notes properly.
I was even more outraged by the midwife—the very midwife who had delivered small Amanda. For her remarks were made with the full knowledge of my case history.
By this time I was up and about and conversing with the midwife and one or two other girls. Turning to me she said, ‘Mrs Luben, you’ve had two miscarriages in 1969 and 1970 and a pregnancy last year; don’t you think it’s about time you thought about birth control?’
I was so flabbergasted that, once again, I could barely stammer out my answer.
‘But you know I only became pregnant this time because of Amanda….’
I didn’t know whether to be angry or insulted. Not one of my five pregnancies had been accidental. I had spent the last three years desperately trying to achieve a second child. I thought she must be quite stupid if she couldn’t see that.
She went on to extol the virtues of the ‘coil’ which she herself had had fitted. It seemed her question had been nothing more than an introduction leading up to a sales chat about the coil and perhaps an opportunity to mention her continuing sex life in a group of much younger women. I lost a great deal of my previous respect for her. She was an excellent midwife, but as a human being she had gone down in my estimation, using such a sensitive area of my life as a stepping-stone to an expression of her views.
There is no doubt, of course, that I was excessively—perhaps even obsessively—sensitive, and twice I was thrown into a panic by the most trivial of events.
A few days after her birth, I was told by a nurse that Karen was to be put on three-hourly feeds, and immediately I became terrified that something was wrong with her—that she was showing signs of some frailty. I was told just before the morning rest period and I succeeded in calming myself and going off to sleep. When I awoke, I was refreshed and able to see things in perspective once again. Karen just happened to be a baby that wanted an extra feed. Indeed, the new schedule transformed her from a cross-patch to a contented baby. In retrospect, I was able to look at the flexibility shown at the maternity home with a great deal of approval. It contrasted markedly with stories of regimentation and lack of individual attention (and to their shame, discouragement of breast-feeding) I had heard about many larger hospitals.
Despite her improved temper, Karen never became a placid, sleepy baby like Robert. I was surprised to find that even in the ten-day stint in the maternity home, she was amazingly wide awake, staring out from her cot with blue eyes.
Matron came in one morning with the post and, glancing down at her, asked, ‘Was your baby premature?’
‘No,’ I replied. ‘She was full term—why?’
‘Oh, she has “prem.” eyes,’ she commented.
I stared at Karen’s eyes—slightly slanted at the corners—was there something I had missed—something wrong that was only just being noticed? For several feeds, I could hardly bear to hold her—I was so sure that something was wrong. Then sanity returned; she was a lovely and perfect child; bright and alert. There was nothing wrong with her. The fault was in me.
Towards the end of my stay, I was allowed to start changing nappies.
Isn’t this a day early?’ I asked my Indian nurse, remembering the routine from the earlier occasions.
‘Sister sees you are a good mother,’ she replied smiling. ‘She knows you can cope with the baby.’
‘Oh, I don’t think that’s got anything to do with it,’ I laughed, but I was pleased at the suggestion that it could be so.
In fact many of the experienced mothers were allowed to take over the care of their babies earlier than usual. The home was particularly busy, with a regular flow of incoming women, and two or three babies were being born every day. Once again, I was impressed that the usual routine was able to be changed, rather than rigidly adhered to, so that nurses were freed from nappy changing and baby bathing to attend at deliveries and assist new mothers.
Sister was a disciplinarian—she had to be—but she knew when to slacken the reins, and when to change the rules. Once I saw her speedily making up a bed during a rush and my admiration for her increased. She was ready to step into any gap to keep this place running smoothly.
The day before I was due to leave, she approached me.
‘I shan’t be here tomorrow, as it’s my day off, so I’ll say “goodbye” now.’
We shook hands and I was aware of a feeling of a mutual unexpressed respect that had not been present before. Perhaps we had each learned to look beneath the surface.
20. One Day at a Time
My mother was disappointed when I said we wouldn’t go to Brighton on my departure from the maternity home. She thought perhaps that last summer’s pleasant days might be repeated—but I was not tempted. I wanted no carbon copy of the previous year. Life is like a moving staircase—life had, thank goodness, moved on for me. I had no wish to stop it and make some sentimental journey back to past days.
In any case, whilst the circumstances looked the same on the surface—another daughter, another summer—things were changing drastically. In just over a week, Robert would start school—I felt a great need for stabilising, for getting into some sort of routine before school imposed its own much more demanding routine upon me.
A nearish neighbour, whose daughter had befriended Robert during the past couple of years, had kindly volunteered to take him to the school bus stopping point each morning, at what was a hectic time for me; it was some weeks before I found that Karen was sleeping until around nine a.m., and I could slip out myself with Robert just before eight-thirty to deliver him to the bus stop. He needed this little support from me; he made no complaint about school, except to comment in a weary little voice: ‘It’s a very tiring day.’
I was well aware that he had been flung in at the deep end, to sink or swim as best he could, in the school adventure, whilst the emotional impact on me of seeing my first born depart for school was greatly muted by having a new baby to care for. We were often irritable with each other, both exhausted by our different efforts; violent arguments were frequent and always bitterly regretted later. Poor Robert, he had borne the brunt of all the dips and peaks of my emotions, through four pregnancies and three disappointments. Somehow he had remained sufficiently well balanced to deal with the new trauma of school in a remarkably stoical fashion. He never wept on departing for school, yet he was a lonely and shy little boy and it must have been an ordeal for him to be confronted with so many noisy children in those first few months, having been a lone wolf for so many years.
Once he sat on a stool by the side of Karen’s cot and I heard him say, ‘Now Karen, I’m going to tell you all about an engine.’
He had needed a companion for so long.
Was it too late now
, I wondered? Was the gap between them permanently unbridgeable?
At least pint-sized Karen had some function—merely putting her pram in the garden gave him the confidence to play out there, for he had not lost his fear of being alone in the apparently vast open space.
Very soon after her birth he asked me, ‘Will this baby die too, Mummy?’
I could only answer in the way I had answered myself: ‘I don’t think God would be so unkind as to take this baby from us.’
But who could be sure? If there was no God then nothing was sure; I had to turn myself away from that line of reasoning.
‘Oh, God,’ I would say. ‘You have tried my strength; I have tried to be strong, but please don’t ask me to go through it again. Please don’t let anything happen to this baby. I don’t think I could survive it.’
In the middle of September, the New Year edition of the Synagogue Newsletter arrived at our house. Quickly I leafed through it, and then a surge of excitement as I discovered my own article faithfully reproduced in its entirety.
Once again, I experienced a tremendous elation that was related as much to seeing my own name at the head of the article as to my success in publicising the nature of ‘cot death’.
Within a week or so, I sent the article to my contact, Dr. Knight, at the British Guild, anxious to receive praise for my efforts. But, in spite of receiving welcome words of encouragement, I had to forego any further writing for the time being.
Later the desire to write was to bubble up, reminding me of its existence, refusing to be pushed aside again. Words, descriptions would form in my mind, as I worked around the house, but for the moment there was no room in the already tight schedule for any extras.
The most restful part of each day was the time I spent feeding Karen; blissfully I would sink onto my bed with my feet up, putting baby to the breast. How I appreciated those precious, peaceful moments. Once I had said, ‘A new baby is nothing more than a parasite, taking all and giving nothing. It’s constantly making demands—feeding, changing, bathing and so on—and complains when it doesn’t get what it wants.’