Three Angry Women And A Baby

1. Sheryl

Chapter One

Sheryl

A stitch in time saves bugger all.

“I hear you’re a belly dancer,” said the consultant. “Been doing it long?”

“Ten years,” I muttered, closing my legs.

He covered me up with a tap on my knee. “That explains it.”

“What?”

“You got hips that expand like a snake’s jaw,” he said, laughing. “You could swallow a car.”

The doctor chuckled as I glared at him with my best is that supposed to be funny? look. My fanny had had more viewings than a house auction with instruments that would scare a masochist, and I was supposed to enjoy a stupid joke?

“Car,” I said with an angry tug at my sheet. “And what size we talking of—mini, four-wheel-drive, limo?”

The doctor flicked his gloves from his hand and tossed them in the bin. “Sense of humour, very good.” He smiled, muttering something about my ability to close like a clam.

I was in the middle of a large birthing room with a door that swung open at a whisper of a wind and a foghorn-voiced doctor shouting out the size of my pelvis at a volume that I was sure even the café across the road could hear.

I glared as the consultant lathered his hands under the tap, pulled a towel from the holder, and, without looking at me, continued on about dilations and the like. The two nurses nodded while the teenage-looking students took notes. They didn’t look old enough to watch a porn film, let alone handle a dilator.

According to the nurse, he—the consultant—was eccentric, and I was to take any so-called joke with a pinch of “whatever.” It was one of the first things she said when I arrived, along with “get undressed,” “put this on,” and “we need a specimen.”

“A while yet,” he muttered to the older nurse.

I watched him leave, his white coat flowing like he was a caped crusader, his porn virgins following.

“Snake jaw,” I said. “What sort of friggin’ bedside manner is that?”

“He’s Polish,” said the older nurse, like somehow that explained something.

“Polish?” I muttered. “What’s that got to do with parking cars?”

“He always talks about cars,” muttered the younger nurse.

The older nurse smoothed down my sheet. “But he is the best. Honestly, if I were having a baby, he’s the man I’d want.” She looked at the younger nurse. “His episiotomies are talked about for months.”

“Seamless,” said the younger nurse.

I gulped. “Cuts . . . down there?”

“But don’t panic.” The older nurse patted my arm. “He hardly does them.”

“He’s more a caesarean guy, very safe,” said the younger nurse.

I looked at Steven, who had just entered. “Caesarean?” I yelped. “But I did yoga and breathing.”

“Honey, you have the best, he’s very good. Parking cars is just his way of lightening the mood.”

“Parking cars?” Steven looked at me, confused.

“Mood lightening?” I turned Steven. “Apparently, talking about my bits like I’m a garage will have me laughing though my labour.”

“It’s to take your mind off things,” said Steven with an is she okay? look at the nurse.

“Take my mind off things? That’s like saying hit your head against the wall and you won’t feel any pain when they cut your peri-f*****g-neum.”

“Let’s just leave the perineum out of it,” muttered Steven.

I let out a manic laugh that even I didn’t recognise; my moods were seesawing all over the place.

“My mother’s been going on about my perineum for months in fact, ever since I told her I was pregnant,” I joked.

Steven rolled his eyes. “She mentioned it a few times.”

“‘Olive oil and rubbing,’ she says, ‘will keep you like a virgin.’”

Steven threw a look at the older nurse. “She never said that, your mum doesn’t believe in virgins.”

“Steven hasn’t fried anything for weeks.” I laughed again and then burst into tears. “My mother’s put him off olive oil for life.”

Steven looked from one nurse to another, mumbling something about medication.

“Medication? That’s your answer to everything,” I snapped.

“Well . . . it might help, the breathing certainly isn’t.”

“Well, you’re not trying to push out a tow truck though a pinhole, are you?” I snapped.

“Perhaps it’s time for some more medication,” muttered the older nurse.

Hours ago, excited, happy, and enthusiastic for a deliciously simple natural birth, I had been whipped into a labour room and given a gown the size of a napkin which hardly covered my breast.

“Is this for nose blowing?” I laughed.

The nurse, a young woman who was bustling in the corner with instruments, laughed out loud. “No dignity in this place,” she said.

“It’s like a doll’s dress,” I said, causing more giggles, until the older nurse entered.

“Having babies is no laughing matter,” she said to me, “it’s serious.”

She eyed me, perched on a bedpan like a buoy in the water. “You done anything in that pan yet?”

I mentioned something about waiting for everyone to leave, sending a series of tuts from the older nurse.

Apparently, I had the consultant of all consultants and should be poised for inspection like a cow waiting for an insemination.

“You’re lucky he’s on tonight,” she added before leaving.

The door swung open. I stared into the corridor, grateful it was empty. Perched on a bedpan is not something you want anyone to see.

When I discovered I was pregnant, I was so excited, so happy. Steven had bought a pregnancy test, and as we looked at the blue marker, he cried. We had wanted a baby for so long.

I prepared myself for my birth with yoga moves, belly dancing, and birth classes, rubbing oil on bits and pieces while visualising me glowing with a baby in my arms, Steven beside me, and whale music in the background.

Nothing is funny when you are having a baby. No one tells you how scared you become, how despite the whole world and its dog in the room with you, you are on your own. And no matter how many hold your hand, rub your back, and tell you “you’re doing great,” you are scared, petrified, that along with the baby, all your innards are going to burst out onto the table, the floor, and even the walls, and you’ll never able to s**t on your own again.

When my daughter arrived, Steven punched the air like a football player, kissed me a thousand times, and then punched the air again.

I felt nothing but a huge desire to sleep and was just in the process of doing so when I felt a burning poker sear into the flesh somewhere down below.

I jolted.

My legs were spread out like a dissected frog, the consultant was playing cross-stitch with my bits below, while my daughter was being attended to under a chorus of “she’s lovely,” “she’s beautiful,” and “so like her dad.”

“Keep still,” snapped a male voice.

I did my best, gritting my teeth with each tug as Steven told the world and my mother that our baby girl was apparently the image of him.

“Yes, all fingers and toes,” he laughed. “And Sheryl? Yes, she’s fine, waiting for her tea and toast.”

When it was over, I, sipping the best tea I had ever tasted in my life, cracked a joke about tapestry and how my husband would appreciate the artistic display next time he was “down there.”

The consultant flicked off his gloves and moved to the sink. I was just about to sink my teeth into my toast when he, without looking up, said, “Don’t I know you?”

I looked at the nurses, then Steven. Know me? I mouthed. The only thing he’s seen is my fanny.

“Don’t worry,” said the young nurse. “He says that to all the girls.”

“He’s Polish,” added the older nurse.