Whoosh.

It was snowing, had been and would some more. The romance of it disappeared when you walked the icy,  slip-sliding footpaths. I had walked those footpaths for my hospital appointments several times now, navigating the hazards with considerable caution.

Foolish and dangerous. But I was young is all.

It was so cold it was freezing and we flooded the bed sit below by pulling the plug after a bath. You people! said the landlady, whose kitchen it was. Have you never heard of a bird bath? The pipes were frozen. Who knew of such a thing?

We couldn’t  get through to a taxi company so an ambulance was called instead. It felt foolish and dramatic but the men who came were serious and respectful.

Have I come in too soon? I asked the nurse when we got there and she said you should have come in hours ago! It was still the very early morning. There was no break, no time to rest, within the pain.

The nurse and the doctor each gave me an “internal”. Then the shift changed and a new doctor and nurse did the same. That nurse, the fourth one, said you have a low tolerance for pain don’t you? I wanted to dispute that, to ask her how she’d like it, but I needed to breathe. She organised an epidural.

The anesthetist came hours later and complimented me on my forbearance.

Nurses busied themselves with the unneccessary unpacking of my case and ramming everything into a small bedside table. I had gone shopping for books and thought it might be time to read Ernest Hemingway. I didn’t know I would lose the capacity for book reading for about two years and then the idea of Hemingway would be the furthest from my mind.

In the afternoon a midwife came and believed what she said. Which was, we will get this baby delivered in here between the two of us! She urged me on and on and on but between the two of us we couldn’t get the job done.

She helped to wheel me towards the theatre where forceps would be introduced, but stopped at the doorway. I will not cross a picket line she said. I thought I might deliver there but somehow got further in. There were cobwebs up high on the wall and students gathered around.

The doctor said, try not to push now but it was beyond me to obey. The babe had had enough, was ready to meet the world. To choose freedom, to choose life. There was a whoosh! – the most fantastic whoosh that ever was or would be again.

It’s a girl someone finally said and she was there. Safely. Born. Arrived. Delivered. Slippery and shocked and blinking and squalling and squiggling.

Hello baby!

I thought I knew, but I didn’t. No book covered it, no words described it, no preparation was adequate, no conversation touched the sides.

Whoosh!

And 34 years and nine days later? I’m still incredulous.