As Kerri fastens a voluptuous black cape around my neck, she tells me that I’m her first client since she returned from maternity leave. I feel fortunate. I like my hairdresser, and I trust her with my hair.
I ask Kerri about her baby, and soon we’re comparing birth notes, as mothers do. We talk about the moment, which, maybe, happens to all of us, when we declare, “I’ve had enough! I don’t want to do this anymore. I want to go home.”
Of course, we have no choice. We have to stay and continue to the end. And when that end arrives, we forget about the pain. It’s eclipsed by the sight of a tiny, crumpled-skinned newborn baby.
I tell Kerri about the night that my youngest daughter Gemma-Rose was born. “I was examined by a midwife as soon as we arrived at the hospital, and she said, ‘There’s plenty of time before your baby arrives. We’ll make up a bed for you and your husband on the waiting room floor. You can both get some rest before the birth.’”
I was having a baby. There was no time to rest.
A nurse dragged a double mattress out of a cupboard. She found some sheets, two pillows, and a blanket. “Get some sleep,” she smiled as she disappeared out the door. Andy obediently followed orders, curling up on his side, nestling his head on a pillow, closing his eyes. Soon he was breathing rhythmically, deep, fast asleep.
I sat uncomfortably alone on the edge of the mattress, thinking how ridiculous the situation was. What if someone wanted to use the waiting room? What if they stumbled over us as we were lying on the floor? Or maybe no one would see us because we wouldn’t be there.
I shook Andy’s shoulder: “I need to find the midwife.”
Gemma-Rose was born not long later. The doctor, who I’d been informed was essential, missed the birth completely. The midwife hadn’t told him I was at the hospital for birth number eight. She’d thought there was plenty of time. I knew differently, but no one listened to me.
”It must have been difficult when nobody took any notice of what you were saying,” says Kerri, as I conclude my story. “That doesn’t happen anymore. The medical staff have learnt that sometimes mothers know more than they do. These days, they listen to us.”
These days?
“Your generation did all the hard work to make it easier for mine.”
Your generation?
”Gemma-Rose was born only 16 years ago,” I say.
16 years? Was that a long time ago? It doesn’t feel like it.
I peer into the mirror at our reflections: Kerri, young and pretty, standing next to older, getting wrinkly me. Just for a few minutes, I’d forgotten we aren’t the same age. We were just two mothers, swapping birth stories, connected by a shared experience.
Kerri grabs a hand mirror and waves it behind my head. I look at my freshly cut hair bouncing, and say, “Perfect! Thank you!”
As I shrug on my coat, I wonder: now that I’ve had my hair tidied up, should I get my eyebrows sorted out too? But before I can ask for an appointment, the hairdresser tells me that the beautician has a cold and is self-isolating. She’ll be back in a week or two, that’s if the salon is still open.
The other day, an employee of a local supermarket tested positive for COVID-19.
”I don’t know if it’s safe to remain open,” explains Kerri, “especially as some of the supermarket workers live here in this village.”
We began with babies, but we’re ending with the pandemic which has intruded, uninvited, upon our conversation. It’s strange how that keeps happening.
“I’ve had enough. I don’t want to do this anymore.”
But we do it anyway. We have no choice. We have to stay and continue to the end.
The world will mend. The virus won’t always have the final word.
Photo by Hermes Rivera on Unsplash
This reminds me of a fun comment from a friend, mother of four grown children. I was pregnant with a huge belly and we were talking about births. She had good and quick births, but still she said “If I could have stopped birthing process, I would still be pregnant with all of them. ” Ha, ha, yes, that`s how it feels like close to the end. And still, like you say, we forget it all when we hold our little dear baby in our arms.
Luana,
Maybe if we could stop the birthing process, we’d eventually get fed up of being pregnant. Imagine how big we’d soon get. We’d change our minds and face the pain!