Neal Doran - Not What They Were Expecting

‘So, busy day so far?’ asked Rebecca.

Suzanne took the water and dropped back into the chair.

‘I’m not supposed to tell you, but it’s my first day working alone. I’ve been shadowing Maureen for the last few weeks. We have different ways of looking at things. She’d have you believe I haven’t a clue what I’m talking about.’

‘Oh no, not at all,’ said Rebecca, somehow refraining from adding ‘my dear madam’ to the end of the sentence. She hoped the midwife wasn’t going to start crying.

‘Maureen’s a bit of a stickler for the rules and guidelines and client choice. She’s into choice as long as the mum-to-be has been properly educated to know the best choices out there, which just happen to be identical to Maureen’s choices from her Good Pregnancy leaflets. This morning I met my ten o’clock appointment on the steps outside her house on a fag break. She’s got four kids already – three of them boys, all but the eldest under five – and I’m supposed to discuss an enlightened approach to enjoying her pregnancy, and push the benefits of healthy eating and birthing pools? Tell her what’s happening in her body at this exciting but natural time? After two minutes she excused herself and went to have a nap while I was there to keep an eye on the kids. I ended up doing ironing and telling a three-year-old about the lovely opportunity to share experiences at the pregnancy yoga classes at the community centre.’

Rebecca wasn’t really sure what to say. She settled on ‘That sounds jolly difficult for a first day.’

‘Ah, not too bad when you think about it. I didn’t have much chance to screw it up with her, she knew what she was doing. Except on the smoking thing. Difficult to quit, I know. Lord I know. But still, they show us the pictures? What can happen if things go wrong? You don’t want to know, I tell you. But basically that’s it, boom, the next thirty years of your life accounted for. Same with the alcohol to be honest, but you have to really work at overdoing it. Jesus, what am I saying? You don’t have a history of alcoholism do you?’

Both Rebecca’s hands went to her stomach. ‘No.’

‘Smoke?’

‘No.’

‘Thank God. I’m sorry I’m being massively tactless again. One extreme or the other with me, but you’re a very good listener!’ Suzanne jerked upright in her seat and lunged into her briefcase.

‘Now,’ she said, her head obscured by the case lid, ‘we need to get you booked in.’

Suzanne and Rebecca ran through the basic vital statistics covering age, height, weight (Rebecca used her normal weight before all the Christmas goings-on as that was probably the truest real figure for that), date of her last period, contact details for her and James, that kind of thing. While she attached and set up a futuristic-looking blood-pressure test, the midwife then reached what she called the box ticking section of the process.

‘We’ll whiz through these, we’ve covered most of it. Smoking, no. Drinking, no. I won’t tell if you don’t… Intravenous drug use, no? No. Domestic violence, no. Got all the leaflets? Yes.’

As her upper arm was squeezed by the digital pump, Rebecca felt like she should intervene at this stage – she wasn’t a junkie or being knocked about but felt like she should at least be given the option. The Velcro of the armband was unstrapped and the midwife jotted down a couple of numbers. Rebecca could see Suzanne running through a checklist in her head, almost counting things off on her fingers.

‘I told you about the yoga. Maureen gets upset if you don’t mention the yoga. The hospital will be in touch for the scan…you’ve got the phone numbers…checked you’re happy with everything…’

Rebecca watched as Suzanne took a survey of the room peering around her to look through the knocked-through dining area out towards the kitchen and giving a big tick. The cleaning had been worth it.

‘Done, done, done. Now are there any questions you’d like to ask me?’ Suzanne asked.

Rebecca paused as if she was thinking about whether she had any questions, while she was actually just thinking about how long she had to leave it before saying no to make it look like she’d given the subject due consideration.

‘Sex!’ Suzanne jumped in before Rebecca even had time to finish her fake thinking. ‘You’ll want to know about it but be afraid to ask. Go for it, fill your boots is the short answer. Too late to do any more harm now anyway. Can’t do anything to hurt the baby, and if your husband – sorry, supposed to say partner – is worried he can bump the baby in some way he’s either delusional, or should be making a fortune in mucky movies.’

Rebecca admitted to herself she had been wondering about that sort of thing, but hadn’t planned to mention it. It hadn’t been the fear of James taking the baby’s eye out though. More just she was worried about her own physical reactions, the idea that while whatever it is in there had such a tenuous hold on life, any hormones or bodily chemicals she set off down there could cause disruption. Crazy she knew, but so was the way she was tensing her muscles in the region all the time as if making sure nothing fell out, and she couldn’t stop that either. She noticed that Suzanne had started putting the paperwork and the piles of leaflets scattered about her chair back in her bag, and everything seemed to be moving a bit quickly.

‘Don’t you need to…examine me, or something?’ she asked.

‘God, no!’ said Suzanne. ‘I mean, no offence, not that you’re repulsive to the idea of touching or anything, you shouldn’t feel like that. At least not at this early stage, that usually comes later. No, just there’s nothing to look at really.’

‘Oh.’ After all the nerves and excitement, the experience was becoming a bit of an anti-climax for Rebecca.

‘Tell you what, I could try the Doppler. Would you like to hear the baby’s heartbeat?’

Rebecca’s own heart rate quickened at the idea.

‘Can you do that already?’

‘With your dates? It’s early days, so tricky, but I can usually do it. This is the one piece of kit I was near the top of my class for. Not that I was really bad at anything – promise I’m fully qualified and did learn how to use everything. Eventually. Just I was a whiz with this. Now pop open your jeans and lie back on the sofa.’

Rebecca wondered if she should draw the living room curtains, but decided the back of the sofa was under the window so it was only somebody snooping in the front garden that would spot her being tended to by a frizzy-haired health professional.

‘You’ll love this,’ said Suzanne, ‘it’s like real evidence there’s something going on in there. All the worries that it’s not really happening? That something’s gone wrong and you just don’t know about it? Gone. Awful when that happens though, even at this early stage – the state some women get into, horrible to see. You have to feel for them.’

With a clatter of plastic Suzanne removed what looked like an electronic oversized stethoscope from her case and switched it on, sparking a howl of feedback as the microphone grazed against the small speaker.

‘After this we could try some karaoke,’ she said, adjusting the volume and giving the microphone a rub to take the chill off. She put the Doppler unit on Rebecca’s abdomen, gently pushing under her belly button. So this was what she had coming to her, thought Rebecca, strange people prodding me with strange devices in areas I’m a bit sensitive about. There was a rolling pulsating growl as Suzanne turned up the speaker.

‘Heavy lunch was it?’

Rebecca smiled and blushed slightly at the sound of the internal fart. Her belly quietened a little, and the midwife continued her probing; pausing, listening and moving on when getting nothing more than a background throb of Rebecca’s own raised heartbeat, and the occasional gastrointestinal bubble.