Dead Lovely Read Online Free
Author: Helen Fitzgerald
phoned Sarah.
*
Sarah arrived about half an hour later, having already established with the midwife that I should not come in till things ‘got serious’. I discovered later that this meant I should not come in until I felt so out of control with pain that I could kill myself and/or others.
For four hours Sarah played me tapes, made me tea, massaged my back, and ran me baths.
‘These are a piece of piss!’ I said as I breathed correctly through an irregular tummy twinge. ‘I could do this forever!’
I’d always had an inkling that I had a very high pain threshold. I didn’t like blood, but I could handle pretty much anything else. As a kid, I hadn’t cried during any of my immunisations. When I broke my nose windsurfing, I was calm and steady and sensible even though it was the worst fracture the doctor at Stirling hospital had ever seen. I never understood all the fuss about period pain. Other womenappeared to me to be wimps. And I regularly found bruises on my legs and had no idea where they’d come from. All sure signs that I had a superhuman tolerance to pain.
But the irregular tummy twinges turned to regular stomach pains and the regular stomach pains turned to agonising never-ending cramps, and the agonising never-ending cramps turned to earth-shatteringly incomprehensible poundings, which made me want to kill myself and/or others.
It was time to go to hospital.
I can see why they say you forget the pain of childbirth, and that it’s not so bad, and that at the end of it, all that matters is the bundle of joy you’re holding.
They say it because they are lying bastards.
I will never forget having a huge set of knitting needles inserted into me by a student nurse who wasn’t sure if she could feel my cervix at all, let alone break it to set my waters free. I will never forget several fists ‘examining’ me in the fourteen hours that followed. I will never forget a huge set of steel salad servers somehow barging their way inside me and yanking so hard that my bed flew across the room. And I will never forget being rushed to the theatre after all that, after Sarah had made sure my birth plan was followed to the letter, because my placenta was quite happy to stay put, thank you very much.
What I have forgotten is what Robbie looked like when he came out. I don’t remember. And when I came back from surgery, I didn’t ask where he was. And when I slept that night, I didn’t hear him cry. And when I woke up the next morning and someone placed him on my tummy, and his mouth found its way onto my nipple, I didn’t forget the pain of labour and I didn’t feel that I was holding a bundle of joy.
I felt like an alien was sucking on my tit.
CHAPTER FIVE
Sarah stared at Krissie with a mixture of awe and fear. She couldn’t believe Krissie had actually done it. Krissie had a child, who was now crying in the cot beside her. Krissie herself was lying on her back, watching the ceiling, the bottom half of her hospital nightgown covered in blood. Sarah was surprised that the nurses hadn’t helped her to maintain her dignity, although she, of all people, knew how busy nurses were.
Krissie’s face was ghostly white and spookily vacant. She didn’t seem to notice the baby’s crying nor Sarah hovering over her, perplexed.
‘Krissie! Congratulations. You clever clogs. Kriss!’ said Sarah, kissing her on the forehead. She put flowers, magazines and fruit juice on the bedside table, and sat down.
‘He looks like Mike Tyson,’ Krissie said after a while, her voice uncharacteristically flat.
Sarah had to admit that he did look a bit battered. The forceps had obviously pulled him by the temples, and both were squished in and bruised. They’d also scraped his eye as they tried to get hold, and his left eyelid had a small gash across it.
When Sarah picked Robbie up and, still crying, he looked at her with tiny little dark piercing eyes, she felt them go straight through her and a shudder of emotion
*
Sarah arrived about half an hour later, having already established with the midwife that I should not come in till things ‘got serious’. I discovered later that this meant I should not come in until I felt so out of control with pain that I could kill myself and/or others.
For four hours Sarah played me tapes, made me tea, massaged my back, and ran me baths.
‘These are a piece of piss!’ I said as I breathed correctly through an irregular tummy twinge. ‘I could do this forever!’
I’d always had an inkling that I had a very high pain threshold. I didn’t like blood, but I could handle pretty much anything else. As a kid, I hadn’t cried during any of my immunisations. When I broke my nose windsurfing, I was calm and steady and sensible even though it was the worst fracture the doctor at Stirling hospital had ever seen. I never understood all the fuss about period pain. Other womenappeared to me to be wimps. And I regularly found bruises on my legs and had no idea where they’d come from. All sure signs that I had a superhuman tolerance to pain.
But the irregular tummy twinges turned to regular stomach pains and the regular stomach pains turned to agonising never-ending cramps, and the agonising never-ending cramps turned to earth-shatteringly incomprehensible poundings, which made me want to kill myself and/or others.
It was time to go to hospital.
I can see why they say you forget the pain of childbirth, and that it’s not so bad, and that at the end of it, all that matters is the bundle of joy you’re holding.
They say it because they are lying bastards.
I will never forget having a huge set of knitting needles inserted into me by a student nurse who wasn’t sure if she could feel my cervix at all, let alone break it to set my waters free. I will never forget several fists ‘examining’ me in the fourteen hours that followed. I will never forget a huge set of steel salad servers somehow barging their way inside me and yanking so hard that my bed flew across the room. And I will never forget being rushed to the theatre after all that, after Sarah had made sure my birth plan was followed to the letter, because my placenta was quite happy to stay put, thank you very much.
What I have forgotten is what Robbie looked like when he came out. I don’t remember. And when I came back from surgery, I didn’t ask where he was. And when I slept that night, I didn’t hear him cry. And when I woke up the next morning and someone placed him on my tummy, and his mouth found its way onto my nipple, I didn’t forget the pain of labour and I didn’t feel that I was holding a bundle of joy.
I felt like an alien was sucking on my tit.
CHAPTER FIVE
Sarah stared at Krissie with a mixture of awe and fear. She couldn’t believe Krissie had actually done it. Krissie had a child, who was now crying in the cot beside her. Krissie herself was lying on her back, watching the ceiling, the bottom half of her hospital nightgown covered in blood. Sarah was surprised that the nurses hadn’t helped her to maintain her dignity, although she, of all people, knew how busy nurses were.
Krissie’s face was ghostly white and spookily vacant. She didn’t seem to notice the baby’s crying nor Sarah hovering over her, perplexed.
‘Krissie! Congratulations. You clever clogs. Kriss!’ said Sarah, kissing her on the forehead. She put flowers, magazines and fruit juice on the bedside table, and sat down.
‘He looks like Mike Tyson,’ Krissie said after a while, her voice uncharacteristically flat.
Sarah had to admit that he did look a bit battered. The forceps had obviously pulled him by the temples, and both were squished in and bruised. They’d also scraped his eye as they tried to get hold, and his left eyelid had a small gash across it.
When Sarah picked Robbie up and, still crying, he looked at her with tiny little dark piercing eyes, she felt them go straight through her and a shudder of emotion
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