|
My firstborn arrived 3 weeks early - I shouldn't have decided to turn mattresses and spring clean (it was December after all) - prior to visitors coming for Christmas.
I woke with a niggly backache but went back to sleep. Eventually, got up around 8am only to realize my waters had broken.
We didn't have a telephone so I nudged my husband who, cool as a cucumber (not) rushed round the bedroom opening and slamming drawers until he found just the outfit to wear to run down the road to the call box. The outfit he picked out for the moment was an old shirt he found wrapped round the hot water tank and therefore stiff with age and very, very creased, and a pair of pants yanked from the bottom of the laundry basket.
Finally, we got into the taxi he'd flagged down as he was rushing from the phone box (come to think of it, I have no idea who he did actually call to take me to the hospital .... no matter, too late now) and we got into the back of the taxi. I remember the radio was on and Johnny Mathis was singing 'When a child is born" (sweet).
We got to the hospital and I settled in. In those days husbands were not encouraged to attend the birth and, quite frankly, it was something I preferred to do quietly and with dignity rather than all the shouting and swearing that all tv births seem to portray.
At the height of my labor pains I do recall wishing I'd said "Not tonight, dear" on the night our son was conceived but, after only 4 hours of labor, our darling son was put into my arms and he looked at me with big, blue eyes and my son and I formed a bond that, even now over 30 years later, is as strong as ever.
|
