‘India, I like it,’ said Sam truthfully, although she knew her mind was still hazy: giving birth to India – yes, India – she’d been so fearful that something was going wrong. She still hadn’t recovered from that fear. And as for the pain. Wow.
In no way could childbirth be compared to breaking eleven bones in the body. A mere eleven? More like twenty-two, she decided. Yet perhaps such a miracle needed pain because it was a miracle: she had produced this living being from her body. The enormity of it was staggering.
‘Yes, India, it’s the perfect name,’ Sam had said, ‘because it’s totally unknowable. The great mystery of the glorious, beautiful subcontinent we are not going to be able to visit for quite a while now,’ and Ted had laughed with her as they stared down at their tiny baby daughter. Unknowable summed up the whole baby experience pretty well.
She loved looking down into the small bassinet attached to her bed and staring at the tiny baby, their baby. India seemed so fragile, as if her skin was only a filament thin and anything could break her. When she’d been lying down earlier and a nurse had put India on her chest to try to get her to breastfeed, the nurse had been called away suddenly and in that precious moment Sam had gloried in the sense of her tiny baby lying on her, this tiny form on her breastbone, skin to skin, heartbeats melding. Despite the crazy noise all around her, Sam felt calmer than she had since India had been born.
This she could do: this lying with India on top of her, like mothers since time immemorial. It felt peaceful and natural.
She loved the feeling of her darling daughter; loved the glorious softness of that baby skin, the scent of a tiny baby, the beauty of those big eyes.
‘You know everything, don’t you, darling?’ she crooned as India looked up at her wisely.
Sam wanted time to stand still so that this moment of perfection could be hers forever.
Then, the nurse had returned for the breastfeeding session. There was a lactation expert, Zendaya, but she was sick, the nurse said, looking tired and harried.
Instantly, Sam’s anxiety racketed up. From thinking she knew how to be a mother, she descended into thinking she had no idea whatsoever. What had happened to her? It was like she’d morphed from a woman utterly at peace into a bundle of nerves in an instant.
The nurse manoeuvred one then the other nipple into India’s deeply uninterested little mouth.
India made little mewling noises like a kitten but refused to drink.
‘Oh India, it’s all my fault,’ murmured Sam, feeling tearful.
‘Zendaya would kill me if she knew,’ said the nurse, ‘but let’s make up a bottle until we have more time. We’re so short-staffed today. You should express some milk if you can for her next feed. She’ll get it next time.’
Sam nodded. She’d failed at the first hurdle.
As India gulped the milk from the bottle, Sam swallowed back feelings of hopelessness. She knew nothing. All the nurses and the other women on their second and third babies knew it all. But not her.
The nurses whizzed in and out of the ward, whisking back the curtains on her cubicle, checking her and the baby, handling India with ease.
Apart from that time when India had lain on her, Sam still wasn’t sure how to hold her daughter. Her arms ached from desperately trying to protect India’s fragile head. Why had nobody told her babies’ heads looked so fragile? She could recall how the bones had not fused totally in the baby’s skull, which meant she could be hurt so easily.
How had nature let such a thing happen? How could so many animal babies be born and be able to run immediately, while baby humans were so delicate that their tiny skulls were a risk to themselves?
She said this to Ted.
‘It’s because humans have such big brains,’ he said. ‘Human babies wouldn’t be able to pass through the pelvic canal if their skulls were fused.’
Sam stared at him.
‘You knew that?’ she said, looking at India in anxiety. ‘I didn’t. When does it fix? It must be so dangerous . . .’
She felt overpowered with anxiety until one of the nurses calmed her down and told her it was normal.
‘Babies are hardy little things, you know,’ she said.
‘No,’ whispered Sam, ‘they’re not.’
She whispered all the time now. Ted did too. Even now, he was murmuring incredibly quietly to Sam because they were both afraid that the slightest noise would wake India up.
They had both read that it was important to make lots of noise so the baby got used to it, but neither of them could bear to do it. Sleeping, India felt manageable.
Awake, Sam was terrified of what needed to be done. The initial joy she’d felt at her baby’s birth was overcome with the fear of her own inadequacies as a mother.
Why was the baby crying? Were her nappies OK? Surely this colour of baby poo wasn’t right?
There was an enormous gap between the concept of reading something in a baby manual and then trying to put it into practice.
A head poked itself round her cubicle curtains and in marched her sister, Joanne, beaming and holding her arms out: ‘Show me her! I can’t wait to see her. She’s been out in the world since late yesterday and I can’t wait to see her. The hospital visiting rules are murderously cruel.’
‘Shush,’ said Sam automatically.
Ted looked proud, but Sam stared at India in her tiny crib beside the bed as if waiting for her tiny blue-veined eyelids to open.
‘Ohh . . .’
Sam turned to watch Joanne staring at India and start to cry.
‘She’s beautiful. I’m so happy for you both.’
Jo launched herself at Sam and hugged her tightly, making Sam’s breasts – engorged with milk – ache.
‘Thank you, hon, but whisper,’ said Sam. ‘She’ll wake up.’
‘I hope she does.’
Joanne stood and peered into the crib again. ‘Your auntie wants to hug you, little baba,’ she said in an entirely non-whispering voice. ‘People, I have told you, you need to start doing the hoovering when the baby is in the house, there is no point doing this tiptoeing around, because if you don’t make a noise so the baby can sleep, trust me, you’ll never make another noise again. The baby will only be able to sleep when there is complete quiet, so you’ll never be able to get on and bring her in the car or to a restaurant, or do any normal stuff.’
‘A restaurant, are you mad?’ Sam stared at her sister. ‘I’m wondering how we are going to get her home from the hospital in the car and you’re talking about restaurants.’
Joanne laughed. India stirred. ‘Oh look at her,’ she said and reached in to expertly pick the baby up. ‘She’s so beautiful. Yes, you are,’ she said, nuzzling India’s downy little head.