Lily did her favourite trick again and woke me at three. Lay there for bit listening to the rain on the window, 6 o clock thoughts trotting through my mind when I remembered groggily that this is Rose's birthday. I thought back...
Seven years ago almost to this hour I nudged V awake
I've had enough of this. (counting increasingly annoying contractions and watching my husband sleep unconcernedly through it all) It's time to go.
He replied (and as long as I live I will never let him forget this) Do we have to? It's three o clock in the morning.
Pow! I nudged him good, woke him up properly.
Yes, through gritted teeth, we have to go now. Do you want me to drive there myself?
No, no oblivious to sarcasm I'll be there now.
I remember the air was still and warm as milk as we made our way from hospital parking to the maternity wing. Steam was coming out of a vent somewhere and a blackbird had just started the overture. It was very peaceful.
By half six that morning it was all over. I had gone in expecting a marathon, packed a book, energy drinks, sandwiches for V, tapes, socks, everything. But due to some interesting complications Rose was born by c section, whipped out like fresh tumbled laundry and placed into V's wary clasp almost immediately. And me? I didn't give a damn...hooked up on a morphine drip, everything was fine. I've got a daughter? Great, fab...aren't these sheets a pretty colour?
By evening time I was back in the land of the living, still on morphine but they had evened me out a bit by then, I don't think they liked my singing.
They brought her to me, dark and tiny, like a new kitten. I stared at this astonishing creature that was now my whole world. She yawned and struggled against the swaddling. And I paddled my first hesitant strokes into the sea of motherhood.
Ben Jonson* I think it was that wrote that his son was his finest poem. Oh yes...I know, I know.
Happy Birthday Kitten, I'll never forget the day of your birth, one of the most beautiful of my life.
*Though now I come to think of it it might be John Donne
Seven years ago almost to this hour I nudged V awake
I've had enough of this. (counting increasingly annoying contractions and watching my husband sleep unconcernedly through it all) It's time to go.
He replied (and as long as I live I will never let him forget this) Do we have to? It's three o clock in the morning.
Pow! I nudged him good, woke him up properly.
Yes, through gritted teeth, we have to go now. Do you want me to drive there myself?
No, no oblivious to sarcasm I'll be there now.
I remember the air was still and warm as milk as we made our way from hospital parking to the maternity wing. Steam was coming out of a vent somewhere and a blackbird had just started the overture. It was very peaceful.
By half six that morning it was all over. I had gone in expecting a marathon, packed a book, energy drinks, sandwiches for V, tapes, socks, everything. But due to some interesting complications Rose was born by c section, whipped out like fresh tumbled laundry and placed into V's wary clasp almost immediately. And me? I didn't give a damn...hooked up on a morphine drip, everything was fine. I've got a daughter? Great, fab...aren't these sheets a pretty colour?
By evening time I was back in the land of the living, still on morphine but they had evened me out a bit by then, I don't think they liked my singing.
They brought her to me, dark and tiny, like a new kitten. I stared at this astonishing creature that was now my whole world. She yawned and struggled against the swaddling. And I paddled my first hesitant strokes into the sea of motherhood.
Ben Jonson* I think it was that wrote that his son was his finest poem. Oh yes...I know, I know.
Happy Birthday Kitten, I'll never forget the day of your birth, one of the most beautiful of my life.
*Though now I come to think of it it might be John Donne
1 comment:
Happy Birthday Rose! Sian, I loved reading about the day she was born -- your description of waking your husband cracked me up, and your line "the air was still and warm as milk" is so pretty. Your morphine adventures were funny too. I love the image of her as "dark and tiny, like a new kitten." Very sweet.
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