‘Hello, Mum!’ comes the greeting of the smiling woman on the doorstep as Kate opens the front door, her baby in her arms and her top still hitched up after yet another feed.
‘Oh, hi there,’ Kate replies, taken aback. The first time someone said that to her – a nurse in the hospital in the hours after her daughter was born – Kate had looked over her shoulder, looking for her own mother. The realisation that the nurse was talking toherhad felt how Kate imagined a medical student might feel if the air steward on a plane yelled, ‘Is there a doctor on board?’ and the terrifying silence that followed made them realise they might just be the closest thing.
‘I’m Lydia, the new health visitor. Had you forgotten about today’s appointment? The three-month check-up?’
‘Um, I …’ Kate shifts her daughter in her arms, trying to tug down her top without disturbing her. Before she can answer, Jay is at her side, smiling brightly.
‘Sorry about that, I was just working. Come on in. Can I get you anything? Tea, coffee? I’m not sure we have any milk though …’
‘That’s fine, thanks,’ Lydia replies, reaching to take off her shoes as she steps inside.
Kate wants to tell her not to bother – the cottage is hardly a no-shoes household, or even a ‘we sometimes hoover’ household – but she’s already following Jay through to the living room in her socked feet, Kate closing the door and heading on after them with the baby.
Lydia sets some equipment out on the floor and then stands up, beaming, her arms outstretched towards Kate.
‘Let’s have a look at this little one then. Hello, Rosie!’
Kate hands her over somewhat hesitantly, Lydia taking the baby with the same casual confidence with which Kate would handle a loaf of bread.
‘So, how is she doing?’
Lydia starts to take the measurements she needs, Rosie wide-eyed but thankfully compliant.
‘She’s doing great, isn’t she, Kate?’ says Jay with a proud smile.
‘Yeah, she seems OK. She’s still not sleeping for more than two hours at a time, though, often less than that.’
‘That’s totally normal,’ Lydia replies brightly as she expertly undresses Rosie before placing her on the scales. ‘Don’t worry!’
Kate bites her tongue, not wanting to say that she hadn’t actually been worried about Rosie at all.
‘OK, that’s good to know. I was also wondering if there are any books you could recommend about looking after a newborn?’
During her pregnancy, Kate made endless notes, as though having a baby was a test she could ace if only she revised hard enough. But now that Rosie is actually here … Well, the truth is, it isn’t anything like what she read in the books. But perhaps it isn’t that the books she read weren’t helpful, but just that she hadn’t read therightones.
It still stuns her that she and Jay were allowed to leave the hospital with the baby unsupervised. That she went in as just Kate and came out as a mother and was left to figure out everything that came next by herself. That day, she kept expecting doctors to come racing after her, telling her there’d been some mistake and she had to hand her baby back to them for safekeeping. Occasionally, she still wishes they would.
‘You can’t learn everything from books, Kate,’ Lydia laughs. ‘Your baby hasn’t read the book, after all! It’s not a bad thing to want to seek out information, but you have to trust your intuition. That’s the most important thing.’
‘That’s what I’ve been telling her,’ Jay chips in. ‘Didn’t I say not to worry, Kate? You’re Rosie’s mum, you’ll always know what’s best for her.’
Rosie lets out a little gurgle that sounds suspiciously to Kate like,yeah, right.
‘OK, thanks!’ she says, trying to make her voice sound normal. Like the voice of a calm and capable parent. She forces a smile on her face that she hopes does not at all say,But I’ve never done this before! I don’thaveany intuition!If only they could see her phone browser history. All the questions typed in a panic in the middle of the night.Is it normal for my babyto make weird noises when they sleep? White-noise machines – do they actually work? Can you die from sleep deprivation?
After a few more checks, Lydia hands Rosie over to Kate. As soon as Rosie is in her arms, she starts to wriggle, twisting her head away from Kate’s body, her face scrunched in dissatisfaction.
‘Well, she’s a perfectly healthy baby,’ says Lydia. ‘I’m really pleased with how she’s doing.’
‘That’s brilliant,’ says Jay enthusiastically. ‘I knew she’d be an overachiever, just like her mum.’
Rosie lets out a wail and Kate does her best to comfort her by bouncing her up and down on her shoulder.
‘Thanks,’ she adds herself. ‘That’s certainly a relief.’
‘And how are you settling into motherhood, Kate?’ asks Lydia as she starts to pack up her things. ‘Have you managed to see friends and family much?’
‘Well, we only recently moved here from London.’
