34
LENA
January 1999 London
It was a dull wet winter’s day when I first met Simone Harvey. The sky hung over the capital like a dirty grey sheet, and I yearned for the crisp green East Sussex countryside. My stomach was a mass of knots as the bus ambled past dank building after dank building, warped and surreal-looking through the rain-smudged windows. Every time the doors to the bus pinged open they let in a snap of cold air that wove around my ankles.
St Calvert’s Maternity Hospital was in Hackney, a short ride from my digs in Walthamstow, and I was on my way to start my six-week placement on the dreaded labour ward. I’d done most of my placements, last year, at St Calvert’s, which was part of a larger Trust, but on the post-natal ward and the adjoining clinic. I’d heard horror stories about how frantic the labour ward was, with all the pain and screaming and blood, and I wasn’t a fan of the sprawling Victorian building that had once been a workhouse. I’ve since heardit closed down and I can’t say I’m surprised. It was about to collapse even back then.
The three-year course I was on was much more exhausting and time-consuming than I’d thought possible. While friends from school were getting pissed at the student union of their chosen university and staggering into lectures with a hangover, I was up early cleaning bedpans or mopping blood and mucus from the floors. I was in the second year and I preferred the lectures on campus to the placements, which often meant twelve-hour shifts three or four days a week. Lately I’d begun to doubt my choice to study midwifery. My mum had been a nurse, and it was assumed I’d follow in her footsteps. When I was growing up, Mum, Nanna and all my family often commented on how caring and interested I was in other people, not to mention how much I loved babies. But halfway through my second year I was already feeling jaded and burnt out.
Still, that Monday morning I was trying to put a brave face on it, bracing myself for what I already knew would be a long day ahead.
As soon as I walked through the familiar double doors of the hospital I was hit by the smell of disinfectant and sour milk, and queasiness gripped me. It was only 7.30 a.m. and I hadn’t been able to face breakfast when I left home that morning. I went straight to Reception and explained who I was to a sleep-deprived midwife in a pink dress with a white pinafore, who told me, rather wearily, that she was just about to go off shift. There was a bit of a kerfuffle behind the desk when another midwife camein and also didn’t know who I was or where I was supposed to be. I stood there feeling awkward, wondering if I’d been sent to the hospital by mistake, when a young woman bustled in wearing pale blue scrubs. This was in the days when scrubs were relatively new for midwives and a lot of the older staff preferred the traditional dress. This woman looked fresh-faced and wide-eyed, not weighed down and put-upon like the middle-aged women behind the reception desk. I was instantly drawn to her. She had a friendly face, clear blue eyes and brown hair, tied back, with two bleached stripes at the front. Later she would tell me the bleached stripes were inspired by Louise Wener from Sleeper, not Geri Halliwell, as everyone assumed.
‘Elena Bull?’ She was holding a folded pair of scrubs.
‘Yes.’
She handed them to me. ‘I’m Simone Harvey and I’ll be your supervising midwife during your placement.’
I was surprised. I was nineteen and she didn’t look that much older than me, although I’d later learn she was actually twenty-six and had been qualified for four and a half years.
‘Nice to meet you,’ I replied, feeling shy.
She grinned. ‘Come. I’ll show you where you can change.’ She set off at a fast pace and I had to jog to keep up. I was taller than her by an inch or so but she walked as though she was six foot. She ushered me into a cubicle where I quickly slipped on my scrubs and dumped my bag in my designated locker. I’d already plaited my hair, which, back then, had been almost to my waist.
I recognized parts of the hospital from my time on the post-natal ward last year, but the labour ward was down endless corridors that led to a separate wing. I was already panicking about how I would find the ward tomorrow when I didn’t have Simone with me. I couldn’t even take mental notes because she was walking so fast.
‘We’re super-busy,’ she said, as she swiped us in. ‘We currently have mums in each of the three birthing pools.’ She pointed towards one of the corridors. ‘All six labour rooms are occupied and two are in theatre, one an emergency C-section. But you’ll be down here, helping look after mums in beds three to six.’
I tried not to balk at the thought of being responsible for four labouring women. ‘What stages?’
‘Early. One or two centimetres dilated. Low-risk births. All waiting for their own room.’
I was grateful for that, at least.
She stopped and patted my shoulder. ‘You’ll be fine, and you won’t be on your own. Janice and Maeve will be around, both very experienced. Dr Laura Barnard is on shift today if there are any problems. Which there won’t be. Like I say, all early stages and low risk.’
She started walking again and didn’t speak until we arrived at the ward. It wasn’t the most inspiring of rooms. Long, thin and dark, despite the overhead light, and the windows looked out over the car park and grey skies. There were six beds in a row, four of which had heavily pregnant women lying on them, all with a grey-faced man at their sides, holding their hand. The other two were leaning over the beds while their partners rubbed theirbacks. They ranged in age from early twenties to late thirties. Some had monitors strapped to their bellies and every now and again one would moan in pain.
With one last reassuring smile, Simone left me, saying she’d be back to check up on me in an hour. Maeve and Janice, both in their early forties, seemed kind and introduced me to the women I’d be looking after. One woman, Grace, who was the youngest on the ward, suddenly went from being two centimetres dilated to eight and was quickly whisked off to a labour room within an hour of me being there. But it wasn’t long before she was replaced by another woman in labour. I had to hold one woman’s hand when she asked for an epidural because she was in so much pain, and I sat with her on the edge of the bed, trying to make sure she stayed completely still between contractions while Dr Barnard administered the drugs and the woman’s husband looked as if he might pass out at the sight of the huge needle.
The shift went surprisingly quickly, and I really didn’t have much time to think or to dwell on whether I was doing something wrong. I remembered all the information I’d learnt in lectures, and was relieved to be working with the experienced midwives.
Just as I was about to clock off Simone came to find me and we walked to the changing room together.
‘You did well today, Elena. Well done.’
‘Thanks. But please call me Lena.’
She smiled in response. ‘Maeve said you’re a hard worker who uses her own initiative. That’s great.’ She looked less fresh-faced twelve hours later, the soft skin under her eyesa bruised pink, and she had what I suspect was blood on the front of her tunic. She tucked a blonde strand behind her ear. ‘Where do you live?’
‘Walthamstow.’
‘Oh, me too. Are you getting the bus?’
I nodded as I retrieved the bag from my locker.
