Voices told me we had company, Neva and my dad staring down at us.
“Do you know what your son has done?” My mother tried again to drown me. ‘I should’ve done this at birth!”
My dad was doubled over with laughter, Neva was giggling and trying not to laugh loudly, obviously wanting to show some solidarity with my mum.
My mother climbed out, now yelling at my dad because he was laughing and therefore siding with me. I pulled myself out of the water and stood next to Neva, pointing at my parents. “That’ll be us in twenty-five years’ time with our kid pushing you in the pool.” I watched, wanting to see if I could read anything from her at this prediction of our future.
She smiled.
Then pushed me back in.
SEPTEMBER
Holding my daughter in my arms for the very first time was something I would’ve given all my trophies up for.
She was born after a fourteen-hour labour, four days late, weighing a decent seven pounds ten and fifty-one centimetres long. Her birth was uneventful; a straightforward delivery, timed perfectly so her very beautiful and very tired Mum could have all the drugs she wanted.
“It’s not a boy so we can’t use the name Achilles.” I’d been tormenting Neva for weeks about wanting to name our child after the injury that’d effectively led to their birth. “How about a Greek Goddess name?” I grinned, not sure whether this was the right time or not to tease her.
She sat up, a boob escaping from the sheet that was covering her. Our little girl was half an hour old; Neva had been tidied up – no stitches needed – once the afterbirth had been dealt with. I’d taken Nate’s advice over that and not even tried to see what was going on. We had a few minutes on our own before the midwife was back to help Neva and the baby latch on.
“I was thinking about that.”
I passed our daughter back to Neva, surprised at how confident I felt doing it. Neva held her to her chest, near her boob.
“Want me to put a blanket over her?”
“Yes, keep her warm.”
I placed it like I’d seen the midwife do before. “You were thinking about Greek Goddess names? Seriously? I thought you wanted something more traditional?”
She looked down at the baby. “One of the Seven Sisters – the Pleiades – was called Maia. She’s the goddess of fields and fertility and I thought that was rather nice. I think she looks like a Maia too.”
I just thought she looked beautiful. Perfect. But I liked the name. And her mother had just gone through a shit ton of pain to bring her into this world so if Neva wanted Maia, she could have Maia.
“I think it’s perfect. Maia Whittingham. Middle name?” I sat down on the bed next to them, threaded my arm around Neva’s shoulders.
“Let her choose her own middle name if she ever wants one. But Maia Whittingham is perfect.” Tears were on her cheeks. “I can’t believe she’s here. I can’t believe she’s real.”
I wiped her tears away, happy to do that for the rest of my life as long as they were happy tears. “She’s real, and we’ll know how real she is when she’s trying her lungs out in the middle of the night.”
“Let me enjoy this moment.” She glared at me and then gazed at our daughter. “She looks like you with my hair.”
“I think she looks like you.” I kissed her shoulder. “You were amazing, by the way. I’ll never complain about being injured ever again.”
She laughed softly, stroking Maia’s head with her finger, a head full of dark hair. “I can’t remember it now. I probably said some horrible things.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll remind you of them when you’re pissed off at me for something.”
The midwife came in, a big smile on her face when she looked at us. “Do you want me to take a photo? You look gorgeous altogether like that.”
“Please. Jude’s phone’s on the side.” Neva spoke up.
A few snaps later and we were down to business with feeding. I watched as the midwife, whose name was Julie, taught Neva how to get Maia to latch on to feed.
We both knew that this could be tricky. Neva had researched a lot about breastfeeding and knew she wanted to try it, but she’d also said that if it wasn’t for the baby, she wasn’t going to beat herself up about it.
It looked like Maia would enjoy her mum’s boobs as much as I did. Just in a totally different way, of course.
