I think we’ll know what to call you when we hold you in our arms for the first time.
I’m hoping so, or it might be Mavis after all.
Love you, Moon.
Dad
I somehow managed to pull myself together, tucking the letter away in the envelope, my heart bursting with too much for me to ever understand.
I lost the towel in the bathroom, then rubbed oil over my skin and belly, hoping to minimise the stretch marks that I was sure I might mind in years to come. I felt a movement, the baby shifting, maybe a little lower than I was used to. She was getting ready, I could tell.
“You there?”
Gully’s voice came from the doorway. I walked out of the bathroom back into the bedroom, aware that I was very, very naked and somewhat oily.
“Just finishing up.”
His eyes wandered all over me. “Can I take your photo? You look amazing.”
I nodded. “I’ve not done one for a couple of days.” I hadn’t actually touched my camera for a while. Like Gully, I was just waiting now and I didn’t want to start anything until she was here, when I’d probably break my camera with the number of photos I was going to take of her.
He messed around with my camera, proficient enough with it now to not worry me.
“Go near the window.”
I nodded, seeing what he was going for with the light. I shifted my body so I was side on, lifting the leg closest to the camera, cupping my breasts and my belly so it was somewhat modest.
Gully clicked away. I shifted a few times, a strange feeling settling in my lower back. I suspected this was the early stage of labour, but I was too hungry to mention it to Gully and I knew Amelie had lasagne on the menu.
“We should go and eat.” I crossed the room to him, taking hold of the camera so I could preview the photos. “You’re getting pretty good at this.”
“Thanks. I’m going to put it in your hospital bag.” He stared at me. “Have you been crying?”
“I read your letters.” That should be enough explanation. “We need a box for her where you can put those letters and photos and things like that. I still have the first pregnancy test I took as well. That can go in there and freak her out when she’s old enough.” I smiled at the thought.
“Let’s stop off at the community centre and see what’s in the craft shops. Might be the last time we’re out without a pram for a few months.”
He was right.
Labour started just after lunch the following day, short, spaced out contractions that I thought would have Gully’s head spinning, but instead he was calm and held it together. We phoned Carole who sounded more excited over the phone than anything else, telling me to relax, try to watch something on TV or walk around and make our way down to the hospital that evening, unless anything seemed to speed up.
I walked around the garden, watched the Menai Strait from the jetty, played cards with Gully and managed to beat him easily at crib, and I spoke to Freya and Ruby on a video call, both of whom were hugely excited and then had an argument over which one of them would get to hold her first.
It was after that call I felt panic. What if something went wrong? What if the birth went badly?
Gully made the call then that we were going to the cottage hospital, so I was bustled into the car with my bag and his laptop for some reason, and his words of reassurance that were actually helping.
He drove carefully, not breaking any speed limits, despite my waters breaking over his car seat, which was definitely a tomorrow problem. Probably a day after tomorrow or next week problem, in fact.
Carole met us as soon as we walked in, smiling as usual, looking full of excitement. “Look at the pair of you,” she said. “You look so worried. I promise you’ll be fine – women have been doing this since the dawn of time. Let’s have a check ofwhere you’re up to.” Then everything started to feel okay again and my own heart rate dropped to a more sensible level.
Labour continued throughout the night, and labour was the right word for it. It didn’t seem to end or let me have a break, my body working in weird, ancient ways that I didn’t think I’d ever understand. Carole stayed with us, checking the baby’s heart rate, my heart rate, offering reassuring words followed by the news that I was only so many centimetres dilated, which Gully and I both knew meant that this could carry on for a lot longer.
He paced some, read some, messaged his brothers and his mum, spoke to Mavis on loudspeaker who told me that I wouldn’t remember this soon and it would pass. It was just before dawn when I told Carole that I needed to push and she checked and agreed, the last few centimetres having been met without us really realising it.
I pushed and yelled and called Gully a lot of names, and I cried and cried some more for a different reason as dawn broke through the window and our daughter introduced herself to the world with a big, powerful pair of lungs and a head full of dark hair, all bloody and gooey and absolutely beautiful.
I held her in my arms, not sure if I’d ever be able to stop looking at her, utterly and completely in love and still crying, which was making the looking a bit difficult really. Gully was no better, a box of tissues already destroyed, but he hadn’t fainted which put him ahead of his brothers in the league table apparently.
