I remember: a mother's eye view

I remember trying to plan to have our second child exactly 2 years after our first child was born but things not happening like that. Child number two very sensibly decided he wanted a different birthday month from his big sister's. (What was I thinking anyway?!)

I remember the awkward, disapproving expression on the face of the doctor as I announced I would like a home birth and realising I would not be getting my wish - not from this doctor - and not this time, at least...

I remember the way my belly stretched and stretched and stretched, and how the skin itched as it struggled to stretch as fast as the bump.

I remember the scan measurements telling me this was going to be a bigger child than our first and me thinking, "I could have told you that."

I remember being a godless woman looking like a thief through the Bible for baby name ideas and liking the name Joel.

I remember waiting and waiting for child number 2 to be born on its grandmother's birthday - and also Mothers' Day - on March 7th 1997. An unusually hot day for March.

I remember how the next 8 days seemed to pass so slowly as the baby took its time. This child had no intention of sharing a birthday with its grandmother.

I remember how the obstetrician told me if nothing happened in the next few days the labour would have to be induced. I remember thinking I didn't want that to happen and feeling a bit unhappy and a bit controlled. It made sense to me that my big baby was taking his time. Maybe he wasn't even overdue at all...?

I remember getting up at 3am on 15th March 1997, and checking my bag and taking a shower and being quiet and methodical while I prepared myself and timed the contractions, then phoning the hospital and waking my husband and calling out my parents-in-law.

I remember having to leave our 2-year-old and thinking how much easier it would be if I'd been allowed a home birth.

I remember the labour slowing down amid the noises and bright lights and clinical surroundings of the hospital. Strangers poked me and monitored us both, and the pains hurt me more as I lay on my back on the bed.

I remember the midwife was a man and I remember me being interested and impressed that he was a man and pleased that it didn't bother me. I remember him saying that he thought the baby was a boy. I remember saying that we thought so too.

I remember crying that the baby was too big and I would never ever get him out. I remember the laughs.

I remember the triplet pain of an enormous head followed by enormous shoulders and enormous hips of the 10lb 9oz baby boy. I remember that chat between the hospital staff about big babies and some who had never seen a baby so big.

I remember his wrinkled purple ugly face and short dark hair. I remember laughing and saying he looked like a marine and thinking he was beautiful.

I remember leaving him in the arms of his proud father and floating down the corridor to have another shower. So newly light that I felt I was walking on the moon. I remember feeling elated.

I remember how we went home the same day and family wanted to see the new boy - the first grandson of the family. I remember feeling tired and crowded and strangely alone.

I remember how he cried for a feed and fed until he was sick and cried again and fed again. I remember hearing his belly gurgle and squelch and trying to massage away the pain of colic every day and every night for weeks and weeks and weeks.

I remember how we took it in turns to rock him for hours every night in a cheap polystyrene carseat because he couldn't lie flat and couldn't be comforted. Swinging the big, heavy baby up and down, forwards and backwards to ease his pain. Night after night after night after night, our arms aching, our backs aching. Our tempers fraying so much so that we took it out on each other with bitter words and not on the poor screaming child.

I remember my parents' friends: Solange and Jean-Francois from France visiting with a present of a blue, fluffy cockerel and Solange announcing in her beautiful Normandy way that they had brought "A cock for the first cock in the family!" I remember her face as we laughed and explained the other use of the word cock in English.

I remember the baby who finally stopped screaming and how he quietly watched his sister playing and how he suddenly seemed so calm and gentle and undemanding after those first angry months.

I remember how the young baby boy was fascinated by wheels turning and didn't seem as interested in chatting as his sister had been and how he taught me that perhaps girls and boys were born different after all.

I remember his obsession with Thomas The Tank Engine - known as Duh Duh - and also Robot Wars and Scrapheap Challenge.

I remember being quietly relieved that he wasn't interested in football and being delighted that he always wanted to know how things worked.

I remember the stories told and the books shared as he sat on my lap.

I remember sitting on the floor by his bed, sitting by the doorway of his bedroom, sitting on the landing, sitting on the stairs because he wouldn't go to sleep.


I have a son with about 12 years of memories of his life. He has a mother with over 16.

Happy Birthday to Joel.
Joel who is good, gentle, kind, quiet, deep, intelligent, funny, sarcastic, thoughtful, thoughtless, messy, spends TOO LONG ON THE TOILET.
Joel who is tall and getting taller, who is eating us out of house and home, who makes me hoot with laughter, who doesn't give a flying fig about appearances or clothes or daft things.

I don't know where he's going or what he's doing - that's up to him. But I have good memories and a heart bursting with pride. And there is nothing more a mother needs.