Five Days

So I’ve finally gotten around to posting again!  Here is the first TMA I did for A215, it stemmed from a freewrite on a prompt of “breathing hard”.

 

Five Days

 

Five days I’ve been here now and the only thing worse than the pain and lack of sleep is the isolation.  All the other mums have a constant stream of visitors who bring news from the outside world.  As I lie propped up by pillows in this hospital bed I don’t think I’ll ever see outside again, I feel like I’ve been reborn alongside my son to stay forever in the sterile, humid wards of this alien hospital.

It is gone midday and I catch the scent of gravy and overcooked vegetables on top of the disinfectant smell of hospital.  As I move my gaze to the doorway one of the younger nurses arrives with my medication and silently places the small plastic cup on the bedside table.  Perhaps she has decided, as I have, that words are a waste of her breath when the recipient cannot understand a word you are saying.

I followed my cousin Erica to Berlin seven months ago.  She came to work and I came in order to put half of Europe between my mother and me when I told her that I was pregnant and that the baby’s father was a one night stand.  That phone call has never happened and now a whole new person has come into the world and only one member of my family knows about him.

In the clear plastic crib next to me Alexander stirs and I begin the laborious process of manoeuvring off the bed.  Slowly I roll onto my side.  I thought that nothing could be more debilitating than the ninth month of pregnancy but right now I feel more like a geriatric elephant than a woman of twenty six years.  I try to ignore the feeling that my insides are being torn out and cautiously begin to move to a sitting position from which I can lower my legs to floor.  Slowly, slowly my feet touch the cold smooth tiles and I gradually uncurl to an upright position.  From there it is just two steps to my now screaming child.  Two steps aren’t very far.  I even managed to get all the way to the toilet by myself last night.

“Bist du in ordnung?”  (“Are you alright?”) A portly nurse comes bustling through the door.

In my experience it is always easiest to nod when you are not sure and I do this now.  She comes over anyway chattering incomprehensibly, gathering up a nappy and baby wipes from under the cot as she speaks.  She is like lightening with the nappy.  I tell myself she has had a lot of practice and try to suppress my frustration and rising annoyance at the intrusion.

She is now miming a drinking motion and pointing at her ample chest so I nod again.  The nurse disappears only to return almost immediately with a feeding bottle.  She points to the chair by the bed and I lower myself gingerly until I can grip the armrests and take the weight of my body through my arms.  She bends down so I can take the baby and he drinks greedily.  The nurse nods “Sie können nach hause gehen, wenn sie heute wie” (“You can go home now if you like.”)

I hear the German word for home and hope I have guessed correctly.  I nod and with words I have practised say “Ja hause bitte.  Danke” (“Yes home please.  Thank you.”)

 

A few hours later and Alex and I are ready to leave.  Sat in the chair I turn my mobile phone over in my hand.  Now is as good a time as any.  If it goes badly I can make the excuse that Erica had arrived and hang up.

The telephone rings three times before she picks it up.  I wish I still smoked; I could really use a cigarette right now.

“Hello?  Is it Catherine?”

The words float across the continent from somewhere and someone as familiar to me as breathing.

“Yes, mum it’s me,”  I forced out.  This was hard.  I took a breath and let it spill out “I should’ve told you months ago.  I’ve had a baby; it was horrible.  I had an operation.  I really wish you’d been here!”

“My God!”  she breathed, “you’re not joking are you?  What made you keep this from me?  Take your time and tell me everything.  Your always welcome here with me, you know that.  I’ll always be here”.

I look at my son, so peaceful in his nest of blankets, and know the truth in her words.