she pulled away from him and doubled over placing her hands on her knees. ‘Though these ones haven’t gone away,’ she said, one hand straight away steadying herself in the doorway.
‘Breathe.’ Dom rubbed her back. ‘Slowly.’
And that’s what she was doing, breathing away the uncomfortable ‘teasers’, feeling Dom’s hand massaging her back gently, when she felt a small pop and watched water trickle down her legs onto her socks.
‘Shit!’ Dom reared upwards. ‘Is that …?’
Erin straightened. ‘Get the bag, love.’
‘Right,’ he was staring at her.
‘Dom, the bag?’ She closed the back door, turning the key in the lock, moving the handle up and down to make sure.
‘You alright?’
She nodded. ‘The—’
‘I know, the bag.’ Dom patted his pockets as if the ordered holdall she’d packed six weeks ago could be found in one, and Erin reached for his hand.
‘I’m okay,’ she said, and in that same moment recognised all her own worries in his darting eyes. Of course. Of course, he was frightened too. ‘I’m okay.’ She squeezed his hand.
He nodded before moving at speed to their bedroom.
‘Get me some clean knickers and leggings,’ she called after him.
‘Right.’
She heard him in the next room pulling out drawers, muttering to himself, and she began to peel her lower clothes from her body. With the leggings she’d been wearing, she wiped the tiny puddle of water from the floor, ignoring the thought that she’d expected a torrent, a waterfall, and that if that was all the amniotic fluid in her, it could only mean the rest was all baby. ‘Shit,’ she whispered to no one but herself.
She was stood at the sink, filling the plastic basin with hot water and swishing her soiled clothes with her hands when Dom was suddenly by her side.
‘Okay, let’s get going,’ he laid a gentle arm around her shoulder.
Erin gripped the sink, a wave of pain and nausea overcoming her. ‘Knick-ers,’ she panted.
‘Yes, sorry, I put them in the bag.’ Dom unzipped the bag and bent down, sliding the knickers up over Erin’s legs. She winced as she felt pinching lace and realised he’d obviously picked a pair from the pre-pregnancy drawer she hoped to return to someday.
‘A thong?’ she asked as she felt the useless triangle of material sit somewhere on her lower bump and a thin elastic line wedge between her bum cheeks.
‘God! Sorry.’ He was already pulling her foot through one leg of a pair of black leggings and began to peel it from her again.
Erin tried to smile. ‘Leave it – it’s fine,’ she said gripping hold of his shoulder just as another contraction threatened. ‘It’ll give the nurses a laugh. Now, hospital,’ she said as she pulled the leggings up as far as they would go. ‘And step on it.’
‘Nooooooooo!’ Erin cried out as Susan, a heavy-set midwife from the west of Ireland, whom they had met nine hours earlier, now mentioned the word ‘doctor’. She had read the books, heard other women’s stories. A doctor meant a caesarean. She could do this. Her eyes fixed on Dom’s – deep brown – set beneath a sweaty, worried brow and above a surgical mask. ‘Tell them I can do it.’ She gripped his hand. ‘Ple-ea-se …’
Dom stood, not letting go of her. ‘She says she can do it,’ he announced to the room in some weird ‘I’m in charge’ voice that she had never heard before but loved him for.
‘Okay, Erin,’ Susan looked up at her from between her legs. ‘We’ll give it one more go. Breathe now … then wait for this next one before pushing,’ she said, glancing at the screen to her side. Erin had just a few moments to catch her breath before she could feel it rolling inside her; another pain that would gather speed like a determined tide. She tried to control it, watched the monitor strap across her middle stretch and breathed into it just before a torturous tightening racked her body. Without waiting to be told, Erin pushed to the point that she felt as if her head might explode. This was nothing like any book had told her; nothing like the classes she and Dom had practised simple breathing exercises in. And as she screamed into the final thrust that would give birth to her child, she felt sure her body would snap in two.
‘Push, love, push,’ Dom urged, and she wanted to thump him. She wanted to yell at him; ask him how exactly he’d shit a melon, but she needed any energy she had and the only sound that left her mouth was a long wail – a piercing cry that lasted the length of time it took for her baby to emerge. And when she finally breathed again, it was to the sound of Dom sobbing. ‘You did it, sweetheart. Jesus, you did it.’
Erin waited for a baby’s cry. She tried to raise herself up on her elbows. ‘Where …’
And then she heard it, a tiny mewling yelp, again, nothing like she’d been led to believe it would sound.
‘You have a little girl,’ Susan smiled at her as she wiped the struggling baby before placing her on Erin’s chest. Erin stared, mute, at the frowning bloodied infant, all wrinkles and wriggling limbs. She pulled her into her arms, checked for fingers and toes. Dom’s face grazed against hers and together they watched as their newborn opened her eyes. The books were wrong again. Because Erin felt that their daughter could really see already – had spotted them, focused on them both as if to say, ‘Hello, Mummy and Daddy. I’m here. Are you the people who’ve been talking to me for so long?’
She clutched her baby, ignored the commotion south of her waist; paid no attention to words like ‘afterbirth’ and ‘stitches’.
‘You were so brave,’ Dom whispered. ‘Isn’t she beautiful?’
Erin wasn’t sure. She wasn’t sure if their child was yet beautiful but was quite sure that one day she would be. She wasn’t sure if she’d been brave or obstinate and wondered if there would be enough dissolvable thread in the ward, in the world, to stitch both halves of her back together again.
She was sure of the clear vision she had of Dom as Daddy with his little girl riding her bike without stabilisers for the first time. She was sure of his voice acting out the characters during many bedtime stories. She was sure of the surge of love she felt for this tiny human being who had claimed her body for so long. It was more powerful than any pain she’d endured, more powerful than any pregnancy magazines had reported. ‘Hello, little one,’ she said. ‘Welcome.’
And Erin Carter was in love for only the second time in her life.
When she woke, she woke to every part of her hurting. She woke to a stomach so bulging that she wondered if she’d dreamt the whole thing, or if the medical staff had left another baby behind. Dom was sitting in the chair next to her bed, feeding the child from a tiny bottle. Erin felt a pulling ache in her breasts. She willed herself to sit up, to say no, that she wanted to feel her baby latch onto her nipple, but the words wouldn’t form.
Dom reached across to her. ‘Sleep, my love, you’re exhausted.’ He stood, holding their baby daughter in one arm and stroking Erin’s forehead with the other hand. She felt the rhythmic swipe of his hand
