Born

ORIGINALLY POSTED ON 5th JANUARY 2007

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I've never admitted this to anyone. I didn't actually want to touch Jessica when she was born. I'm not sure I even wanted to look at her.

As far as deliveries go, I suppose mine was fairly normal. I'd asked for a caesarian, but the doctors told me there was no need for one. I remember wondering how come the fact that I wanted one didn't constitute a need for one. I argued the toss for a while, but in the end I realised there was no way I was going to win. Yes, the whole thing was painful and yes, I was terrified all the way through, but that's not what this post is about. I heard the screams of a baby, I heard a nurse saying something like, "Oh, she's lovely," I remember seeing smiles on the faces of the other people in the room. And then this other nurse walked up towards me holding this... this... well, it just looked like a bloodied mess, and she had this massive grin on her face and she said, "Look," and she started bringing this mess towards me.

Isn't it funny (and awful?) how our minds work, because right at that very split second, my memories took me back to a time several years ago - I guess I must've been around 20 or 21 - when I was sitting in my mum's lounge having a conversation with her. We were talking about children: giving birth to them, raising them, all that kind of thing. And I remember going on at some length about the fact that if ever I gave birth to a child, I couldn't possibly hold it in my arms until it had been washed and cleaned and - I still remember these next words - "looked more like a baby." My mum's first reaction was to laugh. "Oh come on. You can't mean that. You just wait until it happens. You'll see that tiny little life, you'll see the tiny face and the tiny feet, and you'll realise that he or she is all yours and there's nothing anyone would be able to do to stop you putting your arms around your baby. Trust me." And I suppose after that the conversation turned more into a contest rather than a serious discussion about child-rearing. Although I didn't want to to admit it to myself at the time, I think all I wanted to do was assert my own position as strongly as possible.

"Yes, well, maybe," I said, "but everyone's different, aren't they? Just the thought of holding something all bloody and horrible and... well, it just makes me feel a bit sick."

She laughed again, which made me even angrier of course. "Yes, but you'll feel completely different about it when it actually happens. You wait and see."

"And anyway," I continued, "I'll probably be under anaesthetic, because I'm going to have a caesarian. So the baby will be all cleaned up by the time I come round anyway."

Lying there on the hospital bed, in the delivery room, I remembered all those words and despite the fact that I was more exhausted than I think I'd ever been in my whole life, despite the fact that I just wanted these smiling people to stop standing around me and to just go away, I realised that during that conversation with my mum, I was more right about myself than I'd realised. I absolutely didn't want to touch my baby. I didn't want to look at it. I think I even felt a voice inside me telling me that this wasn't my baby. My baby wouldn't look like this. My baby wouldn't sound like this. I felt a shooting pain between my legs and I had to close my eyes tight for a moment.

When I opened them, the nurse was still standing there. "Isn't she lovely," she whispered.

I could hear words forming in my head: "No, no, she isn't at all. And please, can you just take her away from me right now."

But of course that's not what I said at all. I'm sure I smiled and nodded and tried to open my mouth to speak, but realised my throat was too dry for any sounds to emerge.

The nurse took a step closer towards me and held the baby out to me, inviting me to make a space for her next to me. That was when I knew I had to do something. There was no way I was going to allow myself to get right next to the baby, not yet, not so soon.

So there and then - amidst all my pain and exhaustion - I found the energy to do some basic play-acting. I nodded my head and I smiled again, but then I gently rolled my eyes to the top of my head and lowered my eyelids, allowing my head to droop to the side slightly.

I heard the nurse say, "Poor thing, she's knackered." And then she walked away, taking the child with her.

I've thought about that moment so many times. I've never told anyone about it. Maybe it's one of those things that many women feel. Maybe if I spoke about it, I'd discover other similar stories. But of course, I'm not going to come out and talk about it amongst friends... especially not now. It's just another thing that makes me think that perhaps something really has been wrong with me all along.