My Reddest Room

A post I wrote for Mothering Sunday for Facebook last year, before I had a substack.

He’s fine, they tell me.

Ten fingers, ten toes. His slight jaundice makes him less red than some newborns.

As babies go, he appears ‘normal’ - a healthy weight. He latches on greedily and guzzles at my breast as he should.

I am now a mother.

Arrived as a woman.

The label ‘mother’ doesn’t hold me like a rose scented padded clothes hanger but rather a wire one. Shiny, yet awkward and malleable.

‘Mother’ - somewhere between ‘moth’ and ‘other’. And it’s an apt description. Flitting about in the dark, looking for a guiding light in this new world of ‘other’.

The staff who were absolute bitches only hours earlier, have been replaced by sympathetic angels who bring me toast and praise my efforts to feed baby.

I go for a bath and watch streams of my own blood swirl out from between my legs as scarlet kite tails. For a few seconds, it is beautiful - each poppy trickle finding its way like a ribbony water eel. It quickly morphs into a scene from ‘The Cove’ and I worry if I stay in much longer, I’ll end up looking rusty and smelling that weird oxidised blood smell, so I hurl myself out, wad out my knickers in preparation for further carnage, and join the ward.

There are knowing looks shared between us new mothers. We have all just been through something different yet the same.

Some want to rake over it, tell you how many stitches they had, how long it took. Others focus on baby.

“Have you picked a name yet?”,

“How much did he weigh?”

Some lie in silence, still in shock, wonder, overwhelm.

Maybe they will block out the pain they endured - how they growled low, calling to the bowels of the earth to devour them as they thought they may die. The way they lay; legs splayed. Our most intimate parts opened not as velvet petals this time; but functioning 24 hr petrol stations - harshly lit with every bugger popping in to grab something. Our most vulnerable yet strongest selves.

I want to love my fanny for doing all that work, pushing out a human. I want to be the earth mother who rejoices in her power, yet I just feel bruised, rather sorry for myself and bloody exhausted.

I know then in that room that I won’t be one of those women who ‘forgets’. I vow to never do this again. Some of us voice this thought.

“That’s what women always say.”

says a midwife.

Yes, I suppose it is.

“Aren’t women dicks?” I think.

I observe the faces of the women as their visitors descend upon them, cheery party locusts bearing flowers, chocolates, cards. Pink and blue gift bags perch upon beds. Tall and squat, ribbons and bows. I consider the image of a stork, bundle dangling from beak. How society loves to sugarcoat the grisliest things.

For the babies, there are teddies, helium balloons…..

Is this indicative of what will play out?

Who is most loved? Most welcomed?

Who will have the most ‘stuff’?

Who will have nothing?

As I survey these newborns and their families, there’s something a little ‘three coins in the fountain’ about it all. Who will the fountain bless?

A woman of West Indian appearance appears to be in a volatile relationship with her fella. I can’t make out everything but I see the power stance and swagger of ‘dad’. I sense tension and hear raised voices.

A large Asian family chatter happily, rustling cheap carrier bags and fumbling about in Tupperware.

There is a young white mum opposite me who appears to be single. No-one visits her. I can tell she can’t wait to get home. She sneaks out for cigarettes. I like her.

Then there’s me.

My mum and grandma visit. My son is snoozing but it’s taken so long to get him to sleep, I’m frightened to death of them waking him up.

“Don’t touch him. Please don’t wake him up!”

I tell them, my voice, somewhere between pleading panic and ‘she means business’. From my eyes they know better than to challenge it. Much as they want to cuddle him, they hold back and instead coo over him. The shape of his ears. How bonny he is.

The visitors leave and we are alone with our babies…..and our thoughts.

The glass cots beside us, already represent our burgeoning mothering styles. There are the cots as close as can be to the bed, those furthest away. I put mine near the window as I’m certain he must be warm. I am - It’s like being in a bleeding care home. I am quickly chastised by a nurse who tells me he will get too cold and sticks a hat on him.

“Oh just piss off”

I want to say, but I don’t. I just wait til she’s gone and shove him back near the window.

Some babies on the ward cry their lungs out as their mums peruse their phones, seemingly oblivious to their needs. Other infants sleep so much they need prodding to be woken for their feeds.

Then there is my baby, who I can’t seem to please whatever I do.

My milk is flowing and it’s strange to see a part of yourself that was sealed, all your life, become unsealed. A bit ‘open sesame’, an inner vault manoeuvred. I feel in awe of my breasts and their new capabilities yet also a slave to them. Suddenly, I am an animal, a mammal. I feel I have more in common with a nursing ewe or cow than any man. I am humbled and levelled.

I feel love for my son - I DO - yet I dissect it. Is it love or duty? Where do they meet and end? This will become my obsession for the next ten years.

His eyes meet mine as hypnotic rock pools. I know him, yet I don’t know him. There are few creases on his perfect, squirming body. His head is my favourite part. It is heavy, floppy. It scares yet intrigues me with its weird fontanelle. I suppress a strange urge to stab it with my finger to see if it will break him open like an egg. He has brown hair that glints red. I rub at the clumps of dried blood in his hair, my blood. It crumbles in my finger tips.

Already, he is losing me.

I take him to my nose and inhale him like a bloom. He smells of pepper, carrots, tree bark and wool. Other worldly.

And I suppose he is. He came from my reddest room. How could he not be amazing?

I hold him close then cry.

I turn to his dad.

“What?”

he says.

“I’m just thinking about how this is the closest we’ll ever be. Me and him. How, from now on, we will grow apart because that is the aim of parenting isn’t it? To foster independence. It’s normal. So I’m savouring this moment now. The closest I’ll ever feel to him, and him to me.”