Queasy moments

VE-Day

The midwife pops a thin strip of card under H-J's tongue. Evidently, it
is a thermometer. A minute and a half later she takes it out and reads
it.

'Och, that's lovely,' she says, matter-of-factly.

Then she flips up the metal lid of the bin and throws the lolly stick
into the big yellow sack, to take its place along with all the other
foul waste and sanitary material. A disposable thermometer. Hmm. Times
have moved on since the days of having to concentrate hard on not
biting into the glass and getting a gut full of mercury.

According to the label on its lid, this bin is exclusively reserved for
foul waste and sanitary material. This could explain the unpalatable
waft that fills the room shortly after the midwife has allowed the lid
to clatter shut - although I could swear I detect the unmistakable
odour of rotting banana skins. Are banana skins foul or sanitary? Or
both? I don't know.

The midwife is large and Scottish. Her bovine face is boxed in by a
perpendicular haircut, which puts an extra ten years on her. She is
probably in her mid-twenties, but looks about my age. She is wearing
pale blue trousers, which I only remark upon as all the other midwives
are dressed in skirts. Her thighs are squashed together by homely
proportions of fat.

She looks through the birth plan, interspersing helpful comments with
ironic titters and knowing smirks, as if recognizing the genuineness of
some of the aspirations, but also their naivety.

'Unless you have an epidural, darling,' she flashes a smile of
unintended superiority at H-J, 'you'll be telling us when the head's
crowning.'

Bernadette, or 'Bern' as we will soon come to address her, the intimate
nature of labour leading to rapid feelings of familiarity towards one's
fellow protagonists, tells us there will shortly be VE, or vaginal
examination. 'They never look you in the eyes when they're feeling
about up there,' she smiles.

We learn that the VE will be followed by the administering of some gel
- to 'ripen' the cervix, Bern informs us. I visualise a fruit bowl,
basking in sunlight flooding into a farmhouse kitchen, the apples a
rosy red. They make it all sound rather romantic. Ripening the
cervix!

The reality, I know, will be that little bit different.

'It's the female equivalent of a kick to the bollocks, so I'm told.'
Bern turns to me, one rubber-coated hand now cruising my wife's birth
canal. 'And that's only the VE.'

I look away as H-J's toes straighten, and give the crotch of my orange
trousers an instinctive rub, hoping it may bring vicarious comfort.