Mama Mia Read online

  Some images, particularly in fashion photographs, are altered to the point where the models are almost unrecognisable as human beings, so plastic looking and flawless are the skin, the hair, the teeth and the eyes. Some photographers and art directors will alter body shapes entirely, chopping into arms and legs, lengthening torsos, removing curves and bulges and waists.

  Hypocritically perhaps, I had a line in the sand about altering images. A line that shifted. For some reason, I always saw a clear distinction between the cover image and the images inside the magazine. Inside, I always urged my staff to leave stretch marks, cellulite and other ‘blemishes’ in place. On the cover though, I had no problem with changing the colour of clothes or digitally thickening or lengthening someone’s hair. Sometimes I did change bodies but only to make them bigger. Oh, and to attach them to different heads…

  BIRTH DAY

  Voicemail to me from Mum:

  ‘Oh darling! I got your message! How exciting! I’m going to come over and make you tea! See you soon!’

  The pains wake me up at 2.40 am but that’s not unusual. This has been happening for the past few nights. It can’t possibly be labour because it’s not too painful, really. Other nights, I’ve just fallen back to sleep but this time I’m struggling a little. Could it be…nah.

  I hoist myself, awkwardly out of bed, wrap a cardigan over my pyjamas, stuff my feet into ugg boots and take my book downstairs to sit on the couch and read.

  For the next hour, I turn the pages distractedly. I’m aware that the pains are fairly regular, although I don’t time them. Every five or ten minutes I’d guess. They’re not getting stronger but they’re not stopping either.

  It’s 4 am and I’m feeling tired now so I shuffle upstairs and climb back into bed. Ouch. Each time a pain starts, I open my eyes and look at the clock on my bedside table. They seem to be coming at seven-minute intervals. I try to will Jason awake but he’s not budging, so at 4.58 am. I shake his shoulder.

  ‘Babe, I’m not sure but I think something might be happening…’

  Suddenly, he’s awake. ‘Right. Wow. Okay. Contractions?’

  ‘Yep, I think so.’

  ‘How often?’

  ‘About every seven minutes…here comes one now.’ I wince.

  ‘Okay, I’ll call the hospital.’

  Nine hours later and I’m still at home. The midwife Jason spoke to explained that because this was my first baby, labour would probably take a long time and I might be more comfortable at home. So that’s where we’ve been. Me in the nursing chair watching ‘Video Hits’, Jason manically cleaning the house, and my mum making tea for everyone while Jason’s mum makes us toast.

  I still don’t feel like it’s the real deal yet. I’m not able to focus on anything past the next contraction. I’ve been up for almost twelve hours with contractions almost every five minutes. Fatigue is settling over me like a blanket.

  Everyone has left us now and I settle into our bathtub, which is underneath a skylight. Looking up, I notice it has become strangely dark, and soon lightning begins to flash.

  A giant, naked pregnant person in a bath under a skylight during an electrical storm. And oh my Lord, the pain is bloody awful. I have a sudden and very strong sense that it’s time to get to the hospital.

  Jason helps me out of the bath and into my clothes. Despite my sense of urgency, I insist on blow-drying my hair because…why wouldn’t I? I don’t want it to go all wavy and frizzy. That would be unattractive. Vanity is a hard habit to shake, it seems. Even while in labour.

  The drive to the hospital is interesting and not in a good way. Like many couples, Jason and I have very different ideas when it comes to choosing the best route between point A and point B.

  Personally, I don’t really care how many traffic lights there might be, I like straight lines and staying on one road for as long as possible. Keep it simple is my navigational mantra. I want to be able to tune out of the fact I’m driving and cruise along on autopilot. But Jason? He likes to keep moving. He must determine the fastest possible route between A and B.

  To achieve this, he’ll always go the tricky back way, the polar opposite of me and my preference for main roads. So naturally, the route Jason chooses for our early-afternoon trip to the hospital is along the road with the most speed bumps in Australia. Over we go! Another bump! In addition to being bumpy, this punishing road is windy because clearly I’m not suffering enough.

  If you have ever been in labour, witnessed someone in labour or even just know what labour means, you’ll understand that a contraction and a speed bump are not well matched. The only thing more painful than having a contraction is sawing your own arm off. Or having a contraction while going over a speed bump.

  To make matters worse—Yes! Possible!—Jason decides it’s a good time to call the hospital while we’re driving along Speed Bump Boulevard to inform them of our approach.

  It all goes down something like this:

  Jason: ‘Um, hello. I called earlier about my partner who’s in labour.’

  [bump]

  Me: ‘FUCK. FUCK FUCK FUCK.’

  Jason: ‘What? Yes, her name is Mia. Freedman. F-R-E—’

  [bump]

  Me: ‘IDIOT. FUCK. I HATE YOU, JASON! FUCK. FUCK. OW! FUCK! HATE YOU!!!! OH FUCK.’

  Jason: ’…Hang on, sorry, yes, that’s it. Um, yes, we’re about ten—’

  [bump]

  Me: [trying to punch him while grabbing phone] ‘HANG UP, FUCK, SHIT, HOW COULD YOU TAKE THIS—’

  [bump]

  Me:…‘FUCKING BLOODY STUPID ROAD! FUCKING FUCK!’

  When the speed bumps, phone call and my need to swear are over, I lapse into silence.

  I’ve discovered, as the day has progressed, that I am not a noisy labour person. None of those moans and groans and panting and shrieking like the labours I’ve watched in movies and birthing documentaries. For me, anything that involves my stomach muscles, like making noise, makes the pain worse. Speed Bump Boulevard is an exception—it seems fury trumps pain, and I regain my ability to shout—but now that particular nightmare is over, I retreat back into silence. This is Christmas come early for Jason, no doubt.

  When we arrive at the hospital, we’re shown to an exam room straight away and a midwife comes to see how dilated I am.

  ‘Three and a half centimetres,’ she announces.

  I’m not quite sure how to react to this news. ‘Can I have an enema?’ I reply in the same tone I’d use to request soy milk in my latte.

  ‘Why would you want that, pet?’ she says, a little taken aback.

  ‘Um, so…you know…I don’t…you know, um, poo on the baby?’

  I cannot quite believe I am petitioning for an enema. The midwife looks at me and reflects for a moment. ‘Well, I suppose I can give you a suppository if you really want one,’ she relents.

  ‘Great! Yes please!’ You’d think she’d offered to double my baby bonus, I am that grateful. I have officially crossed over to a parallel universe. One where you beg complete strangers to put things in your bottom.

  Five minutes later, when the suppository does its work, I experience the unique sensation of my uterus contracting at the same time as cramps rip through my lower intestine. A double treat.

  Did I really request this? Yes I did.

  Mercifully it works quickly and the midwife is waiting for me when I go back into the examination room. Jason has gone back downstairs to remove our car from the ambulance bay and park it somewhere more legal and less selfish. I am not unhappy that he missed the enema conversation and its aftermath.

  ‘Hop back up on the table,’ the midwife says kindly, helping me. ‘Dr Bob wants me to break your waters and get things moving along.’

  Sounds good to me. Break away.

  As I wonder about how the breaking part might happen, the midwife produces a nasty-looking implement that at first glance appears to be a stick with a metal hook on the end. At second and third glance, it’s still that.

>   She waits until I’m between contractions and then the stick-hook and I become intimate. I hear a small pop and suddenly feel a release of pressure as water gushes out of me.

  ‘That’s it?’

  Apparently so. Kind of anti-climactic really, especially when you’re lying down. Nothing like the movies.

  Next the midwife asks if I’d like to have a shower to ease the contractions.

  I consider this for a millisecond. ‘Do you have any shower caps?’ I ask.

  ‘Sorry, love,’ she replies, again clearly puzzled by my question. Probably because no one’s ever asked her that before due to the fact most women in labour are not vain twits worried about frizzy hair.

  ‘I’ll pass on the shower then, thanks,’ I manage to get out before another contraction pummels me. It’s now close to 4 pm and I’ve been in labour for years. I’m undulating between adrenaline and exhaustion but my hair’s still straight. That’s a win.

  Jason comes back from parking the car and we’re shown to a delivery room. The first thing I see is a bassinet on wheels in the corner of the room, and wham. It hits me. The realisation that we’re not leaving here until there’s a baby in there.

  In my head, this was the part where we’d carefully unpack our labour bag. While I was pregnant, someone had given me a photocopied list called ‘Things You Need’. Some of the things it dictated for the labour bag were honey (for a quick energy burst during labour), music (Sade, anyone? Enya?), Rescue Remedy, massage oil (for partners to massage into sore backs) and lip balm (for dry lips due to panting).

  But just like millions of women before me, agonising pain derails my plans and suddenly I don’t care if there are live chickens in that bag. The bag can get stuffed. And so can that Collette Dinnigan dress I packed to wear during labour.

  Yes, I know this sounds ridiculous and it was only a smidge less ridiculous than it sounds. The dress was more like a slip, it was loose and comfortable and it wasn’t sequinned or beaded or anything like that. But I was appalled by the thought of ugly hospital gowns and wanted something a bit nicer to wear during the most important moment of my life. And, you know, for the photos immediately afterwards.

  It seems I was still having some trouble distinguishing between going to a nice restaurant and giving birth. But I’m not so deluded as to confuse the labour ward with a black-tie function. That is reserved for my obstetrician, Dr Bob, who I learn is at a formal banquet at Government House.

  I am unexpectedly calm about this. It’s a bit like a movie. Pain is beginning to carry me away from reality.

  A few contractions later and a new midwife comes to check on me. She, too, suggests a shower. Clearly, there is a conspiracy against my hair. The difference is that I’m now that much further along in my labour and suddenly I’m all, ‘Hell, why not? Fuck my hair.’ Pain has finally wrestled my vanity to the mat. Jason helps me down the corridor to the shower room and I’m soon standing naked under the water.

  Drugs have always been the plan and I’ve been clear about this all along. I see no shame in it, no failure. I’ve never bought into the idea of ‘she who suffers the most wins’. Not in any aspect of my life.

  But now, when the midwife asks me about an epidural, I demur. I feel almost a bit embarrassed. Like I’m wimping out.

  Before I can think too much about this, my concentration is vacuumed up by another contraction. I’m vaguely aware that I’m hanging from the showerhead, but really, it is my mind hovering somewhere near the ceiling.

  At one point, I become dimly aware that Jason goes somewhere—where does he go? And then he returns with a midwife.

  ‘Now, Mia, do you want an epidural, love?’

  ‘Ummmmmmm, owwwwww…’ I can barely talk.

  ‘The thing is, if you say yes now, the anaesthetist is still twenty minutes away.’

  I’m finding it hard to convert her words to meaning.

  ‘Uhhhh…’

  ‘There’s no need to be a hero.’

  ‘Yes!’ I blurt.

  ‘All right, pet. I’ll let the anaesthetist know. Here are some towels. Come back into the room in fifteen minutes.’

  Time is a slippery thing and I’m struggling to have any sense of it. The pain is blowing my mind. A hundred years later, Jason wraps me in a towel and helps me back to the room, my hair plastered to my head and my care factor out the window.

  The anaesthetist arrives and I’m rolled onto my side like a sick whale. He starts asking me questions and I can’t speak. I think they’re talking about my medical history but I’m lost in pain. ‘Jason!’ I manage to hiss. ‘Bloody answer!’ This is really fucking hideous. I wasn’t prepared. Worse than I expected.

  A sharp pain in my back distracts me. ‘Oh,’ I think absently. ‘That’s a different sort of pain from a contraction. How novel.’ The momentary variation in pain sensation from the grinding agony of contractions to the sharp pushing of the needle into my back is almost a relief.

  ‘In one or two more contractions the pain should be gone,’ says the anaesthetist and I want to marry him and have his babies straight after I’ve had this one. The next contraction is not nearly as bad, and within a few minutes we’re all watching the contractions on a monitor but I can’t feel them. It’s a miracle.

  The next hour or two is low-key and I’m in a tiptop mood. ‘It could still be a while yet,’ cautions the midwife.

  And then, at my next check, it’s all systems go. Suddenly, in walks Dr Bob, wearing white tie and tails, looking like something out of a Cary Grant movie.

  People appear from everywhere, including my mum, who is taking photos. And something about a student and is it okay if she watches. Frankly, a class of work-experience boys could walk in right now and I would not care. Whatever.

  I’m awkwardly propped into a more upright position with blue hospital scrubs placed over my legs and underneath me. The scrubs make me scared. At this point, it’s looking fairly certain I’m not going to be sent home with a diagnosis of false labour.

  Dr Bob is back, in a surgical gown and it’s time to push. In just a few minutes, the head is out. And with one more push, my slippery baby is pulled out of my body and placed on my tummy. ‘It’s a boy!’ declares Dr Bob. I slide my son onto my chest in disbelief, looking at his scrunched-up little face and waiting to feel an avalanche of motherly love. He’s warm and covered in blood and vernix and he is bald. The moment is so intense and overwhelming it drowns out everything and, strangely, I feel almost nothing. Quickly, he’s taken from me by the midwives.

  This is okay. I’m pretty out of it. Pretty numb emotionally and from the waist down. He’s having a little trouble breathing and the paediatrician is called in to check him. I’m oddly unconcerned. Jason is with him.

  Many weeks afterwards, I look back at the photos Mum took in those moments after the birth. There is Luca, being weighed and measured. You can see me in the background, not even looking in Luca’s direction but peering intently into a metal dish containing my placenta with a midwife pointing to various parts of it and explaining how it worked.

  It’s the most incredible moment of my life, so incredible that I’m almost floating above it like I was during labour. I expect to cry or feel a crushing rush of love but neither happens. Not straight away. The tears and the rush will come shortly. Right now, I need something to eat.

  AND THEN WE WERE THREE

  Voicemail to everyone from Jason:

  ‘Hey guys, I just wanted to let you know that Mia’s had a little boy, Luca. We can’t wait for you to meet him.‘

  Toast. I wanted toast. My baby was wrapped up like a babushka with only a few square centimetres of face visible under the swaddling.

  His breathing was fine now and his little face seemed serene, unbothered by all the fuss going on around him.

  Our parents were in the delivery room now that I’d had a couple of stitches and had my epidural removed. The post-birth endorphins had begun flowing and I was elated.

  Luca was being passed
around admiringly, the first grandchild on both sides of the family. Flashbulbs were going as I munched merrily on chewy white hospital toast with jam and sipped a cup of tea. It was possibly the best meal I’d ever tasted.

  Adrenaline had been replaced by hunger. I hadn’t eaten since the Japanese takeaway we’d dined on more than twenty-four hours ago, and having taken a backseat to my uterus for so long, my stomach was now loudly protesting against the injustice.

  It was 11 pm and Luca was one and a half hours old. The proud grandparents reluctantly put down their plastic cups of champagne and left to go home and then it was just the three of us in the delivery room. Our family.

  Despite my endorphins, I felt surprisingly clingy and needy after Jason finally left for the night, once I’d been safely ensconced with Luca in my hospital room. I’d feel like this for days, presumably programmed to want my baby’s father around to provide for us and protect us from predators.

  I kept looking at our baby sleeping next to my bed and replaying over and over in my head how he’d got here. Every so often I’d reach out and stroke his head. Did I love him yet? It was hard to determine what I felt, although I was definitely happy. I certainly felt protective of him and very interested in him, and very responsible for his welfare.

  I didn’t dare reach into his bassinet to pick him up. Was I even allowed? It still hadn’t registered that he was my baby and I could do whatever I wanted. Hell, I could even bring him into bed with me! But that would be the beginning of the end, wouldn’t it? I’d heard it was important to get them used to sleeping in their own bed and I was terrified to fuck everything up mere hours after he was born. Was that even possible? I’m sure it was.