Sam watched Ted hold their baby daughter cradled close to him and she could hear him crooning, almost purring at India.
‘What do you think of India as a name?’ he’d said that first night in the hospital when they both sat there blinking, astonished, watching the baby sleep for what felt like a few blessed minutes. Sleeping did not appear to be something that babies did.
In fact now, after a night and a morning in the hospital listening to the roars and the screams of what felt like every child in Ireland, Sam decided that sleeping like a baby was a concept that had been badly misnamed: babies did not appear to sleep at all.
They dozed, then woke at the slightest noise to shriek at the top of their tiny lungs. And wow, the noise that came from those lungs.
‘We’d always planned to visit India,’ went on Ted. ‘It’s such a beautiful name . . .’
‘India, I like it,’ said Sam truthfully, although she knew her mind was still hazy: giving birth to India – yes, India – she’d been so fearful that something was going wrong. She still hadn’t recovered from that fear. And as for the pain. Wow.
In no way could childbirth be compared to breaking eleven bones in the body. A mere eleven? More like twenty-two, she decided. Yet perhaps such a miracle needed pain because it was a miracle: she had produced this living being from her body. The enormity of it was staggering.
‘Yes, India, it’s the perfect name,’ Sam had said, ‘because it’s totally unknowable. The great mystery of the glorious, beautiful subcontinent we are not going to be able to visit for quite a while now,’ and Ted had laughed with her as they stared down at their tiny baby daughter. Unknowable summed up the whole baby experience pretty well.
She loved looking down into the small bassinet attached to her bed and staring at the tiny baby, their baby. India seemed so fragile, as if her skin was only a filament thin and anything could break her. When she’d been lying down earlier and a nurse had put India on her chest to try to get her to breastfeed, the nurse had been called away suddenly and in that precious moment Sam had gloried in the sense of her tiny baby lying on her, this tiny form on her breastbone, skin to skin, heartbeats melding. Despite the crazy noise all around her, Sam felt calmer than she had since India had been born.
This she could do: this lying with India on top of her, like mothers since time immemorial. It felt peaceful and natural.
She loved the feeling of her darling daughter; loved the glorious softness of that baby skin, the scent of a tiny baby, the beauty of those big eyes.
‘You know everything, don’t you, darling?’ she crooned as India looked up at her wisely.
Sam wanted time to stand still so that this moment of perfection could be hers forever.
Then, the nurse had returned for the breastfeeding session. There was a lactation expert, Zendaya, but she was sick, the nurse said, looking tired and harried.
Instantly, Sam’s anxiety racketed up. From thinking she knew how to be a mother, she descended into thinking she had no idea whatsoever. What had happened to her? It was like she’d morphed from a woman utterly at peace into a bundle of nerves in an instant.
The nurse manoeuvred one then the other nipple into India’s deeply uninterested little mouth.
India made little mewling noises like a kitten but refused to drink.
‘Oh India, it’s all my fault,’ murmured Sam, feeling tearful.
‘Zendaya would kill me if she knew,’ said the nurse, ‘but let’s make up a bottle until we have more time. We’re so short-staffed today. You should express some milk if you can for her next feed. She’ll get it next time.’
Sam nodded. She’d failed at the first hurdle.
As India gulped the milk from the bottle, Sam swallowed back feelings of hopelessness. She knew nothing. All the nurses and the other women on their second and third babies knew it all. But not her.
The nurses whizzed in and out of the ward, whisking back the curtains on her cubicle, checking her and the baby, handling India with ease.
Apart from that time when India had lain on her, Sam still wasn’t sure how to hold her daughter. Her arms ached from desperately trying to protect India’s fragile head. Why had nobody told her babies’ heads looked so fragile? She could recall how the bones had not fused totally in the baby’s skull, which meant she could be hurt so easily.
How had nature let such a thing happen? How could so many animal babies be born and be able to run immediately, while baby humans were so delicate that their tiny skulls were a risk to themselves?
She said this to Ted.
‘It’s because humans have such big brains,’ he said. ‘Human babies wouldn’t be able to pass through the pelvic canal if their skulls were fused.’
Sam stared at him.
‘You knew that?’ she said, looking at India in anxiety. ‘I didn’t. When does it fix? It must be so dangerous . . .’
She felt overpowered with anxiety until one of the nurses calmed her down and told her it was normal.
‘Babies are hardy little things, you know,’ she said.
‘No,’ whispered Sam, ‘they’re not.’
She whispered all the time now. Ted did too. Even now, he was murmuring incredibly quietly to Sam because they were both afraid that the slightest noise would wake India up.
They had both read that it was important to make lots of noise so the baby got used to it, but neither of them could bear to do it. Sleeping, India felt manageable.
Awake, Sam was terrified of what needed to be done. The initial joy she’d felt at her baby’s birth was overcome with the fear of her own inadequacies as a mother.
Why was the baby crying? Were her nappies OK? Surely this colour of baby poo wasn’t right?
There was an enormous gap between the concept of reading something in a baby manual and then trying to put it into practice.
A head poked itself round her cubicle curtains and in marched her sister, Joanne, beaming and holding her arms out: ‘Show me her! I can’t wait to see her. She’s been out in the world since late yesterday and I can’t wait to see her. The hospital visiting rules are murderously cruel.’
‘Shush,’ said Sam automatically.
Ted looked proud, but Sam stared at India in her tiny crib beside the bed as if waiting for her tiny blue-veined eyelids to open.
‘Ohh . . .’
Sam turned to watch Joanne staring at India and start to cry.
‘She’s beautiful. I’m so happy for you both.’
Jo launched herself at Sam and hugged her tightly, making Sam’s breasts – engorged with milk – ache.
‘Thank you, hon, but whisper,’ said Sam. ‘She’ll wake up.’
‘I hope she does.’
Joanne stood and peered into the crib again. ‘Your auntie wants to hug you, little baba,’ she said in an entirely non-whispering voice. ‘People, I have told you, you need to start doing the hoovering when the baby is in the house, there is no point doing this tiptoeing around, because if you don’t make a noise so the baby can sleep, trust me, you’ll never make another noise again. The baby will only be able to sleep when there is complete quiet, so you’ll never be able to get on and bring her in the car or to a restaurant, or do any normal stuff.’
‘A restaurant, are you mad?’ Sam stared at her sister. ‘I’m wondering how we are going to get her home from the hospital in the car and you’re talking about restaurants.’
Joanne laughed. India stirred. ‘Oh look at her,’ she said and reached in to expertly pick the baby up. ‘She’s so beautiful. Yes, you are,’ she said, nuzzling India’s downy little head.
As if sensing she was in the hands of an expert, India made a little whimper and settled in closely. ‘Auntie Jo brought you lots of nice gifts and things for your mummy so she doesn’t go nuts,’ murmured Joanne.
‘What sort of things did you bring me so I wouldn’t go nuts?’ asked Sam, trying to hide her anxiety. ‘Because unless it’s a very big baby instruction booklet, I can’t imagine what it could possibly be.’
‘I brought in a couple of new comfy T-shirts,’ Jo said, putting a bag down on the bed, ‘and in the car I have some shopping, because that’s what you need when you have a baby: big, non-pregnancy things to wear and food for when you get out of hospital. Later today? Tomorrow morning?’
‘The morning,’ said Sam. ‘You’re a sweetheart, that sounds brilliant.’
Ted looked stricken, ‘I never thought to do shopping,’ he said. ‘I wasn’t thinking.’
‘Of course you weren’t thinking,’ said Joanne gently. ‘You’ve just become a father. It’s very hard to think and fall desperately in love at the same time. No, I popped into the supermarket and got a load of pre-cooked meals so you’ll be fed. I’ll drop it off at yours on the way home, all ready for tomorrow. And chocolate too!’
‘But I’m breastfeeding,’ said Sam anxiously. ‘I have to eat only really healthy stuff.’
‘There’s good stuff in there: pasta salads, spinach,’ said Joanne, ‘not too much, though, babies don’t like too much spinach in their milk.’
‘Was there a study done?’ Sam asked.
‘No,’ her sister said placidly, ‘it was more of an on-the-ground field study sort of thing. Isabelle hated when I’d eaten spinach. I was so lacking in iron when I had her, but I tried to take in as much of it as I could bear, and Lord, the state of the poor child’s nappies.’
Sam managed a grin. She felt safe having her sister around. Joanne knew stuff. For years, it had been Sam who had known things: all sorts of stuff about politics and finance and what garages to go to get the car fixed where the mechanic didn’t talk to you like you were a complete idiot because you possessed female chromosomes.
But now Joanne was the one who knew it all.
‘You all right?’ asked Joanne, taking in Sam’s suspiciously red eyes.
‘Fine,’ lied Sam. ‘Tired.’
She would not give into her fears: she could do this.
Ted had gone home and the ward was on full noise alert when the social worker came round.
Unlike the lovely nurses on the ward, this woman did not look full of the milk of human kindness. She looked as if she’d found no human kindness anywhere, thank you very much, and she had long since given up looking for it.
She looked at Sam as if she found her lacking.
Sam tried to tell herself that this woman’s job was tough: that she saw the worst in life and might have just come from some horrific case. But four minutes in the woman’s company made her feel that if Ellen, the social worker, was suddenly turned into the Dalai Lama, she’d still be this cranky.
She had a questionnaire to be filled out, she explained, and went through it all, talking about the importance of registering the child’s birth—
‘India,’ interrupted Sam.
Ellen glared at her.
‘Have you ever suffered from any depressive incidents?’ demanded Ellen, changing tack instantly.
‘No,’ said Sam.
‘Any previous pregnancy problems?’
‘No,’ lied Sam. She did not plan to discuss her infertility pain with this woman. Her nerves felt stretched enough as it was.
‘Fine.’
Job done, Ellen gave Sam some leaflets, took her questionnaire and marched off.
Sam didn’t know why, but she felt shaken. She reached out and touched India’s tiny hand with the softest touch.
‘Love you, India,’ she whispered.