Connie dropped down onto all fours and swayed her bulk backwards and forwards on the matt. Tara copied obediently. Connie’s contractions were getting more intense now. She felt like screaming but she wanted to stay in control for Tara, to show her how to command the breath and ride it out. The women rocked backwards and forwards together silently.
‘Did you get a pre-labour manicure?’ Connie asked, looking at Tara’s perfectly polished nails.
‘Yes,’ Tara said, stretching out her palm. ‘Why?’
‘Did you get a bikini wax and all?’ Connie asked with a grin.
‘That’s a bit of a personal question,’ said Tara, frowning.
Tara was still rocking slowly back and forth when an involuntary loud trumpet sound erupted from her rear end. Tara took a moment to register what had happened before clasping a hand over her mouth. Connie chuckled, a long, hearty chuckle.
‘There’s far worse going to come out down there, so you best get relaxed about a bit of wind, prissy missy.’
Tara covered her face with her hands and then started to laugh herself. She had a musical, high-pitched laugh.
‘Oh my days, is that your laugh?’ said Connie. ‘Even that sounds uptight.’
The two women got hysterics laughing at each other; they couldn’t stop.
‘Yes, that’s my laugh, what’s wrong with it?’ Tara snorted, her eyes streaming.
‘Oh, don’t make me laugh, don’t make me laugh, it hurts worse,’ said Connie, clutching her stomach with one hand and fanning her face with the other.
Over the next few hours, Connie taught Tara to relax, to let go. She taught her to move her body in the way it needed to move to get the baby out. She taught her to breathe and moo and growl and shriek and not care what it might look or sound like. The contractions started to get more regular, then more frequent. Things were finally happening.
‘So, you know what you’re having?’ Connie asked, as they finished breathing through another contraction together.
‘A boy,’ Tara said.
‘Got a name sorted?’ Connie asked.
‘It’s too much, it’s getting too much Connie … I can’t,’ Tara started whimpering.
‘Don’t waste energy crying,’ said Connie. ‘Come on, stay with me, do what I’m doing, we’ll get there. What are you going to call him then?’
‘My husband likes John, after him. I don’t know, maybe Roger?’ said Tara, wiping sweat from her forehead with the back of a hand. Connie wrinkled up her nose. Tara laughed. ‘Not Roger then.’
‘Sorry,’ Connie laughed too.
Another contraction, both women’s bodies were now strangely in sync. They held hands, squeezing hold of each other, breathing in unison.
‘Where are the midwives?’ Tara wailed. ‘They need to call John.’
‘Trust me, I’ve only done this once before, but men just get in the way,’ Connie said, panting through the last pangs. When she looked up, she saw Tara had crawled over to the bed and was banging her head against the foot rail. Connie waddled over and stroked her back.
‘Hey, this’ll be a bad memory tomorrow. Look at me, you want to hear the name I got planned for mine?’ Connie pulled Tara away from the bedstead. ‘I had this name planned since I was little.’ Tara turned to look at her. ‘Quinn. It’s a family name goes years back. My grandma was a Quinn; she used to say it held the luck of the Irish, said she never knew a Quinn who didn’t lead a charmed life.’ Tara continued to rock back and forth. Connie couldn’t tell if she was listening. ‘I had a boy first, Bill insisted on William after him. I said, whatever we got next, boy or girl, it had to be Quinn.’
The midwife returned to find both women kneeling on the floor, holding hands.
‘You’re going to have these babies at the same time by the look of it,’ said the midwife, guiding Connie back to her bed. ‘Come on, let’s see where you’ve got to now, Mrs Cooper.’
Connie and Tara laboured together for four hours.
Tara’s husband, John, came back to the hospital, but Tara said he could wait outside until she was further along.
‘I just need Connie,’ she told the midwife.
Private rooms freed up but Tara didn’t want to move. When Bill finally made it to the hospital, Connie said he too should wait in reception until he was called for.
‘So let me get this shipshape,’ said the midwife, ‘you want both your husbands to wait in reception because you’re being each other’s birthing partners?’
Connie and Tara both nodded.
By half past eleven they were both ready to push.
‘Right, it’s time to get you into the delivery rooms,’ ordered the midwives, finally insisting it was time for the women to separate. Connie and Tara were loaded onto beds and wheeled from the ward. They clasped hands one last time.
‘Good luck,’ Connie said, her voice hoarse.
‘Thank you,’ mouthed Tara.
‘Well, I’ve got bets on one of you two having this nineties baby,’ said the midwife pushing Connie’s bed.
‘There’s no one else in this hospital even close,’ said the midwife pushing Tara.
As Connie was wheeled into the delivery room, she saw Bill sitting in a chair waiting for her. He stood up and folded the newspaper he had been reading.
‘You took your time, woman, I been waiting ages,’ he said.
‘I’m not doing this around your convenience, Bill,’ Connie snarled. ‘I’ll come when I’m good and ready.’
Bill sat down again, smacking his lips shut.
Connie pushed for half an hour. It took every ounce of energy she had left and she was past the point of talking. At one point Bill stood, checked his watch, grimaced and said, ‘If you could just hold it in another couple of minutes love, it’s only two minutes to go till midnight.’
Connie let out an ear-splitting, guttural scream, like a pterodactyl defending her young from a predator. The two midwives both jumped and Bill promptly returned to his chair, where he sat with his shoulders hunched, fingers intertwined and two thumbs rapidly circling around each other.
‘I can see the head,’ said one of the midwives.
The pressure became unbearable. Just as Connie thought she might burst at the seams, release.
‘Here it comes,’ said the midwife, ‘oh, a precious baby girl.’
Everyone else in the room was silent, listening for the new arrival to make a noise, to take its first breath. A cry, an angry wail, there it was, and then through the thin hospital walls the sound of another baby wailing in unison.
‘Is she OK?’ Connie said, urgently searching the midwives’ faces for reassurance.
‘She’s perfect,’ said one, wrapping the baby in a towel and laying her carefully on Connie’s chest.
‘We was first,’ said Bill firmly, ‘It definitely sounded like ours was first. You made it past midnight love, you absolute trooper, Connie Cooper.’
But Connie wasn’t listening; she was too busy staring at the wonderful little creature cooing in her arms.
New Year’s Day 1990
The next morning, Connie was singing quietly to the baby when Bill returned to the hospital with William.