Until I fell pregnant, I had often wondered, as I suppose we all do, whether children would happen for me. Whether I would meet the right person, and when I did, whether we would marry. Whether I would be able to conceive, and if I did, whether my child would be healthy. I remember vividly watching mothers with their children, and longing for that natural and careless love that they seemed to take so much for granted; the casual intimacy that only a mother and child can share.
It’s the Small Girl’s birthday tomorrow, and as ever at this time of year, my thoughts have turned back to that strange time in India, in the run-up to her birth, when I was poised on the brink of motherhood, realising life would never be the same again, but not really knowing how. Restless days, time dragging slowly past: swimming in an empty pool beneath the languid sun, reading in our little apartment, in the rocking chair DH bought me, bare feet on cool marble, basking in the cold rush of air from the a/c unit, waiting…
She was born in Bombay, of course, and twelve days early. My wonderful obstetrician, plumply exuding wealth in her glamorous sari and bright lipstick, insisted I have an early planned cesarean – not only was my baby breech, but there was a length of umbilical cord wrapped worryingly about the neck. Far from the birth I had imagined, it was the first time I experienced the distinct feeling that the life inside me was a little force of its own, and the first time I truly realised that in many ways, having children is all about losing control - and where possible, doing it graciously.
The birth itself remains one of the most strange and surreal experiences of my life. The irony of checking into one of Bombay’s top hospitals was not lost on me: in a country where very many women in my situation would have lost their baby (and possibly their life), here I was being prepped for my operation in a private room with a marble floor, a flat screen television and my own en suite bathroom. Once I was wheeled into theatre and given a spinal block (DH in his green scrubs gripping my hand), the anaesthetist retired to the side of the room, feet up, to read the Times of India while my glamorous obstetrician drifted in to deliver my baby and chat to patients on her mobile phone, held to her ear by a gowned nurse.
I was thrilled that our baby was a little girl; she was tightly swaddled and brought over to me. The first time I set eyes on her, I couldn’t believe that this was my baby; this tiny little bundle with a shock of black hair, who looked nothing at all like me, a little life ready to bloom into a real person and already shattering all my preconceptions about her.
We’ve been having beautiful, hot sunny afternoons recently here in Ireland. Always, feeling the sun’s warmth on my skin reminds me of India. We went for a picnic the other day, the four of us swathed in sun cream, enjoying the luscious green grass and the cloudless blue sky. I was sitting cross-legged, staring into the distance, dreaming of India, when the Small Girl came ambling over and sat herself down on my knee. Casually, I wrapped my arms around her and kissed her sunshine hair, and the realisation came to me: this is what I longed for, all the childless years that came before.
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