My Bundle Of Joy: Part Seventeen

~ beetleypete

This is the seventeenth part of a fiction serial, in 738 words.

The next morning, Rosa arrived at the same time as the health visitor. She got on with tidying and cleaning after a brief look at Leah. “I hold her later, yes?”

Doreen was a smart looking nurse who told me she was originally from Antigua. She gave Leah a detailed once-over, and asked me quite a few questions about how I was feeling, whether I was tired, and how my moods were. She was pleased to hear that Leah was feeding okay from the breast, but suggested that I express some milk later, so that Olly could do some night feeding and I got some sleep. When she measured Leah’s head, I asked her how long it might retain the obvious cone shape.

“Should only be a few days, darlin’. Though some stay like that for a few weeks. This don’t look so bad”. While I had her attention, I asked her why Leah hadn’t cried to be fed. That seemed to interest her. “No crying at all? Not for soiled nappies, or feeding? Not even to be picked up?” I shook my head, and asked her if I should be concerned. She gave me a reassuring smile, and held my hand briefly. “That crying should come soon. Might just be the fact that she had a hard time coming into this world. I will be around to check on you for the next few days, and you can let me know when she has cried”.

When she left, Rosa appeared, excited to hold the baby. She didn’t have any children, but was hoping to once she went back to Poland to get married. She spoke to Leah in Polish, and sang her a little song. Then she handed her back, asking “Why her head like that?” I told her about the vacuum delivery, and she went over to her bag in the hallway, returning with a small box. “This is for her. Good protection”. Inside was a tiny silver cross, on a chain. Olly and I were not religious, but I was touched by this kind gift from someone who was just paid to do my housework.

Mum phoned twice that afternoon. Once to ask about the shape of Leah’s head, and the second time to tell me her friend Barbara knew a woman whose baby had been born with the same shaped head, and was fine after less than a week. I imagined her and Barbara having a good gossip about Leah’s head, but I didn’t let it get to me. She was only trying to do her best to make me feel alright about it. One thing I soon found out was that everyone knows someone who had either a worse time than you, or had some advice about things you hadn’t even asked them about.

After Olly got in that evening, he said he would go back out in the car and get a Chinese takeaway. I had completely forgotten about preparing any dinner, probably because I had stuffed myself with biscuits and cake all afternoon. Or I was already suffering from what my mum called ‘baby brain’. Over dinner, I asked him how it had gone at work. I was very aware that Leah had fast become the only topic of conversation, and I didn’t want that to change our previous relationship. Olly thought that doing the bottle feed at night was a good thing, and said he would go to bed early to make sure he was up and about in time for it. But when the vibrating alarm went off, I stayed awake anyway. Might just as well have let him sleep, and fed her myself.

Doreen’s visit the next day was brief. She was pleased to hear that Olly had done a feed, and wanted to know if we had heard her crying yet. I shook my head, and told her that she made small gurgling noises, but still had not cried. Then Doreen took Leah and checked her hearing. She turned in response to noises made either side of her head, and Doreen wrote something down on the record sheet. Then she checked her eye movement, and wrote something else down. I asked her if it was all normal, and she smiled and nodded. For some reason, I couldn’t bring myself to believe her.

She had only been gone for thirty seconds, when I felt an overwhelming need to start crying.

30 thoughts on “My Bundle Of Joy: Part Seventeen”

  3. Pete, great job capturing all of the emotions that new parents go through, especially the Mother of course..it was such a surprise for me that, a day after my daughter was born, the hospital bundled her up and said “off you go!” And then we were on our own!

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  4. Ah the baby blues. I remember drying my eyes out and when someone asked me what was wrong I had no idea. The only other person who I knew that did that was my cousin when she was drunk lol. Love this one Pete

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  8. “One thing I soon found out was that everyone knows someone who had either a worse time than you or had some advice about things you hadn’t even asked them about.” Everybody’s got a lot of advice. Too bad it’s usually bad.

    Have you heard about these betting pools where people guess when a baby is about to be born? There’s so much discussion about Leah’s head. Perhaps they should start a pool to estimate when her head is no longer cone-shaped.

    “Oh, thank goodness! The baby’s finally crying!” No, that’s just Olly! 🤣🤣🤣

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  9. (1) For crying out loud, Leah! Do something with those tear ducts of yours!
    (2) “That baby needs a dummy!” exclaimed Doreen, a smart looking nurse from Antigua who offered her services.
    (3a) Midnight refrigerator raiders are more than happy to volunteer for night feeding.
    (3b) Men are fine with bottle feeding regardless of the risk of delirium tremens.
    (4) Leah doesn’t want to be picked up until she’s old enough to sit on a barstool and gurgle down a few pints.
    (5) Rosa sang a little song:
    ♬ Ach, śpij, kochanie,
    ♬ jesli gwiazdke z nieba chcesz – dostaniesz.
    ♬ Wszystkie dzieci, nawet źle,
    ♬ pogrążone są we śnie,
    ♬ a ty jedna tylko nie.
    Translation:
    ♬ Oh, sleep, my darling,
    ♬ If you’d like a star from the sky I’ll give you one.
    ♬ All children, even the bad ones,
    ♬ Are already asleep,
    ♬ Only you are not.
    (6) Angela told Rosa about the vacuum delivery. Rosa went out into the hallway, and returned with a small box of vacuum bags. “Next time,” said Rosa, an Amazon Prime customer, “you should order a bagless vac because that one really sucks!”
    (7) An adult woman who suffers from “baby brain” has a lot of free space in her cranium. This causes the brain to behave like a Mexican jumping bean, thereby fragmenting and confounding the thought process. It is this phenomenon that gave rise to the notion that some women are scatterbrained.
    (8a) Doreen checked Leah’s hearing, and wrote in her notes: “Next time, bring cymbals.”
    (8b) Doreen then checked Leah’s eye movement, and wrote: “Next time, bring nude photos of Peter Piper and Dick Dastardly.”
    (9) It wasn’t until Leah watched the final moments of “2001: A Space Odyssey” that she finally welled up in tears.

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