Isaac, my Isaac is 8.
It seems like yesterday that he came into the world after a gloriously pain free labour, my only one with an epidural. I read the 2nd Bridget Jones diary while I laboured, in perfect peace, all alone. The nurse came to do one of her checks and told me I was fully dilated, the baby was high though so she told me that it would be a while before he was born, I explained that if I was at 10cm, this baby would be out in minutes...she did that infuriating thing of sighing and said " No honey, this baby is too high, he could be a while" She had me turn onto my side, put an oxygen mask on me, walked away and as she left she knocked the buzzer onto the floor, then she shut the door.
I was facing the monitor that was registering my contractions and Isaac's heartbeat and I saw that his heartbeat had gone down to 55 beats a minute, hmm....not going up...hey, epidural or not I feel a head...."HEY!!! HELLO!!!!! EXCUSE ME!!!! The baby is coming out! The BABY IS COMING OUT!" I could hear the nurses right outside my door, talking in a regular voice, I dragged the mask off my face and I screamed bloody murder "MY BABY IS COMING OUT!!!! HEEEEEEEEELP! HEY! His heartbeat is REALLY LOW and he is COMING OUT!
At last I felt someone behind me ( I was facing away from the door by the way) and I was so relieved, it was H, I had called him when they said I was at 10cm, he came to the hospital and left his big boy Rob with Seth in the hallway, I told him the baby was coming out and I had been screaming and no-one was coming, he wasn't convinced that the baby really was coming and so I said "look, look and see if you can see anything!" So he did, and indeed he did see a head..still in the sac.. " Oh geez, OK, hang on" He went outside and in seconds a whole herd of midwives ran in, they saw what H had seen, one ran out to grab the nearest doctor and told me to push as hard as I could because this baby was in trouble and needed to come out NOW. ( really? As opposed to like 15 minutes ago while I was screaming the place down and you just kept yakking outside the door?) They popped the bag and I pushed and he shot out like a bullet.
He was born not breathing and without a heartbeat, they were scared, I was scared and also really REALLY angry.
They got him breathing and whisked him away telling me that he had to be monitored for at least 3 hours. They didn't have a room ready for me so I was just going to go 'in here' until a room was available.
'In here' was a store cupboard. Bandages and spare stuff, packs of this and rolls of that.
3 hours is an awfully long time to be in a cupboard without your baby and no-one to talk to.
I spent the time trying to remember the fleeting glimpse of baby they had flashed me as they took my new baby away. I knew he was dark, darker than Seth who had been very fair and with little hair. I remembered he had very dark hair and beautiful olive skin.
I wondered what his name should be and suddenly I knew he should be Isaac.
I wondered if H would be back soon, I tried not to cry because I was so far away from home, I was living with H, Seth, Sophie, Rob, at H's house and his brother lived there too. I loathed that man, he made me cry pretty much every single day I lived there. He was more spiteful than any woman I have ever encountered and that includes the mean girl at school who made my life a living hell. That man took his misery out on my kids and on me, he would follow me around the house when H was out, muttering such mean things, he would tell me lies about H . Anyway ( whee that was a tangent wasn't it? Perhaps I am not quite as over that as I thought!) At about 7 o'clock, after 2 hours in the cupboard, the door opened and H popped his head around the door, I was so happy to see him, he said that his dad, brother, oldest son, nephew and Seth were here too and where was the baby? I told them he was in the nursery being watched carefully, " Oh, great...." and they left.
Without coming back. At all.
I got a room and eventually they brought Isaac to me, he cried, oh how he cried, I cried too, as much as he did and I waited, in that room, with not a soul, not a card, a flower, a visit.
I poked my head around the door to see if there was any sign of life anywhere and it was like a whole other world out there. People with helium balloons and flowers, happy waddling ladies with family and friends and sweet sleeping babies, I shut the door so quickly and I looked at the jug of water on my bedside table and I thought about how, if I had been here, at home, in England, how I would have visitors and flowers and people smiling at me as though I had done something clever and miraculous and splendid. Then I cried a bit more.
And Isaac cried.
At 9pm, I called the house and asked H if he was coming back at all. He asked me if I wanted him to, as though that was a weird sort of request made out of hormonal instability.
"Well, yes, I would like that, I know you saw the baby and I know you have had a busy time, going out to eat and celebrate and everything but hello? Yes, come here, now!"
**I think H had a huge case of post partum arseholeness, I hear some men get that and he had the worst case ever recorded. It lasted a long while and if I even begin to record anything on here I might then be transported back in time, forget it is in the past and go upstairs and hit him really hard, while he sleeps with a brick. Twice.
Isaac screamed for 5 and a half months.
Seth was 11 months when Isaac was born.
We all lived in one room, one 12ft by 8ft room. A double bed and a cot and a pack and play.
Memories. I had postpartum apathy, that was a blessing I tell you, whenever I felt anything akin to anger....meh, can't be bothered. Apart from with the Brother in Law, I went from a tongue biting, long suffering victim of incessant bullying to giving as good as I got, H's dad and even H were unaware of what was happening, they would see that the idiot and I wouldn't speak to each other and I would occasionally, over dinner I might say things like " How was your day? Oh that's good, lovely weather we're having and Oh and by the way, I hate your brother, you may come home and find him dead one day, more green beans?"
Other than that, I loved my babies, I would put them in the double stroller and we walked for miles and miles every day, anything to stay out of that house, to avoid that miserable shite who worked 1 or 2 days a week and the rest of the time picked on me.
One day, I was on the phone to my mum, here in England, he had this thing about my using the phone. H and I paid the phone bill, we used the phone and internet and because I would call my mum, it seemed fair that we paid the bill. H's dad wouldn't ever take money from us, so I would look for the bill and pay it without him ever seeing it. Anyway this one day he followed me around the house as I spoke to my mum, he was an inch away from my back and he was hissing " on the phone to England again are you? 27 minutes, any idea who much you are costing my dad? Get off the phone, he'll be home in a minute you think he likes coming home to see you and those brats here every day, day in day out? Get off the phone....." I ignored him, I walked around the house and everywhere I went, there he was.
I went into the tiny pantry / laundry room and I was trying to tell my mum what was happening, he followed me in there and I was pushed against the washing machine and then something in me snapped. I stood up straight and I said to my mum " Oh sorry mum, you didn't hear what I said when I was whispering? I was telling you that H's brother is following me around and hissing at me....I'll call you back later, right now I am going to hurt him.....bye!"
And I threw the phone down and turned to face him......well what do you know? He'd gone, he'd heard what I said and run, he RAN into his room and locked the door. I hammered on his door and then I took as many steps back as I could, it's a small house...and then I ran and I picked up both feet and threw myself against his door....just as it flew open, H walked in through the door. Who knows what I might have done had H not walked in. It did result in my telling both him and his dad what had been going on and also explaining that I would not be cooking for, speaking to or acknowledging him in anyway from then on. I was true to my word.
Hello tangent, we're having fun this evening aren't we?
Isaac was a tough baby, now I look back I can understand why, poor little thing, all that stress and he must have sensed it all. Me and him against the world, having who can cry the most competitions from 5am until midnight every day. At 5 and a half months, he woke up as happy as a clam and he has been a veritable delight ever since.
He had such a lovely birthday, he had 3 of his most longed for model cars ( " Oh a FERRARI! This day cannot get any better!) he had money in one of his cards ( the last one he opened, he opened the others and said "hmm, don't people know about putting money in cards? Then he opened gramma's and said " There you go! That's what I'm talking about, SHE knows how to do it!)
Then we told him to go and wake Elijah up quietly, while he was upstairs we brought his bike in, and leant it against the foot stool in the front room. He has seen this bike online and shown me the picture over and over. We went to get an inner tube for H's bike this week and he ran in saying " OH! I can show you that bike for real, not just a picture! He ran around the bike shop and then said " Oh, it's gone, someone must have bought it, never mind"
When he came back in he gasped and said " Is that MINE? and over and over he said " Yes! YES" Finally, YES!" He kissed the seat and he stroked it and he sighed many times.


He is so cool, isn't he?

** Happy to report that H recovered from his PPA and became quite the nicest H that he is today, brother in law is still an idiot but so far away it couldn't matter less. All in all I think things have turned out pretty well. Jolly good.

I am sure I have written all this before, poor Isaac, he gets a whiny old self pitying post every year on his birthday. Isaac if you ever read this, you are so worth it, you are a glorious and splendid boy.
Happy Birthday my Isaac, I love you.