The hazy post-delivery days are punctuated by midwife visits and erratic attempts to divine the time, or even the day of the week, by casting around for a screen of some kind - phone, TV, or even the oven.
Time folds in on itself, it’s not an altogether unpleasant sensation, normal rules just don’t apply. Receiving visitors in a dressing gown is like, ‘hey, no that’s fine, come in, thank your lucky stars I’m not in my bollocks’, as they say in Spain. For mum, trying to remember not to just flip out a tit, mid-sentence, to nudge the sleepy baby in the face with, is as much decorum as can be expected. At times like this you appreciate the efforts of other recent parents, keen to connect like the un-snatched ones in Invasion of the Body Snatchers.
“Thank god. It’s you...a bit tired is all, but you know. Oh, fine...a bit sore but glad to be back home. Getting back to normal now, you know (and you’re so glad that they do).”
Judging by the activity in town today, it’s a Saturday - something the oven failed to tell me. Everyone else is pursuing their chores with such clear-sighted efficiency it borders on aggression, while I’m bimbling in a supermarket aisle, with an armful of yoghurts, wondering where my trolley has gone. None of the shelf stackers have seen it and it takes a while to register that some idiot must have wandered off with my shopping, so I have to start over.
This is a disaster, programme-wise, and the clock is ticking. Poz is in a holding pattern around his grandparents, Jane and the baby are waiting in the car and my get-round-quickly-and-comprehensively list was clipped to that damn trolley. Bastard!
At the queue for the checkout I see Jane being helped through to the loos by a fellow human being who spotted her in the car and went over to investigate. My heart fills with gratitude as I genuflect discretely and turn to grasp the arm of a passing employee who is, fortunately, one of us.
“I’m sorry, my wife has just had a baby and she asked me to get some maternity pads. I couldn’t see any with ‘maternity’ written on them so I picked up these, is there anything more suitable?”
She takes the pack of Tenor Lady and bustles off purposefully, no questions asked. I love these older women, who like as not have given up any chance of a business career for motherhood. And as a new double-dad, wrestling with the tricky issue of sanitary towels, I am temporarily an honorary sister. Now I know how good sisterhood feels and I envy you.
