Chapter 24
Kate just knew that meeting her baby would be the greatest moment of her life. She had a clear vision of the moment in her head, created by every book she’d ever read that featured childbirth, every film or TV show she’d watched with a woman lying on a hospital bed, yelling and screaming. She’d be sweaty and exhausted. Probably, she would have just sworn at her husband or a medical professional. But as soon as her daughter was finally placed in her arms, she would cry tears of joy. She would recognise her face immediately. She would feel euphoric. Complete.
They told Kate to make a birth plan, so she did. When she was pregnant, the midwife presented her with the options as though offering her a menu at a restaurant. The choice was overwhelming, but together with Jay, they made decisions about every small detail, from where she’d like to give birth (in a birthing pool, of course) to the type of pain relief she’d be happy to accept. They spent hours making several playlists to bring with them to the hospital: a calming one for when she needed to relax and one filled with her favourite upbeat, invigorating tunes for when she needed a boost. Jay packed her hospital bag for her, along with a diagram detailing where everything was located in case they forgot.
When she went into labour a week after her due date, she didn’t feel scared. She felt prepared and in control. Jay was with her and her mum and sister weren’t far away. And even as the labour progressed and they headed to the hospital, Kate remained calm. As the contractions grew more frequent and intense, she held onto the image she had in her mind of holding her daughter for the first time. Every now and then, she thought of the lido, picturing herself floating in the cool blue water. Once all of this was over, she would be handed her baby and everything would be worth it.
She couldn’t pinpoint the exact moment when panic invaded the room, but after hours of exhaustion but general calm, something shifted. As she looked up, she caught a shared glance between the midwife and her assistant and for the first time since her contractions began, Kate started to wonder whether maybe she couldn’t actually do this after all.
What happened next took place in a blur, until, before she knew it, she was out of the birthing pool and on a hospital bed and the room suddenly filled with people. Everything after that came in snapshots. The repetitive beep of a monitor. The shuffle and squeak of shoes as the doctors and nurses moved about swiftly. The hot, clammy clasp of Jay’s hand in hers as they gripped one another as though they were holding each other afloat.
When Rosie finally, and with much assistance, arrived in the world, there wasn’t the startled cry that Kate had been imagining. Kate held her breath for a second, waiting for it to come a beat later. But it didn’t. She reached out her arms, but instead of being handed her baby, the doctors whisked her away, their backs shielding her from view on the other side of the room.
Finally, there came a cough, a splutter and a wail. A sigh of relief spread around the room and Jay squeezed Kate’s hand even tighter, tears flooding his face. But Kate didn’t share the feeling of relief that was in the air. Because where was her baby? They still had her baby.
There’s no way Kate could have said how long it was between Rosie being born and being handed to her. It felt like days but was probably no more than minutes. Eventually, she was bundled up in a white blanket, a pink hat atop her head, and brought over by a smiling doctor.
‘Everything’s fine now, don’t worry. She just needed a bit of help getting started. But here she is. Here’s your daughter.’
With trembling arms, Kate reached up to receive her child, ready to finally experience the moment of overwhelming joy she had pictured for so long. But as she pulled the swaddled baby into her chest, there were no fireworks exploding in her heart and no warm glow spreading through her body.
When she’d made her birth plan, Kate had known that things might change, that you couldn’t predict exactly what would happen during something as momentous as birth. But the one thing she never even stopped to think about was that the moment when she met her baby wouldn’t be anything like she had been expecting.
Kate held her daughter in her arms for the first time and felt nothing …
‘At first, I thought I was just too exhausted to feel anything,’ Kate explains to Jay, her voice finally close to even again after managing to force out everything that has been eating her up inside for so long. ‘I thought it would come with time.’
She glances down at Rosie, who is now asleep in her arms, and fresh tears prick in her eyes, but she forces them back. She remembers returning from the hospital for the first time with her new baby, sinking, exhausted, into her own bed and turning over to stare into the Moses basket beside her, taking in every detail. The pink, wrinkled face, the tufty ginger hair, the clenched fists, the downy hair on her cheeks, her tiny nose.
This person had lived inside her for nine months. Kate had read to her and taken her swimming at the lido, feeling her tiny feet kicking in her ribs in time with her own strokes. She had felt that she knew her unborn child already. But as she looked at the baby asleep beside her, it felt as though she was looking at a complete stranger.
‘I did think about saying something. I considered telling the midwife when she came to visit, maybe Mum or Erin.’
‘And me?’ Jay asks.
Kate winces slightly, knowing how bad it sounds that she didn’t immediately turn to him.
‘I did want to. But as the days went by, I lost my nerve. You seemed so happy. Every time I looked at you, there was this enormous smile on your face. It was just so obvious that you felt it. All the things that I thought I would feel too. They came naturally to you.’
‘I’m so sorry you felt you couldn’t tell me.’
‘You don’t need to apologise. And I don’t mean to make you feel bad. I’m just trying to explain …’
Three months might have passed since Rosie’s birth, but sometimes it feels as though Kate is still there, stuck in those moments she has tried so hard to forget. Poised with her arms outstretched for her child, waiting to feel everything she had dreamt of and that had kept her going through her labour.
‘Do you remember when your parents came to visit shortly after she was born?’
Jay nods.
‘They kept telling me how Rosie was the spitting image of you. “She’s all Jay,” your dad said.’
It’s something people have kept saying to her ever since Rosie was born. The first time she heard it, from a nurse on the maternity ward looking from Jay to Rosie and back again, Kate had wanted to say, But I grew her! Then, as time went on, she stopped fighting it. Because Kate can see nothing of herself when she looks at her daughter.
‘I remember,’ Jay says quietly. ‘I didn’t even think what that might feel like for you. I’m so sorry.’
‘And then there was this moment when your mum had been holding Rosie for a while but suddenly handed her back to me, apologising for hogging her. “I remember when Jay was a baby, I never used to let anyone hold him,” she said to me. “I just couldn’t stand it if he wasn’t with me.” And there I’d been, happily letting Rosie go to your mum for as long as she wanted.’
‘You know Mum didn’t mean anything by it. She didn’t mean to make you feel bad.’
‘I do know. No one has meant to make me feel bad. The people who stop me in the supermarket and tell me to cherish every second with my baby because it goes so fast. The friends who tell me how perfect she is. My mum and sister for adoring her as much as I always hoped they would. But it has all just made me feel as though there’s something wrong with me.’
‘But, Kate, there’s nothing wrong with you.’
Kate looks him dead in the eye now. ‘But of course there is. What kind of mother doesn’t love their baby?’
Because the truth is that when she holds Rosie or feeds her or rocks her to sleep, Kate feels as though she is pretending, acting out some part she doesn’t know the lines for. Inside, she feels numb. And every day that passes, she hates herself a little bit more for it.
Rosie begins to cry in Kate’s arms and she instinctively begins to rock her in the particular rhythm that she has learnt does the best job of soothing her. She strokes the corner of her eyebrow.
‘She deserves so much better than me,’ she says quietly, looking down at her daughter. ‘She deserves the very best.’
‘You know what I think?’ says Jay. ‘I think that love is a verb.’
It’s so surprising that Kate glances at him, her attention pulled away from Rosie. ‘What do you mean?’
‘It’s not just a feeling, but something you do. It’s all the ways you show up for a person. Like the way you let me sleep through the night, even when you’re exhausted, because you don’t want me to be tired too. Or how, when I went on that shoot the other day, you sent me photos of Rosie all throughout the day because you knew it’s what I needed.’
‘I knew you missed her,’ she sniffs.
‘Exactly. You were thinking about me. You might not feel the warm, gushy feelings towards Rosie that you thought you would. And I’m so sorry that you haven’t had those feelings yet. I’m no expert, but I think it’s probably normal given everything you went through with the birth. I did get that rush you talk about, but, honestly, I think it was mostly relief. Kate, I wasn’t the one lying there on that hospital bed and I can understand that you probably didn’t get to feel any relief at all.’
‘No,’ she says in a tiny voice. ‘I felt terrified. I still feel terrified, even though everyone has assured me she’s perfectly healthy. What if they missed something?’ She looks down at Rosie’s head, stroking her hair. ‘Because for all the things I don’t feel, I do feel this fierce protectiveness towards her. I know it’s my job to look after her.’
‘Isn’t that love?’ says Jay, causing Kate to frown, thinking. ‘Just because you don’t feel certain feelings you thought you would, that doesn’t mean you don’t love your daughter. You are doing love every time you feed her, constantly through the night. Every time you rock her or sing “Wonderwall” to her completely off-key …’
Despite everything, she laughs, her laughter merging with her tears. Jay squeezes her tighter.
‘You’re doing love for her right now.’
They both gaze down at their daughter, her expression pure contentment as she nestles into Kate’s collarbone, her fist wrapped around a lock of Kate’s hair. Kate tries to take a deep breath and consider the possibility that maybe she isn’t such a terrible mother after all.
‘Let me ask you this,’ Jay carries on, his body warm and reassuring against hers. ‘Did you fall in love with me the moment you saw me?’
‘Um …’ She glances at him, wondering if it’s a trick question. They worked with each other for about six months before Kate even really noticed Jay existed. And when they did connect, they were friends at first before it led to anything else. She was nervous about rushing into anything, cautious, like she’s always been in all other areas of her life.
‘I know the answer is no,’ Jay says when Kate doesn’t answer. ‘With us, it happened quicker for me than it did for you. I was smitten early on, but you needed time to get to know me. We still ended up in the same place – both of us in love, because I know you love me, Kate. But what I’m getting at is that people are different and they fall in love differently. Some do it quickly and others, probably quite sensibly, take their time. From everything I know about you, how considered and thoughtful you are about everything you do, it makes sense that you haven’t fallen head over heels with Rosie straight away. You’re getting to know each other. That’s just the way you fall in love.’
Thinking about it now, Kate can’t put her finger on the exact moment when her feelings for Jay changed from admiration and friendship to love. It just feels as though it has always been there, this huge love that fills up every bit of her even when they are going through a tough patch. But, of course, it wasn’t always there. It grew.
‘You’ll get there, Kate. I know you will. Because I know you and I know that you have a big heart and that once someone finds their way in there, they’re in for good.’
‘Maybe you’re right,’ she says, sniffing and wiping her face.
Jay squeezes her shoulder, pulling her close.
‘I’m not right about that many things. But I’m confident that I’m right about this. I’m right about you, Kate Mathews-Chapman.’