I was born in a car on the way to the hospital.
Well, strictly speaking, it wasn’t in the car, because you got out onto the pavement. “Mustn’t spoil the upholstery,” you said, didn’t you?
So out you got, and squatted on the concrete. It was freshly laid concrete, and you planted your feet firmly into it, and started pushing me out, completely oblivious to the workmen who had started to gather around. They were concerned, solicitous, not about their concrete, but about you. And me.
“Take it easy, love,” one big man said.
“What can we do for you?” another asked, stubbing out his cigarette, and putting a hand on your back.
You were able to look out for the upholstery, but after that, it was all concentration on getting me out, on getting that pain to do its work. The men, sweaty and dusty, hovered around, not sure what to do. You knew what to do, even though it was the first time you had ever done it.
“Get this baby out, get this child into the world’s air, and she or he will be fine, I’ll be fine, there’ll be no more pain, and I can get my feet out of this concrete.”
I came out, feet first, in a sliver. “Breech birth? Jesus Mary and Joseph! Just like my first one. Has anyone called a doctor?” the big man looked around and asked. But he stayed to welcome me.
You said I didn’t hang about, I just whisked out, as if I knew that coming out feet first was not the best way and I’d have to be quick. You lifted your feet out of the concrete, with help from numerous hands around you, and delivered the placenta. Someone put me into your arms, blood and grease and slipperiness and crying and all, the long umbilical cord trailing down between your legs with the placenta on the end. No one thought to cut the cord, everyone was cooing and clapping over you and me.
Eventually, an ambulance came and the cord was cut, I was wrapped in something warm, and we both got our first ride in a car with the siren blaring.
The workmen came to visit us two days later on the weekend, all seven of them, with stuffed toys and flowers.
And whenever the two of us would walk past that particular piece of pavement, we would stop and look at the four sets of footprints in the concrete. Two of yours, shoeprints, and two of mine, tiny like hummingbirds, in between.
Originally published in Mangrove, Issue 3.
