‘Pardon?’
‘Well, I knew it would be the only breastmilk she would ever get and I thought it would give her a good start. Simon’s doing so well on my milk that Sister Kelly said she thinks I must be producing Gold Top!’
I gasped, feeling absolutely flabbergasted. Breastfeeding had gone out of fashion at the time, and was nowhere near as common as it is today – in fact, midwives had a job convincing most women of its benefits. The majority of women still asked for a course of Stilboestrol, prescribed to suppress their milk, and most opted to bottle-feed from day one. Mrs Sheridan was clearly not one of those women – far from it!
‘Well, you’ve obviously done a very good job,’ I said tactfully, taking a deep breath and lifting the contented baby girl out of her arms, my brain going into overdrive as I wondered how I was going to handle this one.
At that precise moment some of the dignitaries from the opening ceremony appeared in the corridor outside the ward. Miss Sefton, Head of Midwifery, stood in the doorway and began enthusing loudly about the marvellous new facilities.
‘Most of the accommodation is in four-bedded rooms which combine sociability with quietness,’ I heard her say. ‘And I am very pleased to say that the new unit is attracting the highest calibre of midwives. We are very proud of our staff – in fact Sister Buckley over there is the very midwife you may have seen on the posters advertising the new unit across the region …’
I took a deep breath and smiled over at them. I was normally very proud of the fact I was indeed the midwife who had been chosen to promote the new unit, and had had my photograph plastered all over Ashton and its surrounding area in the previous few months.
At that moment, however, I wanted the ground to swallow me up, and I was willing the entourage not to come any closer.
I can’t describe how relieved I was when the assorted ladies and gentlemen smiled back approvingly and then continued their tour, walking away from me, down the corridor.
‘Well, Mrs Sheridan,’ I whispered, trying hard not to appear as flustered as I felt. ‘Of course it’s not really the done thing to breastfeed another woman’s baby, but I know you have done it with the best of intentions. I shall have to tell Sister Kelly what you’ve done, though, I’m sure you’ll understand.’
‘I don’t mind one bit,’ she replied. ‘Why would I?’
I look back today and am still flabbergasted; not simply by what Mrs Sheridan actually did, but by how much society has changed.
Nowadays, of course, no woman would dream of breastfeeding someone else’s child like that. If she did, it wouldn’t just be a question of informing the senior sister on the ward, who would most certainly not react in the way Sister Kelly did that day, which was to simply roll her eyes and say, ‘I’ll make a note, but there’s no harm done, is there now?’
Blood tests would have to be carried out to make sure the baby had not been infected in any way, and the threat of legal action would be very real, but back then HIV was unheard of, and litigation was a word we rarely heard.
That said, what happened with Mrs Sheridan also reminds me how very little things have changed over the years. Mothers, and the depths of their maternal instincts, have never stopped amazing me, from that day to this.
About a month later, in March 1972, I was working a shift in the antenatal clinic when I saw a name I recognised – Mrs Sully – on my list. My gut reaction was that I was delighted to see this lady was pregnant again. In her case, I imagined those deep maternal instincts must have given her the strength and courage needed to try again, as she had lost her first baby in dreadful circumstances the previous summer.
I would never forget her arriving at the labour ward in the old hospital, brimming with hope and excitement, as she did throughout her pregnancy. I vividly remembered how everything had seemed so normal, until the awful moment I realised her baby’s umbilical cord had prolapsed.
‘There’s something between my legs,’ Mrs Sully had announced, setting off a heart-breaking chain of events. I had ridden beside Mrs Sully on the trolley as we dashed to theatre for an emergency Caesarean. I could see myself struggling to hold the baby’s head back inside her, desperately trying to stop it crushing the escaped cord, which was hanging outside of the poor lady’s body. I recalled seeing Mrs Sully struggling, too. She was thrashing about on the theatre bed instead of falling quickly asleep under the anaesthetic as we needed her to, in order for the surgeon to perform the Caesarean as quickly as possible.
I remembered the absolute chill that went through my body when I realised that Mrs Sully’s baby son was born too late. He survived for just fifteen minutes, having been starved of oxygen in the womb. It was nobody’s fault, just one of those exceptionally cruel twists of fate that occur so rarely, yet prompt you to wonder if there really is a God.
‘I want a hatful of kids, I do,’ Mrs Sully had said to me this time last year, the very first time I had met her in the old antenatal clinic.
I had hoped and prayed that her wish would still come true despite her dreadful loss, and somehow I believed it would.
‘Good morning, Nurse!’ she smiled at me today.
I was delighted to see that the roses Mrs Sully had had in her cheeks when I first met her had returned. She was blooming again, cradling her tiny bump and looking as pleased as punch to be pregnant once more.
‘Good morning, Mrs Sully,’ I grinned back.
I was so relieved that she was still the positive and optimistic person I remembered. There was clearly no need for me to be apprehensive about seeing her again. Some women may have been reluctant – superstitious, even – to see the same midwife, but not Mrs Sully.
‘I’m glad it’s you,’ she sighed, looking quite relieved. ‘I was worried I might have to talk about what happened, go through everything again …’
I gave a little sigh of relief, too. As a midwife, if anything has not gone to plan, it’s always a great comfort to know that the mother understands it was not your fault. Midwives are not miracle workers; we can only ever do our very best in the circumstances, and sometimes, sadly, that is just not good enough. Therefore, I was very glad to see that Mrs Sully was as happy to see me as I was to see her.
I examined Mrs Sully by palpating her abdomen and listening to her baby’s heartbeat with a Pinard’s stethoscope. Everything seemed in perfect order, and I was pleased to note that she was approximately sixteen weeks pregnant and her baby was due in late August. I was absolutely delighted for her; she certainly deserved some good fortune.
‘That day,’ she said wistfully. ‘That day, I could never have imagined ever feeling happy again. Now it seems such a long time ago.’
‘Doesn’t it just,’ I said, and we smiled at each other.
I had turned twenty-four a few days earlier, on 22 March 1972, and I felt more confident and self-assured than ever in my job. Being a ward sister made me walk just that little bit taller. It seemed such a long time ago that I had begun my training as a pupil midwife at Ashton General after three years of nurses’ training at the Manchester Royal Infirmary. In fact it was just two years on, but so much had happened during my time as a midwife.
I remembered wondering, back in 1970, how I was going to manage to deliver forty babies – the required number for me to complete my ten-month training and qualify as a staff midwife. It had seemed such a huge number, but now it seemed so few.
In my first two years I had delivered over a hundred babies, and this new maternity unit seemed to be getting busier by the day as the Government continued to encourage women to have hospital births, believing them to be safer.
‘I don’t know about all this hospital birth business,’ Mrs Tattersall, my community midwife mentor, had