Bundles of Joy: Two Thousand Miracles. One Unstoppable Manchester Midwife. Linda Fairley

the women were all dreadfully sorry to hear the news, but a survival instinct kicks in with a pregnant woman, and the number-one priority is always her own baby, which she will protect at all costs. What these ladies desperately needed to know was that what killed Mrs Johnson was not going to strike them and their unborn child down, too. Even before the official cause of death was confirmed, I knew my message had to be that they and their baby were as safe as they were before Mrs Johnson ever arrived on the ward, which was the truth. It was right that they focused on that positive and didn’t dwell on negative thoughts, because the alternative was unthinkable.

      ‘So it wasn’t the pregnancy that killed her?’ several of the ladies asked me, one way or another.

      ‘No, I believe not,’ I replied. I smiled reassuringly at each pregnant lady and tried my hardest to put on a brave face, but inside I felt cold and sick.

      ‘Thank goodness for that,’ came the reply over and over again. ‘What a terrible thing to have happened.’

      At the end of my shift I sat in the kitchen alone, gathering my thoughts. Losing Mrs Johnson reminded me of other deaths I had encountered at the MRI, which I had found very difficult to cope with. Avoiding death is what led me into a career as a midwife. I wanted to bring new life into the world, not deal with illness and death, and now look what had happened. How could this have happened to Mrs Johnson and her baby?

      ‘Linda, have you heard?’ Stella said, breaking my thoughts.

      I looked at her blankly.

      ‘Have you heard about Rowena’s baby?’ she added. ‘I thought you might like to hear some good news.’

      I had to think for a moment before realising Stella was talking about the tiny premature baby she had carried to Special Care down the front of her uniform.

      ‘I’d love to hear some good news,’ I replied.

      ‘He has gained two ounces already and is doing remarkably well. The milk bank’s done him proud. Isn’t that great?’

      ‘It is,’ I replied. ‘It really is! Do the ladies on the ward know?’

      She shook her head. ‘Not yet.’

      ‘Well, I think you should go and spread the news,’ I smiled.

      The milk bank was a stock of breastmilk collected from women on the wards who had a surplus after feeding their own baby. We got them to pump it into glass bottles so it could be used to feed the babies on Special Care, and it was always good to be able to tell other mums their milk was working its magic and helping another baby. The fact Rowena’s fragile little boy was doing well was extremely uplifting, and just the news the whole ward needed.

      Stella and I shared a look that told me she was thinking exactly the same thoughts as me. It’s an emotional rollercoaster, working as a midwife. You just never know when you might be plunged into a dark abyss, or when you may be launched back up into the bright sky. As I prepared to leave for the day it was very heartening to hear a succession of ‘oohs’ and ‘aaahs’ filling the ward as news of Rowena’s baby travelled fast.

      I thought that Stella seemed to have coped with Mrs Johnson’s death well, perhaps better than I had. She had dried her eyes quickly and got on with the job in hand, looking after the other patients on the antenatal ward efficiently yet compassionately.

      I wondered if it was because she had finished her nurses’ training so very recently, whereas I was far less used to dealing with death nowadays. Thank God I had become a midwife, I thought. Thank God that tomorrow I would be back on the postnatal ward, where I would have the honour and joy of helping to care for a brand new life.

       Chapter Two

‘Please God, look after Mrs Sully this time’

      I had an unsettling sense of déjà vu when I began work on the postnatal ward one warm and sunny morning in July 1972.

      There was a new arrival in bed one: a raven-haired lady who was wearing a beautiful bat-wing nightgown made of a lovely blue chiffon material. She had a neat little chignon pinned into the back of her shoulder-length hair and she had clearly spent quite a bit of time applying her make-up, which was practically unheard of for a tired new mum. Her eyebrows were pencilled in dark kohl, her sharp cheekbones were highlighted with a dark rouge and she was wearing fetching coral-coloured lipstick, which I’d read in a magazine was the height of fashion.

      ‘Good morning,’ I said brightly, scanning the notes as I approached her bed. ‘I see you’ve had a lovely little boy Mrs Prince, congratulations! Phillip’s a lovely name.’

      Beneath the blusher, I was confused to see the colour suddenly and completely drain from Mrs Prince’s face, and I asked her if she was feeling all right.

      ‘I’m fine,’ she mumbled, lowering her eyes shyly and putting one hand up on her brow, as if shielding her face from the sunlight shining through the window. ‘Everything is perfect. I think I’ll get some sleep, whilst Phillip is settled.’

      I knew Mrs Prince was an accountant by trade, as one of my colleagues had mentioned it in passing. I had started to notice that the more educated the woman, the more pressure she put herself under to be the perfect mother and the perfect wife. I wondered fleetingly if perhaps Mrs Prince was one of those high-achieving people who had to have everything ‘just so’. That would certainly explain her fine appearance.

      I left her in peace, closing the curtain around her bed, and went about my duties on the ward. I chatted to several women about how much milk their little one had taken, whether the baby’s umbilical cord was drying up nicely or how uncomfortable the new mother’s stitches were.

      There was a little alarm bell ringing in my head all morning, though, and I started to wonder if I had seen Mrs Prince before. I thought I might have done, but I just couldn’t place her. I would keep an extra eye on her today, as there was something about her I just couldn’t put my finger on.

      The three other new mums in this room on the postnatal ward were chatting easily to each other, discussing the latest plot on the television soap opera Crossroads and giggling about a well-thumbed copy of Cosmopolitan magazine one of them had picked up in the day room.

      ‘I don’t think my Barry would agree with this!’ Mrs Vaughan snorted.

      I could see she was holding the first-ever issue of the women’s glossy magazine Cosmopolitan, as I’d flicked through it myself one day in a spare moment. It had caused quite a stir when it was published several months earlier, in March 1972, as it was far more outspoken and controversial than any of the other women’s magazines available at that time.

      ‘Listen up, ladies,’ Mrs Vaughan chuckled as she began to read out one of the headlines on the bright red cover. ‘“An extraordinary interview: Michael Parkinson talks about his vasectomy – the most beautiful thing a man can do for a woman.”’

      All three women fell about laughing, clutching their abdomens and wincing as they did so.

      ‘And there’s me having me tubes tied on Friday!’ hooted Mrs Rogers from the bed opposite.

      It was very common in those days for women who had completed their family to stay in hospital and have a Pomeroy sterilisation under general anaesthetic approximately five days after giving birth. It means having an abdominal incision and both fallopian tubes clamped, cut and tied to prevent future pregnancies. Doctors carried out at least half a dozen each week, if not more, which was part of the reason the postnatal wards were always full.

      Condoms, often referred to as ‘Johnnies’, were the other preferred choice of contraception at that time, although many couples tried to manage without and lived in fear of unwanted pregnancy, as you still had to pay for the Pill back then. It was typical for married women, rather than their husbands, to take responsibility for sterilisation.