The Platform Lovers – Hard Labour?

The Platform Lovers – Hard Labour?

The labour unit was not decorated in the pleasant pastel colours of the maternity ward two floors above.

The harsh green walls and stark fluorescent lighting  gave a sense of practicality,  of purposefulness,  that they had seen their share of action over the years.

John, knew exactly why the walls and the surgeons uniforms were the same dull green colour.   it showed the blood as a dull stain but muted the scarily glaring redness.

No point in scaring the clientele off when they were nervous enough anyway.

Hopefully it wouldn’t come to that.

The Platform Lovers – Miracles?

Aileen spent the next few hours in a combination of wanting to lie down,  or get up and walk,  whatever helped relieve the increasing waves of pain at that particular moment.

The mid-wife said that walking would help,  letting gravity play its part in helping the baby’s head work its way into place.

Her contractions were getting closer,  hourly, every 30 minutes, every 20,  but her dilation hadn’t changed at the same rate.

The nurses came through and pulled the curtains around the bed in the 4-bed dormitory every 30 minutes and checked on how Aileen was feeling.   Then they’d have a visible check,  2cm was now 5cm,  but they wanted her to be at 10cm dilation before they’d take her down to the private wards in the labour suite.

Aileen would smile and say she was fine,   then squeeze John’s hand so hard that he thought she would break it,   but he could’t really complain given the circumstances .. could he?

The Platform Lovers – Waters

John woke up with the phone ringing on Aileen’s side of the bed.

At first it was a distant echo in his instantly forgotten dream of work, castles, football and large jiggling breasts.

A strange combination but who knows how dreams work?

The call persisted as he rose through the foggy haze to reality,  but he ignored it,  thinking that Aileen would answer and who the fuck is calling at this time of night anyway?

But as he came back in to consciousness,  he remembered that Aileen had got up some time ago,  so who was that calling at this time of night?

The Platform Lovers – Parts.

Aileen’s waters broke at 2am,  she nudged John in the back to tell him but he just grunted and rolled over.

“Useless prick”  she muttered under her breath as she climbed out of bed heading for the bathroom.

John wasn’t exactly the most excited father-to-be,   But he had done his duty and attended all of the Pre-Natal classes.

He’d held Aileen’s hand and told her to breath,  even although he complained that he just felt stupid kneeling on the floor with a bunch of other dads all looking at each other wondering if this was it?   Is al this all they had to do,  hold their partners hands and offer encouragement?

He’d been there to play his part on that drunken night nine months earlier,   they’d done a lot more than holding hands and breathing exercises then.