Mai 19

Donnerstag

Today I woke up early and began bargaining. How many weeks premature might the baby be born, to give Mum more time to meet him and spend time with him? Time times time. Babies survive from twenty-two weeks, or even earlier. Leigh and her brother were tiny premmies, and they weren’t brain-damaged or unhealthy in any way. How about if the baby were born at thirty weeks, or twenty-eight? He’d probably need to go into an incubator (they’re not called that), but Mum is still well enough to visit. If he were here, outside, alive, at the end of the m1, she would make that trip. She could have a long rest afterwards, in our bed, or stay the whole night. And the baby might even be exceptional, although early; they – the doctors – might look over all his working parts and say he was fine to go home. They don’t want healthy babies, even slightly tiny ones, clogging up Maternity. Mum could meet the baby – who’d probably have a human name by then – (we’re trying out calling the baby Bumper) – in our sitting room – (Leigh bringing him down, pink cheeked and radiant (that’s the both of them)), or we could show her timidly into his bedroom full of hard-won sleep. (I feel nervous even thinking about this, because him being at home may never happen. More likely, almost inevitable, Mum will not visit us here again.) ‘How about twenty-six weeks?’ I thought, in bed. That’s not long. Could we cope with that, to make sure grandmother meets and holds grandson? They’ve sort of met, through the womb, the orb of Leigh’s tummy. It wasn’t contact but it was congress. I would like Mum to feel the baby’s warmth, and to warm it with her own.