The Midwife's Here!: The Enchanting True Story of One of Britain's Longest Serving Midwives (27 page)

I helped Mrs Miller out of her coat and, with Mavis’s help, got her to lie down on it. She was clearly in a great deal of pain, but she was calmer now and did everything I asked her to do, even managing to joke: ‘Mind me coat, it cost a bomb.’ I could see the baby’s head bulging through her knickers so I took out my scissors and cut her undergarments away. Moments later, a hearty cry cut through the damp and bitterly cold December air.

‘It’s a boy!’ I declared. The baby had arrived so quickly there had been no rotation of the body, as would happen under normal circumstances. He was delivered completely in one mighty push, one of the fastest deliveries on my record. Mrs Miller burst into tears and her husband, still holding his coat aloft, sounded choked with emotion as he asked if the little mite was all right.

‘He looks absolutely fine to me,’ I said, cutting the cord swiftly with ice-cold fingers, and feeling very grateful we had
delivery packs at our disposal, with all the instruments sterilised and ready to use.

I knew we had to get this baby and mother inside in the warm as quickly as possible. Labour and delivery may have taken place in a sub-zero car park, but Mrs Miller would be much more comfortable if stage three, the delivery of the placenta, took place inside the hospital.

As I wrapped the baby in the blanket Mr Miller had warmed inside his shirt, Mavis stepped forward, unbuttoned her coat and popped the baby inside, snug against her chest. This left a very relieved Mr Miller free to cuddle his wife while we arranged to have a wheelchair brought out.

‘Oh I do love kitchen midwifery,’ Mavis chortled later, when Mrs Miller was safely inside, the placenta cleanly delivered and her eight-pound son Keith was sleeping soundly in a cot beside her. ‘That was exciting, don’t you think, Linda?’

Kitchen midwifery was a term I’d heard older colleagues like Mavis use to describe deliveries that took place in unusual or unexpected places, often without the correct equipment.

‘Well, it was OK,’ I said cautiously, thinking that exciting wasn’t quite the word I would use. Alarming and dramatic were perhaps more apt. ‘Mr and Mrs Miller will have a good story to tell little Keith when he’s older,’ I added.

Mavis laughed. ‘Yes, especially as they had the hospital’s most famous midwife deliver him!’

I’d been so focused on delivering this baby safely, I’d completely forgotten Mr Miller’s reaction when he first saw me on the ward. He later explained to Mavis that he had seen my poster smiling down from an advertising hoarding as he waited impatiently at a set of red lights on the way to the hospital.

‘Fancy that,’ Mavis chuckled. ‘As if Mr Miller hadn’t had enough surprises for one night without running into you as well!’ Giving me a warm smile, she added, ‘Lucky man, I reckon. You’re a wonderful little midwife.’

Mavis’s generous words meant a great deal to me. She was an auxiliary, not a nurse or midwife, but she had many years of experience under her belt and I valued her opinion enormously. Mavis was magic, and auxiliaries like her played a vital role in hospital life.

I went home later feeling on top of the world. I was twenty-three years old and, thanks to the posters, I was being publicly hailed as a fine example of a competent qualified nurse and midwife. What more could I wish for? Mavis’s endorsement was the icing on the cake. Days like that completely validated all of my training, all of my hard work.

I thought about the homesickness, the worry, the blood, the sweat and all those tears I’d mopped up over the years, many of them my own. All of it, every hardship and hurdle I’d endured as a student nurse and pupil midwife, had been worthwhile.

I’d made it, and this midwife was here to stay.

This was taken during my first year of training at the Manchester Royal Infirmary aged 18.