Chapter Five

ZARA

 

The next few weeks ran pretty smoothly. We took the children to restaurants, and playgrounds, read books, baked together, went on bike rides and played board games. We were one big instant family, and we crammed all our fun adventures in to those first few weeks. I was surprised to enjoy it all—I couldn’t have been happier. I was basking in it and enjoying having Renee by my side for it all. After their slow start initially, the twins had completely settled in to their new home. Hannah, particularly, was quite chatty and excitable. She clearly loved attention. Ruby, on the other hand, was much quieter, but still seemed to have an infectious energy. Playing the role of the stay-at-home mum for a few weeks was easier, and more enjoyable, than I’d expected. I was completely shocked when I enjoyed spending time with the children on my own. I thought I’d enjoy the family times, with Renee by my side, but I was surprised to find that I was laughing and looking forward to my days with the children. I felt I really got to know them well because I was completely responsible for their care while Renee was at work. I often found myself cuddling one of them till they fell asleep, and it surprised me how nice it felt to have them trust me so quickly and so completely.

Although I’d had no real experience with babies, I could tell that Jacob was a very easy baby. He slept well, never cried, and just played on his own most of the day. I mentioned this to Angela during one of her case worker visits. She took constant notes. “Never cries?” she asked, peering over her notes. I shook my head. “And by ‘never’…?”

“Never.” I was beaming at her. “He’s a dream baby!” I was pretty proud of my perfect baby, while all the other mothers complained about theirs. Although I hated to brag, I thought Angela deserved to know.

She didn’t seem as happy as me though. “It’s actually a bit of a worry.” She frowned as she wrote, not looking up from her notes. “I think we need to get him assessed.” The problem, we learnt, was that a baby that never cried was a baby that didn’t expect his needs to get met. He had no expectations, had learnt to adapt to a situation that was less than ideal, or maybe he wasn’t completely settled and ready for us to look after him. Perhaps that was a signal to what he’d experienced in the past, I pondered.

Things escalated even more when the birth family contact started. By then, my month as a stay-at-home mum had finished, but I knew Renee was anxious about sending the kids off with a driver, so I took the day off work. “Let’s look at it like free babysitting!” I said, thinking it was a great idea. “We’ll go for lunch.” The driver turned up at 11am and would return around 2pm, twice a week. The twins would be moody when they’d get home, so they’d usually have to have a nap when they returned. We didn’t really know what went on at the contact sessions, but we gathered that they played, ate lunch, and played some more. We were told that it was best for a driver to take the kids, for security, and we agreed with that. We weren’t really ready to meet the kids’ mum, anyway, although I did agree with Angela that, long term, it would be best for us to meet her and drive the children to each contact session.

After about two months, another big milestone occurred – our dream baby started to cry. One of us would be in the bedroom or the playroom with the children and walk out – perhaps to cook dinner, or just go to the bathroom – and Jacob could begin to cry hysterically. If we were out of sight, he would be crying, and every time the contact driver would arrive and take him, he’d cry the whole way down the street. It was a complete turnaround from the baby that had never cried, and we didn’t know what to do. The advice we’d been given was to give in to it. Cuddle him, carry him, wear him in a wrap, basically be there for him, but then we had to send him off with a driver, and it was awful. We were even told to pretend he was a newborn, and treat him that way, even though he was closer to one. It certainly stopped him crying but had us nearly in tears! Neither of us were used to having a newborn, and treating a one year old like a newborn certainly felt unnatural! We did know, however, that it was important to give in to his needs.

Renee, in particular, was getting exhausted, having the baby relying on her constantly. She was not used to having someone demand so much of her, and I could tell she was being run ragged. She didn’t look as pulled together as she once had, and her eyes were no longer shining as brightly as they had. She was climbing into bed yawning each night. I was beginning to worry. I kept pushing her out the door for some solo time, but nothing seemed to be working. We’d been invited to our friend’s fortieth birthday party at a local hall, and I figured it was just the ticket to feeling like our old selves again. It was, apparently, ‘family-friendly’, though I wasn’t so sure if anything after seven PM was ever family-friendly. Boy, how my life had changed!

We dressed the kids up in cute, modern clothes and excitedly paraded them to all our friends, some who hadn’t yet met them. We had the coolest accessory of the night and everyone was coming up and asking us “how is it going?” Everyone said that Renee was doing so well with the children, which annoyed me a little, because I felt like people weren’t recognising that I was a new mum too. Besides, I’d been the one that had been at home with the children for the first month, which was, by all reports, the hardest time, wasn’t it? I should get recognised too. On the one hand, I liked that people were acknowledging that I hadn’t completely changed, it gave me a feeling that things will still pretty normal. On the other hand, I felt invisible in contrast to Renee who was happily saying “thank you” when people complimented her.

We were happy to share our story and give people cuddles from Jacob. As long as we remained in sight, he was fine with that, though sometimes grimaced when a well-meaning friend cuddled him a little too enthusiastically. The girls ran around the hall with all the other kids, and everyone was having a ball till Hannah split her lip when she tripped up. Renee and I both ran to scoop her into our arms. Renee beat me by a fraction of a second and calmed Hannah down, while everyone marvelled at how motherly she was. For the first time, I felt jealous of Renee’s role. I edged Renee away from the crowd. “Ren, I’m her mother too,” I said, my green eyes glaring. Renee looked at me in confusion.

“She just needs a cuddle.” The look she gave me warned me to calm down, but I was feeling annoyed that no one had even noticed me as a mother and now Renee was acting as if I was unimportant too.

“And why can’t I be the one to cuddle her?” I asked my partner, an edge to my voice.

“Just let me calm her down and you can. Honestly. This is about her, not you,” she chastised me and shook her head in disappointment. In her disappointment, she walked a little bit away from me, which only infuriated me more. I felt that she was protecting my daughter from me. She shot me another warning look.

“You’ve got a nerve,” I raised my voice just loud enough for her to hear as I walked off, tears welling in my eyes. Renee couldn’t understand what was going on, she had thought it was a minor incident, but as I walked off, she realised how upset I was. She followed me, still cuddling Hannah into her chest.

“What’s up, babe?” she asked me, confused.

“What’s up is that she’s MY daughter too! And yet you have to play mother all the time, even when I’m here.”

“Ummm, okay. We’re both mothers. She needed a cuddle. I gave her a cuddle. It’s no big deal.” Renee shook her head. Her logic annoyed me, because it made sense. She continued, “And you’re making a scene. Let’s discuss this on the way home.”

I glared back at her. “If it was no big deal, then why didn’t you just give her to me?” Suddenly I wasn’t looking forward to the car trip home, but I wasn’t keen on staying at the party either. I went for a walk to clear my head and ran into a couple of friends smoking outside by the cars.

“What’s up, girl?” Sam, Renee’s best friend, asked. Sam’s girlfriend, Debbie, was inside, I had chatted to Debbie earlier in the evening, but hadn’t yet caught up with Sam. Sam and Debbie had been a couple for around two years, and Renee and Sam had been friends since before we had got together. They were quite close, usually catching up for monthly dinners, but tonight was the first night Sam had met the children.

“Oh, nothing.” I didn’t want to create a stir. “It was getting a bit stuffy in there!”

Sam gestured to Jason, one of our mates. “Yeah, we needed to get out of there too. Hey, I was just saying to Jase that we should head out to a club. Want to join us?” I was surprised, Sam and I had never really hung out, but I guess she knew that from time to time, Jason and I did go out dancing.

Everything had changed now, though, so I just laughed and shook my head. “I’m a mum now!”

Jason laughed. “How your life has changed in an instant! Yes, I heard the nightclub is a mum-free zone. They do check IDs on the way in. If you ID says you’re a mum, you’re out.” He winked at me.

I nodded, he had a point, as sarcastic as he was being. “Yeah, yeah, but I have to get up early tomorrow. It’s crazy. Well, life’s really changed for Renee, not me. I’m back at work now. It’s busy, but my life hasn’t changed.”

“Yes, but you can’t underestimate that, babe.” I must have looked confused, so he added, “yeah, you still go to work, but you come home to three little people. Your life has changed a lot!”

“AND a partner whose life has completely changed!”

Sam’s eyes widened as she said, “She’s a totally different person now…It’s like the old Renee has disappeared! Poof, in an instant! Totally mumsy now.”

I had expected and even wanted empathy, but bagging out Renee didn’t sit right with me, so I responded, “No, she’s not, she’s just got different circumstances.” Of course, I’d felt the same as Sam, wondering where the old Renee had gone, but I was upset that she was questioning her. Deep down, Renee hadn’t changed, so I meant what I said, just her circumstances had changed.

“Seriously, I called her the other day, and chatted about stuff and all she talked about was the kids. It’s like she has nothing else to talk about!” Sam protested. Everyone knew that Sam and Debbie were in the child-free camp, but I was surprised at how quickly it seemed Sam was ditching Renee.

“She still needs friends. Maybe more so than ever.” I felt sad for Renee. Renee didn’t make friends easily, but she was an incredibly committed friend once she established a bond with someone. I was anxious that she might lose the closest friend she had. “You should go for dinner with her soon.”

“Yeah, but…I invited her to go out for dinner, and she said no. ‘I’m too tired’,” Sam mimicked. She had an edge to her voice which made me think she was more hurt than she was letting on.

“Yeah, she is, and she’s trying to really bond with the kids. It’ll change, soon,” I assured her, while silently hoping so myself. I felt strangely defensive of Renee. Although I was annoyed with her and trying to let off steam, I didn’t like hearing other people say negative things about her, particularly her best friend. I made some more small talk and walked inside. It was time to go home. I was already over tonight.

 

RENEE

 

After Zara’s outburst, I wasn’t looking forward to the drive home together, but we managed to chat nicely and calmly with each other. Sure, the little fight had shown us that there were some issues, but we weren’t the types to hold grudges. Everything seemed to have been going really well between us before this outburst. Perhaps the most alarming matter to me was how to manage the two mum thing, particularly when there was a third mother out there too. Because Zara wasn’t exactly the motherly type, I hadn’t assumed that she’d want to play that role, but now with children here, she seemed to have changed a little. It wasn’t a problem, it just required a bit of different navigation from what we’d expected at the outset, I thought. For me, bonding with the children hadn’t been that instant feeling that many mothers get when they’re handled their bundle of joy in the hospital. It was taking some time, and I hadn’t expected that. In fact, running to Hannah’s rescue had actually taken me by surprise just as much as it had Zara. In that moment, I’d realised I wanted the best for these kids, I would love them and adore them, protect them, and do anything for them. They were mine! It was both a joyous moment for me and an awful moment for Zara. The ferocious mother in me came out, and before that, I hadn’t been sure if it would ever come. I desperately wanted to bond with these kids as if they were my own, but until that party, I hadn’t particularly felt it. It wasn’t until I felt I was truly needed that I really felt like a mother. And so I’d enjoyed the moment, even though Zara felt alienated.

In my slow start to bonding with the children, Zara had seemingly stepped in, playing the role of the instant mother so perfectly. So, me finally feeling comfortable as mum had resulted in her feeling side-lined. I had arrived, in all my maternal glory! The role I’d anticipated I’d have my entire life was suddenly mine. As I held my baby Hannah and looked around the room, I noticed other mothers tending to their children. I was finally part of a club. I knew that Zara felt like she was part of that club sooner than me, but I also knew it wasn’t something she’d always wanted, so she shouldn’t really care that she was being side-lined, should she? While I felt bad for her, I also felt elated for myself. Now, I recognised that there was room for two mums, and I just had to give her space to have this role, as unexpected as it was to us both. I also had to acknowledge the role of the birth mother, although that wasn’t easy for me, but again, watching Zara showed me it could be done whilst still being completely devoted to the children. I had to make some changes, and tonight had given me the motivation to do this sooner rather than later. I didn’t speak any of this aloud to Zara, though. I just pondered it alone, instead. Although we were fine on the surface, the evening’s fight had clearly left us both thinking. We didn’t often fight, so this issue, at a time when we should be working together, had startled us both and left us worried. We went to bed in somber moods.

Already, parenting for just over three months, we’d found ourselves distant from each other. I shouldn’t have been so surprised, parenting is stressful, and we had no preparation time and no cuddly newborn to ease us into the role of mothers. Perhaps the most surprising part was that it had taken us this long to get here.

It certainly wasn’t the magical parenting moment I’d expected. I had expected us to find the whole thing would bring us closer together, but it seemed to be tearing us apart, and already I seemed to be pushing her away without even knowing it. I had to work out a way to do this together, but I wasn’t sure how to even begin. In many ways, it felt insurmountable, so early on. It felt like somehow we were challenging each other, fighting for some kind of role with the children, and I was too exhausted to challenge her any more. Where to from here? Was I being too dramatic?

The next day, I woke up yawning to the sound of Jacob’s cry. I scooped him out of his cot and gave him his bottle, mindlessly picking up a magazine to flick through while I properly woke up.

Zara came out to the lounge room and smiled. “Hey, baby boy!” she said, and he giggled at her. She turned her attention to me. “Eggs today?” Neither of us had been raised with a Sunday morning ritual of bacon and eggs, but Zara loved family rituals and a couple of years ago had proclaimed that Sunday mornings meant cooked breakfasts – eggs on toast or pancakes were her preference. I gladly went along with it, as long as I wasn’t required to cook. I took her offer as a sign that things were back to normal, and I was relieved. Truthfully, I’d have eaten anything.

The kids didn’t seem to enjoy eggs yet, so we gave them toast and cereal and quickly ate our eggs up. We spent the day at home, switching between household tasks and playing with the children. The day went smoothly, happily, and we both seemed much calmer. Without even discussing it, working together meant that, unspoken, we could move on from the incident the night before, safe in the knowledge that we were a team again. I didn’t like feeling like we were in competition; we worked much better together, as a team.

Over the coming weeks, it became really evident that we did work really well together. She would come home from work and take over for bath time or playtime, and I would put the finishing touches on dinner while listening to music. She was always keen to spend time with the children, and I enjoyed the break too. I had the routine organised and she brought home that joyful excitement to the kids. The kids would get a buzz the moment they heard her key in the door at the end of a day, often running to hide, and surprise her once she walked into the door. We enjoyed going out as a family of five and we took the kids to movies, museums, playgrounds, and tried many kids’ menus at many restaurants. We had found our groove as a family. We saw my family frequently and applied for permission to visit Zara’s interstate family. We were told we could take the children in a few months, so we excitedly planned a holiday. Personally, I couldn’t wait for a break from the day-to-day routine and having Zara around full time for a couple of weeks would be really nice. She was looking forward to finally introducing the children to her family, and showing the children some of her favourite places. I was happy to see her enthusiastically planning our outings while away.

In the meantime, the visits with the birth family continued, but they weren’t as frequent as we had been told they would be. Often their mother would cancel the session the morning of the visit. We quickly learnt not to tell the children that it was a visitation day, and instead waited until it was definitely happening to prepare them, but this just made life hard for everyone. It was more stressful on the children when the news was ‘sprung’ on them. They coped much better when they had been properly prepared for a visit. For me, it interfered with my plans for the day, and while that might sound selfish, it was important for me to catch up with friends and family now that I wasn’t working. In some ways, I’d never felt so isolated, but most of the time, I was too busy to notice or care much. I’d started baking on days we spent at home, because it gave me a task that I could do with the kids at home. I did it during Jacob’s daytime nap and the twins would often sit with me and chat while I stirred the bowl or cracked the eggs.

I’d never been much of a baker, but suddenly it became my favourite thing to do. I was enjoying making little treats for the kids, and they were very appreciative. I spent my evenings trawling through recipes online and making plans about what to bake each week. It was certainly a cost saving, too, and the money manager in me enjoyed thinking about how much each item I made cost and comparing it to how much it would cost if I’d bought them at the shop. It became a little escape for me, something to occupy my mind, and it made me feel good being able to do that while at home with the children. The children sometimes helped out, and other times, I did it while they were busy playing. The escapism meant that I felt productive while doing something for the children, but not always having to play. Baking felt like a different type of play, and it was one that I was starting to relish. Already I’d stocked the freezer with cakes and slices, and our pantry had plenty of homemade biscuits. Soon enough, we had too many baked goods, and so we started giving them to my family, or Zara took them to work to share with her colleagues. Her colleagues kept asking for more!

I often wondered what went on at the birth family visits. I had no real way of knowing, other than the occasional report. The kids’ behavior was different afterwards. Either they came home exhausted and needed naps, which was unusual for the twins, or they were very hyperactive and affectionate. They never discussed it with us. I often said to Zara that I’d love to be a fly on the wall. “Maybe they could send you as the driver one day,” she said, smiling.

“What, just pretend I’m the driver and not the carer?” I asked and contemplated it seriously. After a pause, I said, “It wouldn’t work.” I shook my head, “because it would be obvious the kids knew me better than that.”

Zara nodded. “I was only kidding, babe.” I guess I’d half known that, but I was so keen to find out more that I might have really considered it if there was a way around it.

One day, the caseworker arrived with photographs of the children and their parents from before they came into care.

“Melissa gave us these pictures, so the children have a record. We recommend children have pictures of their birth family up in their bedrooms.”

I was curious to see what they looked like.

I was mesmerised. The birth mother had beautiful blonde hair and big brown eyes. She looked older than I’d expected. I stared into her eyes, half willing the photo to give me some insight into who she really was. Zara sat impatiently beside me. She couldn’t properly see the photograph from her angle, so she tried to get me to pass it over to her. I didn’t want to; I wanted the photograph to answer all my questions. Who was this woman, and what did she do to my children? I silently wondered.

 

ZARA

 

Finally Renee handed me the picture, and my eyes almost instantly filled with tears. I felt so sad. Here was a woman smiling proudly, while holding a brand new baby and with older twin girls sitting either side of her. This woman did not look like the woman I’d imagined. This woman just looked like the type of woman you’d see down at the shops, or at school picking up kids. She had a very weathered face, but other than that, she seemed content, calm and happy. I realised I had judged her, but the woman smiling at me didn’t deserve my judgement. I was still confused. How does a mother ever lose her children?

I was silent, while Renee and Angela talked. Angela explained to us that at the next court date she expected the children would move to permanent foster care. This meant that they could be with us forever, but technically would still belong to the state. Then we would need to apply for the next step of permanent guardianship, where they’d be with us forever and we could make all decisions for them, so it was similar to adoption. We had asked her if there was a chance that they wouldn’t go permanent, and she said no, not in her opinion, because the family had not been willing to engage or make the decisions in the children’s best interests. They wanted to maintain a connection between the family and the children, but they were confident that the family was too unstable to ensure the children would be protected.

Angela finally stood up to leave and started piling her notebooks together. She absent-mindedly handed me her coffee cup. “Well, I’ll get out of your hair,” she said, unnecessarily, as if she hadn’t already been signaling that to us. “I guess you’ve got to make dinner and so on. Though, something smells nice,” she said, as she started to walk toward the door.

“There’s a chicken curry in the slow cooker.”

“Well, in that case, I might just stay,” Angela said, laughing, but by then she had reached the door, and turned, “Well, I will see you in about a month. Have fun.” She looked at the children playing behind me. “See you kids! See you next time.” And with that, she was gone.

 

RENEE

 

“We’re not putting those pictures up in the kids room!” I said, the moment Angela left. “She’s mad if she thinks we are!”

“Of course, we are!” Zara said. “Why wouldn’t we?”

“Why would we? It’ll confuse the kids. I think we just put them in an album for the kids to look at.” I was confused with both Zara and Angela. “Especially after what Angela said. I think if they were going back, we’d put the photos up, but we’re their mums now.”

“Well, actually, we’re not really,” Zara argued.

I was surprised. A few weeks ago, I was the one saying that we weren’t really mothers and now we had apparently experienced a turnaround. I just wanted us on the same page, but between us, we kept playing Devil’s Advocate. I think the reason for that was that we were both nervous we were getting too close. Whenever one of us said something to indicate we’d forgotten the children were really foster children, the other piped up with the opposing view. It was becoming frustrating, and it was becoming easier not to talk about these big matters. I sighed. Zara and I had never been the types to shy away from communication.

“Besides the whole point of foster care is reuniting them with their birth family, if we can, and ideally creating a positive link between our families if they’re not.”

“Well, I don’t think they’re reuniting.”

“You never know,” she said.

“Zara, honestly! You heard Angela! They’re not going back.”

Zara shook her head. “She didn’t say that, babe.” She sat down and picked up the photograph again, staring at Melissa. “She said that they’re going for a long-term order. That doesn’t mean anything, really. And I look at this woman and she seems so everyday!” She pointed to the photo. “Maybe she just needs a little help.” Zara shrugged. “Maybe we could be the ones to help.”

“Everyday mothers don’t lose their kids, do they? Everyday mothers don’t mistreat their kids!” I was adamant about that. I’d never met a woman who’d lost her kids before, and so I knew it didn’t just happen easily. Mothers get angry with their kids, mothers aren’t always perfect, but mothers just don’t lose their kids. I couldn’t understand it.

“You have to remember that our backgrounds have been quite privileged,” Zara said. She had recently read a book all about privilege and how this impacts on parenting and now she was sprouting it to me all the time. It was getting tiresome. I rolled my eyes, but I don’t think she noticed.

“We may have had good upbringings, but people can take responsibility for their own lives too. Anyone can study. Anyone can get a job. Anyone can treat their kids well. And the Government gives people money to raise their kids if they can’t, and to help them with their studies if they want to better themselves.”

“Mmmm. We were both raised to believe we ‘can do’ though. I don’t think everyone is so lucky,” Zara said. “And I really think this affects the choices you make in life. We’re resilient and positive, because of our upbringings, which really goes a long way. Besides, we don’t know if it’s a financial matter. Maybe she’s got a great job. There’s a lot of ways things impact on people, we have to be understanding and supportive, not judgmental.”

“Well, I’ve never met anyone in the workforce who has lost their children,” I said, growing increasingly frustrated with Zara. She just didn’t seem to get it.

“But would they tell you if they had?” she pondered.

I secretly wondered if that was something you could hide.

“You’re right.” I shrugged, but I still didn’t believe her. It hurt me to think that this woman might have lost her children, through no fault of her own. It was easier to think that she was some kind of monster, and we were saving the children. Now Zara wanted us to save Melissa. It made no sense to me, but I also knew, deep down, that there probably was a middle ground. We finally agreed to put the photos in a special photo book, accessible to the children at any time, and we moved on from this topic, knowing that we couldn’t agree.

Over the coming weeks, Zara became certain that as two women, it was our role to assist the children’s birth mother. The birth father never really factored into her discussion. My partner had previously lived a self-centered existence. She had built her education and career around no grand plans of helping anyone. Her life was focused on working hard and doing a good job, but the ultimate goal was financial gain and success, as far as I could tell, rather than anything more giving. She enjoyed her work, but it was the recognition of a job well done that delivered something to her. She did love the teaching side, which, upon reflection, was a giving role, but she hadn’t appeared very socially conscious. Now, though, she was turning into someone who was more interested in saving the world. I wanted to protect my kids from their birth mother, the woman who had obviously mistreated them. But Zara was different. She wanted to protect the woman! I couldn’t even begin to understand how she could look at our children and want to protect the woman who had, at worst, hurt them and, at best, failed to protect them. I was furious that she would even consider it!

 

MELISSA

 

I remember sitting on my couch, with that massive pregnant twin belly, and feeling my back aching. It was a month before the twins were due, but I didn’t see how my body could expand any more. Besides, with all the cramps I was having, I knew something was happening. One night, he wanted to go out, but I told him I thought labor was starting. He’d grunted and said that he knew labor took a long time, so he was heading out. I didn’t know how he was such an expert on birth, but I didn’t argue. He went to the pub and arrived home earlier than usual – about midnight. While he was out, I stayed on the couch, restless, trying to sleep and watching some awful TV movies. I woke with a start when I heard David come home. I was nervous about the pain, and I was nervous about parenting, but I was looking forward to becoming a mum. I was a little nervous that it was a month early, and I didn’t really know what that meant. I could smell the beer on David’s breath, but he swore he’d only had a couple, so I got him to drive us up to the hospital. We got there about 4am, and were greeted by a gruff midwife.

“Twins, eh? We’ll put her in the big room,” she’d said to the young nurse. The friendly young nurse got the room ready for us and the next day and a half was spent with nurses checking out how dilated I was. It was just a repeated cycle of nurses coming in, not saying much and then departing. The labour was awful – the most extreme pain I’d ever experienced. I felt like I was being ripped in half as I screamed the hospital down. David was pacing, and every hour went for a cigarette break. While he was on a cigarette break, I had another examination and then the midwives started to talk in hushed tones. The gruff one had come back on duty, and she came and said “Melissa, you’re not progressing fast enough, and one of the babies appears to be in distress. We’re going for a c-section.”

I shook my head. “No,” I protested, “I’m doing this naturally.” I was exhausted, it had been hours already, and I needed to rest. I didn’t want to have surgery, especially when I’d already come this far. I didn’t think I’d be able to handle the recovery and the babies and look after David at the same time. Plus, I’d lived through all those contractions…for what? No, I explained, I was definitely going to do this the natural way. But the gruff midwife wasn’t going to be convinced, and by the time David returned, they were prepping me for surgery, and there was an urgency in the room that hadn’t been there before. David asked what was going on, noting the change, and I told him. He shook his head; he didn’t want to deal with any of this. “Well, we better call someone,” he said. I didn’t know what he meant, so he explained, “I don’t want to be in that surgery room. Who do you want with you? Catherine?” he wanted to know if I wanted my sister with me, but I hadn’t seen my sister in over six months. I really didn’t have anyone other than David. My mum had passed away, and I hadn’t seen my dad since then. I knew David would want to be there the moment the babies came into the world, even if he didn’t realise it himself. It wouldn’t be the magical birth I’d imagined, but they were still our babies, so I insisted he come. Even though David wants what David wants, I can usually talk him into what I want, and so although he was annoyed, he slowly followed the procession of my hospital bed and all the nurses down to the hospital theatre. “Hold my hand, David,” I said, hoping for a connection, but he seemed lost in his own little world and he appeared not to hear me. The twins arrived – Hannah first, and Ruby second – but they whisked them off to the special care nursery not long after they were born. I felt nothing, no magical moment of becoming a mum. I knew I was supposed to care that they weren’t with me, but I didn’t really. I was exhausted and in pain. I was pleased that I didn’t have to look after them. I slept while I could and took painkillers whenever they let me.

Hannah was a skinny little thing, and I couldn’t cuddle her until the third day, but I cuddled Ruby on the second day. The nurses acted like this was going to be some amazing moment, and had the camera ready, but I still felt nothing. I tried to smile. My milk came in, and with that, a gush of emotions, but again, it wasn’t for the babies. I didn’t think I could do this, I didn’t think I could be responsible for these two little people, and myself and also David. I had wanted this, and already I didn’t know if I was cut out for it. I cried for days, and he couldn’t deal with it, so he disappeared from the hospital, telling me to ring when I was ready to be picked up. It took ten days before I was able to be sent home, the hospital was anxious about how I’d cope. The nurses seemed so busy, fussing over doing their observations, and planning their rosters, so, in the start, I hadn’t thought they’d even noticed me or which visitors I did or didn’t have, but it turned out they had. There were a lot of hushed conversations happening in the hallway outside of my hospital room and that was the first time Child Services got involved. Somehow it seemed they had flagged us as a concern. I hated their involvement and their questions about my relationship with David, especially when I was in pain and dealing with two babies on my own. They didn’t understand that David was a good man, and he just wasn’t coping with having twins, and that was the only reason he had left. That he would come back, I knew it even then. It was the way he did things. They didn’t understand that we were really happy and really in love. I wanted the twins, and I wanted to be a mum, but I couldn’t help thinking that it was their fault that our relationship was being questioned like this. It certainly didn’t do anything to strengthen my bond with the babies, because I couldn’t help thinking that if we didn’t have the twins, we could just keep going on like we always had without questions. We’d always been so in love; it was the romance of a lifetime and now they seemed to be saying that he’d left me. “He told me to call when I am ready to go home,” I said over and over to the nurses, as if it was any of their business, but they didn’t seem to be listening. It was obvious he hadn’t left me. “He loves me,” I said, “and now we’re parents, and we’ll make it work. I’ve always wanted to be a mum,” I kept telling them, but as I said that, the tears started rolling down my cheeks, and then I burst into tears. The more I tried to stop, the more the tears came and the more anxious the Child Services lady looked. They finally agreed to let us take the twins home, but we had home visits for months. Suddenly they just stopped visiting just before the twins’ first birthday. I had to dress up nicely for these visits and make sure the twins looked pretty. I was trying to make a good impression, and I swear if I owned pearls, I would have worn them! David and I played the role of happy, doting parents, but the truth is, parenting twins is hard. Parenting is hard. Relationships are hard.

David really seemed to struggle with parenting and went away a lot, even staying at his mates’ places after a night at the pub, so that he wouldn’t wake any of us. He was really considerate like that, and although I sometimes got jealous that he still had the life he’d had before kids, I couldn’t begrudge him of that. He was a good man, and he deserved to be happy. Then he started staying at some girl’s house, her name was Megan, and she was from the pub. I didn’t know her because I hadn’t been to the pub since we’d had the babies. Eventually he confessed they’d been intimate. I was so hurt, and I told him I wasn’t impressed, but he reminded me we hadn’t had sex in ages and got really angry that I was questioning him. I’d been pregnant with his twins, I’d reminded him, and he explained that Megan didn’t mean anything to him but helped him cope with the stress from home. He promised me that he would stop seeing her soon. Although I was angry, I knew better than to say anything, most of the time, because I didn’t want him to leave. I was just grateful that he returned home every few days, and over time I decided to have sex with him again. I realised I’d missed the feeling of his body pressing down on me, and him kissing my neck. I felt lucky that I hadn’t completely lost him. Actually, I was a really lucky girl to have him, I knew that, and over time, true to his word, he stopped staying at Megan’s.

My sister, Catherine, had said we’d never make it. She was always such a jealous bitch, but my mum had told me I had a good thing. Catherine didn’t understand the way mum did. Catherine had a guy, but he didn’t love her the way David loved me. I could see that, it was pretty obvious that was why she felt that way. And now he’d returned to me, and I felt pleased once again, I had my family back together.

My mum had said to me to always put my man first, and we’d be happy. She was right. David and I had been through so many hard times and so much crap in such a short time, but we still loved each other in a way that you don’t see too often these days. David was my world, and I knew that Catherine couldn’t understand that. That’s why I didn’t see Catherine very often, I didn’t want to rub her nose in the fact that my relationship was better than hers. I knew it’d only upset her.

Sure, David and I had our ups and downs, but David always came back to me.

I’d wished my mother was here with me to meet my babies. I knew she’d have helped me, and every day I thought about what life would be like if she was around to get some advice from.

And now…now I’d lost my children, and I wanted my mother more than ever. I knew that my sister would be no help, so I hadn’t even talked to her. The silly bitch would be smug and think we deserved it, but mum would have said just the right thing, and we’d have worked together to get these kids back. I felt like I needed my mum every day of my life, but right now I needed her more than ever.