A daughter

Poem for a daughter by Anne Stevenson

'I think I'm going to have it,' I said, joking between pains.
The midwife rolled competent
sleeves over corpulent milky arms.
'Dear, you never have it,
we deliver it.'
A judgement years proved true.
Certainly I've never had you

as you still have me, Petra.**
Why does a mother need a daughter?
Heart's needle, hostage to fortune,
freedom's end. Yet nothing's more perfect
than that bleating, razor-shaped cry
that delivers a mother to her baby.
The bloodcord snaps that held
their sphere together. The child,
tiny and alone, creates the mother.

A woman's life is her own
until it is taken away
by a first particular cry.
The she is not alone
but part of the premises
of everything there is:
a time, a tribe, a war.
When we belong to the world
we become what we are.

The arrival of The Pea

Perhaps in every couple there's one train fever type, and one who prefers to board the moving train, having made full use of every minute before its metal bulk draws out of the station.

Unfortunately for J, it's the wife with the relaxed approach to timings which in the case of the arrival of a child can be uncomfortable.

The sky was blue, the sun was beating down on the grim, grey graffitti-covered wall separating West Bankers from Jerusalemites - dividing families and tribes; splicing off chunks of valuable land from Palestinian farmers; barricading believers from their holy sites; and often forcing pregnant women to give birth at the barrier, in worst cases causing infant deaths.

But for us, what could go wrong? 9 days beyond the due date and I'd been graced with Palestinian virtues from somewhere: sabr: patience; and sumud: resistance. The charming obstetrician from Beit Sahour in Bethlehem said to me: 'I've never met a woman as patient as you. Really, you know we can give you an induction - there's nothing to fear.' But I had to resist, because twice before my body has managed alone without being pushed into labour - so why not a third time? He rolled his eyes, seemingly a little familiar with female obstinacy as a father to four daughters.

So after our consultation on a sunny Monday afternoon, I was itching to get back home and prepare - tying up those final loose ends before our lives were rearranged once again by a tiny creature. The metaphorical train could wait for me just a bit longer. J asked nervously: 'Are you sure you don't want to stay here? The doctor said it wouldn't be long, and I really don't want to get caught at a checkpoint or in traffic on our way back here.'

But who could argue with a woman this pregnant?!

We cruised back to Jerusalem, popped into Gap where J bought some new trousers - a few funny looks in the shopping centre at my low slung belly. I wondered if we'd get a lifetime's supply of free chinos if the baby popped out in the store.

Then passing Notre Dame, the early 19th C  building opposite the new gate to the Old City, we remembered the restaurant rooftop and decided to have some dinner up there.

Back home around 9.30pm, I advised J to get some sleep because if Bunny Floppy Ears was to make an arrival, he'd be running on empty without the natural adrenalin I was going to get.  I updated my blog, cruised about the house packing the hospital bag, humming to myself when I realised that the lower back pain I'd been feeling in the rooftop resto must have been the beginnings of things afterall. The contraction I felt that minute meant I had to stop and hold on to the door frame.

I woke J, then I waddled into Grace's room to wake her up while J hurried about finding his keys and his bag. Grace had been staring at me thinking I was about to give birth for over a month. Now was the moment and she leapt from her bed shouting: 'YES!' bosoms flying, and suddenly realised J standing behind me, clasped her hands in front of her chest. 'Sorry Sir!' she giggled. She hugged us so tight. I looked at the car dashboard as J started the car.10.45pm.

We hadn't counted the sets of traffic lights from our house to Bethlehem. But all I remember is that each one turned red as we approached. All I could feel was my own clammy hand holding the handle above the car door and the most regular and intense waves of a baby very much wanting to arrive, as J quietly and determinedly DROVE. No trouble at the checkpoint, and barely any traffic. But those red lights gleaming in the darkness…they will be my eternal memory. 'Go through this one if you can, there's nothing coming,' I hissed. (Apart from a baby of course). By 11.15 J was hooting the horn to get the guards to open the electric gate to the hospital car park. 'Come ON.' The gate c r e ak ed open. I moved myself out of the front seat, feeling no different from one of Dad's cows in labour in nocturnal field in central Scotland. I  had to stop every two or three minutes to breathe, gripping J's arm. We'd called  the obstetrician and he was on his way, but his cousin, a midwife was there when we staggered in. 'We don't have long' I giggled between contractions, then having to stop again by a cool stone hospital wall and lean my head against it.

By the time we got to the ward, and Dr Salameh's cousin was hurriedly arranging her things and washing her hands I had to wee, so I sat on the loo. 'Habibti (dear) do NOT sit on the toilet! Don't PUSH! You're pushing!'
'No I'm not I'm doing a wee'.
'Habibti, get off the toilet and onto the bed - the baby is going to come in the toilet!' she shrieked, struggling with some latex gloves.
'But I don't want to wee on the bed,' I said.
I made a move to change my clothes on the way to the bed.
'There's no time!' she shouted. But I insisted and she tossed me a bright pink gown

'Lie on the bed!' she said

'No'. I replied. I couldn't think of anything less comfortable at that point.

And before I'd really had time to argue any more with the well meaning midwife with the brusque bedside manner, I was staring through my own legs at a complete surprise.

I stared, and stared. But where was the willy? I had presumed all along that our baby would be a boy, and there, writhing about on the paper sheet, was quite clearly a purple, mottled baby girl - already crying loudly and taking in gulps of air. Very much alive.

'Binit!' (Girl!) cried the midwives as J cut the cord and they passed her to me to hold.

11.45pm.

I looked at J as he kissed me, remembering what he'd said on our way to the hospital that afternoon. 'You know Luce, that if it's a girl, one day she might have a husband. It's a really scary thought.'

'Now you know what I've felt about our boys and potential women', I laughed.

The obstetrician came screeching in to see us all there on the bed and aplogised for missing it. 'Mabrook! (congratluations) I wish all my clients were like you, ' he laughed as he hugged me, 'I'd have no job!'

'What will you call her?' asked the midwife. We were friends again after the little storm that had produced our baby girl without any intervention.

Petra. We sounded it out for the first time. A name we both loved as much. Meaning rock. The feminine of Peter. And of course that wonderful place.

As J.W. Burgon wrote in 1845
'…match me such marvel save in Eastern clime, a rose-red city half as old as time.'

And we stayed in that little room on the hot summer night, not wanting to burst the bubble, as Petra snuffled and spluttered through her first minutes, staring and marvelling at the perfection of the ordinary miracle. Older than the rose-red city; as old as time itself.

Morning birdsong and the waft of damp jasmine

I open one eye and see the silhouette of the Lozenge beside me in the bed. Petra the pea - now 8 weeks old - lies between us, snuffling and wriggling and pawing her face impatiently with a tiny hand. The Lozenge moves his shaggy head closer to ours as he squints through the half light. 'I can see the bird that is making the funny weaaaa! weeaaa! noise. Look it'th that one there!' I crane my neck sleepily around to see out of the window.  Our surround sound is the morning cacophony of bird song from the tall trees surrounding our cool house, providing us shade in the warm afternoons and uplifting chirrups at 6am. A pigeon roo-coos. 'Mummy the pigeons you get here are not the same as the oneth in London are they?' the Lozenge asks. 'They have an orange rim around their eye and these ones jutht black? ' I mulled over his question with one arm on a cool sheet; the other under two of our three small people as J and Rashimi organise breakfast in the kitchen. I feel as though we are cocooned in a feathered nest. The night before we'd made a map for the Lozenge's homework. 'Your child can draw a map of their journey to school' the teacher had written. So the Lozenge drew our garage, some trees, the tram gliding along on its cable, the golden semicircle of the dome of the rock, St George's cathedral and some horse droppings by the side of the road. We'd scooted through some horse poo the previous day. I enjoyed the detail and the over-scaled dimensions of the horse poo - almost the same size as the cathedral windows.

I look at his map which he clutches in his hand in the bed and I think of all the things he didn't draw on it. The multiple checkpoints that sprung up a couple of days ago: spikes along half of the road, cordons and cones and a groups of Israeli police with enormous automatic weapons. The horse droppings were left by the police horses now patrolling daily. The nocturnal soundscape, before the birdsong begins, is a circling chopper - growing fainter and then louder as it hovers around and around above our troubled little East Jerusalem district. I wonder, when we no longer live here, if the Pea will be able to sleep without the sound of a helicopter and screaming and wailing sirens which pierce our every night.

Our soft bubble of mallowy life with a new baby - focusing on the basic early requirements of sleeping and feeding and shushing and cooing, as we slowly get to know each other through smiles and songs accompanied by the constant patter and regular shriek of the dwarves - is a million miles from the stormy sea on which our bubble rests. It's strange how you can live in a place where you hear and smell and sense the violence underneath, but never really see it or witness it first hand. 7 Israelis have been stabbed in the last few weeks, and many, many Palestinians killed in demonstrations, and shootings since the summer. The fear on both sides hovers like the helicopter at fever pitch - the Israelis for fear of being stabbed or rammed by a car; the Palestinians from being shot by over zealous Israeli police or soldiers. And the Palestine penitentiary -- their very own country which neither truly exists yet from which they have no escape -- becomes an even higher security jail with checks and blocks restricting their movement and increasing their daily struggle. Life is hell for Palestinians right now. Morale is low. And we live in the centre of it all, unable to change a thing. We walk the streets and chat to our local friends, comiserating and reassuring them we feel it for them. 'Umm Petraaaa!' calls the man from the dry cleaning shop near our house. 'Keyf al baby? Keyf bintik?' (how's the baby? how's your girl?) We smile and wave at those we know. But we can't change a thing for them.

Though we don't feel afraid for ourselves. The Lozenge confided in me the other day: 'Mummy, we learned at school that when the alarm goes and the light flahses, it's 'CODE RED' and it means robbers might be trying to get in, so we go into the underground bunker.' While I'm grateful the school take security seriously, I don't feel we are at risk in any way. But if I looked obviously Jewish or obviously Arab, I would not feel like this. And I would be terrified for my children. Particularly teenaged boys who are often the focus of Israeli bullets. Live rounds are used at demonstrations. 3 Palestinian children have been killed like this recently.

A few days ago we had our first rain in months, and I wheeled the Pea around our neighbourhood to get a sense of things. A surveillance balloon hovered, a white  bubble against the unusually grey sky - keeping tabs on our Arab neighbourhood and those in the old city. I smelt a waft of damp Jasmine as I struggled to push the pram over potholes and piles of uncollected trash and up and down from high pavements; meandering around an unearthed tree root in the middle of one. But for us, these really are our only obstacles here. It was October 6th, and the Lozenge's 6th birthday. Also the day of the funeral of the 13 year old boy who was shot by the IDF, still wearing his school uniform as he walked home from school past a demonstration of fellow Palestinians. The IDF were using live rounds of bullets to defend themselves from the stones. Can you imagine if police and soldiers used life bullets to quell demonstrations or uprisings in Europe? 'A mistake' they say. The boy was killed just around the corner from the Holy Family hospital where Petra was safely delievered into my arms.

I met a Palestinian friend and we talked.

She explained she can no longer visit her parents who are in their 70s and need her help, becuase they live in the Old City which that week Palestinians had been blocked from entering. Most Palestinians we meet say they can never remember things being so bad they are forbidden to enter the Old City. 'It is becoming like Hebron now,' she lamented.

It feels like civil war, really. In a recent trip to the market an Israeli shopkeeper spat when I spoke in Arabic, mistaking him for an Arab. 'Yeeeuch. Arabic - Yeeeuch!' He flobbed on the ground and it landed near my feet. I put down the bunch of parsley I was about to buy from his stall, and wheeled the buggy on. Arabs I talked to in Wadi Jowz below our house said things have never felt so bad, and the killing so arbitrary yet so targetted by one for 'the other'.

The damp jasmine leaves are a metaphor for Arab spirits these days.

Yet I lie with the Lozenge and the Pea this morning and listen to the duet rythms of their breathing. The Lozenge begins to hum 'Deck the Halls' under his breath (it's been Christmas here since May). And my mind retraces 8 weeks of the Pea's life from how it began so happily in Bethlehem on that hot summer night of August 17th.