Far From the Rowan Tree Day 33

Ronald looked at his new child with a special soft look and the boys seemed a little in awe of this rara avis – a sister!

Eve answered. “Same as you,” she said, “a little girl.” I looked over to where Eve’s long blonde hair sprawled on the pillow and saw the same look of love and release in her eyes that I knew must be in mine.

The nurse dimmed the light and left us. She took Eve’s baby to join mine in the nursery in order to give us a rest, promising to bring them back at first light.

Two utterly contented women, complete strangers, brought together by circumstance, knew a closeness stemming from shared experience and slept.

Just as she said she would, the nurse came in early with the babies. Oh the thrill and anxiety to a mother of that special baby cry!

“They’ve both been good,” the nurse told us, “but now they are very hungry.”

I looked at my little girl almost in disbelief. I had almost begun to take it for granted that I could produce only boys.

Feeding her was no problem for me. I had breast fed the others, I could breast feed this one also. Eve wasn’t so sure about breast feeding her baby.

I encouraged her as best I could but knew, from experience, that the thought was abhorrent to some sensitive souls, especially those who had been given wrong impressions when young.

Secret

Their secret wish was to have the baby bottle fed although they attempted to breast feed through a sense of duty.

The morning passed pleasantly. When I wasn’t nursing my child I kept looking at her sleeping in the cot and wishing it was afternoon and visiting time.

Eventually it came. Ronald looked at his new child with a special soft look and the boys, although very excited, seemed a little in awe of this rara avis – a sister!

“Betty Jacobs came over to the house and told me first thing in the morning,” Ronald said.” She was just as excited as your mother will be. She’s coming to see you as soon as she’s allowed in.” “How very kind of her,” I said. Betty Jacobs came to see me and the new baby next day. “Normally this hospital will only let the husband and mother visit,” she told me, “but I asked, as a special favour, to get in, explaining that your mother was far away and that you had no relatives near.”

It was a happy visit. It was obvious that Betty Jacobs loved babies and I felt at home with her. Ronald and the boys came every day without fail.

The boys were allowed in as we had no one we could leave them with. Ronald had Eve and me in fits of laughter, describing the details of his inept housekeeping.

Eve and I got on well together. I learned a lot from her. It was so nice, once more, to have a woman companion to chat to.

Of course, we had a lot in common, even although our backgrounds were completely different. Women all over the world have strong common bonds.

The doctor was always popping in to see how we were. He didn’t linger long or say much. It was usual, I learned, to remain in hospital for a week after the birth of a baby.

This, in Eve’s case was no problem. For her, the hospital was free. But in our case we knew we would have to pay the hospital over and above the doctor’s fee.

Horrified

He had made inquiries and was horrified at how much actually being in hospital did cost in Alberta. He never asked us if we could afford to pay or not but I think assumed that we would not be able to.

Trying to make things possible for us, he informed me that I could get home on the fourth day after the birth.

I made no protest as above all, I wanted to get home. Nevertheless, the doctor didn’t seem happy about the situation.

“I don’t like it,” he said, “you were pretty exhausted after the birth and you will be going back to what are bound to be unhygienic conditions – no running water, no inside toilet, no plumbing.”

I said nothing but tried to assure him I would be all right. I got the impression he wasn’t listening to me, he seemed more to be having a dialogue with himself.

On the evening before I was due to go home, the doctor entered the ward and stood at the bottom of my bed grinning broadly. “Well I’ve done it!” he said, “pulled it off.” He looked pleased with himself. “Done what?” I asked. “I rang up the government offices in Edmonton, got in touch with the authorities and have got Alberta to change its laws for you.”

“Change its laws for me!” I was mystified. At home it took at least two years to change laws for anyone. What law did he mean? He was talking in riddles! I looked at him questioningly.

“You remember I told you some time ago, that you required to be in Alberta for nine months before being eligible for free hospitalisation? You don’t now. The new law will state that if you are an authentic immigrant coming from another country, you are entitled to free hospitalisation from the time you arrive.

Thoughtfulness

“Kind of Alberta to change its laws for you, isn’t it?”

I thought it little short of miraculous and felt it would be most ungracious of me to tell him I really didn’t want to remain in hospital.

Instead, I thanked him kindly for the trouble he had taken and for his thoughtfulness. I was touched by it. He wasn’t the sort of man that sought praise and made a hasty exit.

Spring and summer had joined hands in the week I was in hospital. The triangle of trees in front of the cabin, our own miniature forest, had come fully into leaf.

The branches, now fresh and green, springing from the spindly silver-white trunks, proclaimed new life as promised.

Our patch of trees, this morsel of virgin forest, once belonged to an ongoing process. If the parent trees died, new shoots flourished and grew into parent trees, or so it was until man from across the ocean came and tore them out, clearing the land to make way for wheat.

Not that he could be blamed for that but why destroy so many? It was almost as though he hated them.

(More tomorrow.)