ELLIE HARRISON
Celebrating my mother – the rural midwife
Celebrating my mum, the rural midwife, and every mother’s story this Mother’s Day.
In the aftermath of our Mother’s Day episode, I was rightly pulled up by the producers for not commanding my place in the joint goodbye and namechecking my own mother. I was new to the lead role, unused to being assertive, and still ruffled by the sound recordist who had taken a wrong turn and arrived late, then ranted at us for not enquiring whether he was in a ditch.
It was an opportunity missed. One I suspect we all overlook: acknowledging the significance of our mothers. One card in March doesn’t really repay the debt. And although this piece is specific to my mum, every mother’s story, almost always untold, has meaning.
Having recently passed a mighty milestone, I asked my mum about a lifetime in service: 50 years in the NHS. What I thought would be two hours, took many days, hearing about her life as a country midwife – the James Herriot of maternity. Here are just a handful.
“When I began as a midwife, we were called ‘handmaidens’, a role to support the doctor’s work. A woman would come to hospital, her GP would be called to attend the birth and if he came, he got paid. In the delivery room, if the baby wasn’t coming after an hour’s pushing, the doctor would perform an episiotomy, do a forceps delivery, suture up, then go home, often still in his pyjamas. But the biggest change happened in the late 1970s when the government recognised the need for women to have choice about their births and we became a midwife-led unit.
“As a single mother aged 32 with three young children, it was difficult to do hospital shift work so I became a community midwife visiting women at home during the day, and on-call for home births at night. I’d be phoned at home, get dressed into my uniform – a mini dress, belt and hat – and go out into the night in my Ford Fiesta. It did mean that sometimes I had to close the door on sleeping children. My rural patch was 30 miles square and all I had was an address written down. We would ask patients to leave a light on to guide us. I’d always walk in without knocking because women in labour were not often able to answer the door. There were plenty of occasions when I breezed into a house with its light on, only to find it was the wrong address.
“I remember my first home water birth. The family had bought a plastic fishpond, which was supported on milk crates in the kitchen. We’d never seen it done before but knew we mustn’t touch the baby underwater in case it should gasp. The mother was very knowledgeable, so when the GP arrived she kicked him out. We used a make-up mirror to monitor the entire labour. It was a first for us, but nowadays I prefer water births to any other.
“I recall being called one bitterly cold night to a yurt in a quarry. It was a difficult address to find. I had to scramble up steps and edge along scaffolding carrying my heavy kit: a delivery bag, scales and Entonox [gas and air]. Inside the yurt were candles, purple drapes and an open fire burning in the middle. The mother’s children sat in a semicircle around her, in silence for the entire birth.
“My best customer has 12 children. She’d wait until week 37 of the pregnancy and then call me directly. All her babies were delivered at home while her other children were downstairs pairing socks or making cakes and her husband waited quietly on the stairs. They were all homeeducated until 13, then sent off to private schools. After the baby was born, she would ‘lie in’, wearing Laura Ashley and receiving visitors. On exactly day 10, she would get up and carry on as if nothing had happened.”
Growing up, I knew none of this. I knew only that Mum would come home from work, cook meals using vegetables she grew, chop logs using her chainsaw before turning us around, clean and fed for the next day. Money was tight: for school trips and Christmas she saved pound coins in teapots on the dresser. Today, I still find it curious that people don’t think me ‘outdoorsy’, as if I’d chosen not to ride horses or ski. But we played in the garden, laughed until her mascara ran every supper time, and watched a lot of TV in the holidays.
I’m so glad I asked. To mine and to every mother whose stories and every small detail matter, happy
Mother’s Day.