This is the child

This is the child.

This is my daughter, Jessica.
My second child.

On occasion, I get this child of the present moment confused with the child that was.
Twenty months ago.

These two children are the same person. I would know that face anywhere.

That tiny child whose blood pressure, rate of respiration, oxygen saturation and heart rate I could sit engrossed in for hours.

That child who will always have a slight hint of the fairy tale about her.
A child with a dead sister, a dead twin.
A price paid, a ransom handed over.
My Thumbelina.
My Tom Thumb.
A woman who longed for a child so much that she accidentally wished two children into being.
Be careful what you wish for, you'll get it.
Because with wish granters, there is always a bill to pay. They're tricksy like that.
And the price is steep.

A child whose brain bled, who contracted infection after infection. Who approached death on her tiny feet and began a bizarre courtly dance that lasted weeks. Step forward, step back, curtsy to your partner.

A child who should have been unborn. But was thrust into light, to sound. Whose very flesh was grated against by fluorescent strip lights and buzzing alarms and a dizzying spiral of medications and procedures.
A mother who was uncertain as to whether to shut the eyes of her children or to simply shut her own.

A tiny child.
And I think perhaps you know why I hold on to that tiny child so.
Because there was another.
Another tiny child.
A child who will never change. Either that or she has changed beyond all recognition.
To ash or to air.
It's too close for me to call it.

But she is not this child. The first born yet not the first born. The eldest and yet not. My big girl.

A child mythologised by her own mother.

A child who is, after all, just a child.

All of this was just her preamble (to steal a phrase from a lovely comment left by Emily at sweetsalty)
A prologue that I hope she will skim over and set aside, it being all so terribly, terribly long ago.
An incidental.
An introduction.
Not the entirety that I seem to want to make it.
It is not the whole of her life. Just the very, very beginning.

This is the child that has attempted to sneak off with an entire bowl full of butter cream icing and a spoon. When caught red handed, she howled in protest and her mother just had to let her have a couple of bites.

This is the child that rejects all the fondly remembered TV programmes of my 80s childhood, purchased in anticipation of many happy hours of nostalgic bonding.  No Bagpuss, Mr Ben or Trumpton for this girl. She is a child of modern times.

This is the child who will chase either of her parents, or indeed any adult who looks halfway literate, around the house, flailing a book at their knees. She hasn't managed any words yet but has a very specific grunt that means READ! NOW! YES, YOU! I'M TALKING TO YOU! And believe me when you've tangled with a determined toddler wielding a hard back, triple bill Dr Seuss treasury you don't say no again in a hurry. Even if it is the 15,000,000th time you've read Green Eggs and Ham aloud and the application of comedy accents isn't raising your spirits. The CD (as recommended by Emma's Daddy)  is easing the number of repetitions but we're still in the region of around ten per day.


When I was pregnant, I used to read poetry to my belly. I feel a bit silly admitting that now.
I suppose if everything had gone according to plan and my children had been born perfectly healthy and were now showing tendencies towards literary genius I would be quick to take the credit.
But one of them is dead and the other. . . . well, she still may be a literary genius who knows.
If she is, I won't be taking the credit.
If not, I won't be shouldering the blame.

I used to read Louis Macneice (who I dote on a little as you might have noticed) and one of the poems I read most frequently was 'Prayer Before Birth' and here are the lines that haunt me still.

I am not yet born; provide me
With water to dandle me, grass to grow for me, trees to talk
   to me, sky to sing to me, birds and a white light
      in the back of my mind to guide me.


I am not yet born; rehearse me
In the parts I must play and the cues I must take when
  old men lecture me, bureaucrats hector me, mountains
     frown at me, lovers laugh at me, the white
      waves call me to folly and the desert calls 
         me to doom and the beggar refuses
           my gift and my children curse me.


I am not yet born; console me


Georgina - if only I could make some consolation, some provision, some rehearsal for you.
I only wish I could.
I'm sorry you never went outside. There was no water, no grass, no trees, sky or birds. I can only hold out for the white light.
There was no time and your prayers, if you made any, hung unanswered on the air and evaporated upwards, accompanied by my own.

Jessica - you are born. Sometimes I feel as though I've only just noticed.
You are the child that you are now.
This is the child.
This is the child who lived.
This is the child who lives.
No matter how many prayers I pray before birth, none of them bring goods for you.
Because that time has passed.