It had been two weeks since Helen had gone to Paris, travel plans made at the last minute to be with John. She had seen him for a brief 20 minutes and spent the rest of the weekend alone. She feared she was picking up her husband's bad habits. Keeping her cards close to her chest. She was up the duff and no amount of careful dressing could hide the fact on her petite frame anymore. She had just told her employer's she was pregnant. Now she was stuck on the general ward. Working in radiology was considered to dangerous for a woman in her last trimester. She planned on working until her waters broke. She had saved and saved. Her maternity benefit would keep the wolves from the door but the future promised a life of a single parent. Just her and her baby boy. She married John never expecting normal or a white picket fence. If he'd been that type of man, she'd have run a mile.
Most people thought John had run off after he got out of prison. For two years she had only seen her man at the oddest times. Making trips to strange places to be together, never the same place twice. All very cloak and dagger. Last July she had dropped everything, called in sick to spend two days in bed with John in Glasgow. She had forgotten to take her pill for those two days and got in this pickle. Not that she thought she was pregnant to begin with. She had been four months gone before she had bought a pregnancy test. It had been the biggest case of denial, a child just complicated everything. She absent-mindedly rubbed her back. Twinges of pain radiated up her lower spine, matching the dull pain in her bladder and according to Marjorie it only got worse the closer you got to D-day.
After her 12 hour shift, Helen was knackered by the time she got back to her small studio flat. At least it was only a short walk from the hospital. She liked Bethnal Green. It was a million times better than that place she had lived with John in Bermondsey, before that stupid fight.
The one saving grace of the small flat was a minuscule bath tub. Perfect for her considering she was just 5'2" tall and a size six when she wasn't carrying around a future footballer. She relaxed in the hot water and put the flannel over her face and listened to Mahler on the radio as the child in her belly kicked away in time to the music.
She woke and something was wrong. The bed was wet. She saw the clock radio. It was 2:15am. She got up to switch on the light and saw the bed was soaking. As was her pajamas. Her backache had turned up a notch, no longer just persistant but throbbing. She stripped off her bedclothes, put on a pair of sweats and one of John's extra large T-shirts and stripped off the bedding. Then pain short through her body.
Helen sat down heavily on the bed, luckily avoiding the wet patch and waited for the agony to subside. She took deep calming breaths and staggered to wake her neighbour. Mrs. Cohen had a phone. Helen was in labour and John Junior was not due for another nine weeks.
Mrs Cohen dressed as they waited for the ambulance. The kind old lady then went to get Helen's overnight bag. Not packed for hospital but for those times John rang and she took off to be with him.
The next twenty minutes were awful. The trip to the City of London Hospital Maternity Unit was bumpy and not helped by the contractions which were far too close together. Mrs Cohen insisted on being called Alex, short for Alexandria. The old woman held Helen's hand as she arrived at the birthing suite.
The entonox helped calm Helen, as the midwife timed the contractions and checked Helen and the baby.
The midwife left and returned with a doctor who looked like he had just left school. The midwife was called Laura and then spoke to Helen who was back gritting her teeth. There was an incubator on stand by. It was time to push. Her baby was on its way.
The small wrinkled blue thing was all she saw of the baby boy as the doctor and two nurses assessed the tiny lifeform. The room was too silent, far too silent. Weren't newborns meant to cry. Alex held her hand and told her not to worry. The old woman was speaking under her breath. A prayer for Helen and her son. The there was a cry and the baby, the nurses and the incubator left the room.
Mrs Cohen wheeled Helen to the Specialist baby unit. There encased in the rectangle of clear plastic was Alexander John Rider. Tiny, covered in monitoring equipment and with a shock of thick dark hair. The nurse had stated neonatals and premature babies were often born with dark hair. He was very small but no longer blue. He was a fighter, a survivor. So, like her John.