Tag: baby

Glimpses Part II

Published on by Sarah DruryLeave a comment

I tousle my fingers between the faded photographs and rest my eyes upon a couple in the Neonatal ICU. Their faces beam, as the mother cradles a tiny baby, beside an incubator. It was the first time I had been able to hold my son, after his traumatic birth.

I recall very clearly. It was a long night. I had been in labour for many hours, my husband at my side. I had coped with the gas and air until my pelvis was an air raid in Syria, then resorted to an epidural. Needles inserted into my spine were more palatable than the penetrating waves of my shrapnel womb.

Many hours had passed, and still my baby kept his debutant entry an uncertainty. I was sick of the midwife poking me in areas best left in darkness, but this time there was a sense of urgency. His oxygen levels had dipped dangerously low and almost immediately there were announcements over the tannoy, alerting the medics to the need for an emergency caesarean.

Everything happened so dramatically, and I felt like a character in an episode of Casualty. Doctors in green gowns peered beneath the blanket that was preventing me from watching them slice into my pelvis. I am not perturbed by blood and felt disconnected from the moment of my son’s birth. My husband had barely had time to put on the ‘scrubs’ before the doctor yanked my son free from the womb that was suffocating him, smattered with blood and white, waxy vernix.

I waited for briny lungs to protest, and the room to fill with stridence but the silence was a requiem. The trepidation was tangible. I do not know what happened in those missing moments. Perhaps my baby wasn’t breathing at all. Perhaps the doctor had to resuscitate his weary lungs, thinking there would be another angel that night.

I only saw my son for a second, swaddled in blankets, big eyes taking in his new world. I knew there was a fighter within, that he would get through any obstacle life would hurl at him. He was whisked into an incubator and left to cook, while I was left to nurse a bruised womb.

Bad Bottle Mum

Published on by Sarah DruryLeave a comment

I have only one child, and when he was born, he had breathing difficulties and was in the NICU for a week. I tried desperately for days to breast feed him, and nothing came. My baby was obviously starving and i decided to throw down the gauntlet and ask for a bottle. The nurses basically treated me like shit but my baby was happy, and we never looked back. Yes, breast is probably best, but we shouldn’t be made to feel inadequate it it doesn’t work out for some reason.

Bad Bottle Mum

I’m a bad bottle mum
I tried, my love, I tried
I held you close ‘til you latched on
But you cried for days
Little jewels of hunger
And frustration
You cried
Your rosy lips trying to
Suckle a miracle out of a
Dried up tit
My nipples were sore and cracked
As you latched your little jaw
And sucked
Like you’d never been
Fucking fed
And you hadn’t
My mammary glands were
Dead

I’m a bad bottle mum
The midwives said persevere
The milk would come
But four whole days
Of drought
And I had a newborn babe
With a nipple with nowt
Coming out
Who thought a tit
Meant starvation
And I had another tit that had
Shrivelled up in desperation
Nipples cracked and chewed up
Like an old dog bone and
I don’t like to moan
But I had a fucking starving
Kid here

After four days
I put my tits away
Asked for the bottle
Little old nurse with grey Hair
Gave me the
‘Are you a bloody idiot’ stare

I’m a bad bottle mum
That was when it started
The attitude, the negative cold
And frosty voice
The frozen, hard faced nurses
Thrusting tiny bottles of
Cow and Gate gold
Cos I was a fucking criminal
And no one told
Me it was ok
Cos breast is best and yeah, it is
But when the nurses are an army
And when your tits are traitors
And not
Doing their bit for the allies
When do you surrender?

And my babe did fine
He preferred the steady stream
Of liquid gold
To a titful of promises
Lies we were told
By the media
Progaganda
And he thrived

© 2020 Sarah Drury

Suckle

Published on by Sarah DruryLeave a comment

I was thinking about how wonderful breasts are. They nurture babies, look great on our chests, are soft and yielding to touch, take us back to our childhoods. They are a symbol of power, a symbol of comfort, a symbol of motherhood. They are fantastic!

Suckle

Come suckle
At my breasts
Feast upon
Tender nipples
That once beguiled
My hungry baby’s
Rosebud lips
My breasts
That once
Had aspirations
To feed
One of a nation
But my barren breasts
No milk would yield

Come suckle
At my breasts
Behold the
Soft, sweet flesh
That kneads like
Sweet, warm playdough
In a toddler’s palm
Tell me that
They possess
enchantment
Devour me slowly
Ease me, tease me
Free me
From my
Mortal shackles
Dulcify the stress
Release
Angelic devilry

Come suckle
At my breasts
Behold how fucking
Great that women
Have these awesome
Symbols of matriarchy
Women envied by
The ravages
Of patriarchy
Sexualised and
Victims of misogyny
Now standing proud
And rising up
The hierarchy

But what straight guy
Doesn’t want
To nestle in
A bosom tender
Inhaling sweet beJesus
Virgin Mary
Tends his
Comfort moments
Render
Memories
Wishing perchance
To slumber
Cossetted
Like babes
Nostalgic
Suckling at
Their mother’s breast
In blissful
Reverie

© 2020 Sarah Drury

Miracle

Published on by Sarah DruryLeave a comment

My husband had a failing heart, I have a serious mental illness. When I found out I was pregnant, we weren’t going to go through with it. But when I had my first scan and saw that little heart fluttering, I knew I was going to be a mum. Sadly my husband died when our son was three and a half, and i was left to be a single mum. My son is now twelve and has been the making of me.

Miracle

We were in a soap opera style medical dead end dilemma
You with your broken heart and me with my broken mind
And you, my little miracle with your tiny butterfly heart beat
Fighting for your right, fighting for justice, fighting for life
Before your valuable life had even begun
Before your life was rife with strife
Before your life was gold plate on the end of an artist’s knife
Before we saw on that tiny screen that you were real
Before your life was LIFE
OUR LIFE.

The room was dark, the air was rank with the taste of expectation
The stench of not wanting to bond, not wanting to get fond
The nurse was alert, we were terse, all those feelings we hadn’t rehearsed
All those barriers made for tearing down
And that tiny heartbeat, fluttering like an angel’s wings
Spoke to us, spoke of things, of family rings, of a child raised finer than wise kings.

We were the merry three, we never did foresee
That we would one day be the hurting two
When the beat of your broken heart became silent like the morning dew
When we had always looked up to you, loved you.
But we made the most beautiful duet, even if as a mother I had little clue.

And now our son is twelve.
He has his kingly ways, the face of an innocent angel
Yet there are those testing times he tries to pray
For his long gone daddy, for the fun time family days
The childish pictures on the fridge of the happy family three
The stories at school he tells of sitting on his daddy’s loving knee
Of teddy bear’s picnics and sharing with his daddy cups of lukewarm tea

But he knows his daddy’s love will always be here
For love is a memory of an angel in heaven, a star in the universe
Love is a fleeting feeling, love is a beautiful prayer
And his daddy is always here
Beating inside his little heart
His daddy is always right here…

©2020 Sarah Drury

Mocking Bird

Published on by Sarah DruryLeave a comment

Based on a real life case. Child cruelty breaks my heart. Poor innocents.

Poem is written for spoken word, so the rhyming and meter are pretty loose.

Mocking Bird

Hush little baby don’t say a word
Mamma’s gonna buy you a mocking bird
And crazy mamma’s off her head, fucking sky high
And if you scream blue murder and if you dare to cry
Why do people shy away, why do they turn a blind eye
To your misery and suffering
For we know only angels sing
And your little face will really feel the sting
Of that slap, that clap of anger, that frustration
Love’s a lie and pain’s part of a ring
Why do babies cry, why do fists fly, why does love die?

Hush little baby, don’t say a word
Mamma’s shooting up heroin, her hazy conscience is blurred
Her speech is slurred, her morals are absurd, not a peep out of you
Don’t whisper a fuckin breath, because if she heard
If she heard
If she heard

Hush little baby don’t say a word
You were never born to fly, never born to be a songbird
Your wings were clipped when you were born into your lowly council flat
In your second hand tat, to have or to have not, and your needs were last, you wore the charity hat
Your mother in public places smiling like a Cheshire cat
Then behind closed doors using fists and tongues like a baseball bat.

Why didn’t we know, why didn’t we see, why didn’t we hear?
Why didn’t we feel what you feel, with your heart like a plea and your soul like a tear
When a child was suffering, cowering, pleading for an end to the fear
In the show of things she cooed and smiled and held her baby near
Yet who knows what went on in her screwed up head, it’s never really clear
But flesh and blood is sacred, you cherish it, you nurture it, you worship it
You don’t live a lie, you don’t live a lie

Hush little baby, don’t say a word
Mummy’s going to prison and it’s an end to your bruised, scarred world
And the social worker’s finding you a caring, loving home
And your daddy’s lost his custody and he’s alone and it’s done
And
Now you can sing your own song
Now you can sing your own pretty song

©2020 Sarah Drury