First Timer

“I can’t do it. I cant!”  Marjorie was getting hysterical.

“Come on. You’re nearly there.”

“I can’t. I won’t!”

“Come on - it just needs a little push”

Marjorie’s hand was gripping tight, despite the slick of sweat.  She was hurting me, crushing my wedding ring into my middle finger and pinky.

“I’m not. I don’t want to.  It’s not fun anymore.”

She was gaspy, wheezy, red in the face, and her body was trembling with the electricity of adrenaline.  I had never seen her like this before, but I knew what to expect - it wasn’t my first time, after all - so I wasn’t overly worried; just concerned.

“Darling, you have to.  I know you can’t imagine it now, but you’re going to have years of fun.  You have to trust me; I wouldn’t lie to you about this.”

Marjorie quietened a little, pondering me with chocolate brown eyes, runny but beautiful. Stray strands of her hair were wisping above her head, free from bobble shackles. Her cute perky nose leaked ever so slightly.

“Promise?” she sniffed.

“I do,” I replied.  “I’ll help you as much as I can, but you have to push; I can’t do that for you.  No-one can.”

She smiled that little baby smile that I knew I might never see again.

She pushed some more, a bit harder….and now I have a beautiful daughter who has just started school, loves it, and spends more time talking about her schoolmates and schoolwork than anything else.

I just wish that getting her through the school door on her first day had been a little easier.  I must have been the most mortified mother there, but I was determined that she would open it herself (Bill and I agree - you have to start somewhere).

But that’s what’s so great about kids: they remind you of embarrassments you’d forgotten.

Flash, I think, written a little while back. I quite like that it's not something I would intend to write, but that it appeared anyway. Who knows exactly what we are going to give birth to (or not)?