My second pregnancy

My second pregnancy was a very good one. The conditions were awful, I was alone in a strange place, and I was afraid for the labour to come, but the pregnancy itself was very good.

After I had got over the shock of being pregnant, and of being sick with glandular fever, and then of nearly loosing the baby by falling, I settled into a wonderful period of glowing pregnancy that I had only heard about. I had minimal morning sickness, and at about five months started to glow; my health was fantastic and I even had a heightened sex drive.

At around the time I surfaced from the illness Michel had been making noises about going back to Australia, and reports had been coming through that the airport was passable again. By this time we had settled into the upstairs area, and I was excited about the idea of going home. We had already gathered together quite a lot of furniture for the new place, but were mostly living in a very empty place, compared to others; the furniture just wasn’t available and we were doing without what we could, as we considered it all temporary (or at least I did). Finally after what seemed like weeks of waiting for some news, Michel said we were going, and named a date a few weeks ahead. It was now late summer, and I was very ready to go home. We had packed, given away the furniture and were ready to go, when Michel said we were not going after all. We had already packed our bags and were to leave the next day. I had even emptied the fridge and given away all the food in the house.

To this day I do not know if this was a giant ruse on his part or it was a genuine inability to get us out. I know at the time I believed that Michel’s protestations were false; and that the whole exercise was deployed to get me to believe he was trying to get us out – although why he couldn’t just say so I don’t know. I know this sounds a funny idea on my part; however Michel’s machinations never made sense to me even though I was married to him all those long years. He would do things for the most fantastic reasons, all to do with appearing to be the best or to save face. This, I believe was one of those exercises.

It nearly blew me into depression again. It was a terrible blow to me – to have the chance to go back home snatched way like that. It was Michel’s lack of reaction to this news that made me believe he had orchestrated it somehow. Shades of my “honeymoon” again.

Soon after this incident, when I was at around 4 months pregnant, in September of that year, 1975, Michel decided to go to Syria to look for work. Going to Syria would have been too dangerous for us as a family; however as a single man Michel could get to Damascus to find work with little problems. Or so he said. We had explored the idea of getting out via Damascus when the war first started but Michel dismissed it as too dangerous for women and children. We had no money, he said, and he needed to find some way of keeping us. As I had no idea of whether we had any money or not, as he never told me his financial position, I had to believe him, and accept it. He was leaving me in the care of his family: his brother and his uncle and aunt.

Michel stayed away four months, the middle of my pregnancy, coming home for under a week about once a month. Those times when he came back were good for me, I was pleased to see him and as I was feeling very good, sexually, I was surprisingly good to him.

The time while he was away was spent mostly with the Zogaibs, from whom I took a lot of comfort. I spent a large part of each day with them, going there to learn how to cook various dishes, and often just to spend the time. Elizabeth played with the Zogaib grandchildren (the few that there were at that time) and I sat with the girls and Tante Marie and chatted in the way housewives do in the village.

It was during this period I learned from listening to the BBC that the government of Australia had been dismissed by the Governor-General and there was to be a general election. It all seemed so far away and as I couldn’t do anything about it, of no consequence to me. Looking back, it was a very momentous occasion to most Australians, but I have no feeling of it as I was not there.

For a large part of the time I was alone, and my father-in-law, Boutros, was living with me. He had been working in Batroun, north of the village we were in, but with the war, he returned home. He came to live with us, arriving in the second half of my pregnancy. He was a strange silent man and I never felt I could get through to him. He would spend the whole day just sitting, doing nothing, and saying nothing. He lived on boiled eggs and boiled potatoes, boiled up together in an old olive oil drum. He was a diabetic, so perhaps that explained his diet, which was weird, even according to the Lebanese. He was like a pet incubus in the spare room, always worrying me that I could not give him the hospitality that was expected of me. At one point he must have realised I had no money to buy (or make) clothes, (as I became more pregnant it was obvious I had no clothes to fit) because he gave me the equivalent of about $30 to buy some material. I was ecstatic about this. I took two trips into Jbeil to buy material, each time with just Elizabeth and myself, catching the taxi. I felt very pleased with myself being able to negotiate the taxi, find the material shop and buy the material all by myself. I used an old hand cranked Singer sewing machine Michel had managed to get for me – such an archaic idea, to hand crank a sewing machine – but it sewed a straight line, so I didn’t mind.

I had decided to toilet train Elizabeth so that she would be independent of me by the time the baby arrived. This was an immediate success and she turned it to good account by the end of the summer: she would say she wanted to do a wee when she wanted me to get up for something else and she knew I would not get up except to help her to do a wee. A very cunning little girl.

Interestingly the Lebanese had some weird ideas about food combinations. I had a craving for tuna and yoghurt and ate it constantly while I was pregnant and the Lebanese considered the combination of fish and milk to be lethal and would not eat it. I tried explaining that the English always ate fish with milk, but they superstitiously believed I would do some unspecified damage to the baby by eating milk with yoghurt. I just thought it was funny. It was not funny for my brother –in-law as he had to buy it for me. Tinned tuna was expensive, but one never denied a pregnant woman's wishes. They also had a tradition that a pregnant woman must be given a little of anything she expresses a liking for so if I said that’s a nice smell etc I would immediately be given a plate of whatever it was. A disconcerting tradition as I often was not hungry enough to do it justice whatever it was.

Michel came home from Syria before Christmas. I was glad he was back, as I was lonely and he was the only link I had with the outside world. He immediately began to build a three storey block out the back in the garden – three houses one on the other. This was obviously the reason he went to Syria – to raise fund sot build. I was furious as it became obvious that he had more money than I had originally thought; he had enough to build a block of flats for God’s sake! This from a man who said we had no money at all – not even enough money to buy us clothes to wear – I had to rely on the kindness of his relatives!!

He continued to build all through the winter and was building even after the baby was born. I remember standing at the window of the kitchen just after the baby was born, and it was snowing, and he was walking across the freshly laid concrete inspecting it for damage from the snow. He was like a man obsessed. He pushed the building crew to get the shell up as quickly as he could. Once it was up, he stopped: he said he had run out of money and was talking of going back to Syria.

I was resentful of all this building: he was keeping me on short rations while he built, and he was out all day every day doing it, so I never saw him.

The baby was born a few days short of the due date: I had a flurry of cleaning activity so common to the days before a delivery, and on the day I delivered I had cleaned the bathroom and the kitchen with great enthusiasm.

I woke in the early hours of the morning, about 4 am, with a back ache and got up to go and do a wee. On the toilet, my waters broke, and recalling the nurses telling me to get to the hospital as soon as possible, I woke Michel to take me. He said lets go back to bed, and go in the morning. I said no, now. He said let’s have breakfast, and I, remembering how nauseated I was with Elizabeth, said no, now. He said let’s make the bed. Did I sense a delaying tactic? I was nearly shouting at him by then, despite the presence of my father-in-law in the house. We got up, woke and dressed Elizabeth and went first to pick up Tante Marie and drop off Elizabeth, and then to pick up the mid-wife and then to the local community hospital. I got up on the delivery table, changed my mind, said I wanted to do a wee, was told no, the baby was coming and to push. I did and it did. It took about an hour from the time I woke to the time it arrived and I hardly registered it as any worse then being constipated. No pain, no problems. It was over before I realised it.

A healthy 4 kg boy, lusty and big and strong. I had a tear to the top of my clitoral fold in the labia, which was in the same place I tore with Elizabeth, however this time I was not stitched so I have scar to this day in the fold.

I spent about four hours in the bed in a side ward of the cottage hospital and then I went home when it was obvious everything was okay. I was glad to be home so I could have a shower and wash myself. I had some visitors that day and the next and they were shocked I was up and had had a bath – the Lebanese believe a post partum woman should not bath or wash her hair. What nonsense I said.

I had very little help after Pierre was born. My husband was frequently absent and surprisingly the Zogaibs stayed away. I can only assume that they approached Michel with offers of hep and were rebuffed, because given their track record of helping me in the previous nine months, I would have assumed their help be taken for granted. Unfortunately I had no help at all, and was obliged to get up from my bed the day I had the baby – in fact I had no rest at all, and continued with the household chores, looking after Elizabeth and Pierre as if I had not just had a baby. I know woman do this all over the world. Unfortunately for me, I am not suited to this and it was the beginning of many years of prolapse problems all stemming from this inability to rest after the birth, which was a precipitous one – the baby being almost “ripped” from me – nowadays it is known this is a problem and the physiotherapists give special consideration to a mother who gives birth very quickly. Back in 1976, I was just considered lucky.

In a way, I have no experience of a normal birth. I gave birth, naturally and without pain killers, twice, but have no experience of labour pain at all. My periods were hell on earth so perhaps that is what labour pain is like.

A few days after Pierre was born the radio station down on the beach was bombed. This was only about two hundred metres from our house, and we had to get out in case a bomb misfired and hit us. We got up – it was the middle of the night- and rushed around, packing to go to the mountains, to Mish-Mish where the family had a summer cottage. All I remember of this night was wondering what to pack at such short notice – nappies? clothes for Elizabeth? It was snowing and very cold. In the end, the bombing stopped and we didn’t leave – but it was a close call. Very frightening.

I had no trouble with Pierre as a new baby. He was a lovely baby, quiet and easy to care for. My milk came in with no problems and I breastfed him and Elizabeth as well. Elizabeth, like a lot of first children, was taken aback when her little brother arrived and launched into a frenzy of attention seeking behaviour. In particular she would misbehave when I was breastfeeding; obviously realising I could not get up to chastise her. In the end, I started to breastfeed her, when she asked to have some of what the baby was having. She would stand next to me while I was feeding Pierre, and say “more, more”. At least it kept her by my side.

This was a particularly lonely time for me: I was far from family and I had just given birth. I wanted my mother. I remember standing at the window on my 22nd birthday, looking out at the dreary winter landscape, made even worse by Michel’s building. I felt trapped and did not feel I was ever going to get out.