I really cannot believe she is that old and it makes me quite sentimental.
Her dad and I spoke to her minutes after midnight as she is in Glasgow and we are still in London. I miss her and cried as I heard her voice and immediately imagined her as a wee three year old with bunches in her hair opening up her birthday gifts in our old living room in Glasgow’s Calton.
I can tell you every year what she got for her birthdays and where we celebrated it.
I know that I was away last year as well, as usual I was in London and I went to Aussie comic Brendon Burns’ birthday meal as he celebrates the same day as Ashley.
I wasn’t feeling well today and ended up vomiting yet again (I really need to get that checked) but as I lay in bed I recalled 21 years ago when I was in labour for four days and that little baby would not come out of my womb.
I remember lying on my own in the maternity ward quietly begging the wee fat baby to just come out and stop hurting me this much; I mean what was it doing in there that it didn’t want to come out? Four days was a long labour.
Ashley was late arriving and to this day she late for almost everything!
When Ashley was finally dragged and I do mean dragged out of my body, she was very quiet and angry looking. She was also spectacularly clean; every baby I ever saw being born on telly looked all gooey and slimy.
Ashley was all clean and dry, I secretly thought that maybe there was some type of drive through car wash system down there at my vag. Maybe the doc gave her a quick rub down before he showed her to me…I am not quite sure but that detail stuck in my memory.
I went straight to intensive care after the birth as I lost too much blood. I lay there all night exhausted and wondered what my baby looked like as the nurses took her away after the birth to let me rest and recover.
I do know that the next day when I woke up, my brain immediately shouted into my consciousness “You have a baby!”
I called on the nurse to come unhook me from the drip and let me go see my child, but no one came. So I pulled out the drip myself, dragged my shaky legs over the side of the bed, shoved on a dressing gown and headed for the nursery wing.
Walking into the ward I could hear loads of babies crying and whingeing. I scanned to look through cots but I couldn’t quite see the names and didn’t want to go to close to another mother’s child.
Then I saw the crown of dark sticky up hair and instinctively knew that was my baby. I just knew, I can’t explain how, but every part of my senses told me it was her, even though I had only briefly met her yesterday for a few moments.
I crept round to the front of her and the card said ‘Baby Storrie’ and I smiled.
I looked down expecting her to be asleep as she was very quiet, but when I peered at her face she simply lay there all trussed up in tight sheets and her wee fat face looked content and her big eyes just stared at me, as though she were actually looking into my eyes.
She never took that gaze off me and I leaned over and gingerly picked her up.
I could feel her warmth and breathe in that unmistakable smell babies have.
I lifted her close and put her soft downy cheek against mine and she made a wee squeaking sound, so I held back her head to see her and those eyes were still staring straight at me.
I laughed out loud and just then the nurse came cannoning down the ward shouting “Mrs Storrie, you should not be out alone and you must never take out a drip” she came right up to me ready to give me a right bollocking and stopped in her tracks stared at my daughter and said “Isn’t she ridiculously perfect?”
“Yes, she is and I can’t wait to be her mummy” I added.
“You already are her mummy” the woman smiled and added “let’s get your baby over to your ward now that you are up and about”
I am so very proud to be her mum, she is ridiculously perfect and I cannot believe her father and I made her. Her dad is so very proud of her and tells her every time they speak how much he loves her.
Ashley made him the man he always wanted to be, a good father and someone who will always be there for her no matter what.
My daughter is 21 today and I feel we did a good job.
