Free A Bird on My Shoulder by Lucy Palmer

to await the arrival of the baby. In February I was admitted to hospital in Newcastle, north of Sydney, after a rather exhausting pregnancy; I had contracted malaria again. I discovered I had it for the second time when I began to vomit rather dramatically in the middle of a supermarket.
    The labour was life-changing for me, although Julian seemed to take it all in his stride. Of course, he had no real idea of the excruciating pain which was building hour after hour, wave after wave. There was one moment, however, just after midnight, when he had clearly decided a little sleep might be just what he needed and, without any discussion, lay down on the bed, leaving me on the edge of the birthing pool. I was staggered.
    ‘Get . . . out . . . of . . . that . . . bed . . . right . . . now,’ I managed to hiss.
    Julian must have heard my barely suppressed hysteria because he immediately came to my side.
    I could not get comfortable and moved constantly, trying to follow ML’s instructions, which had arrived by fax the previousevening, to ‘just keep breathing’. There was a terrible moment in labour when I realised there was no going back. Whatever was happening, could not stop. For several hours my body took me on a journey I had never thought possible and while I struggled and cursed, I was also in awe.
    I felt myself descend into a long, grey tunnel where all I could focus on was a faint light up ahead. I did not even ask for pain relief, which I had planned to do – I was so busy just getting through each intense second. I remember looking down at the top of Julian’s head as he kneeled beside me on the floor and wiped the blood off my legs. In the midst of this extraordinary experience, this was the pinnacle of trust and intimacy between us; never before had I felt so vulnerable and yet so protected.
    Finally, in the early morning, our baby boy was born.
    A short while later I was lying, battered and pale under a green surgical sheet, when the doors burst open and the jubilant face of Charlie appeared.
    ‘Where is he? Where’s my new brother?’ He could not wait to hold him.
    Julian was completely elated by the arrival of his fifth son. He shortly came back into the room with a smuggled bottle of champagne – it was 10 am – to let me know he’d called our family in Australia and the UK, and to announce that he had chosen several potential names.
    ‘I’ve marked them,’ he said, gesturing to the baby name book we had bought the week before.
    As Julian already had four sons with decidedly English names, I had been quietly toying with ideas about how we might maintain that tradition. Later, I flipped through the first few pages.
    Alphonso, Godwin and Lysander had been given a firm tick.
    ‘They’re quite splendid, aren’t they?’ Julian said with a confident grin when I asked him about his choices. He then proceeded to give me an explanation of why each name would be perfect.
    ‘Thirlwall’s tough enough,’ I replied. ‘You have to constantly explain to everyone how to spell it. You can’t be serious about Lysander? That’s a lifetime of teasing. There’s no way we’re going to do it.’
    Reluctantly Julian agreed that these rather more florid names might turn out to be a terrible burden for a child. So we named our baby George. Gorgeous George.

10
    We’ll help you walk on fledgling feet, and laugh
    away your tumbling tears, To meet life’s dragons
    face to face, and overcome your human fears.
    Julian soon had to return to Papua New Guinea so I went to Sydney to stay with Jim and Elizabeth Hammond, the parents of two of my closest friends, Meg and Steph. With their quiet support and vast experience – they had six grown children and the first of their nineteen grandchildren – they guided me through the first days of motherhood, keeping me company, and nursing me through yet another bout of malaria.
    Luckily for us all, George was a great first baby – contented and easy. Elizabeth advised me to