The mother

The mother is twenty seven years old.

She lies in a fairly uncomfortable bed in southside Glasgow, facing the bright lights of a midnight metropolis. A series in two parallel lines pointing to the sky paint a picture of a Thatcher era skyscraper. They are white, pure white like the sun on a warm spring's day. Yet this is not spring. Nor is summer. Instead it is the dead of autumn, with leaves steadily falling across the view like droplets of rain.

In her belly is a human. A human who is very reluctant to leave the safe, warm environment into which she was grown. After all, who would want to leave their mother's womb? Who would optionally vacate such a practical place where one is fed, watered and cared for every day? The world is a dangerous and scary place. It is better ones remains inside where it is protected, secure and one needs not care about the problems facing the future.

The mother, however, is not fond of this arrangement. Her belly is large, a girdle as big as any woman's, a weight far more than she has ever known. It has been forty two weeks and this partnership has gone on enough, in this way at the very least. She longs for the small infant human to be out, to agree that they should embark on the next phase of their relationship. Exhaustion, tiredness and emotional distress plague the mother and she longs for only relief and release as her joints begin to ache from all the suffering. But she cannot sleep in her own bed. She cannot curl up with her own husband and pillow. She cannot howl for the moon in her own home, stuffing her face with her own homemade cupcakes.

Why? Because her parasite is stubborn. Because her baby is unwilling. They are unhappy to be removed and have decided that to be born would be a mistake. And thus, the mother is in agony. She feels incredible sorrow. Tears flow down her face as she takes yet another breath and fears she will not be able to sleep.

Time is of the essence. Hours come and go, the second hand ticking by counting towards the next treatment. The next examination. The next midwife. Agonising hours. Hurtful hours. So long, yet so little time.

The baby stays where they are, not budging, refusing. The mother cries.

She is twenty seven years old and has never been more in pain.