What I never imagined doing with my ex-husband.
By: Frances Jayne Pratt
Tags: Family, Baby, Love, Self Improvement, Self-awareness

Today has thus far been a magnificently confounding experience.

Every morning I join a friend online for a study session. A type of accountability buddy that keeps us both on track.

Although, to be fair, some mornings it’s more getting off track with other conversations. This morning we had cued up a Tony Robbins clip ready for his words of wisdom.

Just as we hit play my phone rang. It was my 11-year-old son who was at his father’s house for the week. I expected him to complain he wanted to come over to be with me. He did in fact want to, but it was because his step mum was in labour.

I gave a little scream of excitement and he hung up in my ear. Apparently, I had been far too loud. I quickly called his dad, who was calm and reported the contractions had been happening since 3am. The hospital had advised them to come down in an hour.

Now we three, my ex, his new wife and I, all get along extremely well. Naturally there have been all the divorce and re-marrying dramas and emotions between he and I. However, people regularly marvel at our ongoing relationship. I could not really name it friendship or love, it’s just its own thing. We fight and hang up sometimes. We spend Christmas together.

Right now, we have been managing the lockdown restrictions as a double household family. With the baby due in early May, for over a month the three of us and our son have been isolating from everyone else. My frustrated boyfriend included in those locked out.

We’ve all been eagerly awaiting the arrival of the bub and the strict isolation is a bit tough but was never questioned, for safety.

As the due date was still 5 days away, and this being her first baby, I was a little surprised to hear the events had started but not totally shocked as my son was a week early too. I thought it diplomatic to wait until they had gone to the hospital to go around for the pickup.

An hour and ten minutes later I was greeted in the driveway by my son with a stunned mullet look in his face.

“The baby’s coming”, he announced. Well yes, I knew that. Then I noticed the car was still in the garage.

He usually has his things ready to go but seemed to be wandering around aimlessly. He couldn’t direct me as to what to do and I could sense now they were not just sitting around waiting for things to heat up.

I encouraged my son back upstairs so I could check everything was alright. I knew things had escalated when my ex coming running down the stairs with a knife and covered in goop.

“She just popped it out” he proclaimed. Smiling ear to ear.

In my former husband’s retelling of the story to our son and I later that evening at my house, he laughed at the moment the colour drained from my face on the stair when he told me the baby was out!

I had eloquently exclaimed “WTF!”, without the abbreviations.

The paramedics arrived and to attend to the superwoman and the baby who I had confirmed were both perfectly okay.

I sat down with my son on the couch to keep him company. He had been waiting on that couch for the last two hours listening to the “screaming and swearing”. He rushed to their assistance as directed by his father collecting pillows, then towels, then a big zip lock bag.

His dad came back out, snuggling tightly, a fluffy grey blanket with a pale blue beanie and a squirming, slightly purple mini person. A boy. A brother. Another son.

When I got up this morning, I had been okay in the knowledge that I had moved through the grief of not having any more children and the grief for the siblings I would never give my only child. I had already wept at the thought of my ex-husband having more children without me. I have let go of the feeling of loss for those parts of my body now lost to endometriosis.

I felt resolved that my excitement for the arrival of this person in my son’s life would outweigh any lingering jealousy and self-pity.

I was oblivious to what it might be like to witness my son meeting his newborn brother, held in my former husband’s arms, minutes after he was born.

I had not considered on this day, of all days for our disjointed and forever connected family unit, that I would be there amongst it all. In the midst of it all my ex said seemed to maintain concern for me asking in the middle of the rushing around “are you okay, I’m sorry if this is awkward, thank you so much for your help, do you need to go, we don’t want you to go”.

When they left for the hospital, I took my son to buy flowers. He picked out a soft fawn teddy bear for his little brother.

When we arrived back at home, full of adrenaline I called one friend or family member after another. All day I found myself working to resist posting the already mentally crafted Facebook post. I was desperate to share this magnificent story.

Apparently, the new mum laughed out loud when I messaged to say I have rightly or wrongly crowned myself Aunty Fran.

Later that afternoon and then again in the evening when he came to visit, my former husband reiterated this appreciation and concern for me. I realised how much more my son and I had given him on this most magically day. The things he did not have the day our son was born. Familiarity, comfort, support, calmness, people who shared in the experience too.

That night after my ex left his new wife and baby resting happily in the care of the nurses he came to his first born. We lapsed into stories of the day our son had been delivered into this world.

How opposite it had been. Two days of ongoing pre-labour pain, an emergency c-section and eight days as the only patients in our local private hospital. The nurse had sent him away soon after we arrived at the hospital that morning, saying I was still hours away. He found himself a newspaper and ordered a hot breakfast just as the nurse called him back to join me in surgery, almost missing the excitement.

Throughout the day we shared messages and videos. The gorgeous baby was feeding eagerly. He had a long cone head and thick hair. As he recalled, our little fella had not been so keen to drink, he had the most perfect round head and light wisps of hair with a little circling cowlick on his forehead.

I doubt I would have formed this tender attachment so quickly if I had not gone over to their house when I did. I just won sometime unimaginable, never having foreseen the possibility of it.

Most outstanding to me is knowing my son has another person in the world. For all of us the world just got bigger.

❤

Frances Pratt

www.allnessinheart.com