Chapter Ten: ‘Mary’s Motherhood’
Two months into her pregnancy, Mary got the scare of her life when her first medical examination revealed that she was expecting not one child, but twins, or to be more precise, two sets of twins!
“Four!” Mary exclaimed in disbelief upon hearing the news.
“Yes, the examination shows there to be four foetuses,” the hospital consultant replied. “It looks like quads, Mrs Fanning.”
“Talk about waiting for a baby for the whole of one’s life and just when it seems none will ever come, along come four, all at once,” Mary mused to herself.
“Four!” Mary exclaimed in disbelief upon hearing the news.
“Yes, the examination shows there to be four foetuses,” the hospital consultant replied. “It looks like quads, Mrs Fanning.”
“Talk about waiting for a baby for the whole of one’s life and just when it seems none will ever come, along come four, all at once,” Mary mused to herself.
Three days after hearing the news of her multiple pregnancy, Mary handed in her notice at the Kilmeaden Creamery and told the Supervisor Sean and the rest of her working colleagues that she would soon be joining her husband Paddy in England. It was so unusual for one to leave a good job in those days that Mary's plans soon became common gossip around the Creamery. Even Pat Mayhew, who'd driven the cream cart for over fifty years, found the notion of someone leaving their job instead of dying in it, alien to his beliefs. He therefore remained suspicious of Mary's sudden decision to leave the Creamery without working out a respectable period of notice.
Mary kept completely quiet about her pregnant state, as she had not yet started to show her condition and wanted to avoid any unnecessary gossip for as long as possible.
Mary knew that this was something she would be unable to hide from her father, Nancy and her siblings once she had given birth. Mary wrote to Nancy and requested that she visit her alone in Portlaw, indicating she had some news to tell her. Mary wanted to use Nancy as an intermediary, to break the news to her father.
Mary kept completely quiet about her pregnant state, as she had not yet started to show her condition and wanted to avoid any unnecessary gossip for as long as possible.
Mary knew that this was something she would be unable to hide from her father, Nancy and her siblings once she had given birth. Mary wrote to Nancy and requested that she visit her alone in Portlaw, indicating she had some news to tell her. Mary wanted to use Nancy as an intermediary, to break the news to her father.
The following week, Nancy called to see Mary at the Portlaw address. Mary told Nancy everything there was to tell, including her single act of adultery, without identifying the father of her children to be!
While being naturally shocked by Mary’s news, Nancy agreed to break it to her father and agreed to visit her weekly during the months ahead. Nancy acted more like a best friend to Mary as opposed to a mother figure and never once did she utter any words of reproof against her stepdaughter.
While her father was naturally shocked when Nancy told him of his daughter’s adultery and her pregnant state, he nevertheless would not abandon her. He agreed to pay Mary’s landlord in Portlaw the rent for her property until she gave up the tenancy.
XXXXXXXXXXXX
While being naturally shocked by Mary’s news, Nancy agreed to break it to her father and agreed to visit her weekly during the months ahead. Nancy acted more like a best friend to Mary as opposed to a mother figure and never once did she utter any words of reproof against her stepdaughter.
While her father was naturally shocked when Nancy told him of his daughter’s adultery and her pregnant state, he nevertheless would not abandon her. He agreed to pay Mary’s landlord in Portlaw the rent for her property until she gave up the tenancy.
XXXXXXXXXXXX
Three months into Mary’s pregnancy, further examinations by the doctor revealed that not all was well. Two of the foetuses had not survived. It would seem that each set of twins were sharing a placenta that greatly increased the risk of a co-twin demise, and one of the foetuses from each twin set had already perished inside Mary’s womb.
Mary learned that when the twins are identical and share a placenta, there is an increased risk that the other twin will also pass away. This is for two reasons: first, they share all their genes. Mary learned the underlying reasons why the first foetus passed away from each twin set might have been a genetic syndrome or another genetic risk factor that the identical twin also possessed. Second, sharing a placenta with a demised twin invariably leads to anaemia, low blood pressure, and restriction of blood flow to the living twin, which can result in death. Mary learned that because of the increased risk of neurological impairments in the surviving twin members, doctors would have to be prepared to deliver the remaining two babies around the thirty-two-week gestation period if they were to have an increased chance of them surviving.
Mary learned that when the twins are identical and share a placenta, there is an increased risk that the other twin will also pass away. This is for two reasons: first, they share all their genes. Mary learned the underlying reasons why the first foetus passed away from each twin set might have been a genetic syndrome or another genetic risk factor that the identical twin also possessed. Second, sharing a placenta with a demised twin invariably leads to anaemia, low blood pressure, and restriction of blood flow to the living twin, which can result in death. Mary learned that because of the increased risk of neurological impairments in the surviving twin members, doctors would have to be prepared to deliver the remaining two babies around the thirty-two-week gestation period if they were to have an increased chance of them surviving.
When Nancy next visited Portlaw, she found Mary deeply depressed. She phoned word via the Portlaw Post Office and the Post Office in Clonmel and asked that a message be passed to her husband, informing him that his daughter Mary was not well and that his wife would be staying the next week with her until she was back on her feet.
When Nancy heard the latest news regarding the death of two of her planned babies and the risk to life of the remaining two, it became apparent what had depressed poor Mary so. Mary told her that they would have to perform a Cesarean around the thirty-two-week stage of her pregnancy and until then, she would have to carry two live and two dead babies inside her!
Far from it being the happiest occasion that Mary had dreamed it would be ever since her childhood years, all she had to look forward to with certainty was the delivery of two dead babies, without knowing if the other two would survive!
When Nancy next visited Portlaw, she found Mary deeply depressed. She phoned word via the Portlaw Post Office and the Post Office in Clonmel and asked that a message be passed to her husband, informing him that his daughter Mary was not well and that his wife would be staying the next week with her until she was back on her feet.
When Nancy heard the latest news regarding the death of two of her planned babies and the risk to life of the remaining two, it became apparent what had depressed poor Mary so. Mary told her that they would have to perform a Cesarean around the thirty-two-week stage of her pregnancy and until then, she would have to carry two live and two dead babies inside her!
Far from it being the happiest occasion that Mary had dreamed it would be ever since her childhood years, all she had to look forward to with certainty was the delivery of two dead babies, without knowing if the other two would survive!
After one week’s presence of her stepmother in the house, Mary gradually improved. She had previously stopped eating altogether and only just started having a small bowl of soup again or a baked potato after Nancy had told her that there was simply no chance of the other two babies surviving until delivery, unless she took some nourishment!
Nancy urged the mother to be, “If you won’t eat for yourself,Mary, then at least eat for the two babies you are carrying inside you! They can't ask for nourishment, it's a mother's job to give it; it's your job!”
For the whole of her visit, Nancy did all the housework and enabled Mary to regain her strength. Nancy returned to Clonmel. She needed to restore some order to her own house before being able to return to stay with Mary again in Portlaw for as long as possible. Over the next three months, Nancy managed to stay over in Portlaw with her stepdaughter Mary for half of each week; returning to Clonmel to fend for her husband and the nine children for the remaining three days of the week.
XXXXXXXXXXXX
Nancy urged the mother to be, “If you won’t eat for yourself,Mary, then at least eat for the two babies you are carrying inside you! They can't ask for nourishment, it's a mother's job to give it; it's your job!”
For the whole of her visit, Nancy did all the housework and enabled Mary to regain her strength. Nancy returned to Clonmel. She needed to restore some order to her own house before being able to return to stay with Mary again in Portlaw for as long as possible. Over the next three months, Nancy managed to stay over in Portlaw with her stepdaughter Mary for half of each week; returning to Clonmel to fend for her husband and the nine children for the remaining three days of the week.
XXXXXXXXXXXX
After Mary had given birth, Nancy stayed a week at her Portlaw home for the family funeral of the two children who never made it. While Mary attended their funeral, along with a few nosy neighbours who insisted on standing by the graveside to offer the grieving mother their support, Nancy looked after the newborn infants Nellie and Nora inside 14, William Street, Portlaw.
As with most funeral days, sod’s law prevailed, and the atrocious weather added to the gloom of the occasion. It started raining heavily before it poured down and soaked anyone who stood around the graveside.
As Mary saw the extremely small coffins, which were no larger than two sewing boxes, lowered into the burial plot, she found it impossible to contain her grief. Each tiny coffin had on its surface, the names Mary had given her dead babies. She had named them Nancy and Maureen, after her two mothers. Mary’s heart had been broken in two and she let out an outpouring of tears, the like of which had never been seen at the edge of any Portlaw graveside before that day or since.
There was one particular moment as Mary looked down at the small coffins that she felt like falling into the grave opening with them, so that her two small mites would not feel alone in the darkness of the cold earth which would soon be heaped on them.
It also pained Mary that neither child had been given the sacrament of baptism, having died in her womb. Had they been born alive, even though they might have lived but mere minutes, the priest on hand would have baptised them and prevented their enforced stay in purgatory.
Two weeks later, Mary, Nancy, and the two babies, Nellie and Nora returned to the family home in Clonmel. Tenancy of the rented house at 14, William Street was duly relinquished.
As Mary saw the extremely small coffins, which were no larger than two sewing boxes, lowered into the burial plot, she found it impossible to contain her grief. Each tiny coffin had on its surface, the names Mary had given her dead babies. She had named them Nancy and Maureen, after her two mothers. Mary’s heart had been broken in two and she let out an outpouring of tears, the like of which had never been seen at the edge of any Portlaw graveside before that day or since.
There was one particular moment as Mary looked down at the small coffins that she felt like falling into the grave opening with them, so that her two small mites would not feel alone in the darkness of the cold earth which would soon be heaped on them.
It also pained Mary that neither child had been given the sacrament of baptism, having died in her womb. Had they been born alive, even though they might have lived but mere minutes, the priest on hand would have baptised them and prevented their enforced stay in purgatory.
Two weeks later, Mary, Nancy, and the two babies, Nellie and Nora returned to the family home in Clonmel. Tenancy of the rented house at 14, William Street was duly relinquished.
The people of Portlaw had been informed that Mary and her two babies would be spending a brief period with her father and siblings in Clonmel before travelling across the sea to England, where they would meet up with her husband Paddy, the children’s father.
Mary and the two babies lived at her father’s house for almost three months before she decided that it was time to strike out on her own in England.
When Harry Lannon learned that the children’s father was an unmarried man who knew not of the birth of his two children, he could not accept that his daughter had been morally right to keep this vital information from the natural father. From what his wife Nancy had told him, neither party had proved innocent in their illicit coupling. Both had knowingly slept together without any need of enticement, persuasion or protection!
Harry Lannon also found it impossible to speak to his eldest daughter about her adultery with another man, and inwardly, he did not blame Paddy Fanning for leaving Mary high and dry after he had eventually found out about her infidelity and its consequences! In fact, Nancy’s dad told her one night in no uncertain words, that had her mother or his wife Nancy ever done that to him, he would have packed his suitcase and left her to fend on her own also, whether she had one bairn to look after or ten!
Mary knew her father’s views on the matter and respected them by not once voicing her own in defence of her actions. Besides, Mary knew deep down that her father spoke only the truth; no more and no less than the simple facts of the matter. Mary knew that she had done her husband wrong and part of her believed that the death of two of her unborn children had been God’s punishment for her adulterous behaviour.
Mary and the two babies lived at her father’s house for almost three months before she decided that it was time to strike out on her own in England.
When Harry Lannon learned that the children’s father was an unmarried man who knew not of the birth of his two children, he could not accept that his daughter had been morally right to keep this vital information from the natural father. From what his wife Nancy had told him, neither party had proved innocent in their illicit coupling. Both had knowingly slept together without any need of enticement, persuasion or protection!
Harry Lannon also found it impossible to speak to his eldest daughter about her adultery with another man, and inwardly, he did not blame Paddy Fanning for leaving Mary high and dry after he had eventually found out about her infidelity and its consequences! In fact, Nancy’s dad told her one night in no uncertain words, that had her mother or his wife Nancy ever done that to him, he would have packed his suitcase and left her to fend on her own also, whether she had one bairn to look after or ten!
Mary knew her father’s views on the matter and respected them by not once voicing her own in defence of her actions. Besides, Mary knew deep down that her father spoke only the truth; no more and no less than the simple facts of the matter. Mary knew that she had done her husband wrong and part of her believed that the death of two of her unborn children had been God’s punishment for her adulterous behaviour.
