Sob Story

‘KATE Garraway is going through the “milky dopey stage”. Having just given birth to Darcey (female), she feels a bit “like I’m floating around and people have been talking to me and I haven’t heard what they’re saying”.

Birth has enabled Garraway to know what it is to be a GMTV viewer. Not that Kate has time to watch TV. Not since she is looking at Darcey “completely obsessively.”

Kate invites us to do likewise. And keen to empathise with the new mum, we look at the full-page shot of mother and daughter. We stare. We dare not blink. The world beyond the photo takes on an eerie stillness and then fades from thought and sight. Until all that remains is Darcey.

We hear crying. Our ears pick up the sound of Kate’s husband, the former Government PR Derek Draper. He wants to know why Kate is sobbing. “I’ don’t know! I’m just crying,” says Kate.

And we too feel like crying. A feeling that only grows as Kate relives the birth.

She is 3cm dilated. An episode of Six Feet Under is on the TV. There’s a hospital. Kate is ready to be immersed in a birthing pool. Now she’s having an epidural. She sits on a birthing stool. Derek is on a chair behind her.

He’s crunching. It’s toast. “Oh marmalade is great,” says Derek. “Kate shouts: “Stop eating your toast! It’s really distracting.” Derek also has squeezable honey, aromatherapy oils, facial spray and homeopathic arnica tablets.

Kate’s not wrong. Derek is distracting. For a moment we let our focus on Darcey slip. But not to worry – we are soon presented with another shot of the child sitting on Kate’s lap.

And Kate is telling us that the whole labour lasted from midnight to 17 minutes past eight the following morning.

We begin to wonder if we can make it. Are there any drugs left? What about the honey?’

Posted: 4th, April 2006 | In: Reviews Comment | TrackBack | Permalink