Ask the Author: Megan Rogers
Answered Questions (1)
Megan Rogers
One night my seven-week-old daughter stopped breathing. I rushed her and my toddler to the Royal Children’s Hospital in Melbourne and they saved her life. We were there a few days and eventually discharged. My husband was in Sydney at the time for work and managed to get back in time to pick us up. I sat with my girls in the hospital cafeteria waiting. Not quite ready to go home yet. Probably looking emotional and tired. When a woman with a lanyard and all the official attire approached me and asked if I would like her to hold my baby and sit with my child so that I could go to the toilet and get something to eat. I was too exhausted to say no so I gratefully accepted.
When I came back, she explained that she was an anaesthetist at the hospital, that she had growing children of her own, and a mother she was looking after and that she came to work often feeling like she wasn’t doing a good job of anything. Then she said a phrase that has never left me, and which was the catalyst for my novel. She said that one of the greatest lessons her job has taught her, is when she sees someone experiencing difficult emotions to not look away, to see them in their full humanity. That night I went home and wrote the opening line to the novel which has never changed.
The doctor’s words stayed with me so much so that months later I was at work, sitting at my desk with my daughter strapped to my chest sleeping. I was teaching creative writing at RMIT University at the time and my desk overlooked Swanston Street in Melbourne. I looked down one morning and saw a woman in a black suit holding a child and staring across the road. She didn’t move for what seemed like ten or so minutes. In that moment I could have just gone back to my work, but I remembered what that anaesthetist said to me, and I didn’t want to look away.
I took my baby down and gently approached the woman in a black suit. I asked if she was ok. She turned to me and looked surprised that I had asked and then she broke down with tears in her eyes and said, ‘No, you know I don’t think I am ok.’ I invited her to come and have a coffee and I held her child as she ate a toasted cheese sandwich. She explained that she was due to go back to work that day and to put her child into care for the first time. She couldn’t imagine not going back to work, but she also couldn’t imagine handing her child over for the day and she said she felt paralysed.
We eventually parted ways and I gave her my details. About a year later she emailed me and told me she’d quit her job and started a HR company for woman returning to work after having children – to find workplaces for them where they could reach their professional potential but also not have to pretend as if they weren’t mothers as well. She said that sitting there with me that morning had allowed her to quieten the voices and expectations in her mind and to, in her words, create a door.
I wanted to honour both those women’s words and write a woman’s story where I didn’t look away. Where I explored a character’s mistakes and lessons, all her hopes and fears and all her humanity, without looking away. But I also wanted to, eventually, create a quiet space for her where she could quieten the ever-present needs of others and carve out, for herself, a door.
When I came back, she explained that she was an anaesthetist at the hospital, that she had growing children of her own, and a mother she was looking after and that she came to work often feeling like she wasn’t doing a good job of anything. Then she said a phrase that has never left me, and which was the catalyst for my novel. She said that one of the greatest lessons her job has taught her, is when she sees someone experiencing difficult emotions to not look away, to see them in their full humanity. That night I went home and wrote the opening line to the novel which has never changed.
The doctor’s words stayed with me so much so that months later I was at work, sitting at my desk with my daughter strapped to my chest sleeping. I was teaching creative writing at RMIT University at the time and my desk overlooked Swanston Street in Melbourne. I looked down one morning and saw a woman in a black suit holding a child and staring across the road. She didn’t move for what seemed like ten or so minutes. In that moment I could have just gone back to my work, but I remembered what that anaesthetist said to me, and I didn’t want to look away.
I took my baby down and gently approached the woman in a black suit. I asked if she was ok. She turned to me and looked surprised that I had asked and then she broke down with tears in her eyes and said, ‘No, you know I don’t think I am ok.’ I invited her to come and have a coffee and I held her child as she ate a toasted cheese sandwich. She explained that she was due to go back to work that day and to put her child into care for the first time. She couldn’t imagine not going back to work, but she also couldn’t imagine handing her child over for the day and she said she felt paralysed.
We eventually parted ways and I gave her my details. About a year later she emailed me and told me she’d quit her job and started a HR company for woman returning to work after having children – to find workplaces for them where they could reach their professional potential but also not have to pretend as if they weren’t mothers as well. She said that sitting there with me that morning had allowed her to quieten the voices and expectations in her mind and to, in her words, create a door.
I wanted to honour both those women’s words and write a woman’s story where I didn’t look away. Where I explored a character’s mistakes and lessons, all her hopes and fears and all her humanity, without looking away. But I also wanted to, eventually, create a quiet space for her where she could quieten the ever-present needs of others and carve out, for herself, a door.
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