Birth story: Five surprises I was not prepared for when my daughter was born
The fifth surprise came as she looked down at the baby, bewilderment and tiredness in her eyes.
“Well, that’s the first time I’ve done that!” She declared.
This was the punchline to the rather surreal day we had just had. These words had been uttered by the wrong kind of wife. Whilst it was absolutely true for my wife, it was not my wife saying those words, but the midwife.
As the three of us sat and lay there, each shellshocked to different levels of severity and for slightly different reasons, our midwife’s words shone a light on a few curious actions that had been going on – the regular disappearances to ask the opinion of a colleague, the appearance of a senior matronly midwife who spent five minutes laying down the law with all of us and then vanished, the slight indecisiveness on whether pushing was supposed to be happening or not.
It was a first time experience for all of us in that room, and as my wife was wheeled away for the post-birth stuff to happen, I was left alone with my new daughter and a cup of tea that was on reflection, probably intended for my wife (you can read Paula’s version of this birth story here). It had been an odd day.
Everyone in my office remembers when my wife went into labour. When you turn up to an away-day full of talks and workshops with your team and only stick around for a cup of coffee and a Danish Pastry before dropping a scrappy note with the boss and dashing off in a smart-casual blur, everyone puts two and two together pretty quickly.
With two weeks left on the clock, I was very skeptical as to my wife’s insistence that yes her water had broken and that yes we really did have to go to the hospital, but on my trip home I did think I had suddenly found myself with an impromptu day off.
I had no idea what we were in for that day.
You absorb a lot of impressions of what the childbirth experience is going to be like just through cultural osmosis. A romantic comedy here, a sitcom there, an ongoing drama series that eventually just gives up and does a “one of our characters is now pregnant” plot line. You think you have a rough idea of what’s going to happen.
It’s all nonsense.
We ended up with two trips to the hospital. My wife was very clearly having very painful contractions and so we tore over to the hospital as quickly as we could in 1 minute 32 second bursts. That was consistently how far apart the contractions were. I was under the impressions that contractions were meant to gradually get closer together and not turn someone I love into a surprisingly robust pain metronome.
1. My astonishingly athletic heavily pregnant wife
Surprise number one for the day was realising my heavily pregnant wife could get down the three flights of stairs in our flat in 1 minute 32 seconds.
When you arrive at the maternity ward, they do an assessment to see if you’re really about to have a baby or have a different problem that’s like being about to have a baby. There’s a process they follow, a checklist they run through, apparently a guilt trip they take you on if you’ve not managed to go to any classes (the only one we could have made it to was after the due date and we decided that probably wouldn’t be terribly useful) and then they either admit you or send you home.
2. Don’t get too comfortable just yet
Surprise number two – they sent us home.
Our instructions were to wait until we thought we should come back in and to call up and put my wife on the phone so they can tell from how much pain she sounds like she’s in if we should come back.
We spent a lot of the afternoon in the bath.
We didn’t work out the bath thing for a while, but as a pro-tip, get in a nice warm bath. It clearly didn’t stop the pain completely, but it definitely took the edge off.
I’m not sure how long we were in the bath, or the bed, or the sofa, or the floor, but we put the call back into the hospital when things got bad again. I have no idea what our metric for ‘bad’ was at this point – we thought we should have been at the hospital already – but we put the call in and were told to come in straight away – the voice on the other end sounding ever so slightly panicked.
When we got to the hospital again, first of all we were let into the maternity ward by a passing nurse who started by saying:
“You need to call the reception and get them to let you in – I can’t let you….” before tailing off as she watched my wife doubled over. “You know what, just go through”
The previous meticulous checklist to make sure this was happening was very much rushed this second time through. There was zero doubt that this was the time for things to happen and before anyone knew what was happening we were in a room. This included other people working there not knowing what was happening and resulted in a couple of surprised people appearing in that way you might burst into an unlocked bathroom only to find someone in there already. Guilty, but also annoyed that you didn’t lock it.
Time lost all meaning and concept during this day and I have no recollection of how long we were in this room.
3. My astonishingly acrobatic heavily pregnant wife
Surprise number three: Giving birth doesn’t always happen in the position you see happening on TV.
At one point my wife ended up on the floor. I have no idea how we got there and more to the point had no idea how we were going to get back on the bed or even if we needed to get back on the bed.
Gas and air was apparently useless and I felt equally useless as my main task became holding the gas and air.
The one giving-birth cliché that appears to be completely accurate is the temporary rage that afflicts the mother during the process. There isn’t always a huge amount you can do as a father in that room beyond just being present and holding hands. Don’t try and be clever with saying inspirational things, or trying to tell her how to breathe, or that everything was going to be ok. I think I did the middle one. I would not recommend.
At around 7pm, my first born daughter arrived, as distressed, confused and exhausted as the rest of us and giving her lungs their first proper good workout with a good wail and cry.
Later on, I will be told that the whole labour and birth process took about ten hours which is apparently very quick. It didn’t feel quick, but then again it didn’t feel long either. It was a timeless experience, in the sense that I did not feel the passing of time.
I was soon to discover that not feeling the passing of time and being unable to determine whether things are going quickly or slowly is apparently a recurring feeling with having a child.
I have absolutely no idea how my wife did what she did. It looked hard. There were unpleasant sounding things being discussed throughout the whole thing. I kept recalling half remembered things that can go wrong, little fragments of information you pick up over the years through absorbing One Born Every Minute in the background, from reading a lot of random things on the internet and hearing general possibly-true anecdotes of horror.
Everyone did amazing things. The hospital was amazing, the people who help people go through this every day are amazing, my wife was amazing, my daughter was amazing.
Looking down at our daughter, it all felt very surreal, improbable and of course completely worth it.
4. Connections and deep squishy feelings that I was not expecting
Surprise number four was the instant connection I felt with my daughter.
That’s the cliché I thought was going to be utter nonsense – that feeling of instant protectiveness and love and all that rubbish. Maybe for some people it is. I’ve heard not everyone instantly feels comfortable with a newborn baby and I wouldn’t for a second suggest there’s something wrong with you if you don’t feel it, but fathers, just be ready for that to hit you.
And so there I am, in a hospital room, perched on a stool, staring down at this tiny human being with a tiny nose and a tiny mouth that’s staring back at me slowly falling asleep. I know things are never going to be the same for me. I don’t know whether I feel a change within me straight away, but I see the near and distant future unfolding in a very different way to the way I’d imagined before.
I already can’t imagine what we did without her.
