At 9.55am yesterday morning, I got a call from Mandy to say that her waters had broken. Less than six hours later, at 3.36pm, she gave birth to a healthy baby boy.
When the phone rang, I was just beginning a regular Monday morning at the office. As soon as Mandy told me what had happened, I broke into a big grin. Buckle up, I thought. Time to get this show on the road.
Mandy’s mother drove her to the hospital. I met them in the hospital car park at 10.40am. “Any contractions?” I asked excitedly. “Yes, three in the car,” Mandy replied. “But they were quite weak.”
When we got up to the maternity ward, Mandy was examined and found to be 4cm dilated and fully effaced – just as she had been at her last appointment with her obstetrician, Dr. Robinson, on Thursday. The contractions were coming pretty regularly, about every five minutes, but weren’t particularly strong. I pulled out the TENS machine that we had brought with us and began figuring out how to use it.
One of Mandy’s childhood friends, Heather Moorhead, works as a nurse in the maternity ward and we were overjoyed to learn that she was working that day. She popped in to see us shortly after we arrived. “Make sure you have this baby before 3.30pm,” she told us. “That’s when my shift ends.”
At 11.40am Mandy was moved from the examination room into birthing room 3. Although the contractions weren’t painful, she was beginning to get a little flustered. With the help of the friendly, cheerful midwife, Belinda Rogers, I stuck the pads from the TENS machine to her back and turned the device to its lowest setting, 1 out of 10.
By 12.05pm the contractions had begun to strengthen and were coming every four minutes. Mandy began to up the power level on the TENS machine. At 12.25pm she was given another exam, and found to be 9cm dilated. Our mouths fell open. From 4cm to 9cm in just over an hour?! Things were really moving along.
By 1pm Mandy was feeling an overwhelming urge to push. To fight it, she adjusted her breathing to the hee-hee-hee-ho pattern we were taught in Rita and Liz’s class, but she found it tough to keep the rhythmn. I tried to help her as best I could, by breathing with her. By now, she had increased the power being dealt out by the TENS machine to 8 out of 10.
At 1.40pm Belinda told her that she was fully dilated, and gave her the go-ahead to start pushing during the contractions. But even though we could see from the monitor that the contractions were strong, Mandy only felt them as a strong pressure, not pain. “Never mind then!” said Belinda. “Just push when you feel the pressure!”
By 2.15pm the contractions had started to space out, to seven minutes apart, and their intensity was becoming variable. Mandy was beginning to tire from the pushing, and without regular contractions labour would be prolonged. Belinda told Mandy that she was considering giving her drugs to make her more regular. The thought of having any chemical assistance after having come this far unaided seemed to spur Mandy’s body into action, and she had three good, strong contractions close together. But then they began to weaken and spread out again. At 2.40pm, Belinda decided not to leave it any longer, and put her on a drip to administer the drugs. Things began to speed up.
Dr. Robinson joined us as it became apparent that birth was now near, a reassuring presence. Belinda told us that she would stay with us to the end, even though her shift was about to end. Then Heather showed up as well, ready to attend to the baby when he finally emerged. We couldn’t have had three more competent or comforting people to be with us.
At around 2.50pm Dr. Robinson told me that the head was now just visible and asked if I wanted to look. I gulped. I had a nauseous feeling in the back of my throat, and my muscles were tense. However, I didn’t feel faint, and a sideways glance confirmed that there didn’t seem to be too much blood. So I risked a look. Dr. Robinson pointed out the head to me, but I wasn’t entirely sure what I was looking at. I looked away again. Still conscious. Phew.
By 3.05pm I could definitely see the baby’s head. “Beautiful! Beautiful!” cried Belinda excitedly, as Mandy pushed and more of the head emerged. Not exactly how I would describe it, I thought, as I watched, transfixed.
When Aidan finally emerged, he did so rapidly. Heather took him and cleared the mucus from his nose and mouth as Dr. Robinson clamped the umbilical cord. “Do you want to cut it?” she asked me. I laughed weakly. “No thanks,” I said. “Best not to push my luck!”
At the sight of Aidan, Mandy got a second wind. Her tiredness evaporated and her eyes became bright, her voice lively. She looked like a million dollars. You would hardly have thought that she had just gone through labour without the assistance of pethidine, gas and air, or an epidural. The TENS machine was still running, but she hadn’t even maxed that out. It was still set to 8, as it had been two and a half hours earlier. Everyone seemed amazed at how little pain she’d suffered.
And Aidan isn’t a small baby. He weighed in at 9lbs 2.7oz, measured 14” around his head, and was 18.5” long.
I felt pretty teary several times during labour, thinking about the new life that was about to enter the world and how he was going to change our lives. So I was sure that I would cry when I saw Aidan for the first time. However, I didn’t. Perhaps I was still in shock at having just watched him being born. When I first held him, it felt very strange to feel him squirming within his swaddling and making little noises. I was scared to touch him, gingerly pulling his hat back on his head when it slipped off. Everything about him was foreign to me. So as I held him in the crook of my arm, chatting to him, I retreated to the familiar.
“Now,” I said. “You need to hurry up and grow up so daddy can show you how to play video games.”
Aidan looked bored and uninterested.
“Hmm, you’re not going to be one of those kids who likes to play sport, are you?” I asked, disdainfully.
Aidan perked up. Mandy laughed. I grimaced.
After the birth, Belinda discovered that Mandy’s blood pressure was extremely high. When it didn’t come back down of its own accord, the decision was taken to put Mandy on a drip to bring it back down, and keep her under observation for 24 hours. She was moved from the birthing room to a small, windowless room still in the labour ward, and a catheter put in. Despite not having eaten all day, and being pretty hungry after the exertions of labour, she wasn't allowed to eat solids. It was the only downer in an otherwise easy labour.
I left the hospital at 8pm, tired and hungry myself. But that wasn’t what I was thinking about as I drove home.
The waiting was over. I was a father, at last.
