Part 5: The boy

So, here he was. Thomas Andrew had finally arrived. After nine months of apprehension, and nine hours of exasperation, we were finally parents.

There’s nothing like looking at a newborn baby to make you feel old, fat and hairy. Everything about them is so small and clean, pure and perfect.

Tiny little fingers.

Impossibly cute toes.

Eyes, ears, mouth and nose which were all models-in-miniature of either Julie’s or my own.

Huge whopping great genitals.

No, no, no – I’m not being crass, nor am I trying to brag about my boy’s endowment. It’s a medical fact that both boys and girls are born with enlargements in that particular region. It’s a hormonal thing, honestly. (However, I must admit to being tempted to quote Homer Simpson: ‘It’s a boy … and WHAT a boy!’)

It must be said that we were both very impressed with how much time we had to bond with our baby. As mentioned previously, he was given to Julie as soon as he was delivered. In fact, she actually CAUGHT HIM as he was on his way out, and LIFTED HIM UP to her own chest … with a bit of help, of course – but how impressive is that? How much does that shatter your preconceptions of how maternity wards operate?

We expected a significantly colder, more clinical approach: ‘Congratulations folks – here’s your baby. Have a quick look and a cuddle, and we’ll bundle him off for tests and examinations. You can wander down the hall soon and look at him through the big window. Oh no, we hardly ever mix them up any more.’ etc.

But instead we had a good half hour to bond with him, at which stage we briefly handed him over to the obstetrician (who had been busying himself with removing other things from inside Julie, and thankfully mopped up before handling Tom) for a few quick tests and a weigh-in right there in the room, and then he was given straight back to us. A few handshakes, thankyous and goodbyes later, and we were left alone. ALONE! A family! With a baby to raise!

Not quite knowing how to cope with the enormity of the situation, we immediately rang our parents. Despite the fact that they all utterly refused to take Tom off our hands and let us regain our youth, we nevertheless invited them to come and meet their grandson.

By the time the new grandparents left (and we once again found ourselves alone as a family) it was well after midnight, and so the midwifery staff informed us that we would be spending the night in the birthing suite. Under normal circumstances we would have been shipped out to a room in the maternity ward, but the lateness of the hour – along with the unseasonably high number of births currently underway at the hospital meant that this would have to wait until the morning.

This chance turn of events meant that I could kip out on the floor, affording me an opportunity to spend Night One with my family – an experience I would have missed had Julie been relocated into a shared room (as she was, the following morning).

Night One subsequently taught both of us three important facts about our boy:

1. He had poo like a radioactive by-product.

2. He had a scream that cut through the night like a chainsaw.

3. He had us by the heartstrings, completely and utterly.

Part 4: The arrival

When we last saw our brave heroine, she was contracting and writhing and screaming and cursing – and swearing to all gods both heathen and holy that she would never do this again.

She had also asked the midwife on several occasions whether she could start pushing – a request that was continuously denied since a) her cervix had not yet fully dilated, and b) the baby had wriggled his way around to the posterior position, which is not optimal for delivery. It was due to this second factor that Julie had – three or four hours into labour – been administered with a small dose of pethidine, which would hopefully relax things just enough for the bub to reposition himself ready for launch. Around 9 pm the midwife told us that this seemed to have finally occurred – and since Julie’s cervix was now roughly the width of a grapefruit*, we were also informed that the pushing could now begin.

All sorts of things started happening at this stage, which I will probably not be able to fully digest without years of therapy – or at least, until I have completed writing my script for the B-grade horror film ‘It Came From Out Of My Wife’. I studied this stuff in my undergraduate degree, and have a fairly good understanding of what goes on down there – but until it is happening to your beloved, you cannot possibly grasp the enormity of the situation. Thanks to the policy of inclusiveness our midwife** had towards the father’s role in childbirth, I was a participant-observer in the whole show.

And so, about an hour-and-a-half later – after much pushing, screaming, twisting, kicking, bearing-down, crowning, bleeding and stretching – we finally met our son.

As soon as he was delivered, he was placed on Julie’s chest for a cuddle and a scream, and we got to share our first few moments together as a family. The obstetrician then handed me some scissors and offered me a lengthy piece of calamari, which I thanked him for but declined, since I had eaten not long ago. Once my misapprehension had been pointed out, I cut the umbilical cord and symbolically set the next generation loose on the world.

* It is often difficult for men to fully appreciate what happens to a woman during childbirth, so allow me to share this analogy: To allow for passage of the baby, the cervix stretches to 10 cm, or 100 mm. It is normally about 2-3 mm wide. This is about the same size as the urethra. So guys, imagine ‘things’ stretching to the point that you could wee baseballs.

** … and the hospital in general, it must be said. Mitcham Private has a fantastic attitude to childbirth and fathers. I really appreciated the fact that they included me in everything, and never once treated me as excess baggage.

Part 3: Labour

Modern birthing suites – at least, those at our hospital of choice – are remarkable. Years of shonky hospital dramatisations had led us to expect a dank, sterile room reminiscent of – if not identical to – an operating theatre. But the reality is more like a 4-star hotel room, complete with mini-bar, comfy couches, TV and stereo.

Granted, not many hotels have nitrous oxide on-tap, handy ‘Jesus bars’ near the toilet/shower/bed, a cupboard full of forceps and a hard-wearing, washable floor covering. But nevertheless, I’ve paid good money to stay in worse rooms – and I know some kinky folk who would pay a premium for the extra oddities.

And so it was into such comfort that we were led upon our arrival at Mitcham Private around 3:30-ish. Julie’s contractions had been rapidly increasing in intensity and frequency during the drive from home, and were now at the point where sitting down and grimacing was about her only option.

We had experienced what we had – foolishly, in hindsight – considered to be several ‘false alarms’ in the preceding weeks. Contractions of a kind would start up and fall into a regular pattern, and we would very excitedly begin noting down the regularity and the intensity (‘mild’, ‘uncomfortable’, ‘a bit sore’, etc). These were, of course, merely Braxton-Hicks contractions. Now that Julie was experiencing the real deal, the descriptors most commonly used were ‘agonising’, ‘f---ing painful’ and ‘AAAAGGGGHHHHHHH’.

I will never experience the pain of labour, and for that I’m thankful. At the risk of receiving a serious beating from all my female friends and relatives, it was painful enough watching my beloved experience it.

To Julie’s credit, she bore the agony with a strength I shall admire for years to come. There’s no way to say that without sounding condescending, but there you have it. She demonstrated a goddess-like pain threshold, and has my undying respect.

But after five or six unspeakable hours, with nothing more than a constant supply of nitrous to smooth the worst edges, she was forced to face a new challenge. The pushing had begun.

Part 2: The journey

The usual 30-minute train/drive commute took me a little under an hour, thanks to arriving at the station at precisely the wrong time of day and waiting 20 minutes for the next train – predictably stopping-all-stations, rather than limited-express.

I had rung Julie several times on the way to engage in exactly the kind of mobile phone conversations I regularly ridicule as inane and unnecessary, ie: ‘I’m at the station’, ‘I’m on the train’, ‘I just passed Glenferrie’, ‘I’m getting into the car now’, etc. With each successive phone call, I could hear the initial enthusiasm and excitement leaving her voice, as the pain and anxiety of labour crept in.

By the time I got home (around 3 pm), the intensity of Julie’s contractions had increased significantly – to the point that she could not talk during one. Thanks to good planning (or over-enthusiasm), our bags had been packed months ago, so all that was left to do was feed the cat and hit the road.

We had been forewarned by our midwife that bucket seats afforded the most uncomfortable position possible for a labouring woman, so with some trepidation I helped Julie into the back seat of our car. Since the same midwife had cheerfully told us about the corrosive powers of amniotic fluid, we had earlier laid down a good covering of tarps and towels to protect the upholstery from any water-breaking mishaps. (Laugh and scorn all you want – I consider it a fairly subdued compromise, compared to the ‘trailer lined with sawdust’ option discussed at our antenatal class.)

My performance during the drive to hospital was another of those great fears I had harboured during the pregnancy. Would I crack under the pressure? Would the Gods of Urban Congestion and Peak-Hour Rushes conspire to make our son truly a back-seat baby? Would I remember to pack the calming, floaty meditation CDs preselected for the trip – as opposed to the less appropriate collection of 60s/70s rock and 90s/00s big-beat usually on high-rotation in my* car?

As it turned out, all these highly important aspects of the father’s role in labour went incredibly smoothly. The traffic was light, the tunes were soothing and within 20 minutes we arrived at the hospital. I really relaxed at this stage. Julie did not.

* ‘My car’ is a phrase that no longer exists in our household, as the newer, more-reliable Ford Falcon has now become the vehicle du jour for baby-related activities (ie: everything), while the older, more … umm … ‘characteristic’ Toyota Corona has become Dad’s runabout to the station on cold/wet mornings. I subsequently apologise in advance to my manager and workmates for all missed meetings and late arrivals.