Cyclopean Columns

Phew!

It's late at night, I'm bloody tired - what better time than now to write an entry in the ol' blog? (Interesting note, I couldn't even type "blog" correctly, I ended up with blod instead)

I have just become a father. This is a wierd and mystical experience that I would highly recommend to any other man. You see, I didn't have to spend 33 hours in labour just to have it ultimately end in a surgical procedure under a general anasthetic. My wife did. You would think this would be a good thing for the blokes, but it turns out that it ain't so flash.

The labour started simply enough. About 7am on Thursday the Wife starts getting contractions. Nothing fancy, just a mild crampy-sort of thing every 20 minutes or so. She pretty much just sat in bed and read a book until 10am, when she thought she'd better call me at work. No concern, no fuss, even able to talk through the contractions. Sweet! I figure it's going to be hours yet, so I don't rush home from work, eventually walk in the door about 2pm.

By this stage, contractions are 5 minutes apart, but still nothing to write home about intensity-wise. This has changed by 6pm, when they are really starting to take the Wife's breath away. by 10pm the contractions are about 4 minutes apart and we decide to go to hospital.

At this point, hindsight tells me that the in-car delivery would have been a preferred option to what actually happened, but at the time I was just thinking how much I hoped there would be nothing exciting on the journey, and that the trip would be about five contractions worth. I missed a turnoff and we went a somewhat creative way to the hospital.

We have an initial exam - things are looking good, about 4cm dilation (need 10 for birth). About 1am the next morning, we go the first shot of pethidine. I'm still feeling all good and supportive, helping the Wife through the contractions by reminding her to breathe and making inane comments about how well she's doing etc. Things are less rosy by 630am, when the exam shows that we've not made any progress on the dilation. On top of this, the contractions are getting weaker and further apart.

Time gets a little hazy, but for the next six or something hours the Wife continues to endure contractions at five minute intervals, give or take. She's no longer able to hold anything down, not even her own bile, and being in the support team has become a lot less than pleasant. You feel completely inadequate trying to reassure a person who is going through some sort of hell and knows there's going to be many hours more of it. Expensive drugs starting with a "Z" deal with the nausea, and we go onto another drug to help with the contractions and dilation. This is the same drug used to induce childbirth in overdue mums.

The stuff doesn't work the way they want and the contractions start to "double barrel", which is a way of saying even more painful but achieving nothing. It's about this time that the Wife is completely shattered and wants to stop. Seriously stop. What can you say? There's the lame thing where you can agree and say "OK, lets just pack up and go", but under the circumstances it just don't cut it. About this time we get told an epidural might help as this will allow the maximum drug use and least distress to the Wife. We're also told this probably won't get us where we need to go and that a cesaerian section is the likely outcome.

This scares us both to hell. We came into this expecting a normal, natural childbirth, and are now being asked to sign up for pretty major surgery. Sure, if it's the only way to get bub out, that's fine, but we just weren't mentally prepared for it. But hey, flexibility was our watch-word for this labour, so we nod and try not to worry about it. Besides, the epidural will mean no more pain for the Wife.

The Wife is fitted with a catheter for an epidural, which in itself is quite distressing for me as a helper, seeing her still coming down from a contraction and hearing the anethetist saying "I'm in - for God's sake don't move!". I picture myself with a paraplegic partner and a newborn. Everything goes OK though and pretty soon after I have a Wife who is a lot less distressed. The midwives plan to let the drugs really do their work for the next couple of hours and leave us to it for a bit.

It's about this point I have my crisis of faith. The Wife still needs me there to give her support, encouragement and a rock on which to ground herself. I've been the big, strong man and partner all the way to this point, saying the right things, emptying her vomit bowl, keeping in good humour and never for an instant letting her think I'm anything other than supremely confident in what's going on.

Unfortunately, the prospect of a cesaerian without notice has shaken me to the core. I had lost my faith, I found myself surrounded by unpleasant what-ifs, all leading to the "what-if the Wife doesn't survive this?" and "what-if the baby doesn't survive this?" I suddenly find myself unable to look at or talk to my Wife without being in real danger of breaking down completely into a pile of tears and sobs, which would be the opposite of support and being a rock. I make an excuse to go and get a coffee with my fantastic parents, and thankfully twenty minutes with a cappucino, a macadamia-nut and white chocolate cookie and my two role-models is enough for me to get my life into perspective again and be able to go back and give the Wife the support she needs.

There is a bit of a blur now, as we get taken by an orderly and a midwife to the operating theatre. Well, I get as far as the first doors before being whisked off in another direction to get dressed in those lovely surgery clothes. I get to have a red hat so that people don't mistake me for someone who knows what they're doing. As if the camera in my hand wouldn't give it away...

I get escorted to the operating theatre, there's a bunch of people there and the maching that goes "ping!". I'm shown to my seat adjacent to my wife's head and told my job is to hold her hand. Somethin I can do! They pull a sheet up as a barrier between us and the business end, and everyone takes their places. They make the first incision.

"I can feel that!"

This is not so good. Despite the epidural which was promoted to a spinal block, it turns out the Wife is not sufficiently anethatised, and she could feel her abdomen being cut open. Immediately the anethatist says "we're putting her to sleep" and I get whisked back out of the operating room again, straight past the machine that goes "ping!" After getting changed I spend the rest of the birth pacing up and down in a corridor outside of the surgical wing, picturing all of the unpleasant scenarios that could be the outcome of this situation.

I am eventually greeted by the midwife wheeling a funky trolly with the most gorgeous little baby girl on it - my daughter! It is my job now to go with them to maternity and keep company with the bub until the Wife has returned from recovery. This takes more than an hour, and during this time of course I am still thinking stupid stuff like "what-if there were complications?" and "what-if I'm going to be bringing up this little bundle of joy on my own?"

It's all unfounded of course, and in the end everyone is OK, if tired. I now get to go home every night and waste a good night's sleep writing rambling diatribes in this blog. The Wife is a little less lucky, having to try and sleep in a hospital with all of its attendant distractions, including haveing to feed bub every four hours. The whole thing was a trial, it really was. Strange thing is, I felt I desperately had to write all of this down before I forgot it. Must be a survival mechanism, that we tend to block the less pleasant parts of our experiences out - makes us more likely to go ahead and breed a second time.

It has all been worth it though, because unlike other parents who only think they have the world's cutest baby, in our case it's true.