Birth: Fathers tell it like it really is

Mothers seem to be the ones who always tell the birth stories. But fathers have their own perspectives...


A fantastic poem written by one of the fathers in our NCT group, once all the babies had been born:


So what a week, 

3 baby girls and 5 baby guys,

Come on NCT, you know it was all lies

Thanks to Angela for making us feel calm,

Was it deliberate? I just don't know,

But at least the girls left with a big warm glow

But labor was different, so now we know,

It's not all candles, reiki and mum-bo jum-bo,

It's hell and it's horrible, 

It's long and it's slow,

It's even worse as there is nowhere to go

So to the NCT,

No it's not all "floral",

Your advice should be,

"Just have an epidural"!

To all the girls we doff our cap,

You don't even get to have a good nap,

From all the dads, you have made us so proud,

We forget the fact that you screamed so loud

But all that's done, 

A distant memory,

Now it's all about the little baby

They cry, they scream, they burp and they poo,

So beautiful though as they were made by you, 

So much love, so happy and so cool,

I am in danger of becoming a gibbering fool

So at last a toast to one and all,

An incredible time which won't be forgotten,

I am sure we are all going to spoil them rotten!

And our birth story written by my husband for friends and family when our son was born.

We went in for an induction on Tuesday and it took ages and we did not go to the labour ward until Friday at 4pm.  Before the labour ward it was like going 1st class on a long haul flight with no arrival time and without the quality service.  There was a reasonable amount of space and an entertainment system (but with no map to track where you were) and not much else.  Every so often a stewardess would come along with poor quality tea and coffee and only acknowledge one of the passengers (the one in the bed).  The other passenger had to scavenge for food and drink and was kicked out every 12 hours.  Every so often the crew would wander round (often in the middle of the night whilst the acknowledged passenger was managing to get a few hours sleep) and want to fiddle with the passengers private bits.  On the Thursday night the waters broke. Throughout Friday we could have advanced to the labour ward but there was a queue.

The labour ward was initially a welcome progression from this state of affairs but it soon appeared that our optimism was misplaced.  The midwife was a complete battle axe who had two attempts at finding a vein and fitting some tubes before giving up and finding a doctor who had a further attempt before finally locating a botched tube system. These were required as waters had broken more than 18 hours previously and therefore needed antibiotics.  The midwife the gave us "improvement targets" to reach a certain number of contractions in 10 minutes and if these targets were not reached she was going for the hormones. Luckily she went off shift at 8pm and the replacement midwife was an absolute gem who was very gentle and understanding and was the only person to read the birth plan.  Transition was about 2am (although we did lose track of time by about this point) and my job of diving in to press the back with every contraction became a bit more intense, and some positions were considerably less convenient than others.  I didn't think it was appropriate to raise any objections however, given the inconvenience Melissa was having to endure.

By about 6am our baby was still not that happy about experiencing the outside world and the pain was getting a bit much so it was decided to head for a caesarean. As Melissa was wheeled off down the corridor screaming in agony I finally managed to go to the loo (after 7 hrs of needing to).  So we were all in theatre in our scrubs and Melissa was sat on the operating table having the local anasthetic before the epidural when the labour ward coordinator rushes in and tells us to hold on as there was another emergency brewing.  The thought of the epidural by this point was the only thing Melissa was interested in and it was a bit dispiriting that the doctors vanished, anyway 10 mins later they came back and we carried on.  Shortly after we got our baby and I went off with him to be weighed and stuff before bringing him back to sit with Melissa up the "head end" whilst she was stitched back up.

Mother is now a bit sore and tired but doing fine and baby is fine and has learned what breasts are for.