Emily's just written up her blog about the birth, so I figured I'd write up my experience. I'll only note down the things she didn't mention much. I remember a few more things as I wasn't the one in all the pain.
- First, my embarrassment. I don't have a driver's license in Canada, and I had just organised all my paperwork to let me do the multiple-choice Knowledge Test. So after we got Emily into hospital, where did I go? Off to do my knowledge test, coming back some time after she was hooked up to all the baby monitoring stuff. That's when my memories start.
- We had to kill time in the hospital somehow. Labour is a long process. We had brought a laptop and started marathoning the modern series of Doctor Who (starting from Season 2). Who knew that we'd look back at those episodes and think "damn, Season 5 is so much better"? Kill Doctor Who and we're back to just talking rubbish to burn up the hours.
- At one point, Emily had setup a tiny portable stereo system to listen to Glee music while having her cucumber-salad lunch. That was early on in the day. It's weird thinking that the same day contained "Emily being excited about cucumber-salad" and "Emily screaming and crying and pushing a baby out". A baby's birth will be a strange day.
- Originally, Emily's mum (Stella) was at the hospital with us. Having her there really helped in the early hours when I wasn't around as much, but with labour approaching we knew things would be getting emotional and stressful soon. We sent Stella home somewhere around lunchtime, though she would drop in every few hours after that with very welcome food relief. :)
- The hospital staff wanted the baby out, and rightfully so. Adelaide had pooped inside and there was a risk of her inhaling some of that. However, Emily was dilating quite quickly on her own. We didn't want to use induction if we could avoid it, so we delayed. In the end, Emily's dilation slowed down and she had to be induced. She was not happy about the IV, but I think she was happy to get labour moving again.
- Labour is enormously painful. And induced labour comes up on the mother very fast. Once you're induced, know that this is going to hurt, and it's going to hurt fast. I'm not sure that I fully understood this, but I did at the end when the hospital staff said "you know, the vast vast majority of women get an epidural when they're induced, you're just incredible".
- As a father and husband, there were a few things that ran through my head during the birth:
- I will never leave her. There is nothing quite like watching a woman go through labour to make your insides shrivel up and make you think "seriously? this woman loves me?".
- Baby's head is showing? Umbilical cord needs cutting? Whoop-dee-doo. Excuse me while I tend to my wife here, ok? And no, I don't want to grab my camera. She's in pain, and I'm not a tourist.
- I wanted to cry at many points through the birth, just watching and hearing how much pain she is in. Absolutely everything is secondary to her pain. If she needs to break a bone to distract herself from the pain, so be it. Bone injures will heal. Birthing pain trumps all concerns today. Yes, seriously, it is that bad.
- I know her better than the staff and can better translate how she's feeling, what she wants, etc. Perhaps that is the most useful thing the husband can do - translating her needs to the hospital staff, and their directions back to her. For example: "Yes, I know a heat-pack makes the most sense for labour pains. But screw that - my wife needs a soothing ice-pack down her back to make her feel better. I don't care if you need to use frozen popsicles, we need something very cold down her back right now." That is your job as husband.
- Adelaide came out in full Hollywood style. Bright pink, breathing, seemingly happy to be out. She had a bit of poop on her but otherwise was all good. Emily was completely wiped out, but happy it was all over.
- Adelaide has been breastfeeding just fine, almost since the very first attempt. She has strong neck muscles, breathes just fine, and has a relatively gentle cry. We could not be happier. In fact, Adelaide and Emily were doing so well they sent us home within 16 hours of the birth.
The whole thing went very very fast. I still can't believe we now have a baby, but I am extremely eager to play with her and watch her grow up. When she opens her eyes and just stares at you, it's beautiful.
Note to Timothy: I know you can't read this, and I know you can't respond, but I want to write this down. You are an uncle now, mate. Maybe you know this because you seemed to know there was a baby in Emily's tummy. We will be bringing the whole family to you soon. I am really looking forward to it. Love you mate. We'll see you soon.
