The wonders of life
I've just had the most amazing, tiring and wonderful day. I was (unplanned and unexpectedly) the birth partner for my lovely friend Katie.
She was due in about a week, but started to get some signs of possible imminent labour on Thursday, and serious contractions started that night. At around 11pm I received her text message asking me to be on standby to take her to hospital if necessary (a task I'd already happily volunteered for). Then another text at 1am asking me to come over. Contractions every 5-10 minutes. By about 1.30am we were on our way to hospital with contractions coming every 3 minutes. Talk about rapid onset of labour!
On the way there, I asked if we should call her birth partners, her cousin from Killara and aunt from the Central Coast. "I don't think there's enough time," said Katie. "Will you come into the delivery room with me?" Would I? Of course I would. What an honour, and how would I not want to be there for someone I care so much about?
We got to RPA quickly, with poor Katie gasping in pain and barely able to walk. While in the preliminary examination room, her waters broke - to her relief as there was then no way they'd send her home! Then came the bad news - she was too far advanced for an epidural.
"What pain relief can I have?" Katie asked.
"Nothing," said the nurse. "You're going to have a baby. That's what you're going to have!"
Oh, the look of dismay on poor Katie's face! But in fact she was given gas in the delivery room, which helped take the edge off the pain.
It was a very fast and intense labour. And - to state the bleeding obvious - wow, giving birth clearly hurts. She said later the pain was so much worse than she'd ever imagined; right at the very limit of endurance. I held her shoulders, stroked her forehead, said encouraging things; in short, tried to be a calm and reassuring presence for Katie. Fortunately, it was over comparatively quickly and with no particular complications, though both mother and baby were getting very tired towards the end.
At 4.34am, Sophie Mei arrived, just under 3kg and 49cm, a lovely healthy baby girl. I saw her come into the world. I saw her first breaths. Wonderful. Beautiful.
And I cut the umbilical cord - a surprisingly tough bit of tissue.
You'll have guessed by now that Katie is a single mum. I'm her friend, not her partner, and I'm not Sophie's father. But naturally the nurses assumed otherwise and kept referring to me as "Dad". It was far easier to just go with that than try to explain. I enjoyed being dad for a day. I look forward to doing more dadlike things with them in the years ahead.
By about 8am, mum and baby were settled into a recovery ward and I went directly to work to tell the story, and then home to bed before the "Awake for 24 hours" wobbles set in.
What an emotional, wonderful day.
Life, eh? You never know what twists and turns the path will take. Never thought I'd get to have this experience, yet here I am, and so very happy for it.
Here they are, mother and child:
She was due in about a week, but started to get some signs of possible imminent labour on Thursday, and serious contractions started that night. At around 11pm I received her text message asking me to be on standby to take her to hospital if necessary (a task I'd already happily volunteered for). Then another text at 1am asking me to come over. Contractions every 5-10 minutes. By about 1.30am we were on our way to hospital with contractions coming every 3 minutes. Talk about rapid onset of labour!
On the way there, I asked if we should call her birth partners, her cousin from Killara and aunt from the Central Coast. "I don't think there's enough time," said Katie. "Will you come into the delivery room with me?" Would I? Of course I would. What an honour, and how would I not want to be there for someone I care so much about?
We got to RPA quickly, with poor Katie gasping in pain and barely able to walk. While in the preliminary examination room, her waters broke - to her relief as there was then no way they'd send her home! Then came the bad news - she was too far advanced for an epidural.
"What pain relief can I have?" Katie asked.
"Nothing," said the nurse. "You're going to have a baby. That's what you're going to have!"
Oh, the look of dismay on poor Katie's face! But in fact she was given gas in the delivery room, which helped take the edge off the pain.
It was a very fast and intense labour. And - to state the bleeding obvious - wow, giving birth clearly hurts. She said later the pain was so much worse than she'd ever imagined; right at the very limit of endurance. I held her shoulders, stroked her forehead, said encouraging things; in short, tried to be a calm and reassuring presence for Katie. Fortunately, it was over comparatively quickly and with no particular complications, though both mother and baby were getting very tired towards the end.
At 4.34am, Sophie Mei arrived, just under 3kg and 49cm, a lovely healthy baby girl. I saw her come into the world. I saw her first breaths. Wonderful. Beautiful.
And I cut the umbilical cord - a surprisingly tough bit of tissue.
You'll have guessed by now that Katie is a single mum. I'm her friend, not her partner, and I'm not Sophie's father. But naturally the nurses assumed otherwise and kept referring to me as "Dad". It was far easier to just go with that than try to explain. I enjoyed being dad for a day. I look forward to doing more dadlike things with them in the years ahead.
By about 8am, mum and baby were settled into a recovery ward and I went directly to work to tell the story, and then home to bed before the "Awake for 24 hours" wobbles set in.
What an emotional, wonderful day.
Life, eh? You never know what twists and turns the path will take. Never thought I'd get to have this experience, yet here I am, and so very happy for it.
Here they are, mother and child: