We were in the ward until about half seven. Lynne dozed on the bed but I could tell she wasn't asleep because every couple of minutes she would toggle the TENS boost button. I sat by the bed trying to do the sudoku in Take A Break!, but I couldn't even do the easy one. I had Lynne's dinner, I wasn't supposed to, the food is ONLY FOR PATIENTS, but Lynne was too wasted to eat. It was canteen roast beef and tatties, anemic with salty gravy. Mmm. There is nothing quite like canteen food, a friend of mine once said that you can't make macaroni cheese like they do in a canteen. You make it too good yourself. And canteen lasagne and chips, come on, admit it. You love it.
At seven thirty the midwife came and checked her again. I went out and paced in the corridor. Then the midwife came back out and said, 'It looks like your wife's going to have a baby really soon!' I had begun to relax over the afternoon, but now things were happening again. The midwife went to get a wheelchair while I stopped Lynne from putting her jeans back on. Easier said than done, she was still under the effects of the diamorphine and was insisting on being fully dressed at all times.
The labour suite is on the third floor, small blue rooms, hot enough to send you to sleep if it wasn't for the adrenalin. The midwives work twelve hour shifts and were just changing over as we turned up, so we got a fresh one, Kirsten. We plugged in an mp3 player to listen to some music, we weren't supposed to use stuff that hadn't been checked by the hospital technician, but we decided we would just say we did plugged it in when no one was looking. They are closing the hospital in nine weeks anyway.
And then things slowed down again. Lynne was still getting regular contractions, but she still wasn't fully dilated. So there we were in the labour suite, Lynne on the gas and air, Kirsten writing up her notes and checking the baby's heartbeat, me drinking the hospital coffee, which tastes exactly like flat cola when its cold. We listened to Elbow, then Ben Harper, then Beth Orton. Out in the corridor you could smell cordite and see the fireworks bursting over Govan and Partick. It got closer and closer to midnight, and there was still no sign of the baby.
Lynne chuffed her way though an entire tank of gas and air and they had to get her a new one. Midnight came and went and it wasn't until 2 in the morning that she started getting the urge to push. By this time Lynne was absolutely exhausted, and I watched helplessly while she strained to push with each contraction. I hadn't realised this before, but apparently pushing is only useful during a contraction, and Lynne was so tired by this time that her contractions were slowing down. Even worse, the midwife suspected that the baby was the wrong way round, trying to come out chin first.
Suddenly, even though it was 4am, the place was full of people all doing stuff. The registrar came in and talked about trying to turn the baby with forceps, but if he couldn't then Lynne would have to go to the theatre for a caesarean. Lynne only wanted to know if she would feel anything, she was exhausted and had given up on any ideas of keeping control over what happened to her body. She just wanted it over with.
They couldn't get in with the forceps, so they took Lynne to the operating theatre. I wasn't allowed in until the anaesthetist had given Lynne a spinal, which would numb her bottom half completely. I changed into scrubs and sat outside in the shabby corridor, too tired to be terrified, just dully wondering what could go wrong next. A doctor came up the corridor, eyes bloodshot, and told me they would get me soon as the anaesthetist had finished. Then she yawned a massive yawn.
Finally they came and got me. Lynne lay on a table the middle of the room, her arms and legs pinned out like starfish, with a green screen across her chest so that, when I sat on the stool next to her head, I couldn't see what was going on. Lynne looked happier than she had for hours. 'You look very handsome in your scrubs,' she said. 'This is just like ER, if ER was in 1982.' After ten minutes of activity on the other side of the screen, there was a strangled, gurgling squawl. Lynne and I looked at each other. And that's how my daughter was born.
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