No Fireworks After All

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.

Birthday Fireworks?

You read all the books and you go to all the classes but you still don’t have any idea what its actually going to be like.

We got back to the Queen Mum’s about two in the afternoon of the 5th, and waited in triage while the staff ran around after a girl who had had an asthma attack when she went into labour. She was behind a curtain, making a horrible noise, while people wheeled gas cylinders in and out. Lynne didn’t make a so much as a whimper, she just stood by the bed and when she had a contraction she would press the boost button on the TENS machine, tip her head and close her eyes until it passed. As always in moments of crisis my bodily functions had come to the fore and I was desperate for a piss, but I didn’t want to leave her.

After what can’t have been more than twenty minutes but felt like hours the midwife came to check Lynne over, and I headed for the toilet. If the Queen Mum’s maternity unit has any failing it is that there is only one gent’s, and it is way back at the entrance. As the night wore on and we progressed deeper and deeper into the building, it became more and more of a mission to get there, my bladder’s insistence constantly being balanced against being needed where I was and the length of the journey.

When I got back Lynne was going to be admitted to the ward until she was a bit further on. The midwife said she would check her again in two hours. Lynne had been in labour for nearly twelve hours now and was in a lot of pain. She hadn’t been convinced by the TENS machine at first, but now that the contractions were getting stronger it seemed to be having more effect. Even so, she had decided to have a shot of diamorphine. I was glad; it isn’t often that I have seen Lynne in that much pain and it just made me want to make it go away. Or hurt someone. I hated it.

I grabbed our bags; Lynne’s handbag, my bag, Lynne’s bag of clothes, the bag of baby clothes and blankets and Lynne’s coat, and then stumbled after her into the ward. There was space for four beds, but we shared the room with only one other girl. She had a pink dressing gown and a bammy family who sat around eating crisps and swearing. We drew the curtain around the bed and Lynne got her shot. She was still in a lot of pain and was only comfortable standing, but after about ten minutes she leaned against me, closed her eyes and let me lower her onto the bed. She kissed my neck. That’ll be the morphine, I thought.

‘This is a big adventure,’ she said, her pupils like pinpricks. ‘You’re my Sherpa. What was his name?’
‘Tensing,’ I said.
‘I always felt sorry for him. He was the one who took them up the mountain. I bet he did it himself all the time, in an afternoon.’

I’m not sure that he did.

It's A Girl!

Just a couple of words because I am wrecked. I have a daughter as of six o'clock this morning, and both her and her mother are fine, they've spent most of the day sleeping off the diamorphine. I had a wee nap about midday, but apart from that I have been awake for the past forty hours so the gruesome details can wait until tomorrow.

Bricking It, Big Style.

But then freaking out is my job at this point. Last night I went round to Jeff's to watch the football. I had 4 beers and smoked a couple of rollies, which I really shouldn't have done, because Lynne woke me at 4am to tell me her contractions had started. My mouth tastes like shit and I have cleaned my teeth 3 times today already. Pineapples and raspberry leaf tea work like a fucking dream it seems.

Lynne had been up since 3.15, and had been meticulously noting down the time and duration of each contraction. If we had thought sooner we could have had a spreadsheet, she says. I hooked her up to the TENS machine, which was a bit of a struggle coz she wouldn't keep her hands out of the way while I stuck the pads to her back. Then I took her back to bed, but she couldn't really lie down comfortably, so I made her a little nest of pillows. She dozed off here and there through the night, but we kept up with the list, including anotations of when I went back to bed.

In the morning I nipped out to get some milk and a paper, for something to do more than anything else. I bought blue-top milk instead of green and didn't notice until I was putting it into the fridge. Lynne is a bit pale, feels a bit sick, but seems ok. The contractions are starting to hurt a lot now.

About 10.30 I phone Jeff and he gave us a lift to the hospital. Lynne's contractions are 5 minutes apart and lasting for about a minute each time, but they had been pretty much since 5 this morning. But the midwife reckoned Lynne was only 2-3cm dilated and sent us home! That's where we are now, we are going back in a couple of hours.