You have spent the last nine months obediently attending every antenatal class, studying blurred scan photos of your little ‘peanut’ gradually growing month by month. You have reassured your wife that she looks radiant and not at all like a large pack horse, and handed her tissues when you find her sobbing on the sofa over Animal Hospital whilst tucking into her fourth Cadbury Cream Egg.
Finally, the momentous occasion arrives. The Bag is packed, the contractions are becoming more regular and you try to remain calm whilst driving to the hospital desperately wishing you had paid more attention to the classes rather than wondering what the football score was. In the delivery room, you see a side to your better half you never thought existed. You try rubbing her back, to which she yells, “Don’t touch me.” You offer words of support telling her how brave and clever she is, to which she screams, “I don’t want to be brave. Just make it stop!”
Ninety percent of fathers attend births in Britain and I feel rather sorry for them. It must be very hard watching someone you love in so much pain and be utterly helpless. A friend’s husband was so tense and stressed at the birth of his first child that he fainted. The room promptly filled with medical staff who wheeled him down to A&E leaving my poor friend alone in her delivery room, riding the ‘wave’ of her last few contractions. Now she is about to have another baby and was more concerned about the ‘energy bars’ she was packing for her husband in the Bag than about the cotton wool and new born nappies.
I have to confess, I came under the ‘utter wimp’ category when it came to childbirth and the midwives must have dreaded me coming. I arrived in hospital in plenty of time, ended up in labour for several days and demanded epidurals at the first twinge. My husband, on the other hand, rather enjoyed it, particularly given the wonderful delivery rooms at Dorchester Hospital. With birth number three, he really settled himself in. He lay on the bed glued to daytime television, whilst I continued with my laps of the delivery ward in an attempt to speed things up. When it looked like the baby might finally decide it was time to arrive, he knew not to stroke my back, wipe my brow or utter a word until I turned to him with relief and handed him his new little bundle.
