Is he four days old already? That’s incredible. All the worry during the night, when Charlotte had to be rushed into hospital because meconium was found in her waters at 9pm Sunday (her waters broke just after we’d switched a Harry Potter DVD on to take Charlotte’s mind away from the preliminary contractions – I was in the kitchen cooking up fried rice w/prawns); the constant beat-beat-beat of the baby’s heart through the monitor throughout the misty night (she was hooked up immediately upon arrival, and forced to lose most of the massage techniques and birthing positions we’d practised); the fear induced in both of us at the sound of another woman in the throes of giving birth (neither of us admitted till afterwards); the suggested oxytocin drip (because her dilation was behind schedule) was followed by an epidural at four in the morning (Charlotte shaking uncontrollably and her eyes dulled through confusion and fear at the pain, just like my father can look in his bad moments) (by that time she’d had enough of the pain without much relief, only gas); the barrage of questions from doctors thrown Charlotte’s way when she was all the way off her head through pain and fatigue and nerves, the threat of a caesarean looming in the background (her anaesthetist was wonderful, though – enough to take the pain away, but not the feeling in her legs); ‘stonking labour’ wherein myself and midwife Lynn form a cheerleading support team for a fully engaged if thoroughly exhausted Charlotte; the actual untranslatable moment of the birth where I watched first my son’s head and then his entire body emerge shaking and purple and multi-coloured into the world; and even more so, the life-defining instant where Charlotte was given him to hold skin-to-skin, she uncontrollably trembling and shaking and crying and happy and a million other things…all that seems another country already…

Even the worrying hours straight after are alien to me now…Isaac (he didn’t have a name then) whisked straight away to have his stomach suctioned, more (fresh) meconium found in his stomach and throat, he didn’t draw his first breath until he was five minutes old; then he was taken away upstairs to the Trevor Mann Nursery to be cared for among all the scrawny intensive care babies, me standing by helpless and torn between duty to my wife and to the newly-created life, not even comprehending what all the tubes and drips meant (they were OK: just precautionary antibiotics mainly), trying to keep hold of myself for the woman I love so much; Charlotte all weakened through loss of blood and unable to move (she had an episiotomy – a small cut made in the walls of her vagina to assist the passage of the baby’s head); wheeling her upstairs in her bed to see Isaac five-and-a-half hours later (we decided on a name there and then); all the time spent moving between floors of the hospital, the check-ups, the disappointments and countless draining, rewarding phone calls to parents and friends…

No birth is straightforward. Every birth is different. When you read in black and white that a mother often goes through 30 hours of labour for her first birth…that’s commonplace. That’s nothing out the ordinary – and neither is having an epidural (or a caesarean, which means the woman can’t walk around for several days afterwards, come to that). But when it comes to your own wife…

The world is split into two: those with babies and those without. And as soon as you have one, you’re immediately flooded with an overload of information about secret paths and rotes and stories that just days before you couldn’t even guess existed…

But all this is so long ago now – four days ago! Four days! Jesus. We could tell when we were starting to register the outside world again…(but first, the sheer disbelief at watching something you and your wife have created wriggle and writhe and cry and making sucking noises with his mouth in front of you)…when the cranes looming outside Charlotte’s 13th floor window suddenly began being incredibly loud, when the hospital food became risibly disgusting and lacking in any nutrition whatsoever. I struggled home each night, drained both emotionally and physically and went to bed at one am after firing off emails and phone calls and trying to eat, and recording a few songs to try and capture the moment of birth and precious hours afterwards so Charlotte has something perhaps to measure my love by when she returns home…(and a special mention to Andrew Clare for helping me with the 4-track just when I needed help most)…

Finally. Yesterday.

Mother and baby Isaac and Jerry together at home…swamped with emails from friends and family, and cards and offers of help, and more importantly Charlotte able to grab her first four hours of concurrent sleep since the birth; later on, Poppy runs around our feet like a happy cat indeed, chasing after rainbows (or at least cat-baiting toys); later on, Chris comes over with our weekly shop and a tiny Ramones T-shirt for Isaac and I record another couple of songs; later on, we cuddle and look in awe at Isaac and his tiny wrinkled perfection (except of course he isn’t) (except of course he is) (just like my father in his moments of serenity) and are lulled to sleep and simultaneously kept awake all night by his snuffles and cries and demands for feeding…and sure, nappy-changes and all that have already taken place but who cares about that cos right now it seems all fresh and new and rather special…

That’s enough for now. Four days? Jesus Christ.
It’s an entire lifetime.

Posted on Friday, June 10th, 2005by Everett True