The Hand of God

At 3.07pm today, weighing in at 6lb 7ozs, our son was born by Cesarean Section. His name is Scott Edward and he came with a decent head of hair and fed almost the instant he was born.

Nine months zipped by in a flash. Reality never really set in and even this morning I did not really believe that we were at the end of an incredible journey. It was hard to believe I would return home a father.

Nothing prepared me for this moment. You could read a thousand books, see a million films, listen to a billion people - nothing prepares you for that first moment of new life, that you have created. I cannot find the words to describe the moment he was born.

The day had started early - we called the Delivery Suite at Watford General and they told us to get our backsides there fast. We were late on their requested time, but we needn't have rushed as our Consultant, Yunus Tayob was there but no midwives were. He told us that we would be on at midday and to go away and relax. We went down to the Knutsford Suite, really just to drop off our bags, but they opened our room and we sat there and relaxed until 11.00am when we went back to the Delivery Suite. We waited for over two and a half hours before we were summoned. Even then it took time. We changed and went for the prepping. A rather nervous lady anaesthetist tried to administer an epidural on my long-suffering wife and failed. Enter the Consultant anaesthetist who did in around two minutes - we were good to go then.

The procedure is brisk and after cutting, sluicing, prising and tugging, the baby's head appeared and Mr. Tayob told me to get round the front of the screen to take pictures. That view, that moment will live in my mind until I gasp my last breath. There was our son poking out of his mum's middle. Deftly, he was hauled out and held up for my camera like a fisherman displaying a prize catch.

Lots go on all around you and it's hard to take it all in. The boy blurted out a cry almost immediately then he was whisked away for cleaning by the mid-wife who also did a series of checks to confirm he was in rude health. Mum was stitched up all the while but before long she got to hold the baby first and was ecstatic. I was snapping away at whatever I could between tears and got my turn to hold our son.

Eventually we were taken to the recovery room where the baby took to the boob like a natural and fed for the best part of two hungry hours. Mum was sore but so happy while I was calling every relative and friend I could while texting loads more. I could hardly talk to my wife's mum while I choked up talking to her sister, her brothers and then my family. Everyone was so choked up we hardly actually said a word. The texted replies came cascading in from people as far as Australia and we choked up reading the warm messages and good wishes. In fact, we just choked up generally.

The NHS gets maligned for a lot of things (not least the £12 per day parking fees - how idiotic is that?) but the staff at Watford General were fantastic. The delivery team were superb, Mr. Tayob made having a C-Section like listening to your dad tell a story while he washes the dishes. The mid-wives were fantastic - professional and they lightened up the moment and helped us on all the things we had no clue about. Our assigned mid-wife for the receiving of our baby and the recovery was Nikki Glover - not only was she fantastic and attentive, she was drop dead gorgeous and great fun. She knew all that was needed to know, helped in so many ways, offered advice, and showed us what to do as if she had done this for 40 years. It was when she told us it was her mum's 50th birthday on the weekend that I realised that the NHS at least was giving great training.

We finally got back to our room in the Knutsford Suite at 7.30pm to be greeted by my wife's parents who were just delighted with their latest grandchild. Soon, my sister-in-law and her hubby arrived and we all took turns with the baby and took endless photos. I had got to put his first nappy on, dressed him in his first vest and outfit with cap, and wrapped him in his first blanket. I also got to change his first soiled nappy, clean his first dirty bum and administer his first wet wipe, and then put on his second nappy. It has been one hell of a day.

Young Scott shares a name with his Uncle who was chuffed to bits to have a nephew named after him. But it's been a day of chuffed people - my brother pointed out that there has not been a new son in the family to bear our name for 50 years - our Mum and Dad will be smiling down from heaven tonight, proud as punch for us.

It's difficult to write while trying not to cry - it's been that sort of day. Now I am back home, being greeted by two wary and put-out dogs, I realise life will never be the same again. The car seat in the car on the way back said it all. The Moses basket by the bed, the cot, the pram - our new way of life is all ahead of us.

While waiting for our new son to finish his third feed of the day before I came home, I leafed through a copy of New Scientist. It was going off about quantum communication between photons or something like it. I have a sort of scientific and questioning mind that looks at questions like creation with some degree of scepticism. I can reason to myself that life is but a random outcome of the amalgamation of a set of circumstantial events that happened to cause life - when you study it, life is just chemicals having an amazing party.

Then you watch your baby's head emerge from its mother's womb after nine months of gestation and take its first breath and instinctively fall in love with its parents and reach for a nipple.

At that moment, all logic flies out of the window - science is trivial, mathematics means nothing, quantum schmantum - at that moment you just know this cannot happen without some God, somewhere.

B-Day!

Nine months have flashed by and today is the big day - the day our baby will be born.

It's hard to believe and the whole nine months has seemed slightly surreal, with all the excitement crammed packed into not just the last month but it seems the last few days. Maybe it's because I am an old fellah, maybe it's because I thought my time had passed, maybe because I had become used to my life but the whole process of gestation has seemed to be just another nine months until the last few days.

It has suddenly dawned on me - I am not working, I am on 'Paternity Leave', or the equivalent for a father who does not get paid when he takes time off. When I typed out my email 'Out of Office' it seemed very strange putting that down. The phone was very busy yesterday with lots of texts and calls from well-wishers and friends and this has been one thing that both my wife and I have been bowled over by - the sincere hopeful wishes of all our friends and family who have been brilliant over the last 6 to 9 months.

In the past few days, I have constructed the cot (without too many expletives), erected the Moses basket, cleaned the baby's room, washed the curtains, constructed the pram, attached the isofix base to the car, put in the child seat, taken all the packaging to the tip and started an electronic scrapbook of the baby's life - codenamed for now, of course. Ah names. There has never been a problem on girl's names - there are so many beautiful ones - but boy names have been a source of frustration. It doesn't help that I offer daft ones - recently I pointed out that Dracula as a name gets a bad press and this year Osama seems popular. We still have not found the right one - and if it's a boy we will have to see what name suits him when he arrives.

My wife has been getting nervous and went into 'high nesting' mode in the last few days. She was a bundle of energy followed by a floppy heap, knackered out by her efforts. Yesterday, after repacking her bag(s) for the hospital several times, she started shredding a pile of documents for no particular reason other than 'they were there'. We did try and relax so we went to lunch in St Albans with her sister and two of her boys. There was a mixture of tears and laughter - it was just what was needed. Last night, we charged up all the cameras and I got all the makings of sandwiches ready to make this morning as it seems dads don't get fed. I checked with the hospital and all is set for today.

We have to call at 7.00am for instructions but we believe that our consultant, Yunus Tayob, has arranged for the C-Section this afternoon some time so there may be a chance of a breakfast - if not it is fasting for my wife for the day. I will make sandwiches and take cakes for her later as I have no idea what the arrangements are. I haven't researched some simple things like 'Registering the Birth' but I hope that will be easy. I am also hoping that my father-in-law can pitch in with the dogs as I will be away for the best part of 3 days - the dogs will have forgotten me by the time I return.

My wife is booked in at the Knutsford Suite private wing of Waford General Hospital - they offered to put me up at £161 per night but I could stay at Claridge's for less - besides, if it's not match day, then it's only 10 minutes away. If it is match day, then it's five - ha, ha a joke at the expense of Watford FC supporter(s).

It's not long to go now and bodies are stirring in the house. I will let you know what happens next! Damn, knew I had forgotten something - choosing the music for the delivery.

The Final Countdown

Oh yes, there are just 9 more days to go and this household is getting nervous.

Over the last week there have been a few scares and pains from the remaining fibroid and we are getting nervous that things may start early but other than that there are no warning signs. Bags are packed at the ready and my phone is constantly on, waiting for a call.

The week kicked off well as the delivery of the 'heavy' items arrived from Mamas & Papas which included the pram, the car seat and cot as well as the isofix base unit. There was also the mattress for the cot and the whole thing looks bigger than expected and may test the roominess of our baby room. I have committed to work up to Monday of next week and then it is 3 weeks off to savour the early days of our baby. After a long, long wait over many years, it's hard to believe that this is all really coming true. After so many setbacks and disappointments, we are still not counting our chickens and so we are tempering excitement with the calmness of those used to let downs. But now we are well beyond 37 weeks and little can go wrong - or so we hope.

We met with our NCT class mates last Friday and the ladies were all visibly larger than 10 days earlier and there was a growing feeling of trepidation and excitement for all the dads. They are a genuinely lovely group and we look forward to being a part of it for a long time. A young couple, Jess and Allen, were due on Sunday but as yet no word. We are due next although we may get beaten by a couple new to the area, Stuart and Rachel. Then, in quick succession, come the rest. It could be either one massive 'baby's head wetting party' or several - either way I think there will be lots of proud mums and dads.

As expected and pointed out before, we are the oldest of the group by far but the bonding is more about the impending birth rather than a focus on age and that's really quite reassuring and nice. All of us are from very different backgrounds but by coincidence two of the ladies work in offices near my wife's while we are all linked by area. The whole NCT experience has been great for getting to know one another.

The final class had been on the subject of breast feeding and I assumed that this had little to do with the dad. Far from it. Clearly, we dads have an important role in keeping the mum on a routine and helping her cope through a fairly sleepless early period. Also, I think there is a role for me as chief nappy changer so that short course at the last NCT class will come in handy but the thought of a wriggling, weeing real baby poses a few more problems than the plastic dolly.

I suppose when you don't know about these things you just make simple assumptions. The baby will naturally want milk and therefore will find a nipple and get cracking. If only life were that simple. We were given a short lesson in the modern techniques by a mid-wife with fine credentials of her own (if you know what I mean, men). Holding the baby in the right position was a revelation obvious when you thought about it but a mystery to me beforehand. Addressing the nipple was not as I remember it, lads, and the baby has some important techniques to learn which may pay dividends in later life. Then we found out that rates of flow of milk can be different and the baby may draw less or more resulting in the body varying its production. We understood that 'expressing milk' was not a reference to a bloke arriving on a logo'd milk float but the mother inducing milk without the baby and storing it. A pumping device is used (or by hand) and I had thought it more appropriate to an Ann Summers shop rather than Boots but you live and learn.

Several men had important yet daft questions - we all now so little in reality. For instance, if you store expressed milk, should you note the time and day on the bottle and then try and match that when you actually feed the baby with it as milk produced at different times of the day has different constituents. A good question but too technical for our course leader who said just give them the milk and be done with it. I liked that simple approach.

Attitudes to breast feeding have changed. It is common place to see women feeding in public whereas growing up I can't ever recall such an occurrence. My wife is not the type to 'strip off' in public but she plans to have no issue with uncovering and feeding wherever she may be. Some people get offended by it and, to be honest, I don't know what I am going to feel about my wife baring parts of her top half but it is the most natural thing of all. Given we watch plenty of titillating, half naked women most nights on TV, I can't see what there is to get upset about - even if you are having your pie and chips at the time. I may be a grumpy old man, but at least I am a modern grumpy old man.

One thing I had not really understood was why we had bought so many nappies in advance of the birth. I mean, it's only small, how much excretion can a tiny baby do? Apparently a great deal. If the baby feeds every two hours in the first few weeks then the poor mite has to be changed after every feed. That's a lot of pee, poo, smells and nappy bags. I can see our investment in a nappy bin or two is required. I can also see plenty for me to do in that department.

People have been incredibly generous and so warm hearted in the run up to this baby. My sister-in-law arrived with a a whole kit of clothes, a toy and a tidy box with a complete start up set for a new born including nappies, baby oil, creams, wipes, Calpol (newborn) and more. It was so touching. A colleague of my wife's sent around a spare car seat and pram which was fantastic, while a couple arrived for a cup of tea last week and brought us a lovely pair of moccasin booties which we had to get back from the dogs who eyed them up as toys. We have been asked to produce a list for other family members and friends which I found curious but now we have a small list including a 'Glo Egg' lamp, a timer to help us keep a regime, a Bumbo rubber seat for the baby, a BabyBjorn carrier and a sling for lugging the baby around amongst a small amount of other stuff while recent parents have offered 'hand me downs' like toys and the like. We feel very humble.

Others have rung up just to offer support and help should we need it. Perhaps they know something I don't, but I am grateful for the offer anyway. It's all very appreciated. Maybe we are getting special treatment for being older parents or that people understand it is a special one for us after so long waiting - it doesn't matter, we have both been blown away by the generosity and well-wishing from all quarters.

I am glancing at my watch more often now, checking time and date. The big day looms and kicks off Monday with a visit to the anaesthetist and then it is plain sailing from there. The dogs are getting nervy of late and we saw a change in temperament from both over the weekend. Again, we are not sure they know something that we don't but they have become very nervous and little more clingy of late. Perhaps because they are walked less at the moment or they sense hormonal changes or whatever. It's going to be a big change for those two so it may be as well that they are sensing things are different. Let's hope that's for the better.

I shall try and keep a more regular log of the countdown but it's T-minus 9 days and counting. All systems nominal, as they say in the movies. Whatever that may mean.

Dilemma - Natural Birth or Not?

The birth of our child has been a hot topic lately in our household and we are facing the dilemma of what is best all round.

I have to say, this is not a debate easy for men to relate to. We watched some program for a bit last night called 'Out of My Depth' where Amanda Holden spent time as a nurse on a maternity ward. She was all laughs and jokes, much to the chagrin of her mentor, until she got a full graphic view with stereophonic sound effects of a live natural birth.

That shut her up.

To be fair it shut me up too. My wife, when suffering badly at week 22 with a fibroid, had to spend time at Watford Delivery suite and we were stuck in a waiting area next to thin wall behind which we got the full, blood-curdling screams of agony of a lady in labour. It sort of focused my mind on why a woman would go through that sort of agony for any price. The only possible thing I could think of as an equivalent would be going to the toilet after a long period of constipation and passing the stool the size of a garden gnome. The mere thought brings tears to my eyes.

My wife has a dilemma. She is 43 and this has been a precious pregnancy in all respects after we have waited so long and so many varied efforts. Then came the massive fibroids which induced contractions which caused my wife to be hospitalised for a few days - to boot she has a great deal of internal scar tissue from laser treatment and operations on her endometriosis and a cyst on her ovary. There is a lot that could go wrong during birth, and my semi-scientific viewpoint would be surely it would be better to have a controlled birth in the presence of a team of medics ready for any eventuality rather than the ad hoc team on hand for a natural birth. To me it just makes sense.

My wife sees the logic of my argument but like most women dismisses the pain as a short term price for a long term gain. She is sort of backed by our consultant who believes that because there is so much scar tissue present that maybe it would be more sensible not to cut as the healing time would be longer and the process subject to less variables. I am not convinced. After all my wife has been through, I cannot see the medical argument at all when based on nothing concrete.

I am sure many husbands understand my views and perhaps those as old as me, who appreciate this is all rather incredible late in life, would believe that a controlled, monitored and painless birth would be the wisest choice.

Or maybe I'm the daft one.