At 20:50 on the 3rd October 2005, our first son, Fin, was born, at an eye watering 9lb 10oz (my wife is somewhat on the small side)

Up until the pushing part, the whole pregnancy and labour had gone very smoothly without any problems at all. My wife, very bravely, opted for pethadine and gas and air and on this she managed alone. However after an hour of pushing the baby just wouldn’t be born (we know why now though).

And until that point I managed to be calm and supportive, even after nearly 12 hours “on the job” as it where. However, soon the midwives, decided some decisive action had to be taken and a consultant was called, who decided that a vontuese delivery was called for. Well, at that point the room filled with all sorts of people, machines were wheeled in, and I was left to panic and gibber in a corner. And since it seemed the right thing to do, I duly did panic and gibber in the corner.

Unfortunately, since various nurses were required at my wifes head end, I was left down near the business end to watch the vontuese being performed, as well as an epesiotomy (look it up for yourself cause I’m not going to explain it), thusly breaking my resolution not to go near any of the messy business.

To my credit I didn’t pass out or fall over, but the gas and air tube sure seemed attractive at the time, however teams of wild horses couldn’t have prised it from my wifes clutches at that point.

And yet there was worse to come, baby Fin arrives into the world, leaving the placenta to come out…..only it doesn’t, even after the drugs which are suppposed to make it come out. The sight of the consultant tugging on the remainder of the umbilical, while encouraging my wife to push once more, is something I’ll carry with me for the rest of my life, or untill the senility sets in.

I found the whole experience traumatic and extremely disturbing, to me it felt like having to sit and watch while your better half was being tortured, and being unable to do anything about it. I have therefore decided we will stick to the one child.

The odd thing is, and I knew of this beforehand, my wifes memories of the event, even after a few days, have lost the sharpness of reality. She now thinks it wasn’t so bad after all. Apparently some chemicals floating around a pregnant womens body, prevent them from forming complete memories of the event. This makes good sense from a biological point of view, still it’s odd to see it in action. Odder still because our memories of the event are therefore bifurcating, hers fazed, mine crystal clear.

Still, this is all my own personal experience, I know fathers who found child birth all nicely scented and flowery, and can’t wait for it to happen again. All the health professionals involved were just that, I’d crawl over broken glass for them any day – cause in my mind they saved my wife and new son, irrational I know, but thoughts that I might lose one or both of them, occured rather too frequently during all this.

Still alls well that ends well, little Fin is home and happy and so am I, which is a good thing, wife and son came home early, and I found I only bonded with him once he’d come home, in hospital, I now realise, it hand’t sunk in that he was actually my son.

I suppose he had to imprint himself onto my home territory, in order for me to “accept” him as reality.

Anyhoo, thats enough about childbirth.