Woke up this morning, as usual, pottered round for 10 minutes and wandered into work. Lovely morning, lovely walk. As usual, I went to the canteen at about 9am to get a cup of tea and bagel. Melissa got out of bed and phoned me as usual. What wasn't usual was the contents of the phone call we had. It went something like this :
Mel "I've just gone to the toilet, I heard a pop and now there's loads of blood"
Me "Well phone the hospital then"
The longest 10 minutes of my life later my phone rang again, this time Melissa was in tears and she said "they've phoned an ambulance for me, I don't know what to do" to which I replied "errr... ok... err... stay calm... I'll have to run home and the get car and meet you at the hospital" she continued crying as she hung up the phone.
I panicked and asked Jeff if he would kindly forfeit his car park space and give me a lift home, which he very generously did. We got stuck behind a slow moving Honda Jazz but we eventually made it home to see the ambulance parked in front of our house and my father in law running round like a headless chicken. I went inside and found Melissa happily looking for another pair of shoes to get into the ambulance with. The paramedic said "are you the father? do you want to change before you come to the hospital?" to which I replied "yes I need to change my pants, I've just shit myself".
Turns out her waters had gone, but were also washing out her mucus plug and "bloody show" hence the pinkiness of the water.
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| Lovely paramedic and Melissa. |
We went back up, Melissa had her antibiotics and the contractions started. And boy did they start. Melissa had originally wanted to have a pool birth, just using gas and air. Because the baby was 36 weeks and 3 days, and not full term (37 weeks) they wouldn't allow the pool birth, and because the contractions were absolutely ridiculously painful Melissa wanted pain relief and she wanted it 2 hours ago. She was examined and was found to be I think 5cm dilated so was allowed some diamorphine.
We both crashed out for about 90 minutes, and a little before 6 the contractions started getting worse. Somewhere before all this took place she managed to have two baths. I forget times.
Her mother and father arrived a little after 6 and the contractions were ridiculous. They couldn't give her any more pain relief as it had been too close to her morphine, so she just had to grin and bare it. All the while they had her on a doppler monitor to check the baby's heartbeat. Because Melissa kept writhing the monitor kept slipping and losing the heartbeat. Everytime that happened we both shit ourselves, but didn't acknowledge this to each other. I would casually leave the room to find someone to readjust it.
At this point, about 7pm, the contractions were getting really bad so another doctor came to examine Melissa.
She was 8cm dilated and ready to through to delivery. Eek!
My father in law left at this point and me and my mother in law, Melissa and our midwife went through to a delivery suite.
This was at about 7:30, coz I text my mum and dad.
I was tasked with holding the monitor on Melissa's belly, while Judy, my mother in law did the holding of the hands and the mopping of the brow. The midwife was very impressed with me.
Load of pushing and screaming and gas and air later, Penelope Powell was born into the world at 8:55pm weighing 6lb8oz. I cut the cord. They wouldn't let me chew through it.
She was checked over and found to be fine, Melissa had to have a few stitches in her under carriage. We then stood around for a bit. I phoned everyone who needed to know and before long Facebook was inundated with message of congratulations, so thanks for them! I've had a hold and didn't drop her. I even dressed her as well. Harrowing experience. She's so fragile.
Left them both a little after 12am in the post natal ward.
I don't know how I feel. I don't think I was expecting this morning, on my walk into work, that I'd be a father 12 hours later. I'm almost definitely in shock.
I just want to say well done to Melissa. She was absolutely amazing. I felt so redundant at times, and she soldiered on. She was a proper trooper and I love her to pieces. I'm also rather fond of my new daughter.
Thanks to everyone for the kind words and well wishing. Thanks to the wonderful and attentive hospital staff at Ormskirk hospital, and the excellent paramedics who kept us both calm and relaxed.
I'm pretty sure I've left details out of this, but I'm really tired. I'll be happy to answer questions. I haven't even read through this. It could be full of errors and omissions.
Thanks again everyone, and all things being equal I'll be back tomorrow!
Good night!
