Our first child was a fortnight late and when he finally made an appearance he was ugly - I mean like one of the bad guys out of Peter Jackson's imagination. Grey and wizened with hands like talons. I obligingly pointed this out to the assembled maternity staff. "Oh you poor, ugly little bugger," I believe were my words. Next thing you know I was clubbed to the ground by a clutch of midwives and nurses who all had black belts in frowning.
"Shhhh. The mother can hear you!" they hissed. "The mother has eyes, she can see for herself," I replied in my insightful but thoughtless way. The mother was high as a kite on drugs but still managed to squeeze my hand in that special code of ours that says "Shut up, you prat!" This was not an auspicious start to this "support" thing that blokes are told to do. What the hell does "Support" mean. Do I stand beside the stirrups chanting, "Push! Push! Push! Breath! Breath Breath!". I decided that the best way I could show support was to share the experience and sample some of the gas they were giving my partner....well, it's a start.
Support is a big thing - you don't want to rush it. I'm going to submit to dictionary.com that "support" means "stand around like an idiot and feel guilty and inadequate". You don't have to feel guilty about anything in particular, general guilt will do. I offered that I could best support my partner by keeping out of the way in the hospital cafe. The consensus amongst the assembled, well meaning and overtly competent maternity crew was that this was not the best idea they had heard. In fact it was a rather bad idea, stupid and selfish. Typically male in fact. But let's be real - if maternity wards were smart they would attend to fathers needs - they would have a golf or fishing shop right there in the ward. New fathers could spend hours and thousands of dollars on inane little gadgets, blissfully unaware that their chances of seeing a golf course in the next fifteen years is virtually nil. These shops could fund our entire maternity service.
Actually - I want to revise my definition of support. "Support" means extracting your wife from the maternity ward before she falls into the clutches of the lactation experts. Our baby had a bit of trouble attaching and every few hours a new expert would sweep in, immaculately groomed with a cute handmade badge declaring her confidence in herself, emanating professionalism from every pore, and announce as loudly as she could "I hear you are having trouble feeding - I'm an expert at this - we'll have this sorted out in no time." An hour later, shoulders slumped, she would retire defeated. After a few rounds of this I was trying to calm down one very stressed new mother and escape seemed the best solution.
And then something wonderful happened. Just as we were packing our bags, a battered old women wearing what looked like an orderlies uniform (I could have sworn she had a fag hanging out of her mouth) poked her head round the door and said, "I hear you are checking out. Have you bathed him yet?" We hadn't. "Would you like me to show you what to do?" We would. This women is what maternity staff should all be like - laid back, non professional, non judgmental, non anything. She absolved all my partners guilt about breast feeding in a few words, she showed us how to hold junior, how to bath him, swaddle him, all the things that the others were too professional and well qualified to do. Every word she uttered to us expressed her confidence in us as parents, and assured us that everything would be okay and we were going to love our new son and our new lives. We learned that she was actually a senior A&E nurse who got sick of patching up drunks and wanted to work with babies. Although we only spent maybe twenty minutes with her she undid all the damage that a day and a half in maternity did to our confidence. They need to find this woman and clone her - she's the one in the very unflattering green smock.
I don't mean to dump on maternity wards - I'm sure they all have green smocked angels who flit in and undo the carnage that the zealots create but oddly enough, what support really meant at that time was not holding hands and cooing empathetic sound bites to my partner while she was in agony, as ante natal classes suggested. It was about taking charge when your partner needs you to. When she was being savaged by very well meaning, highly qualified and skilled health professionals support meant me saying "Enough - this isn't helping you, we're going home." That's all - making a decision for the good of your partner when they are too overwhelmed to make it for themselves. Sometimes this can be the hardest thing. When your new born baby and partner is in the hands of experts who are you to say, "Bugger off." Well - you are the partner and father and it's important that you remember that.
Steve Gore
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Ditto Lance ... I thought
Ditto Lance ...
I thought our home-birth midwife was pretty progressive, but she seemed almost shocked as I attended each visit. Most of what was said was directed at my wife, even though it pertained to us or OUR baby. She did get much better with each visit as I continued to stick around and insert myself into the conversation. Many times before, during and after labor I could tell that our midwife was trying to include me in the experience, but didn't really know what to do.
I blame the training, which I suspect ignores all aspects of pregnancy and birth other than mother and baby. Midwife means "with the wife," or something like that, in German. However, a midwife's role necessarily involves the entire family, whanau, or support system. Perhaps some of us on this website should write a course curriculum to be included ;)
Love it and well said. If i
Love it and well said.
If i could add something I would say ... Trust your instincts.
You KNOW what to do even if you don't realise it.
Know how you feel..... Our
Know how you feel.....
Our first was two weeks overdue. When we went to the gynacologist (or some such '-ologist' - there were so many with the first one due to multiple difficulties with the pregnancy) on the forty-two week mark, he told us to get ready because it was going to happen today. So, off home we went - except I was then called into work to erradicate a new and infectious computer virus which had chosen this moment to break out. I spent a couple of hours working on it until one of our employees who had HAD children finally got in the boss's ear and I was allowed to leave. Home I went, picked up Sheila and off to the hostpital for our appointment with the birthing unit at 2pm.
Being a "new" dad, I took along a book for me, a book for her, a flask of hot coffee for me, a flask of hot water and teabags for her, milk in a cooler, muesli bars, chocolate, biscuits, pillows, a deck of cards (well, actually a Canasta pack of 5 decks), the Monopoly set, a radio, the video camera, the still camera - and then there was her pack of things and the soon-to-be baby's bag too. We had a VN Commodore wagon and the rear of it was full for the visitation and when unpacked into the cubicle, looked like a homeless couple had just moved in.
At 3pm, she'd got to 2cm on her own and they decided to pep it up a bit with something in a drip. Funny - Sheila didn't want to play cards or anything and I was sitting there, bored out of my skull, when I remembered my book. As one of Sheila's arms was unable to hold a book and she therefore could not read, she wanted to talk, so I gave up reading and we tried to fill in a few hours with chatting about various things until the baby arrived. When our paid midwife wasn't off chatting with the hospital staff, I was certainly 'out of the picture' and kept in the dark until she left again and I could ask Sheila what was going on and what they were doing next. Spare pricks at orgies were treated better, I think.....
Around 5pm, the specialist (the 'ologist' we'd seen that morning) turned up, told Sheila to get an epidural while there was still time, increased her dosage of whatever it was and went home for dinner and to catch some zeds before he reckoned the baby would be here (his estimate was 5am - some 11.5 hours away now). Sheila was now on her side with a pipe in her back, another one in her hand and trying to deal with what we found out later were the beginnings of labour pains.
Around 10pm, I went off to find the midwife again because she was away chatting with her colleagues and Sheila was REALLY uncomfortable and complaining about constant pain. I have never felt so useless - unable to rid my nearest and dearest of the pain that she is experiencing and unable to get through to our midwife - a veteran of 40+ years in her field and (you would think) used to calming propspective dads down - that Sheila was NOT just uncomfortable because she'd been in the same position for 5 hours straight. The midwife tore herself away from the gossip session and attended Sheila (finally!!) - but for all of two minutes, as it must have been a riveting conversation that she had just left and she was eager to return to it.
No, Sheila did NOT want a drink, did NOT want something to eat, did NOT want anything but to rid herself of the constant pain and was quite happy to tell the entire 5 acres of Middlemore hospital EXACTLY what she thought of the service she was getting. About 10:30, I went to get midwife again......there is only so many times a husband can say 'I love you' and make it stick - especially when 'her in labour' appears to be in the mood to kill anyone who is trying to calm her down.
Midwife looked and said that things were progressing nicely, turned Sheila over, told her not to worry and went to get her dinner, which I duly interrupted again at 11pm. At this point, the epidural had worn off and they could not increase it, the drip was useless for anything but was still plugged in, Sheila was 10cm dilated but the baby was not engaged - a worry for the midwife. Finally I had her attention! Er......no, Sheila did (or rather a part of her that I personally find rather appealing myself!).
Being a man of rather tender stomach, I was resolved to stand by my wifes head and support her through this experience with words of encouragement. However, the midwife broke the waters to try and get the baby to put things in gear and thus end this saga so that she could go get some sleep. Midwife then attached a moonitor onto baby-in-utero's head to keep an eye on it's heart rate and look for signs of distress. As this electric cable came out then went back in with each contraction, I found my attention wavering away from soothing words of comfort and more toward the 'Business end' and words of amazement and wonder.
The midwife made a phone call to the ologist at 11:15 to tell him to "get his butt in here before he misses it all" and then things really started to happen.
Me? I was now in the way most of the time, but not with either camera (having been threatened with having to visit another part of the hospital to have it removed from a certain part of my anatomy if I picked either of them up), so in the end, as I had nowhere official to stand, I hovered about my wife's naval area, offering my words of encouragement, trying not to sound like a coach at a football game and again marvelling at the fact that this electric cable is more out than in than it was a few moments ago. The ologist arrived at 11:40pm and Kristyn was born (literally) two minutes later.
Again, I had to get out of the way, move aside, be excused etc until it was deemed necessary for my intervention to cut the cord, then out of the way, excuse me, just stand over there, until the baby was safely in my wife's arms, the placenta ejected and checked and all and sundry had patted themselves on the backs for their marvellous efforts in our time of need.
All Sheila and I wanted was to be kept informed as to what was happening and they wouldn't talk to me and she couldn't ask the questions. So much for the help I was supposed to be and the total organisation that I thought would follow on from my efforts at the antenatal classes.
More fun was to come......
Three days Sheila spent in the Maternity Unit after leaving the hospital. Three days she tried and tried and tried to get Kristyn to latch on. The nurses / midwives / draconic and misogynistic zealots to the health profession creed of "thou shalt breastfeed" drove my mentally stable and laid back wife to tears and the effects of their totalitarian naziism toward anything but breastfeeding and 'doing things their way' ultimately added to what eventually became a long period of post-natal depression. Husbands were strictly ignored in this environment and it was a fact that they would not discuss any of the baby's welfare / needs etc with me unless Sheila also happened to be present. If I happened to walk in half way through an explanation, they would not repeat it either, so how I was supposed to be the support that these denizens of healthcare expected me to be, STILL leaves me perplexed. I learnt what I now know from books, the internet, my sister's experiences, sheer dumb luck and Sheila herself.
On the fourth day, Sheila decided to bottle feed. Both she and I were bottle fed as infants - neither of us would take the breast either (a situation I have personally rectified SINCE then, but I digress) - so both our mothers reckoned that it was sort-of inevitable that our kids wouldn't either. However, as soon as the midwives heard, Sheila was ostricised. She was left completely on her own to care for Kristyn, make the bottles, sterilise them etc. Nobody would show her how. It's just not done they said.
So, being the enterprising / stubborn lad that I am, I rallied. I put my foot down and Sheila went home that same day. We set in stone our OWN routine and took turns doing bottles, getting up for the night feed etc. Within a couple of weeks, we were starting to adjust to life with a newborn and best of all, we'd worked out that as parents, we DO have the last say on how our kids are raised. It took some militant types to shun us before we realised that we COULD do it on our own.
When Sheila was having our second one, I got to have my own laugh at their expense though! Sheila was up half the night with pains. I went to the loo at 2am and saw her pacing the floor. I said to wake me up when they got serious - how's THAT for confidence?! She did - some 3 hours later. Off we went to Middlemore again, where we were treated with ignorance yet again. No paid midwife this time, but the staff on duty certainly made up for any sort of service we were expecting. For a start, they didn't do an internal for an hour after Sheila got there, so they had no idea that she was 7cm and counting. We did - and I repeatedly told them so. I told Sheila that if they couldn't be bothered, I'd help her this time and we'd just go home and leave them to it. It didn't come to that (fortunately), but at 7:40am, the nurse said that at 9cm, Sheila still had several hours to go. I said 'well, if this one is anything like it's sister, it will be here in inside the next hour'.
The look I got was priceless, but not as priceless as the look she had on her face when Amber crowned at 8:18am and the midwife wasn't ready!! She ran around in a flap (with one arm and one leg - the other hand was holding my second child inside it's mother!!) and repeately berated herself for not having got things ready. I smiled inwardly and looked at Sheila, who while on gas and not necessarily completely with me, smiled at me with a twinkle in her eye. She knew what I was thinking!! Midwife hit the panic button 3 times and they ran in with the restart cart, thinking Sheila had had a heart attack or something. All sorts of yelling and screaming ensued. I looked at Sheila again, she at me, she smailed, then coughed - and Amber entered this world. All sound then ceased when my youngest cleared her lungs for the first time.
We left the hospital in under an hour, went to a DIFFERENT maternity hospital, told them at the start that we were bottle feeding and they accepted this immediately. We got on with it and had a lovely couple of days there. Came home, started a routine that suited Amber and things were much smoother.
Having the second is easier than the first because you've already been there and done that and learnt from your trial-and-error ways. However, we did learn a few new tricks with Amber - no two babies are ever the same. Even if they are sisters! But the main thing we learnt was that the parents of the kid know what they want and nobody knows better what your kid wants than you do.
Making decisions while Sheila was in labour - fine, but the midwifery profession have got to catch up with the fact that fathers not only WANT to be more involved with their children's upbringing, they ARE more involved from DAY ONE. They HAVE to change to suit modern fatherly roles, just as much as we have had to change to suit the new roles of dads in an era where mums often work as well (or as in my case, they run their business from home around my work hours).
We've HAD to make the change, yet strangely there doesn't seem to be much movement in that quarter as yet in my experience. It's like it's still a women's only club and because we don't have a uterus, we don't have a say / right to know. I'm not about to grow one just to fit in, though......
What support is not -- that
What support is not -- that is what I had to keep reminding myself of. Support is not: (1) to make yourself the center of attention; (2) to be over-involved [just let it happen]; (3) to be a useless lump in the corner; (4) to make things more difficult for your partner; etc.
Like you, Steve, I found that a lot of the support role had to do with protecting my partner from those that would keep her from having the experience that she wanted. It was important to me that the experience remained ours and not one determined by doctors, midwives, or outdated conventions.
After that, I just tried to be there for my partner. The hardest part of this was not to try to "fix" things, but to just be there for strength. After all, I could not take away the pain, the exhaustion, the fear, etc., but I could make sure she knew I was there by holding her hand, keeping her hydrated, and being calm (even when I felt panicked).
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