No need to worry about labour ward scare stories

Soon-to-be father Daithí O Sé needn’t worry about his friends’ labour ward scare stories, suggests old-hand Jonathan de Burca Butler

ON Tuesday morning, expectant father Daithí O Sé popped up on The John Murray Show on RTÉ Radio 1 to express his annoyance at “scare stories about the labour ward” and its various dramas.

The culprits?

“My friends,” said the Kerry man with a hint of mock disgust. “I’ve been told there’s a lot of name calling, a lot of screaming. And then what comes out with the baby is being described to me. That if you see these things you can never take back the images...”

As the light-hearted interview continued, a text message came in to the show advising Daithí to “take his friends’ advice and stay behind his wife’s head”. Another contributor went further saying that “men have no business in the delivery room and are only in the way”.

I was in the way on the day my child was born some 21 months ago now. I came home on a rainy night to find my girlfriend straddled on the couch, stopwatch in hand, anxiously gritting her teeth.

“It’s started,” she said.

I did what any man would do in a moment of crisis and warmed up my dinner; pretty calm for a first timer. After a few hours of contractions — and a delicious sheppard’s pie by the way — we made our way to hospital only to be turned back home. As soon as we stepped in the door the pain really began to kick in. The neighbours upstairs either thought my better half was having the greatest sex of her life or she was being murdered — curiously they never came down to find out which. There was a lot of my getting in the way for those few hours. Getting bowls for her to throw up in, keeping her cool, talking her up and generally just doing what I was asked. And yes, asked. Ciara was in agony, she was sick and hot but she was pleasant throughout.

Amazing really, when you consider she was seven centimetres dilated when we returned to Holles Street (female readers take a breath, male readers look perplexed). That is pure pain.

Ciara had decided that she wanted an epidural and she got it almost straight away. As that kicked in everything was rosy in the garden. In fact the only part of it that was tough was the waiting around — and there’s a lot of waiting around.

The wards were quiet; no screaming, fighting or name calling. Our mid-wife was as relaxed as a sloth. Offers of tea for soon-to-be-daddy were met with slightly flirtatious jokes. She talked us through the procedure and suggested that it all looked good and that everything would be a breeze.

We were excited, frightened and knackered — and Ciara was definitely a bit high — but we spoke like we were on a date.

We didn’t realise it then but it was our last few hours on our own. We were about to meet a little person who would bind us together for the rest of our lives and though we were scared to death, it was as if we were thanking each other for making the commitment.

The midwives eventually decided it was time for a baby to be born. The stirrups went up and Ciara lay down. When the pushing started Ciara looked at me and said: “don’t look”. I had been told that you don’t see much.

“The noise is the worst part,” a friend had told me at a wedding a few months previously.

I soon discovered that there’s actually plenty to see but who cares. I don’t really remember anything and it didn’t put me off at all — hence I’m back into Holles Street in a couple of days to see baby No 2’s arrival.

Besides, there were bigger things to be worrying about. The baby was stuck. Now a staff of three became a staff of seven. Suddenly, there were more machines. There was no more flirting with the midwife and all reassuring smiling glances had gone. For a good 10 minutes the midwives and doctors prodded, poked and eventually they had to cut Ciara; the dreaded episiotomy. Finally, in went the ventouse and out came this tiny little thing with a wonky nose and a cheeky look about him.

There was some relief all around.

“What is it?” shouted Ciara. She had been momentarily forgotten as we all peered at this little creature that had all of us a bit worried.

“It’s a boy,” said the midwife.

A little boy whose first action, when handed to me, was to stick his finger in his nose. Removing it was my first fatherly action. No doubt if I tried the same now he would say, in his own toddler language, that I was getting in the way. Whether we like it or not that’s a father’s job, so we may as well be there from the very start.