When we left you last time I was having traumatic nightmares about being chased by an injured yeti and Krys had settled on a birth pain relief plan that revolved around drawing on her relationship experience with me. She figures that if she can breathe her way through the excruciating monotony of my company than the rigours of childbirth should be a walk in the park.
So there we were, 3 weeks out from the official dropzone and looking to address a critical issue that we had grappled with all the way through pregnancy – when would I stop drinking. We were running into the Christmas / New Year period and I had a number of celebratory events pencilled in the calendar. Now these events can vary anywhere on a scale from stone cold sober to lying on the front lawn semi-naked in a shallow pool of regurgitated scotch and chicken nuggets – and a couple of these pending events had me planning to leave a bucket and a small blanket by the garden fence just in case. Being a thoughtful husband I had explored the reliability of the local taxi service for Krys, and the additional fare required to cover the cleaning of mucus plugs from upholstery but apparently a plan consisting of me just meeting her at the hospital with a sobering Red Bull and a bucket should the bub push the go button early was not gaining much wifely support. Even the offer of an upgrade to a Silver Service taxi complete with plastic drop cloth couldn’t get her over the line. So after extensive negotiation (Krys decided, I nodded) the stop date for my drinking (and therefore my ability to interact socially with any degree of personality) was set at Drop Date less 2 weeks.
To celebrate our peace settlement I took Krys out to a local Chinese restaurant for some MSG with a side of dim sims. We were deep into a discussion regarding the merits of the new government policy change around novated leasing and the performance of Bill Shorten as Opposition Leader when I saw that familiar Krystal face – glazed eyes and a slight grimace. I pushed on with my rant as this face is completely normal when engaged in a conversation with me lasting more than a minute until she held up a finger to interrupt and say ‘oh sh#t – my waxing appointment isn’t until this Saturday’. I thought this to be an interesting if slightly unusual contribution to the political discussion but thought it worth exploring so asked ‘honey, what does your personal grooming routine have to do with Government policy?’. In return I got back a fairly abrupt ‘are you an idiot? – I think we are on – I think I’m in labour’. I considered clarifying whether she meant that my rant had seen her now fully committed to the politics of the centre-left or whether she was about to give birth, but thought it safe just to assume it was option B. It looked like it was game day.
At that point all the pre-natal lessons and preparations get forgotten and left behind (as did the beef with blackbean sauce that just emerged from the kitchen – talk about unfortunate timing). The race was on to get to home base and find the notes detailing how to deal with the early phases of labour. Step 1 for me was to search through the pre-natal paraphernalia for the phone number for the hospital. Why this number wasn’t saved immediately in my phone at the time I have no idea. Especially considering other numbers under ‘H’ that did make the contact list cut included a Hairdresser I hadn’t been to since I stopped getting undercuts, an egg and bacon roll place in Cronulla saved under ‘Hangover’ and an effeminate guy I met while travelling who I just referred to as the ‘Hermaphrodite’. Talk about priorities…..
But even after finding the number, before making the call I needed some data. So I started recording Krys’ contractions with my fancy Garmin running watch – if this thing can keep accurate lap times of my Cronulla Esplanade jogging / plodding it would be perfect for keeping contraction timing. Krys had dropped straight into a 3min gap / 45 sec duration rhythm, and my fancy watch picked up this tempo and started giving off a high pitched beep every time the next contraction was due. I was quickly informed that I better find an alternative timer as if one more beep indicating another painful contraction was heard by Krys, there would be two of us giving birth later on the night – Krys to our baby girl and me trying to push out a chunky Garmin running watch that Krys was threatening to insert uncomfortably deep in my rectum (I’m not sure how well the GPS function would work when wedged 10 inches up my backside? The manual didn’t cover that eventuality). I didn’t fancy having to explain to the obstetrician why he may need to assist in 2 births so decided to call the hospital instead.
It was with some pride that I could call the midwife, and report initial contraction time (8.05pm), dislodge time of mucus plug (8.50pm) and the current contraction tempo. Talk about a magnificent, super organised husband. I hadn’t even begun enjoying my self satisfied little smirk until the midwife said ‘ok, get comfortable and so you don’t forget it later in a rush, put your pre-packed hospital bag in the car now’. At that point all perceptions of me being in total control of the situation came apart – the hospital bag pack was on the ‘to do’ list just below Krys’ pre-birth tidy-up for the coming weekend. It had been on the list for the previous weekend but slipped due to decent surf, a particularly interesting episode of ‘Insiders’ and an afternoon nap.
So there I was frantically running around the house throwing random items in a bag. Krys wasn’t much help – every 3mins she’d have to stop to deal with a contraction – talk about letting the team down. And she wasted chunks of her ‘non-contraction’ time reminding me that she had recommended the bag pack be completed weeks earlier just in case the baby came early. But I thought I had done well in jamming half of the house into 3 bags (although why I thought I needed to throw a pair of heels in for hospital I’m not sure) until I came to what was at the top of our official birthing checklist – the fitball.
Our pre-natal classes had set up the fitball as being an invaluable part of the pain relief process. You could sit on it, rotate on it, lean on it, lay across it…. in fact it seemed so multi-purpose that if you asked it nicely it would even cook you dinner, give you a backrub with a happy ending then ‘take care’ of the next door neighbour’s cat (sorry Smudge but your arrogant attitude grates on me). The description of how important it was almost had me expecting Tony Barber to pop out mid description to offer a free mega-mop, sham-wow and snuggie if we bought one now. I assured Krys that we already had one – I bought one about 3yrs ago when I decided that the summer of 2010 was going to be the season of rock hard abs. It had since been in the storage room deflated for the last 2yrs, 11months and 3 weeks. As I flung open the door to the storage area I was hit by a vague recollection of a decision during our recent house move of letting the fitball go to fitball heaven (ie the bin). It all came rushing back – the sad deflated look of the fitball combined with a lost pump and my own acceptance that my belly will always carry a little extra ‘cushion for the pushin’ due to my obsession with Chocolate Montes meant that the fitball was flung in the trash. As I surveyed what had made the cut in the house move the rejected fitball decision looked even more absurd. Cracked squash racquet – check. Rowing oars even though I have never owned a boat – check. Bean bag beans just in case I one day buy a beanbag (they were on special) – check. Even an old pair of snow shoes (yes you read that correctly – snow shoes) made the trip across. The fitball rejection decision is up there with Krys deciding to have a baby with me in terms of decisions that are stupid, reckless and bordering on insane.
I came sheepishly back upstairs to admit my mistake to the sound of gushing water in the bathroom. I came in with a ‘gee baby, I didn’t realise you hit the lemon lime and bitters so hard with dinner tonight – high five – I had no idea you had such a big tank’ but was told in no uncertain terms that this was her waters breaking. If only the birthing videos hadn’t put me in a trauma induced coma for large parts of our antenatal classes I may have been prepared to recognise this labour milestone. My decision to try and take a picture of Krys at this time to mark the occasion was up there with the fitball decision – to say it was difficult to get her to smile for the camera is an understatement.
The water-breaking milestone led to my 6th call to the hospital midwife within the last 15 mins. And this time I detected a heavy note of sarcasm and a touch of exasperation in her ‘gee, what a surprise’ when I announced it was ‘Trent calling again’. I haven’t had someone appear that un-excited to hear from me since I called Krys at 2am after an all-day bucks party to slur seductively that I was on the way home and if she was awake when I got there I’d like to give her some special cuddles (strangely I found her asleep and impossible to awaken when I did get home that night – and she isn’t normally a deep sleeper? Go figure). The midwife exasperation turned to resignation and she said ‘look, this is pointless if we are going to be on the phone every 2 minutes – you might as well just come in’. I tried to ask her one final question as to whether she knew if birthing membrane would stain leather car seats (I hardly wanted to broach the subject with a contracting Krys) but strangely the phone cut out before she could answer.
So with Krys sitting on a towel in the passenger seat (thanks hon – I had just ArmorAll’d them that weekend) we took the 10min drive to the hospital, pulled up out the front, and made our way up to the birthing suite to a slightly frosty midwife reception. As for the birth itself, well a female 80’s rap group made a brief appearance. But I need to complete my therapy sessions before I can fully recall all of the details. So will save that for later……..
Trent, Krystal, a half born Emelia and some clean car seats
PS. I had included the picture of Krys in the middle of waters breaking in the original draft, but the picture was removed in the editing process (ie Krys demanded it be removed or I’d be sleeping in the garage).
smallthoughts 