Giving birth: the prelude
I kept coming back to analogies: it’s going to be like taking your driving test, I told myself. You spend months taking lessons, knowing that on some indeterminate future date, you’ll be expected to put everything into practice and start the next phase of your life, equipped with new powers and responsibilities.
Childbirth, of course, is more complicated and unpredictable than something like a driving test (even on Birmingham’s mean streets). Even if you’ve got a c-section scheduled, there’s no guarantee things will happen in the way you imagined (or even on the date you’d booked it).
In our case, we’d planned a homebirth. We did the research, went to the open days, booked a birthing pool and met the midwife team. We’d practiced hypnobirthing, stuck mantras and affirmations around the house, and bought the oil burners and lights to make our home feel safe and welcoming for birth.
Babies don’t respect any of that, though. Once we got to 42 weeks and the little chap still hadn’t made an appearance, we spent an Easter weekend wandering around in the sunshine, hoping he’d still arrive spontaneously before our induction date. No such luck.
After a terrible night’s sleep, with Maddy upset and worried about the morning’s impending events, we arrived at Birmingham Women’s Hospital for a scan and an outpatient induction (eg. we’d be going home afterwards). The scan, though, revealed that due to his elongated stay in Maddy’s womb, the little guy was running out of amniotic fluid. This meant we’d have to stay in hospital for the induction – and the birth itself.
This took us a bit of time to process: the best laid plans, and all that. We were both upset and Maddy needed some time to recover herself and come to terms with the fact we wouldn’t be having a homebirth. Luckily we’d anticipated this and brought all our hospital bags with us (though mentally I’d considered this a “dry run” and didn’t seriously believe we’d be giving birth at the hospital). Within a few hours, Maddy was induced (while I was busy moving the car), and the waiting game began.
It was a weird day. There was no immediate response to the induction, and we’d heard from friends in our NCT group that some people could spend days on the induction ward. A woman there told us she’d been stuck waiting there for almost a week. We played board games in a little patio area inside the hospital, and even went for a stroll around the nearby university campus. I was uneasily contemplating the next 24 hours, conscious that we were both running on a couple of hours’ sleep each.
Only the expectant mothers get fed in the hospital: partners are like semi-invisible ghosts in these places, fetching drinks and carrying trays of food to their frustrated partners, but not allowed to eat any of it themselves. It makes sense—resources are thin, and mothers should be prioritised—but it certainly complicated things as I had to keep slipping off to canteens and shops to grab sandwiches and snacks to keep myself going, too.
Partners were allowed to stay overnight on the induction ward, but the only sleeping provisions in the small curtained-off units was a stiff armchair. I was tired enough by the evening that I could’ve slept on a floor, but in the end Maddy told me to go home around 9pm, following advice on the printed sheets in the ward. She didn’t think anything was happening, and we both agreed that we should be as rested as we could, in anticipation of what was to come.
I drove home, windows open so the cool air kept me from nodding off at the wheel. I inhaled some food and fell into a deep, grateful sleep in my own bed, worrying for Maddy alone in the hospital, but focusing on recharging my batteries for the marathon that was rushing forward to meet us, like a driving test you know you have to pass.