Sometimes You Have to Bite the Dog

One Father's Journey One Year with my Daughter

John Hunt Publishing Ltd.

Contents

CHAPTER 1

The Birth Diaries

(A collection of recollections on the birthof our daughter)

12/12/11/13:47

She's here. She's been here for some time now. After all the timewe spent talking about her, waiting patiently and somewhatnaively for her arrival. Contemplating what life would be likewith her around was a sheer impossibility. There is nothing thatcan prepare you for it. In many ways we chose to let go. To let thesituation evolve by itself. If chaos was coming with all itsbaggage, then trying to make some space to fit it all in seemedpointless. I'm talking mentally here, but it very quickly became aphysical space consideration as well, thanks to all the equipmentneeded to house a newborn baby.

All we had was each day as a singular moment. Some dayswere excruciating. Some were baffling. Some were miraculous intheir own way. In the grand scheme of things it's hardly the firsttime anything like this has happened before, but in all honestythe entire experience from the very beginning has been a time forreflection, analysis and endless guilt. A change, however subtle,is a change after all. And there is nothing subtle about having ababy. The scale of it is unknown and often terrifying.

As I write this I'm very much looking forward to theweekend. Not for the self-annihilation or the freedom to pack inas many minutes of very little, if any, activity whatsoever (aluxury I am a fully qualified expert in). It's the mornings withmy daughter that excite me. It's the soothing contemplation ofthe entire day stretching and filling out in front of me. Minutesand hours swell with a random flux only to be filled withwonder, joy and relentless appeasement. Conversations with abeing at this age prove fruitful, illuminating and consistentlysurprising. I could happily spend hours in bed talking with mydaughter as she analyses the proceedings of the day and starts todecide exactly what she wants to do. The blissful hours in bedwatching her eyelids flutter open fill every waking moment. It'salmost as if the world doesn't exist and for that I can only begrateful to her. Grateful to her for giving me a reason to exist fora fit purpose as opposed to drinking heavily, writhing in vitriolabout the state of the world and complaining endlessly abouttrivialities.

There is, however, a part of me that realises that thesemoments are short-lived, acutely profound and only the tip of aniceberg some would deem to be incomprehensible in scale. Withno doubt in my mind I can state that my daughter is fiendishlyintelligent at just over nine weeks old. With no doubt in my mindI can state that I am in trouble.

List of Things to Remember

Our daughter was born on December 12th 2011 at 13:47. As I writethis I have forgotten her weight and feel a pang of guilt aboutthat. Perhaps I am overthinking it, but now there always seems tobe something else to feel guilty about.

We visited the hospital upon first feeling contractions.Unfortunately our daughter was only vaguely interested aboutcoming out and, without going into details, was somewhatinduced; persuaded; cajoled even. Regardless, we tentatively leftthe hospital and, within a few hours, were back within thebeeping depths of the maternity unit.

At this point the entire world stopped turning. Either itstopped or started spinning at a speed at which the outside worldceased to exist.

List of things to consider and remember as a father when yourpartner is in labour:

1. You will need patience – lots of it. I sat beside my wife fornearly 24 hours. During the time at her side I wasconstantly battling my emotions. Time loses all meaning,and you need to be aware of that. Your thoughts get darklycreative at times and you need to keep them to yourself – forher benefit as much as yours.

2. Remember, if you want to leave the room you can. Andyou should. If you start to hear a voice inside your headsaying "You're really not dealing with this very well areyou?" then it's time to leave the room. Always make sureyour partner knows where you're going and how longyou'll be.

3. Keep an eye on the midwives. Ask questions. Try andunderstand everything that is happening. Your partner'smental faculties are vulnerable at best. You need to be aprophet. She needs you more than she perhaps will everneed you.

4. Don't ever think the worst but be prepared to be brave.Courage is what you need, and what you will always need,as a father and as a parent.

5. Smile at her when she wakes up. Don't be afraid to touchher. Make eye contact.

6. Remember that you will never understand what she isgoing through.

This last one is of particular importance. She is about to showyou a side of her she has preserved since the day she told you shewas pregnant. She most likely has no real comprehension of howmuch physical, emotional and psychological pain she is about togo through. She'll be terrified. You'll be terrified. But you aren'tabout to eject a living being out of your body. A living beingyou've been keeping alive inside you for almost a year. That's thedifference. It sounds obvious but it's easy to forget as we are, as arace, naturally selfish.

Be assured that she is about to amaze, delight and terrify youin equal measures. She will look into your eyes in a way you willnever, if ever, see again.

Believe in her. That's all she needs from you.

First Stage

The day of your first baby's arrival is something you will neverforget. No single experience can come close to matching the vastrange of emotions that carry you through the experience.

The first part of the process, which pumps the first of manylitres of endorphins into your brain, is the sight of your partner inpain – sheer agonising pain. And the worst thing about it isthere's very little you can do to help. I had to keep remindingmyself that just being there, in the literal sense of being a partner,was as much help as I could give. It still felt like I was doing verylittle.

When the contractions first started I saw a look of panic in hereyes. We were at home attempting to distract ourselves withmindless activity when the first one struck. Doubled up in pain Isaw the first stage of panic rush over her. Instinctively I rushed tohelp.

And then she changed almost immediately. Once she startedto understand how a contraction felt, the panic left her. Shesuddenly became a lot calmer than I was. I called a taxi and didall I could to calm the situation, which mostly involved pacingand asking the throbbing air around me what was taking the taxiso long. This was little help to anybody and I suddenly began tofeel hideously unprepared.

Once arriving at the hospital and being ushered through thematernity ward, I remember the first room we went into feelingvery small and contained for an event of such magnitude.Everyone feels that their baby's arrival should carry some importanceand impact but, for walls that have seen countless livesarriving into the world, the importance drains away. This,strangely, was a comfort in itself.

Something I never took into account was the rota change forthe accompanying midwives. We were happy with the firstmidwives as they explained the process clearly and precisely andwent over all the options available to us. We were extremelyunhappy with the next round of midwives as they patronised,insulted and maltreated us.

After flatly denying my wife the precious gas and air she soobviously needed they then proceeded to break her waterswithout asking or advising either of us. It was then that the heartrate of our baby, once beeping happily in the background, startedto fluctuate wildly. An emergency situation was declared andbefore we could breathe the room was filled with doctors. Pipes,fluids, injections, questions. Hands everywhere. My wife wasbeing prodded, moved, pushed and pulled in all directions.

It was at this point she turned to me and asked me out of thecorner of her mouth, "Do you have any idea what's going on?"

The world started to speed up.

Second Stage

After the room started to empty of doctors, nurses, anaesthetistsand other midwives, we were suddenly dealing with a verydifferent situation. We still had the lingering midwives hauntingthe room but they were starting to feel irrelevant. Among thelegion of doctors that had examined the beeping machinery andknowingly stroked their chins, there were some friendly faceswho took the time to explain to both of us what exactly washappening. We felt a whole lot better despite the fact ourmidwives were still sneering at us.

The very act of breaking my wife's waters had caused ourdaughter's heart rate to accelerate rapidly before dipping ratheralarmingly. However, it was starting to stabilise now and an airof calm was beginning to fall.

I was completely focused on my wife. Nothing so far hadalarmed or scared me. Or at least that was the impression I wasgiving her. All I could do was hold her hand, rub her feet andadhere to her every whim. I remember wanting to take all of thepain she was feeling and hold it for her. Just for a short while. Justenough to give her a break from the enormity of what her bodywas going through. I remember feeling so very proud of her andso awfully numb at the same time.

Anticipation is sometimes the most enjoyable stage of an eventbut in this case, not knowing what the outcome would be, I wasscared. But I couldn't let her know I was scared. So I froze. I hidthe fear beneath open honesty and a constant smile. But all thattime I knew in the deepest of my understanding of her that shecould feel how scared I was without even telling me. We weresuddenly reassuring each other, without even talking, that everythingwas going to be all right. It felt like a rippling circularconnection between us.

The midwives, one of whom I should mention was ironicallynamed "Joy", mostly ignored us as our daughter slowly madeher way into the world. I had to keep leaving the room to stayawake and reopen my mind. To revitalise my senses. In total Ithink I slept for ten minutes.

I remember idly thinking about an interview I'd read recentlywith the legendary author Alan Moore. I had read his discussionof the concept of time existing with a non-linear structure. Howtime wraps and bends around reality rather than running to astraight linear formation. The clock on the wall becamemeaningless as hours sped by then abruptly slowed to a halt. Thewalls throbbed as we coexisted in our time vacuum.

Sitting at my wife's side I then started reading a comic bookshe had just bought me as an early Christmas present, about theadventures of a trio of mechanical animals. After I'd finished it,and as my wife slept through an epidural haze, I wept. I weptbecause the story was heartbreaking. I also wept at the realisationof the sheer strength of the connection between my wifeand me. In that quiet moment I felt the strength of ourrelationship take form inside me. It is only in an hour, potentialor otherwise, of departure that we realise how much we love oneanother. The fact that she knew me well enough to buy me acomic book she knew I'd adore was a feat of such enormousmagnitude it took me over entirely. Love is a shapeless thing, butat that point I realised I had only really been skimming thesurface.

Onwards we went. Sunlight started to fill the room. Themidwives' rota changed and in walked our new companions forthe final stage. I could have kissed them.

The End and the Beginning

The world was beginning to wake up. Sunlight streamed throughthe windows as dawn began to break. Our new midwivesbustled happily around us as my wife approached the finalstages of her labour. Everything had stabilised. The atmosphere,simply because we had two midwives with us who were friendly,experienced and interested in us, had changed for the better.

I could go into detail here about the machinery and theprocess and the breathing but really it all became a whirr ofemotion. My mother called the hospital desk asking after us. Asa worrying parent this meant a lot to me but it also made meremember that I was still, and always would be, her child. Evenin a private, character-building personal situation such as this Istill had my own mother checking on me.

The last few minutes felt like watching fire being born. Theslow pulses of pain suddenly erupting into spasms were writteninto my wife's entire body. Her ever-sharp and bright eyesshowed her complete engagement in giving birth. Every secondebbed and flowed like water splashing off a sun-stained rock.

And still she smiled.

Still she laughed and joked with the midwives. In thatsituation while bereft of any scrap of integrity or privacy shelooked at me and smiled. When the final contraction rushedthrough her she started to laugh and made a flippant comment. Iwas so proud of her. Even to this day she astonishes me.

And then she arrived. Just like that. After all the chemicals andpushing and encouraging and soft words and hard words andhand squeezing and relentless anxiety, she arrived. Even as Iwrite this I can remember exactly how she moved when she cameout. I can remember her hand reaching out to pull the cord awayfrom her neck. I can remember the joyful welcome she receivedwhen she started crying. I can remember the smell of the roomand the voices of the midwives rolling through the air like aspringtime thunderstorm.

I think about that exact moment quite regularly. My braininstinctively lets me relive the whole sensory experience. Thewarmth, the hormones, the voices, the rush, the sight of ourdaughter suddenly being present in the world. And my beautifulbeautiful wife. She had never looked so ethereally beautiful. Theentire experience centred me and I lived in it. I breathed it. Iswam through it and emerged gasping and breathless at theshore of a new world. Our baby. Our baby girl had arrived.

Format, Re-record and Press Play

She had arrived in an instant. If I think about her being held upin the shimmering light I can feel that same wonder stirring in thepit of my stomach. Nothing can describe the feelings I experiencedin that moment. There is no singular event that can makeyou feel that way. I can't even put it into words. Maybe it was themass of hormones spinning through the air. It could have beenthe sheer fatigue pulsing through my entire body. It felt like acloud of electric snowflakes dancing gently on the air.

When she arrived it felt like she'd always been here. When shearrived it felt as if she'd been meaning to come earlier but she'dhad important things to do. It was like seeing a friend I hadn'tseen for years. How close we felt in those tiny flashing moments.How entwined we felt. She was greeted with a rousing"Welcome" from our midwives in arms. I greeted her with a"Where have you been? I've missed you so much!"

The world slid away and came roaring back at us with a low-pitchedrolling boom. Everything changed in those littlemoments. She was handed to my wife while I sped off to callloved ones. I came back to find her awake, clothed and bathingin the heat from the incubator. I gazed at her. She gazed rightback at me. I looked at her and saw in those deep dark eyeseverything that had been missing from my life. I could hear mywife chattering away to the midwives while she was stitched,cleaned and congratulated. We even had an offer of purchase forour newly born little girl. All the fatigue, all the angst, all theworry melted away as we were finally united as a family. Afamily. I now truly understood the literal meaning of the word.

Then I had to pick her up. Then came the doubt and the fearand the "OhmywhathavewedoneI'mafraidImightbreakherI'mafraidImightdropherohmyGodI'mafraid". She felt too tenderand fragile to squeeze and, coupled with an overwhelmingdesire to hug her so tightly, I felt like I was about to burst. Allthat nervous, frenetic, fizzing energy, and nowhere to place it. Itgets to the point where you just want to hug everyone to bringyourself back down to earth.

But fear was banished from the room. We were gathered upby our midwife as she handled our daughter like a true professional.She showed us how to hold her and how best to supporther tiny head. A complete stranger did that. We placed ourdaughter's life in the hands of a complete stranger. We placedour entire lives in the hands of a complete stranger. We'llprobably never see our midwives again. This is an emotionalcomplexity in itself. How can a person play such a vital part inyour new family's life then move onto the next family? Howmany times has her heart been broken only to mend itself in thedeep sleep before her next shift?
(Continues...)Excerpted from Sometimes You Have to Bite the Dog by Sam Coleman. Copyright © 2013 Sam Coleman. Excerpted by permission of John Hunt Publishing Ltd..
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