I want to talk about becoming a new father, in particular my two experiences of witnessing childbirth. Why? I’ve been thinking lately and comparing how woefully physically and mentally ill prepared, I actually was for the two events.
Before I go on, let’s quickly address the fact that I did not give birth to my two boys; that was my wife. This is about my experience becoming a father twice over. This also led me to think about the time when I didn’t have children, and I’m just stuck with this one question: What did I do with my free time before children? That is an extremely difficult question to answer, because I don’t know.
So let’s start at the beginning and go back to the lead up to UMC1’s birth. At the time, we lived near a birthing unit, so we decided that going there, was better than to try and make our way to the city hospital, which was in the CBD.
We had done some birthing classes together, but it was nothing like I thought it would be. It was a room full of women asking insightful questions, while the men were getting ready to pass out, while listening to the answers. The only thing those classes did for me, was to make me more nervous and anxious about the event, which is so stupid; but that’s what happened.
I was starting to feel somewhat terrified about the delivery, from the point of view, that I didn’t want to be useless at the delivery; I needed to know what I could actually do to help my wife during the birth. I mean I could feel useless doing everyday things, but a delivery room was the last place I wanted to feel that.
Being a geek, the only recourse was to read some books about what I could do, with my role at birth. After that, I had come to the conclusion, that I will do whatever my wife or the midwife asks me to do. If I was asked to sing or recite some movie dialogue to help the situation, then that was exactly what I was going to do. I thought that was going to be the safest option.
Now this is going to sound quite strange, but my wife had already sorted out what she was going to wear for the birth. She selected on practical and sensible clothes, which is fair enough. The problem was, it had never occurred to me, about what I was going to wear.
I consulted my palantír;1 and I selected my running shoes, black tracksuit pants, and my Superman t-shirt for the big day. How else am I supposed to welcome the newest geek to the club?
Anyway, let’s fast forward events to the day of the birth. We arrived at the birthing unit at 6 p.m. While I was there, I was a cauldron of bubbling emotions that ranged from happiness and joy to anxiousness and worry, but I did well not to show it. Drax would have been proud of me.
Without going into too much detail, I did whatever my wife and the midwife asked of me. Yah! I didn’t pass out or run away, so go me! My wife did an amazing job with the birth, and I’m still intimidated on how strong she actually is, because UMC1 was born at 9 p.m. I was even allowed to cut the umbilical cord, which was a pretty cool thing to do.
The stupid thing was everything was under control, it went exactly how it was supposed to. Well, except one thing.
I remember that the first time I held UMC1, was after he had spent some time with his mother. It was a fantastic feeling holding him, however every single person in the room forgot about something: the meconium.
We were all swept up with the excitement of the birth, when I was just holding UMC1, and he did his first poop, right on my Superman t-shirt. We were far too slow with putting on his first nappy. And to think, it was at that moment that it really hit me, that I wasn’t going to have nice things anymore.
We took UMC1 home three days later, and I remember the first two weeks were mental. I remember there were days, we did not leave the house, apart from walking the dog. I remember days where it was an achievement, if I had managed to get of my pyjamas for the day. Having said that, those weeks were amazing.
With that, let’s engage our warp drive and fast forward three years to the impending arrival of UMC2.
Our family of geeks had gone through some changes, before UMC2 arrived on the scene. We were now living in a new house, in a new town, because I had a new job. Also added to the fact that my wife is very stubborn, we had signed on to have a home birth. It’s very funny to be looking back on it now, but every time we discussed having a homebirth, I could actually feel the hairs on my head turning grey, because I was getting stressed.
We lived only a five minute drive from the hospital, so if anything went wrong with the birth, we could call an ambulance or we could all jump in the car, and in five minutes we could be at the hospital. In theory of course.
So the big day came and my wife’s water broke, as we were getting ready to go to the supermarket. I called the midwife as fast as I could, so she came over and my wife did another amazing job. A few hours later, UMC2 attended his first family gathering.
One extraordinary event happened with UMC2’s birth, was that I was the first person to touch him. When my wife was pushing, the midwife asked me, if I would you like to catch the baby. I was really stunned with that, because I never thought that was an option, ever.
I thought you had to be qualified to do something like that. Anyway I said yes, so I held out my hands, like I was a test cricketer playing at 2nd slip; and before I knew it, I was holding a baby. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to replicate that wonderful feeling, and hilarious as it was, I was holding the baby when the midwife asked me if the baby was a boy or a girl.
This was because we had never found out what the baby’s gender was going to be, so I was just so overcome with emotion, that I never looked at the baby’s gender, because I was just so stoked to have a new baby. Later on, I got to cut UMC2’s umbilical cord, which once again, was pretty cool.
I think back now on how stupid that was, to not have looked for the gender, but hey, new fathers do stupid things. And just to make sure that the universe was balanced, because UMC1 graced me with his meconium, UMC2 made it fair by giving his meconium to his mother. When it happened, I realised that could not have gone any better. The Force was balanced in our family now.
What I learnt from these two experiences 3.5 years later? One thing is that my wife’s amazing and I probably don’t tell her that enough everyday. I’ve also learnt that some things work out themselves, so I don’t need to worry about it. The best I can explain this as: Don’t sweat the small stuff.
As a parent and especially as a father, I feel like I don’t have every single answer, that relates to UMC1 and UMC2. I wish I did, but I don’t. But on the other side of the equation, I have learnt things as well. Like how many times you can sing a particular song to your child, and not rage quit about it; or the number of times you can read a particular book; or when they are becoming really upset about something, the best thing I can do for them, is to give them a hug.
Although the hours are long, and the pay is crap, being a parent is the best job I have ever had.
Thanks for reading and I’ll see you next week.
1 I stole one of the seven seeing stones, just don’t tell Sauron.
SOME GEEK TOLD ME 
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