The birth story. Part 1

Saturday, 30 July, 5:30 in the morning. I woke up to go to the loo. I came back to find the wife was awake. Both of us could not sleep. The baby was wriggling a bit. The wife played games on her PDA while I tried to get back to sleep. Eventually we both dozed off.

8:30 exactly. The wife taps me on the shoulder twice. Annoyed, I thought This better be important.

My waters just broke

Oh

And, to myself, I thought damn, I was enjoying that sleep, I guess I should get up. I mean, it's not like she was having contractions – water can break at any time, but we should probably do something about it.

So, after a bit more harsh wakeup, we get up. I check the heartbeat – it's just fine, and she's definitely still moving. Now that water is going the wife's belly is all solid. Which is an interesting change from its previous fullness. She asks me to check the colour of the water. To which, in my colourblindness, I respond I am not going to be able to differentiate a subtle green tint. Use your magic colour vision to tell.

After a bit more blather, we eventually call birth centre. There's a nice person on the other end who had a calming effect on us. She redirected us to the foetal assessment unit (MFAU). They are not nearly as friendly. They start out by asking if I'm calling from within the hospital. No, I'm at home. I was transferred on the phone to you (from someone who seemed to have more of a clue, to my annoyance). They don't want to speak to me, they'll only speak to the wife. I say fine, and in a great relief, hand her the phone, saying she'll only talk to you and walk off, relieved that I don't have to deal with that call.

I go off to put the dishes in the dishwasher. I don't want to come home after a week to moulding dishes. I finish as the wife gets off the phone. They say come in for a speculum exam. Leave the bags at home and just come in, she tells me. But without any contractions to go along with it, I figure we have 92 hours max, 48 most likely. So we will see the baby soon. There's no need to rush now. I wonder if we have time to make the NCT meet at the pub later.

Our roles seem to have reversed. The wife is panicking and worried about foetal distress. I'm calm and don't see anything untextbookish or worth worrying about. The heartbeat is solid. She's moving a bit less – but there's so little room for the wee one to move around in. I suppose the foetal assessment unit put some panic in the wife by implying she was out of the midwives' hands and now only fit for the labour ward. I figure it must be the clueless person on the other end of the line confusing the matter. Water breaking is hardly a birth complication.

So at 9:30 it's not-very-rushed breakfast of smoothies for everyone. I bathe, since this could be my last time for days. The wife doesn't since she thinks she's guaranteed to get messier from here on out.

We pack an ipod, camera and the pregnancy notes. Neither of us have any cash, so no taxi for us. So we take the bus which miraculously comes soon. We transfer to the tube at Finsbury Park. It looks like it'll be an Arsenal game later, so it could be very hard to get home afterwards. I push that to the back of my mind for later.

On the tube there are plenty of seats, but the wife makes a man move out of the priority seat anyway. I giggle. I'm guessing it'll be her last chance to do this and it gives her some sense of control. This, of course, was violated by london transport inspectors accosting her and demanding to see her card on the way out of the station. Bloody twats. She's clearly very pregnant and exiting the tube at a big maternity hospital. The these two London Transport idiots surround her, stopping her from going anywhere and don't let her say more than Do we have to do this now — before cutting her off and demanding ID. Really uncalled for and certainly did not help her mood.

After that unwarranted attack from London Transport, we make our way to the UCLH MFAU. When we arrive there just after 10am, there's no one there. A nice very pregnant woman sitting in the waiting room lets us in. People with appointments start showing up, and we let them in. Eventually some staff show up just as we started regretting not making pancakes for brekky.

We're finally seen at just before 11. The midwife is very friendly and bubbly. Thankfully – our mood had been slowly darkening since that fist phone call at 9. The midwife spent most of the time chuckling. Everything is fine. The waters are clear, her blood pressure is fine. She decided there was no point checking dilation or anything since it's just a question of waiting for contractions to start. We're now at 80% chance of a spontaneous labour in the next 7-10 days. She asked us to come back Sunday morning (the next day) after the morning shift change at 9ish. They'll check the state of the baby, and if there's no strong need to induce, they'll start the wife on antibiotics (since once the waters break the risk of infection goes up) – though the midwife was rather keen on inductions. After that morning I had not intention of putting any effort into making it there on time. I figured if we did need to go back, we'd have a proper leisurely breakfast first.

So out we go, and back home on the tube. We stop on the way to pick up some cash so we can get a cab next time.