point to this – the moment when the baby’s head comes out (crowns) and the perineum is stretched to its limit. Just thinking about this moment could bring a non-pregnant woman to her knees. But most of us cope perfectly because it brings the baby. It’s not always bad. Julia has an amazing photo of a client laughing as the baby crowns. Having said this, when I gave birth to Sam I do not remember crowning as being particularly amusing: in fact, it was exquisite agony – but it was fleeting and was instantly outclassed by the big baby boy who shot out. This, I have to say, is one of the greatest miracles of motherhood: our ability to forgive and forget. Julia’s water birth experience was very different: ‘I did not feel the ring of fire at all,’ she says. ‘I gave birth under the water, which is known to significantly lessen the pain of this stretching.’
YOUR PARTNER AND YOUR PERINEUM | Sometimes men find the moment at which the next generation appears through their loved one’s holied vagina utterly mind-blowing. If your man removes himself from the room, sits down or sobs, it really is not a sign that he won’t be a good father, or that he’s abandoning you. Frankly he could be swinging from the rafters in a tutu as your baby crowns and you probably wouldn’t bat an eyelid. He’s better off outside, gathering his emotions for fatherhood, than he would be screaming, fainting or openly panicking next to you. Men can also become uncharacteristically emotional when their baby emerges. Julia’s husband Buckley sobbed so much at their second child’s birth that before the cord was cut Kim, the midwife, roused Julia to see if he was OK. ‘It’s all the emotions of life, in just a few seconds,’ says Buckley. ‘It all rushed out of me in sobs of joy and relief.’
BABY!
Actually producing a real baby can be totally surreal. You’ve been planning and obsessing about this for months, and here it is. And it was inside you. You grew it. Seeing this large, slippery, funny coloured, funny smelling, actual baby – before it has even taken a breath – can feel overwhelmingly weird.
WHAT IS GOING ON | ‘There is a moment, after a birth, when the room may be silent or loud, but the energy shifts,’ says Julia. ‘All that fear and anticipation is released and is hanging there in the seconds before the baby cries.’ Julia has had so many clients (men especially) tell her that they thought something was badly wrong at this point. When I watched Julia give birth, I certainly wasn’t prepared for this moment. The time before Larson cried – it must have been 30 seconds or less – felt like infinity. ‘The whole thing is a disaster,’ I thought lucidly. ‘They will never recover from this.’ Larson yowled loudly a moment later: he was fine. Julia remembers this moment differently – the midwife rubbing her son, her sharp voice as she asked her assistant for the bulb to suction the mucous from his nose and mouth. She remembers a fleeting moment of concern, then her baby’s voice. At this point, the trance-like hormones of labour can be a real advantage.
Fathers don’t have these hormones. Victor, a first time dad, was calm throughout the birth but when his daughter Elizabeth emerged, he became certain something was wrong: ‘My heart was pounding out of my body. I looked at the midwife, the nurse and then the doula – and saw they were all calm, though excited. I tried to stay calm too. None of the women in the room were even aware of the time before Elizabeth took her first breath but for me it felt like forever.’
Most babies just need a rub from a towel. They aren’t hung upside down, or smacked on the bottom, like they once were (thank God). Some babies may need oxygen, or occasionally have the mucous suctioned from their nose and mouth with a bulb syringe. Your baby may be taken off to a different part of the room, after the cord has stopped pulsing and is cut (no, you cannot feel this) so that the midwife can check her over. Some men ask to cut the cord themselves (it feels, apparently, like cutting a piece of chicken and it has no nerves, so don’t worry). Even after the birth the placenta gives your baby healthy blood and oxygen for up to 20 minutes – this is why many women decide to ask the midwife not to cut the cord until it has ‘stopped pulsing’. Your baby’s vital signs will then be checked and she’ll be given something called an ‘APGAR’ score (see below).
BABY CHECK-UPS
1 The midwife checks your baby at the birth and he is given an APGAR score out of ten (ten being the optimal number), based on the following:Activity/muscle tone (limp/no response to active/taut arms and legs)Pulse/heart rate (absent to >100bpm)Grimace (first breath response none to sneeze or cough)Appearance (colour – white/blue/gray to pink all over)Respiration (absent to good/cry at one, five, and sometimes ten minutes)
2 Usually, your baby will also be thoroughly checked by a paediatrician the day after the birth (before you leave the hospital). This check will include:Head and chest circumferenceLength and weightGeneral appearance (activity, tone, cry)SkinHead and neckEyesEar, nose and throatAbdomenHeartGenitalsReflexesSpine and anusLungsHips
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