Rory Fitzgerald
The last days are the slowest. Nine months of pregnancy passes by with respectable speed, until the last few weeks, when the flow of time slows to a trickle. As soon as the 37-week mark is passed, and the baby is officially full term, labour could begin at any moment – and it would be welcome. Yet it stubbornly refuses to commence.
The warning signs of pre-labour include cramps, moodiness, backache, a show, and a sudden surge of energy, coupled with an urge to tidy and clean. If my wife seems over zealous at the washing up, I eye her suspiciously.
We will need to move fast as soon as labour is underway, having had very rapid labours in the past. One baby was born minutes after arrival in the emergency room in the Rotunda, and another very nearly entered the work in the reception of Cork University Maternity Hospital. The midwife was rushing in the door and putting her gloves on as our first-born made his dramatic appearance.
Keen eye
For this reason, birth has been scheduled to be induced in hospital, however this baby has recently given us a few hints that she might want to surprise us by arriving early. Given the history, we are keeping a very keen eye out for the early signs, so that we can make the dash to the maternity unit. I make sure I always know where the car keys are.
Twelve hours before our first was born, I was awoken at 1am by the sound of the hoover, as my wife’s nesting instinct went into overdrive. Nesting takes many forms, and it does not only afflict women. That was my thought as I found myself on the train to London last week, going to collect a minibus I had just laid down a deposit on. My gardening the other day morphed into a campaign to widen the access to our side gate to enable better buggy access.
I find my thoughts moving to the near future more and more. It is hard to imagine a person you’ve never met, your own child. Yet she already seems familiar, and I feel her movements and kicks from the outside, as do the kids.
Three times, I have experienced the awesome moment of first seeing and holding a new child.
That moving experience never becomes less mind-blowing for the repeating of it. There is nothing like seeing this tiny, new human being for the first time.
Your heart soars and melts. You instantly know them, and you instantly love them.
There is a lot to look forward to, but there is a fearfulness too. Birth is a dramatic and uncertain process. Things can go wrong. I will worry about the baby and her mother until both are back home, safe and sound, post partum.
Birth is an everyday miracle, something incredible that happens routinely, all around the world. It has happened for the entirety of humanity’s history, yet it never ceases to be miraculous – or painful, scary, joyful and messy. It is always a moment of high drama. That drama, that miracle, is scheduled for us sometime within the next two weeks.
God willing, the last few days of us as a family of five are upon us, and that era is ending happily, amid the blissful heat of summer.
God willing, the little universe of our family is about to expand, even as nature around us bursts and hums with new life.