The birth: The saga continues

Right then. Enough distractions (although I still haven't finished my sermon for Sunday! Oh well.) On with the birth story.


I think I left you with my poor GLW not doing so well and Samuel just having made his grand appearance.


It was pretty amazing seeing him born. Arduous, but amazing ('arder for GLW than for me, although she gets the magic hormones and I don't).


I was asked if I wanted to cut the cord, which I declined. Not really my thing. Although I can see why some blokes would see that as a defining moment, to me it is a minor medical process. Why would I want to cut the cord? I have a baby! Who cares about a cord?


Anyway. The cord was cut and he was weighed and put back on GLW. The bad news was that the midwife thought that she had a grade 3 tear and would have to go to theatre for a repair. It was strange. We had dreaded that sort of news, but I just knew that we would get through it, whatever problems that might cause.


The midwife called in a doctor, who decided that it was a grade 2 not 3 - phew! The other good news was that she had been given so much epidural that she didn't need anything to get her through the stitching!


GLW asked me if we were going to call him Samuel or Daniel. Samuel had always been our first choice, but Daniel was a close second. I don't know what a Samuel looks like compared to a Daniel, but he was definately a Samuel, so Samuel it was.


So baby Samuel was weighed and dressed, wife was stitched, and suddenly we were alone with him, and there I am thinking "what do we do now?". Until then, it had all been driven by the NHS, now we are there with this new baby, and he is ours! Huh?!


Various people came in. One to give GLW a quick clean up (a bit random - hello madam, my name is Ruth and I'm here to clean up your punani), another to help Samuel with his first feed. And then the magic news came. We were allowed to go back to the low risk ward!


There are 2 wards at the hospital. There is the midwife lead unit (where we had started up), which is very quiet, and has a 6 bed post-natal unit for the new mums and babies - all brand new and clean, quiet and relaxed. And then there is the main hospital unit for mums who had complex births: a main ward with 14 beds, lights on, screaming babies, and mums with problems. We were very keen to avoid it, so when we were told we could go back to the midwife unit, we couldn't believe our luck (not that I believe in luck - so I guess we couldn't believe our blessing!)


And guess who had pulled the strings - the same male midwife GLW had started with! What a blessing.

So GLW was wheeled, bed and all, into the other ward. Speaking to a midwife we know who works there, she has never heard of anyone ever being taken back to the midwife ward, let alone someone who is bed bound.


So I set GLW up with food and drink, the midwives were coming in and checking up on her, and all was chill.


Then the strange bit - I had to go home. I had been awake for the best part of 3 days, and finally I was allowed to go to sleep.

I somehow made it home (only 5 minutes), did a few phone calls, sobbed my heart out to God, and managed to sleep for a whole 2 hours. I couldn't believe it. I had a whole bed to myself and I couldn't sleep more than 2 hours! Earlier I would have paid good money for a mere wooden bench. Now I had a bed and I couldn't sleep.


As for the sobbing, I felt so let down by God. I had prayed so much for an easy birth, and my prayer was turned down. That was when Hebrews 12;2 came to me:


"Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross"


And it all made sense.


But it wasn't the end of our struggles, so the story will continue


J