Lucie Jean Langlands. Born 4:56am, 10/07/08.
I’m sat at home, by myself, with a half-eaten takeaway pizza… Not exactly how I pictured the first night I’d spend on this earth with my lovely daughter Lucie but I guess when I think about it, her arriving has been one unexpected surprise after another.
Let’s begin from the top.
Jayne has had fairly regular appointments with the diabetic midwives at St Mary’s Hospital since an abnormal blood sugar level was picked up around week 20. So Tuesday’s session was nothing out of the ordinary… that is until they came to testing her blood pressure.
High blood pressure (particularly in late pregnancy) is a common symptom of pre-eclampsia. That in itself can escalate to eclampsia (which can claim the life of both Mum and baby). So when Jayne called me ahead of our scheduled breastfeeding class at St Marys that evening to say she’d been admitted to the maternity ward for checking overnight – I knew that all our previous birth plans might have to change.
A sure fire way of dealing with pre-eclampsia is to induce labour. And at about 5am on Wednesday morning that’s what Jayne’s doctors decided to do. I’d gotten about four hours sleep when I got the call and rushed in expecting Jayne to be having contractions and what not but it just doesn’t work like that.
Inducement is a waiting game. After two doses of Prostin gel Jayne still wasn’t getting closer and we feared the worst – a C-section – but luckily the third did the trick, her waters were broken and she was hooked up with a line of oxytocin to escalate the contractions.
So it’s now about 6pm on Wednesday evening, and time to discuss pain management. Jayne was incredible and lasted without gas and air until this time. We tried that for about four hours until it quickly became clear that an epidural would not only block out the pain but assist in lowering her blood pressure as well. All the while little Lucie kept beating out a steady rhythm on the heart monitor oblivious.
We were all systems go at about 2am with Jayne fully dilated and ready to push. I’ll spare you the gory details but at about 4:56am (almost 24 hours after we’d started the labour inducement) I did saw the head come out and about forty-five seconds later little Lucie, covered in vermix, was skin to skin with her Mum and cheek to cheek with me.
That’s pretty amazing, and so was hanging out and getting to know each other in the delivery room but it’s really intensified since Jayne and Lucie were moved down to the maternity ward for observation overnight.
I’m quite involved in our breastfeeding attempts – I take Lucie to Jayne. We do a little skin to skin in the exchange – Jayne’s been quite amazing – quite chilled – quite natural.
We’ve had some quality Daddy-daughter time… not only am I designated nappy changer she also endures my silly made up songs with bewildered contentment. Proving popular today were “fresh nappy tonight” (sung to the tune of “I feel like chicken tonight” and the “go-to-sleep little Lucie” song which has a flexible melody depending on how sleepy she appears to be.
I knew how far gone I was when we tried to put her down at the end of visiting hours. We’d fed her, changed her and got her ready to sleep but she kicked off… she wanted some quality Mummy and Daddy time. Some hugs. Some kisses… Some “I don’t need this or that, I just need you” time. I was pretty much a blubbering mess towards the end of the day.
She’s so cool. So cute. So aware. The thought of looking away from her for a few seconds, let alone spend a night at home alone, with crappy takeaway pizza, away from my amazing wife and only a few photos to try and simulate my gorgeous daughter’s skin, her smell, her eyes, her touch… well it’s just fucking heartbreaking frankly.
This is how I feel at the end of the first, very-long day. Completely bowled over by the two of them. Completely and utterly in love with them. Completely and overwhelmingly lost without them here.
As Leonard Cohen says, “There ain’t no cure for love.
