What the birth is actually like (for the partner watching)
Nobody told me what my job actually was in the birth room. The classes covered her breathing, her positions, her pain relief. Mine was a footnote. "Be supportive." Right.
This is the article I wish I had read at thirty-six weeks. It is not medical. It is what it is like to be the person standing next to the bed.
The day starts ordinary
It will probably begin without a movie moment. No water breaks dramatically in a supermarket. There is a feeling, a pressure, a contraction that is just a bit different. She tells you. You both look at the clock. You start timing on an app. You make a cup of tea. You time another one.
This is the early stage and it can last hours / a day / two days. Your job here is to stay calm, hydrate her, feed her if she wants, walk with her, run a bath, hold her hips in the kitchen. Do not pack the car yet. Do not call everyone. Do not start the spreadsheet of contractions.
When the gaps shrink and she stops being able to talk through them, you call.
The hospital arrival
Bringing her in is its own experience. She walks slowly. She stops in the corridor. The receptionist asks for her Medicare card while she is mid-contraction. You hold the card. You answer the questions. She nods at you. This is the first of about a thousand times in the next year that you will be the spokesperson.
You will be shown to a room. It will smell like every hospital. The lighting is fluorescent and unkind. Ask if you can dim it. Ask if you can put music on. Ask for the things she said she wanted in the birth plan, even if she has stopped caring about the birth plan.
The midwives will be the most competent people you have met all year. Trust them. Get out of their way when they need you to. Step back in when they look at you and say, "talk to her".
The middle hours
The middle is long. It can be six hours, ten, twenty. She will go inward. Her face will change. The contractions will get loud and then they will get quiet, and the quiet ones can be the harder ones because they are concentrating not coping.
What you do in the middle:
- Wipe her forehead with a cool cloth
- Hold a sick bag (be ready, vomiting is normal)
- Refill the water cup, with a straw, every contraction
- Press on her lower back when she asks (she will tell you where, harder, harder)
- Say her name, slowly, between contractions
- Do not say "you're doing great" on a loop, it stops meaning anything
Eat something. You will not want to. Eat a banana in the corridor anyway. You cannot help her if you are wobbly.
If she gets an epidural, the room changes. The pain backs off and you both might rest for an hour. Take that hour. Sit in the chair. Hold her hand. Do not get on your phone. The midwives will check the monitor every few minutes and you will start to read the printout and pretend you understand it.
The pushing part
The pushing part can be twenty minutes or three hours. The room fills with people. There will be a doctor you have not met, a paediatrician, a student, two midwives. Stand at the head end. Hold a leg if asked, hold a hand if asked, hold a phone with the playlist if asked.
You will see things you did not expect to see. There is a lot of blood. There is a lot of noise. Her face will go places you have not seen it go. None of this is a problem. It is the body doing the body's most physical work, in front of you, and it is not pretty in the way photos are pretty. It is real in a way photos are not.
If something changes / a tone drops, a different doctor enters quickly, the midwife says "we are going to" / listen, do not interrupt, do not ask questions yet. Hold her hand. Watch the midwife's face. Australian birth suites are very safe places, but they move fast when they need to and you need to move with them, not in their way.
The moment
The moment the baby comes out is not what films told you. It is wet and grey-blue and silent for a beat. Then the cry. Then the rush of everything.
They will (usually) put the baby straight on her chest. You will stand there. You will not know what to do with your hands. Put them on her shoulder. Look at the baby. You will not feel what you thought you would feel. Some men feel a thunderbolt. Most feel a kind of quiet shock, a held breath, a "that came out of her, that is a person". Both are normal. Neither is the right one.
You will probably cut the cord. Scissors heavier than you expect. Tougher than you expect. The midwife will guide your hand.
The hour after
The hour after the birth is one of the strangest hours of your life. The baby is on her chest. There is paperwork being done. Someone is stitching. Someone is weighing. Someone is asking about vitamin K and hep B and a hearing test.
Your partner will be in shock. A normal good shock, but shock. She will be shaking. She will need a blanket. She will be ravenously hungry or completely unable to eat. Get her toast. Toast is the universal birth food in Australian hospitals and it is the best toast of her life.
Take the photos that matter. Skip the ones that do not. Put the phone away. Look at her. Tell her she is incredible. Mean it.
What nobody warns you about
You will be exhausted in a way you have never been exhausted, and you did not give birth. Sit down when you can. Eat when offered. Drink water like it is your job.
You may cry afterwards, alone, in the bathroom, and not know why. This is fine. The body has been holding a brace position for hours.
You will see the woman you love in pain, and you will not be able to fix it. You will not be able to fix it. The not-fixing is the work.
She will not remember most of it the way you remember it. The chemistry of birth blurs the timeline for the person in it. You will be the keeper of the story for a while. Tell it back to her gently, in pieces, when she asks.
What your job actually is
Your job is to be the unmoving thing in the room. Calm hands. Quiet voice. Eyes on her.
That is it. That is the whole job.
Show up. Stay there. Be steady.