Dad's reflections

The birth was an incredible experience. When Vickan's waters broke at 1.30 Monday morning she was surprisingly calm and happy about it. She rang förlossningen and they told us to relax and come in for a check at 8; so I soon fell back to sleep. But it was perhaps only 20 minutes before things got far scarier. Vickan was clearly in intense pain, and I was forced to come to terms with the fact that I had to get out of bed. I frantically started packing our bags. I was all over the place. Vickan could hardly move and was understandably brisk in tone. Neither of us knew how far she'd come and we were worried.

Somehow I managed to get our stuff together and as ordered I got the car ready. I helped her in and we drove off. I sensibly resolved to keep my mouth shut during the journey.

We parked up. I was too flustered to operate the parking machine so we just went in. I'd managed to get her there at least, but when I was was asked to produce her papers I panicked. Of course I'd brought the wrong bag in. Vickan was in too much pain to care.

Anyway for the next two hours at least I went into another mode. To be honest, I didn't have to do much, just hold Vickan's hand and wipe her brow. There was no way she was letting go of the gas mask though, so I didn't need to hold that. It was hard to watch the final phase. Vickan was amazing. She was pushing like anything despite the obvious pain it caused. And then I watched from above and saw what Vickan couldn't see herself: the boy coming out. He shot out like a champagne cork along with floods of clear fluids. In a flash the midwife grabbed him and threw him straight to Vickan, and she was old Vickan again, the pain had temporarily gone as she held him for the first time.

Then I tried to take pictures (most came out blurred - I couldn't do anything right). A few minutes later the placenta came out. The midwife held up the entire foetal sack and placenta for us to see (unfortunately I missed that photo opportunity) and then she just left it lying on a trolley for some time afterwards.