Baby day part 2

Iris had an epidural. Instantly she fell into a state of relaxation, well, more relaxed than she had been anyway. Everything slowed down. The staff took a breather - leaving the room for a few minutes and giving me the opportunity to take a few good long tokes of the nitros oxide gas that was on offer (albeit not to me.) For the entire time she'd been in hospital Iris had a doppler sensor strapped around her middle. It produces a rhythmic squelching sound - the babies heart beat. After the epidural and while the staff had left the room, the doppler beat began to slow triggering a new high pitched alarm. Staff rushed back into the room and rushed to stabilise Iris' condition - it was all a blur to me and I am not entirely sure what they did, but in a few minutes things were back to normal.  

I think it was about noon when the obstetrician returned and urged for more push! Iris was fully dilated, and the baby was in a good position for the delivery, however the baby was suffering from being in that position for some time. An amazing sight - a head was showing. The birth was becoming more and more visceral. There was increasing amounts of blood and ever louder moaning. The obstetrician decided that an episiotomy was necessary. It was a very quick snip and it did seem to speed things up...

By 2pm Iris was exhausted and was struggling to find more energy. The obstetrician used a Kiwi brand (I found this amusing as I am from New Zealand) vacuum pump to assist the final stage of the birth.) I had heard about the use of these vacuums but I had no idea what they looked like - a photo is below - (certainly not much in common with a vacuum cleaner!)

With an enormous final effort summoned from deep within her, Iris pushed and our baby slipped quickly out and into the waiting hands of the obstetrician.

It's a boy!

The umbilical cord was snipped long, the midwives did a quick vitals check up on our son and I snipped and clipped the umbilical cord to its proper length.  I could hardly believe what was happening... a new beginning. A new life. Wow!  

Within a minute of his birth he was back on his mother's chest. He made a small hungry sound and pushed his face into her breast.  It dawned on me in a flash how every human being shares this moment of birth - leaving the womb and the safety of 24 hour nourishment for a world filled with uncertainty and surprises. Filled with emotion, knowledge, good times and bad, happiness, sadness, hate and love...