A Dad's perspective - I didn’t doubt for one second that Juliette could do this

Wake up more than an hour before the first glimpse of the eastern rising sun, before the sky begins it’s gradual lightening. Back pains, a common malaise in late-pregnancy days. Go back to sleep.

But they keep on coming. In waves, crest and trough, swell, crest, trough. Each crest higher, each trough that much sweeter.

“Reckon it’s labour?” I ask.

“Maybe,” Juliette replies. “Let’s see if it calms down with daylight. In the meantime, could you please massage my back?”

We sit here on the bed for a while, pain managing. The urge to walk, to get out of bed. Clothes, shoes, scarves. It’s still dark. But we’re out, the cool air bringing us clarity as we walk our street, sharing a pear. We chat, stop every now and then as she clutches her back and grabs my arm. Start again.

Do a loop, south then east then north, sky lightening to the east, sun beams crowding out stars and moon.

Upon returning, run a hot bath, soothing aquatic relief. We sit here for a bit, but not long, as she throws up the pear from before. Already this is shaping up to be an exciting birth.

We run the bath again and I’m applying counter-pressure to her hips and massaging her lower back. We detach the shower head and I use the flowing water to sooth her pains.

Everything a blur of growing excitement and pain relief. Why not try some yoga? We dry off and lay a mat down, and she starts some positions that bring slight relief.

One of the things that helps with labour is endorphins. There are several ways to promote this hormone; eating chocolate, laughing, walking. One of the funnest is sex.

“Would you like to have sex?” I ask.

“Yes, let’s do it.”

We start, me massaging her lower back as we do. It is gentle and slow. Only seconds after, a flood of fluid from her vagina.

“I think my waters just broke.”

Call the midwife.

“Hey, we think Jules’ water just broke.”
“Right, come in and we’ll see if it is or not. Get her to put a pad in and we’ll see you soon.”

Moaning through the car ride, driving careful down the freeway, heading west. Forty odd minutes after calling, we’re in the Family Birth Centre.

We’re expecting some sort of diagnostic kit, maybe one where you squeeze the pad onto a piece of paper and it goes a certain colour if it’s the waters. But it turns out the best diagnostic kit is an experienced midwife’s nose.

“Yep, definitely amniotic fluid,” she says. “But you’re not quite ready yet to start here. Go home and call us when the contractions are four in ten and two minutes each.”

So home we go.

Once home, Juliette tries to convince me to put a movie on. “This could go on for days, we may as well.” I am dubious.

Through our preparation I am confident. I know what to do.

“How about we go into our room and put on some music? Close the blinds and relax. Sound good?”

Indeed it does, and soon we have a lovely, dark space with a playlist Jules created during the months prior to this day. The bouncy ball is out, doing its bouncy thing, and as the music plays I’m reading one of two scripts: one from the hypnobirthing book, and one that I wrote for us.

The contractions intensify, becoming longer and more frequent. I have a feeling we’re getting deeper and deeper.

Through all this, water and whatever food she can stomach, which turns out to be one spoon of porridge. Well, it’s better than no spoon.

Hormone flood, muscles working hard to bring new life. Fingers light on her skin, a gentle caress and then strong counter-pressure on her hips. The earth spins on its axis and the sun climbs higher in the sky; now, we time the surges. They’re coming at the rate the midwife described.

On the phone. “Hi, I think we’re ready to come in, she’s at four in ten for two minutes.”

She tells us to come in, she’ll fill up the bath. We pack our bags, hasty, and jump in the car. Jules’ eyes are closed the whole way, the cars whizzing by us as I drive careful as can be. Arriving, there are no bays available next to the Family Birth Centre, so I park across the road and we waddle our way over, careful of cars on their busy ways.

So now here we are, in the place we’ll birth our child. We meet our midwife in the hallway, and she shows us to the room we’ve been assigned. It’s lovely, and though we came prepared with cheap electric tea lights, there’s already a soft, warm glow from a salt lamp that they’ve set up. The inflatable bath is filling up.

“Now, would you like us to do a cervical exam?” our midwife asks while we’re sitting down on the bed.

The moment the words leave her mouth, Jules enters a surge, and the ability to respond is quickly lost.

“Nevermind, let’s just get you in the shower,” she says.

Juliette strips and I get into board shorts. We’re back to the shower head method, and it’s working a treat. The music hasn’t stopped; a steady stream of jazz, soul and country is washing over us as the water does the same, each note and rhythm doing its own part in this dance of birth.

Time passes, I think. It’s hard to tell at the best of times which way the arrow of time is aimed, now even more so. Closer, perhaps, to the reality of time beyond cultural projections; where time swirls this way and that, no linear progression, glittering moments sparking backwards and forwards and our bodies a hormonal soup as we groove through crests and troughs felt by all who give birth and all who are birthed. Which is everything.

Our midwife rushed off at some point to assist with another woman’s active labour. We are now at the toilet, Jules straddling it backwards and me applying that same counter-pressure to her lower back. In the other room, mysterious sloshing sounds.

“I think we should go to the bath hun,” I say.

“No, I just need to poo.”

In my head, I’m thinking of the very real possibility that our baby will be born on the toilet.

“I think we should go to the bath.”

But now she’s pushing.

Our midwife pops her head in.

“Juliette, are you pushing?”

“I can’t help it!”

Together, we get her up off the toilet and move our way into the other room, which we then find is flooded, flooded up to the tops of our feet.

From water to water to water, now we’re in the bath. We’re in water, the midwives are in water. “The most watery water birth ever,” our midwife later says.

I’m behind Jules, holding her as she works hard to birth our child. Is that, yes, it’s a head. My hand on a head, a little hairy head. Molecules of water massaging her deep-squatting body Juliette births a baby boy; umbilical cord round his neck deftly unwound by the midwife, as Jules and I raise our son, Herbie Ralph, softly out of the water.

Later, we see that Grace, the midwife helping during active labour, was taking photos on Jules’ phone. Us, lifting him out, holding him, smiling ear to ear. The timestamp is exactly 2pm, 9 (ish) hours after onset. Exactly the time Jules would have had an exam that day. The best excuse ever.

But our baby boy is a bit shocked. He’s not breathing, not crying. I cut his umbilical cord, so that the midwives can take him out and put him on oxygen. After a brief moment’s hesitation, I run out with them.

These moments, between realising he wasn’t breathing and that glorious moment when his cry rang out through those corridors, are some of the scariest of my life. I’m holding his tiny hand as his lungs are flooded with oxygen, doctors and midwives crowding around this little portable bed in the middle of the hallway, and I’m too shocked to take it all in. People congratulate me, but all I can think of is whether my little boy is safe.

He screams; I never thought I would be so grateful to hear that noise.

We leave the corridor after everyone is sure he’s stable, and Jules is busy birthing his placenta. She’s turned down the artificial oxytocin, worrying the midwives somewhat, but in a moment of determination she pushes the great bloody thing out, along with a gush of blood that prompts our midwife to give her an injection, to stop the flow.

As this is happening, me and lil’ Herbie are having our first ever cuddle. It is the most amazing feeling in the world.

Juliette comes out to cuddle him and as a family, we sit on the bed amongst a flooded room, all of our spare clothes, my phone and many other belongings are soaked and I have lost my shirt. Through it all, I didn’t doubt for one second that Juliette could do this, that between us three we would do as good a job as we could.

And here we are, a family with our roots spread round the place, twisting and turning and interconnected like a healthy forest, loving and feeding our son with all our hearts. Nothing could be more precious.