The Peripheral Character’s View

It’s time to take a break from The Olde Running Tales and focus on slightly more important things, like a new life. Anyone not interested in that sort of stuff (i.e. men) should click away right now before they get queasy.

Niamh had started showing signs of things to come on Wednesday, so when I left work on Thursday evening I left detailed instructions for my co-workers in case I would not be in the office on Friday. My suspicions were more or less confirmed during dinner when Niamh had 3 contractions of increasing strength, and we soon retired to our bedroom to get everything ready.

Our midwife, Anne, had a lecture in Killarney until 10pm, but this was our fourth baby and we knew there would be more than enough time for her to finish the lecture and then come over here. We Niamh had chosen a home birth. If you check the statistics you’ll find that the success rate for those is as high as for hospital births (granted, this may not take into account the fact that high risk pregnancies always go into hospital). I don’t doubt that today’s doctors are highly competent in dealing with medical emergencies. My main problem with them is their attitude; they see everything as a potential medical emergency rather than a perfectly natural process, and in their eagerness to fix things often cause the very problems they claim to be handling. One person summed it up perfectly (I paraphrase): “we read lots of birth stories. The hospital stories were all about problems and how the medical people had saved the day. The home births stories simply did not feature any problems”. Anyway, let’s get back to our story.

By the time Anne arrived, Niamh’s contractions were less than 5 minutes apart, and generally lasted for over a minute; and they kept increasing in intensity. I had mentioned to Niamh how the on/off nature of contractions reminded me of interval training. She gracefully decided to agree with me, but thankfully that was the only time I felt it necessary to add some nerdy running thoughts to the proceedings. Things kept developing calmly for some time. Eventually Niamh started voicing her pain during contractions, but was fine in-between. By midnight she was in serious pain, and when I say serious pain I mean pain of the excruciating kind, the one that men will never have to endure, no matter what (good thing too, we wouldn’t be able to handle it). This was the worst part of the night; not just for her, but also for me. It’s hard to see your loved one in such agony and be completely helpless about it. Things started to progress, eventually the contractions weren’t as bad anymore and Niamh felt the urge to push. She had not taken any drugs whatsoever, and as a result she was completely with it, and instinctively knew the right things to do. The midwife’s role seemed to be to reassure her that she was doing perfect.

At that time we (that’s me, and Meg, a friend of Niamh) woke the children. That might horrify some people, but we had discussed it numerous times before. Shea had long ago stated categorically that he wanted to witness his sister being born. We initially refused, saying he would be scared by the blood and slime and by mummy crying in pain. However, he was adamant. He assured us he had read all of Niamh’s pregnancy books, he knew about the blood, the slime and the pain, and he definitely wanted to be there (btw, he’s 6 years old). Then Lola, his twin sister, decided she wanted to be there as well. Cian, our 3 year old, was flip-flopping on the issue like a politician, but the last instructions before going to bed had been to be woken, and that’s what we did. There was still some time before the birth, so Meg took them away into the kitchen, fed them biscuits, and brought them into our room with a couple of minutes to spare. Labour was progressing, and when the kids joined us, Niamh was pushing hard and well. The children’s faces spoke volumes. They were beaming with joy and excitement, and that's when I knew for sure that we had been right to allow them to be there. Shea twice took an alarmingly close look when the head was crowning. Later he described it as “in the shape of an eye”, which is both a perfect description and something only a child can come up with. I didn’t really see things at detail – I was required at the other end, holding Niamh’s hand and stroking her face. After what seemed like an age but was surely only a small amount of time Anne finally pulled the rest of the baby’s body out and gave her to Niamh to hold. She (the baby, that is) gave a little whimper when the air rushed into her lungs for the first time, but was quiet and placid, and, may I say it, content, for the rest of time. She was immediately alert, kept looking around her with great big eyes, taking in all she could. As soppy as it is, I’ve never been in a room so full of love as at that moment in time.

I’m so glad we had a home birth. There would have been plenty of opportunity for the medical people to interfere. The waters broke quite late, and the cord had been wrapped around the baby’s neck which initially alarmed me, or at least it would have had the midwife not been so calm and matter-of-factly about it. And surely Lola whispering into Niamh’s ear “that’s Good Pain, mummy” beats a doctor shouting “push, push” anytime.

As you might be relieved to know, I did not run on Friday. I knew all along that the 15 mile run that would have been on the cards had the baby not arrived that day was out of question, but thought I would be able to sneak out for 4 or 5 miles. However, it never happened. In the evening Niamh said to Maia, “your daddy didn’t run today because of you. You have no idea how big a deal that is.” I fell to bed utterly exhausted at 9:30, slept like a log until 4:30 am, and then watched Niamh nursing the baby, and later I changed her nappy. By 6 am I was wide-awake and decided to go out for the run that I had missed on Friday. Niamh had her parents and her sister for help, and I very much enjoyed my guilt-free 2 hours of solitude on a lap around Caragh Lake. I’ll still have to compromise over the next few days and weeks, and there’s no doubt where the priorities will be.

2 Nov

0 miles

3 Nov

15.5 miles, 1:55:44, 7:28 pace, HR 156