And then we got there, and then all hell broke loose. And I got in first, and they told me, I went to get the lift, call the lift, and then they rushed her in, and we were upstairs in a flash into the room and as we got there, the what do I remember next? Being taken to a room and told to sit in the corner.
Then it was crash team time. The call was put out. And suddenly there were people flying into the room. I was still in this corner. I saw them pulling jewellery off and I think some, I forget what it was now, I was just told, and then I realised something was going horribly wrong.
And then I said, “Is the baby all right?” And one of the nurses turned to me and said, “Well his heart’s still being. His or her….” Not his, we didn’t know it was a he. “The baby’s heart’s still beating.” And I thought, “Oh right.”
What happened then? I just watched what was going on. I had nothing to do. I was powerless, completely powerless. But I knew that if, I knew that I couldn’t do anything, and I did have, I suppose I put my faith in that moment, into [wife]’s ability to get through it. And the crash team’s ability to deal with it.
And then she was off. And I was just told to sit there and wait. The room was emptied, there was nothing in there but a chair and whatever was fixed to the walls. So I just sat there and waited.
And then a little while later, and I don’t think it was minutes later. It must have been a few minutes later, a nurse came in, and said, “It’s a boy. And he scored 9 on the APGAR scale.” And I was like, “I’m sorry” [laughs]. I didn’t even know what an APGAR scale was. I didn’t know if that was good or bad. And she, “Don’t worry it wasn’t a ten, hardly any of them get to ten.” And so I said, “All right.” And then she disappeared.
And I sat there a little while longer and then I remember getting and walking out. It must have been an hour later, I don’t know. I lost track of time, but I thought maybe it was an hour later. I walked out and found the theatre, and I saw. As I was still outside they brought a trolley out, it was an incubator, and I looked thinking is he in there, and he wasn’t and I thought. Where the hell is this baby? And I looked through the doors and I could see you lying on the table, and something which I presume was the placenta in the tray. Still no sign of the baby.
And then I went back to the room and eventually the nurse, or midwife came back and had the baby, [son], in her arms, and she handed him over to me, and I said, “How do you hold a baby.” Because I just realised then, I’d never actually held a new born baby and I just held onto him. Got a bit emotional and then waited for them to wheel [wife] out into recovery. It must have been ages. I don’t know how long it took, but it was a while. And then I brought [son] in, and said, “Here’s [son].”
And at some point while we were there, the obstetrician I guess, came in and said that you’d given consent, you were drugged up at that point, to having the emergency caesarean. You were on a drip and having blood pumped back into you and I remember being slightly surprised at the amount of blood that had been lost as the units went in. And, there we were just with little else to do except watch and wait for things to sort of calm down I suppose.