As a midwife, it’s incredibly important to me to involve the partner in the birth whenever the couple wishes. Sometimes this is quite difficult, especially if we agree with Michel Odent’s theory that partners don’t belong in the delivery room. You don’t know the couple from before, you don’t know what their relationship is like. So you turn on all your radars to figure out as quickly as possible how to connect things most easily. I also love listening to fathers who want to share THEIR BIRTH STORIES. It’s clear to me that they suffer immensely watching their partner in pain. That’s often when their character shows. Some withdraw a little, others nurture/cuddle her even more, others become aggressive… It’s certainly important to listen to them after the birth too, to understand them better and find your way more easily with the next couple…
This is their story, told his way. Thank you:
First, I have to say that this is an experience that goes beyond any thinking, knowledge, or preparation. I didn’t read much, I listened a bit to what my partner told me here and there, we watched a few movies… I trusted my intuition… I think that’s key for both the woman and the man… If men can listen to their intuition, they’ll be of the greatest help to the woman, in my opinion…
Why do I say it goes beyond any thinking, all ideas……
Because I don’t like hospitals at all, because I’m deathly afraid of roads and drivers, because I had a whole bunch of ideas about how it should go…… but the event was so powerful, at least for me, that everything just led me from one thing to another; everything had so much more power that thoughts couldn’t prevail….
She wanted to give birth in a certain hospital that really repelled me; I prayed to myself that it wouldn’t be there, I had several reasons, and intuitively I wasn’t drawn there either… I grumbled out loud a bit too, which I know now isn’t the best… When I called that hospital that morning, I put the phone on speaker so she could hear everything too… and they were very unkind… at least that’s how I experienced them, because it was an important event for me…
I remember we were both still confused the night before, we didn’t know anything, not really about anything, even if you read or watch videos, you don’t know anything… and she had a feeling she might just give birth… we were lucky to meet a wonderful doula…
For most of the pregnancy, my partner was quite confused, so she asked me to do the talking… So we spoke with the doula a few times before… And on that evening, we exchanged a few texts that helped calm me down, saying that the birth probably wasn’t that close yet… The doula was very brave; she didn’t say she wouldn’t give birth, but said that my partner should listen to herself, trust herself, that I should support her, but that based on what was said, it didn’t seem like it was time yet…… That doula was exactly the right person for me then…. As I said, I took things into my own hands because my partner was fully in her body and the process, and it was an honor for me to be able to lead.
I slept infinitely restlessly that night…
In the morning, we still didn’t know anything, how far along it was…
After talking to the doula (know that at least in my opinion, and I’m not advertising, I’m just thrilled because it went so smoothly, Slovenian doulas are really top-notch, mainly because at least some have so much courage to trust their intuition and less on rote learning, although they master physical needs and all medical rules and much more…) we both surrendered to intuition. I listened to my partner, even though I didn’t quite believe she was having real contractions because she was quite calm… She didn’t scream or sigh at all… just every now and then it hurt a little… you know how we men are used to looking suspiciously at women’s pain… But when she said she wanted to go, that she felt she should go, I listened to her, even though my male side was still a bit suspicious, and we drove off peacefully… everything flowed beautifully… we listened to music she liked… that kind of female music, Joni Mitchell, Sheryl Crow…
There were also no complications on the road or with parking the car…
I really have to congratulate my partner here because even though she’s very thin and was trembling with fear of childbirth throughout the pregnancy, she didn’t panic at all. Maybe a tip for all pregnant women – I personally respect what naturally happens in a woman’s body and I supported her in resting when she felt sick during pregnancy, so she lay down almost the whole time for the first three months…. and I think that’s an incredibly important thing, because that way she prepared at least a little for the new life, for the birth, for all those pains in the body, changes in the body… even though she wasn’t at peace with the birth and the arrival of the child at all before the birth, I know she gave herself the chance to at least subconsciously align with those rhythms……..
At the hospital, we were met by the first midwife, very young, and I immediately felt we were in the right hands, purely intuitively… I immediately joked with the midwife about all sorts of things, she was really relaxed, and that relaxed me a lot too… I think if a man is relaxed, it can also really help the birth be better, more beautiful, because he can be attentive and help the laboring woman and act as a filter for the exchange of information between the staff and her.
In the meantime, I went to re-park the car and when I returned, I was surprised because my partner was already on a real hospital bed. Here I saw that my partner is really strong because she didn’t complain at all at home, and that she listens to herself really well, that she obviously feels herself fully, because she gave the right signal at the right time for us to go to the hospital… and now she was already 4 cm dilated or I don’t know exactly how much…. as much as is ideal… A second midwife was with us now because the first one had unfortunately finished her shift… At first, I was a bit disappointed that the first one wouldn’t be with us, but I soon saw that the second midwife was the right one for us at that moment… She was kind and gentle… I’m very grateful to her for that… It was nice for me that she was so gentle that I could literally take things into my own hands. My partner had to focus on herself anyway, she was completely in it, but I knew her, we had discussed everything before, I knew exactly what she wanted and she trusted me.
We had talked to the doula on the phone earlier about how I should talk to the staff so they wouldn’t manipulate us or our wishes, because they were different than usual… I was ready… I advise every man to take care of as many of these peripheral things as possible, to deal with these contacts, because it’s best for the woman to be completely inside… as deep as possible in the birth, especially in the cramps….contractions…
So I wrote our requests on a piece of paper and handed them to the second midwife and asked her if we could have as much privacy as possible…. She respected it, and she told the others too… So I can calmly say that we were alone in the delivery room three-quarters of the time… My partner wanted a completely natural birth, and to a large extent she had it, almost completely, I could say…
The whole time we listened to gentle Slovenian music, which we had also listened to throughout the pregnancy…
We didn’t talk much… We waited for the midwife’s instructions… And followed them…. And we talked to the doula via text… I trusted her the most… Since she had helped us the most so far… So everything flowed as it should…
When the contractions started, the real ones, actually they had already started when I was re-parking the car, everything flowed smoothly…
The only thing that didn’t seem okay to me was what the midwife also told us, that my partner was losing a lot of energy by screaming during contractions… she advised her to direct the energy into the baby, into the birth…. I remember all the movies about birth, and my opinion is that they are very harmful, they teach a false faith… women screaming…. they lose focus because of it….
Why am I writing this… because she wanted a natural birth, and she carried it out flawlessly, smoothly, quickly up to 90 percent… then, in my opinion, she probably ran out of strength because of the screaming and other things…. so she had to decide on a minimal dose of artificial contractions when it became a bit critical for the baby… at least that’s what they told us…. but I think otherwise you don’t have to take everything very seriously, because doctors are afraid of responsibility and prefer to scare us a little….
Once in between, students wanted to come and watch; when I looked at my partner and she shook her head, I immediately forbade it, of course…. it made me a bit furious… such an intimate event…
Right at the end, a doctor came into the room and scared us that it was necessary to get the baby out, which in its own way wasn’t so bad because a bit of a firm hand was needed after all, or maybe not, I don’t know how seriously the baby was at risk because the water had broken about an hour before, if I’m not mistaken… it’s a nice feeling if everything flows naturally, smoothly, so if I had known it wasn’t that bad, I wouldn’t have allowed the doctor to intervene, but I didn’t know…. it’s true, though, that my partner was already very exhausted and given that situation, it was the right time……
I was with her the whole time, trying to massage her back, holding her hands, etc.
As a man, I’ll tell you that I felt a bit faint twice in between… The first time I don’t remember exactly, it was probably partly because I started to feel sorry for my partner, I saw she was really suffering, she was straining so much… The second time I know exactly that my head spun a bit when the doctor took the scissors in her hands, butcher-like ones, because she had to cut her a bit so the baby’s hand wouldn’t tear her too much… I didn’t collapse, I just had to hold onto a chair for a bit. I felt so bad for my partner, what agony she had to endure and I was proud of her… She was golden… Thank you…
Well, and then our little boy quickly slipped into the world… he was wonderful… I was surprised that he was so beautiful, because in movies you often see anything but something beautiful… We immediately placed him on the mother’s chest first, who was of course crying with relief, everything… then we didn’t want to complicate things too much because we were the very last ones in the hospital… and we just let them do all the essentials, but I was there the whole time and tried to touch the boy….. that’s more or less what my feelings dictated to me then…
then I finally sat down too, because I stood for most of the birth; as far as I remember, the whole thing lasted only 4 hours, it really went by in a flash for me…. and then I held the boy for the first time in my life and cradled him in my arms… I could sit like that for a long time while she lay on the bed because we were alone…. But then some rough nurse came and took them both elsewhere, and I had to say goodbye… I tell you, it’s far from easy for a daddy to just leave…. and I really didn’t like that… I visited them every day as much as possible, even though I had to drive far, and I was quite nervous because of it, I missed my son, and I wanted to be by her side when they were so fragile and alone…
Photo: random
