Tuesday 17 November 2009

Happy Birthday, Speedy

Today is Kyle's birthday. I can't believe my baby boy is now sixteen.

He's such a good lad and we are incredibly proud of him. His sister Sasha, has great musical and dramatic talents, but he, is an academic genius. In the summer, he took three GCSEs a year early and got 3 A*s and he's set to get the same with the rest next summer. He'll hopefully also take an AS early too, so he really is doing spectacularly well.

His school only ever has good things to say about him and I marvel at how self-motivated he is, how he just gets on with his work without any nagging from me. I was never like that. He's definitely his father's son and Sasha, bless her, takes after me in the brain stakes!

I should have realised he would be a go-getter from the way he was born. I remember it as if it were yesterday ....

Sasha had taken a good 36 hours to make her entry into the world. I spent the first eight hours or so at home, enduring more and more painful contractions and trying to stay graceful and calm, until I could take it no more and went to hospital only to find that I was only two centimetres dilated. TWO !!!! It took another 24 hours for the child to make an appearance and believe me all grace and calm went out the window.

This time round, just a year later, I was determined to wait as long as possible before going into hospital. So when the contractions started at three in the afternoon, I decided that I would just ignore them as I guessed there would be no baby before the following afternoon at the earliest. I called Ewan to warn him not to take on any new projects but not to rush home. I spent the rest of the day with my gorgeous baby Sasha as I knew it would be the last time she would ever have me all to herself. I was rolling around on the floor with her, and letting her clamber all over me and all the time I tried to take no notice of the worsening pain that was coming at increasingly shorter intervals. I did start to worry at about five-thirty that maybe the baby's arrival was not far off when suddenly, everything just stopped. No contractions, nothing.

I felt extremely smug that I had been clever enough to stay at home and ride out the pain and then got on with giving Sasha her bath and dinner and putting her to bed with an extra special kiss and cuddle. It was as I lowered her into her cot that the pains started again but I wasn't going to be fooled into going to hospital too early and so I settled down to watch "EastEnders" which was a really important and dramatic episode that revealed a storyline that was far too important to be distracted by mere labour pains!

My parents were staying with us at the time and my dad knew instantly I was suffering because he noticed me clenching my toes every time I had a contraction!! He said I needed to get to hospital as he could see they were coming pretty fast but I said I knew better and that they would soon stop again. The poor man started pacing then and I'm sure I didn't do his heart any favours as I then, stubbornly sat and watched the Paul McKenna show! By the end of that though, the pain was pretty intense.

I asked Ewan to run me a bath and I calculated that if I had a leisurely soak in warm water, it would help ease the pain and give me a few more hours at home. However, just as I went to step into the tub, my waters broke and from that point on there were no more contractions just continuous, excruciating pain. I told Ewan to call an ambulance as I needed gas and air but they just laughed and told him it was as easy to take me to hospital himself.

We got in the car and had only reached the end of our road when suddenly I could feel the baby's head. I told Ewan and he had the cheek to say he didn't think I could, so I grabbed his hand off the steering wheel and put it up my skirt so he could feel for himself. I have never seen the colour drain out of someone so fast! He became like a man possessed, driving on pavements, jumping lights, swearing at pedestrians who dared use the zebra crossing. This was Ewan - my mild-mannered, even-tempered husband who was, by the way, shouting at me to shut up everytime I screamed with pain, asking how I could have been so stupid to have left it for so long. He was a different man!

He screeched to a halt outside the maternity unit where a few midwives were clearly waiting to be collected now that their shifts were over and he jumped out of the car and shouted the immortal line "MY WIFE IS HAVING A BABY" !! One of them pointed to the entrance but he screamed "NO SHE'S HAVING IT NOW!"

She sauntered over to the car, took one look at me and then threw her bag on the floor. After a quick feel she shouted, even louder than Ewan, "I NEED SUPPORT HERE .... NOWWWWW !!"

And all I remember, is that three minutes later, still in the car, Kyle was in my arms and Ewan was next to me, in shock. It took him a good couple of weeks to recover from that and even now he doesn't laugh when I tell the story. He adores his boy though.

So do I.

Happy Birthday my darling Kyle! I love you ....so, so much.

6 comments:

  1. What a wonderful story! Not the pain, or the panic drive, obviously. Although, I'm sorry I was laughing, the mental image of Ewan driving like a demon! It's just the fact as mums already, we think we know what we're doing then, as usual, babies/children/teens, throw us a curve ball...Lovely, lovely story.
    Happy Birthday Kyle!

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  2. OMG!!!!!!!! What a story! I love it. Your first labour sounded just like my first one - except I was turned away from hospital twice for not being dilated even 1cm. Oh the hideous disappointment I felt. I remember it well!! But this is fantastic. And well done you for bearing that pain for so long. Glad it turned out ok in the end. And Happy Birthday Kyle. Your Mummy loves you lots xxx

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  3. Happy birthday, Kyle!

    Makes me glad the wife and I had our little 'un by appointment. Caesarian is so civilized. In and out of theatre in half an hour.

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  4. Selina....
    thnks for sharing the storey.....
    Happy birthday,....Kyle the great..

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  5. Great story! Our first girly was text book and the second girly anything but! Sounds like you have children to be proud of, well done!

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  6. Nothing like a good car birth to bring back story time, eh?

    Parents like to relive my side of the highway entrance into the world yearly as well...Happy birthday Kyle! Enjoy 16.

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