Reflections on Fatherhood
- Chris Maunder
- Apr 23, 2022
- 6 min read
In the Theatre
Beatrice Violet was born at 11.56 a.m. on Friday March 18th. Natalie had a planned Caesarian because of a previous operation that made a natural birth risky. We turned up at Harrogate Hospital at 7.15 but found that another woman was to be taken into the theatre first, and so we had to wait. We entered the reception area for theatre at about 10.45. Then the preparations began. Natalie wasn’t sure whether the anaesthetic had taken fully but she was wheeled in for the operation and, for the first time in my life, I was invited in to become an observer of an operation, but certainly not a detached one!
Operating theatres are so called because they were originally places where people observed from the gallery, in order to learn from the procedure. With my own wife by my side, attached to cannulas and with a low sheet separating us from where they were cutting her open, I certainly did feel a sense of the drama of the theatre. There seemed to be a cast of thousands in there: nurses, anaesthetists, and operating assistants. We found out later that one young trainee physiotherapist (training at York St John) was attending her first ever operation. Among all these people, the surgeon entered last like the lead actor in a play or the conductor of an orchestra.
Natalie began to complain that the anaesthetic was not working; she was feeling the incisions more than she should. You should be able to feel a Caesarian so that you know it is happening, but not with the pain that Natalie was experiencing. It was taking longer than it should have done; afterwards the surgeon said that they had had difficulty locating the baby! They found a foot, but then had to put it back. To this day, we are not really sure why that was the case, and we have asked for a post-natal debrief consultation. Natalie was offered general anaesthetic but hung on so that she could experience the birth of her daughter; she accepted the offer immediately afterwards.
I had been allowed to take a mobile phone in and my job was to capture the moment in a photograph. I got the back of a blooded head appearing above the separating sheet. Then they took the baby away from the operating table, and we heard the wonderful sound of the first cry, which tells you that the baby is breathing. I did attend a birth once before, by natural delivery, when a single friend asked me to accompany her in support. That baby took several seconds to breathe, which caused some anxiety; fortunately it didn’t happen with Bea.
The moment when Bea first cried and we heard her across the room seemed to me to be a most sacred moment. The theatre turned into a temple for a moment. As an amateur astrologer, I noted that the digital clock prominent in the room read 11.57 at that moment, although the birth was recorded as 11.56, presumably the clock reading when the baby emerged from the womb.
The delivery complete, the father is asked to go over to the cot where the baby is being looked after and the remainder of the umbilical cord is cut. There were two nurses there, a midwife and the trainee physiotherapist. We were asked as a group to take the baby out as Natalie was to be stitched back up. There was a sense of urgency in ushering us out which made me uneasy. Natalie was being put under for the remainder of the operation and had lost blood. Altogether she lost two litres although we did not know that at the time! So I moved to the recovery area with mixed emotions: the joy of holding my new-born daughter coupled with anxiety over the condition of my wife. Fortunately, Natalie emerged at about 1 o’clock just in time for the first feed. Remarkably, she recovered very quickly and you wouldn’t have thought that there had been any problem as we enjoyed that first afternoon and evening with Bea in the labour ward.
On the Front Line
I have had plenty of time to prepare for fatherhood; at 69, I am the oldest first-time father that I have heard about, although I’m sure it is not a record! My own great-grandfather was 72 at the birth of my grandfather, although he already had several children. The major drawback to pensioner fatherhood is that you are unlikely to see your children much into their adulthood; I will be 80 when Bea turns 11, and 90 when she gets the key to the door at 21. If I see her grow to Natalie’s present age, I will be 101. On the positive side, she is likely to keep me young!
A lot of material that you read and people that you speak to emphasise the arduous nature of parenthood. As one person joked, ‘It is only difficult for the first 30 years!’ A book on fatherhood that Natalie bought me for Christmas would put anybody off! It was ruggedly realistic about the pressures. I suppose it’s a case that, if you tell people that something will be very challenging, they will decide that it’s not so bad after all, and that was the case with us. (The opposite is also true: never tell someone that a film they are about to see is brilliant, as this will raise expectations too far and spoil their enjoyment!) The joy and excitement of having one’s own child far outweighs the hard work.
Of course, one is a bit overwhelmed at first by the sheer number of daily feeds and nappy changes. Natalie is breast feeding and so, apart from the odd bottle in which we have used expressed breast milk, I haven’t been doing the feeding, although there are a lot of bottles to sterilise! I have, of course, taken my turn at nappy changing. The first few were difficult as Bea yelled but she got used to it just as we did, and things quickly settled down to her lying there contentedly. The secret is to make sure the baby isn’t hungry when you do the nappy changing, or any dressing and undressing. If she is, the crying will make you think that you have accidentally broken her arms and legs, but of course it is simply a question of her priorities: feeding before changing, please.
I was at times cursing Nature in the first couple of weeks: the beginning of life is a struggle for the baby, and it looks agonising. She is either terribly hungry, or suffering wind, or crying with the effort of pushing out the poo. It isn’t her fault that she yells with a high pitched and penetrating yell; one day you will tell her but she won’t remember a single moment. Nature doesn't make it easy for new parents, it is true. You feel that the baby needs you to be alert and awake, but she is the very reason that you’re not. But that’s the nature of Nature: new life comes with a struggle, and the midwives and health visitor keep asking the mother if she’s suffering with depression. Fortunately, Natalie has not been. All the way through, she has been brilliantly well-organised and is a natural mother, not that she would agree with me saying that.
Nevertheless, our generation has had it as easy as any generation has ever done, with – in addition to a team of health experts in support – electric sterilisers, a wide range of baby-friendly clothes, and fool-proof inter-fitting carry cot, car chair, and walker. Natalie is also fortunate (I think) to have me at home each day. So, after five weeks, I can tell you that we have achieved a good routine and are all well and happy! Teddy has got used to her too. The one problem is that it takes us several hours to leave the house, as Bea wants her feeds and nappy changes without regard for the schedule. If we arrange to see you, give us a two hour allowance on the meeting time!
Neptune
After my remarks above on the birth time, I’m sure that at least some of you are keen to know what that entails for Bea in astrological terms, given that we were able to calculate the horoscope so accurately. The baby had kept us waiting for her own good reasons, it seems. Between 11.56 and 11.57 on the 18th March in Harrogate, the planet Neptune reached the highest point in the sky, very close to the Sun in one direction and Jupiter in the other. Neptune is the planet which rules Bea’s sun sign of Pisces, and so it is very prominent in her horoscope. It indicates, apart from the obvious (Neptune is god of the sea and Pisces are the fish), the supernatural and mystical. Neptune is the ‘mystic’ in Holst’s Planet Suite. So I predict for Bea a love of water and the sea, and in time, a developing strong instinct for the very things that brought Natalie and myself together: religion and spirituality. Of course, she may go through a period of rejecting the things that her parents feel are important, but I don’t think that she is going to be able to leave them permanently. I have just published a book titled ‘Mary, Founder of Christianity’, and I think I may have a daughter who will found a religion one day!
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