It was about 4.00pm and we were taken to another room. There wasn’t much to do and so we watched TV and tried to catch a little sleep. I remember wondering how things would progress and how we could possibly be about to meet a baby. Around 7.00 am, Deena’s contractions started to get a bit stronger. She wasn’t even two centimeters dilated and I wondered how long this might all take. A little later, I phoned Deena’s grandparents in Watertown. They wanted to come before the promised winter storm arrived (John was born just before a huge snow storm).
Things slowly started to speed up. Darius arrived with Izzy and this coincided with Deena going into some real pain. They gave her some kind of wacky “happy juice” and that seemed to do the job for an hour or so. I sneaked down to the café for a quick breakfast and felt a little guilty for leaving. Soon after, Deena reached 5cm after two very hard contractions. The effects of the “happy juice” had worn off and she received an epidural. The guy who administered it was really nice. He had a friendly face with a friendly beard and several hours later, when he had some time, he dropped by to be one of Baby John’s first visitors. I was pleased to get a photo of him.
Dolores our nurse and the anesthetist
Deena had had problems with the epidural not taking when she gave birth to Izzy and we found out this time that the reality is that epidurals simply don’t seem to work on her. We didn’t know it at the time, but she was about to give birth naturally with virtually nothing to stop the pain – to this day, I am immensely proud of her!
By 1.00pm, Deena was 8cm dilated and at 2.00pm Doctor Gudvangen arrived with all the equipment and a couple of nurses – we were go for liftoff! Apparently, it takes on average about 2 hours for a mum-to-be like Deena to deliver a baby – Deena did it in one hour twenty minutes. There were a few things against her. Firstly, she had to learn how to push. This seems like a silly thing to say, but it was one of the biggest things that she learned from the experience (don’t say it too loudly, but the next one should be easier….). Baby John wasn’t cooperating either. He was facing upwards instead of down and even worse, he had his hand over his head. This made delivery more difficult and much more painful for my wonderful wife. It seemed that John was eager to enter the world but determined to make it tough. I felt completely useless. All I could do was hold one of Deena’s legs and shout things like “push”, “that’s good” and “you’re nearly there.” Mostly, I just repeated what the doctor said and so after a while I tried to shut up. Baby was close now. We could see that he had some hair but he had been close to birth for nearly an hour. Suddenly, Deena really pushed hard and at 3.22pm on 30th January 2011 a head suddenly appeared. A quick push later and John Dean Alec Rushton was born.
The first ever photo of John taken just after he had squeezed my finger
I felt like crying and soon after, I did. The doctor immediately put John on Deena’s chest. John was crying and it was such a wonderful sound (three weeks later, I view it rather differently…..). The doctor gave me a pair of scissors and asked me to cut the cord. I did and John was an independent human being. After a few minutes, they took John over to a crib, cleaned him up and did a few tests (that he passed with glowing colours). I sneaked over and put the little finger on my right hand into his left hand. He grasped it and it was one of the most wonderful moments of my life.
Who are you looking at?
