Nate’s birth story is featured on Mama.ie today! I’m really pleased that Lisa let me share my positive birth story with her readers. It really was an easy birth!

Now that you’ve heard the birth story, I thought I’d share our post-birth story. Chris will kill me for this. I was part of the Community Midwives scheme in Holles St, so it was just me, Chris and our midwife, Fiona, in the deliver room. Every so often Fiona would have to leave to check on women just arriving to the ward or to answer the pager. She told us she was never more than a couple of doors away and that there were lots of other midwives nearby. If anything were to happen and we needed help we were to push a big red button behind the bef. Of course, she meant if I were to start delivering the baby with no one around or had some other emergency.

Well, after Nate was born, the cord was cut and he was given to me to nurse. Fiona had to leave the room for a moment to check on another woman in labor, so she left the three of us alone to enjoy the moment. Nate didn’t nurse for long before he started crying. Chris and I both panicked. This was the first baby either of us had seen in about 15 years. We were exhausted, tired, totally loopy and the baby was obviously distressed. (We had yet to learn that babies cry, a lot). Chris, my hero, jumped into action. Baby is crying. Can’t stop it. Must be something wrong. Push. The. Button.

Within seconds several midwives ran into the room and stared at us holding the crying baby. Fiona jumped into the room. “Is everything OK with the baby?” I said I didn’t know, he was crying and I didn’t know what to do. She just laughed and ushered the confused group of midwives out of the room. Then she put her arm around us and said, “I think you both need a cup of tea.”

I think Nate looks very suspicious of the silly parents he just got.