Pritesh Parmar from Leeds Dads had a surprise when his lounge was suddenly turned into an emergency maternity suite.Prolonged contractions led to the midwife performing what my wife Nicola called a ‘tickle and sweep’. Nothing happened, and an examination confirmed she was barely 1cm dilated. We were sent home, although contractions were every 5 minutes, lasting 2-3 minutes each time.
Back home, Nicola was still in screaming pain, so we arranged to return to the hospital. I helped her to the back door, when Nicola’s waters burst. Then there was no holding back.
I still remember being on the phone, repeating our postcode to Emergency Services.
With their direction, Nicola pushed, and in just minutes, Nana and I delivered the baby.
Emergency Services stayed on the line to make sure we heard the baby’s first cry. It felt like the world paused.
I was ecstatic when he started to bawl. “Baby and mum are fine” I said, “we have a baby boy.” Within moments an ambulance pulled up, and it was time to cut the cord.
Zachary Hari Parmar decided he wanted to meet his mum and dad almost four weeks sooner than expected. During the birth I felt my adrenaline pumping, although Nicola and Nana June were calm and very cool.
The only thing that put us off our home birth was that seven medical professionals wandered into our house to check that our baby was okay.
Better more than less, I suppose.
Blog post courtesy of @LeedsDad
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