Coming home

On the way out of the hospital we got curious and smiling looks from everybody around. Even for strangers, seeing a new life must be really special. It filled us with joy also.

First time driving a car with a newborn baby was a bit scary. The car seat was for newlyborns, however he looked so incredibly small in there, too small! And he would just slump together like a sack with his head everywhere, and it would look uncomfortable. After some fussing, we managed to get the seat belt on. But this head... We came up with the idea of supporting his head on some cloth so he wouldn't look so distressed.

Daddy cannot remember ever having driven so carefully. And military experience made us take "technical stop" a couple of times to check out the cargo, adjust any straps etc. Baby was fast asleep and everything looked dandy.

We had been getting communications from home that our arrival was expected and restlessly awaited. When we pulled into the driveway grandparents, 3 in number, came out to welcome us. This felt really special, everybody was just smiles.
Upon entering the house, everything looked a lot more tidy than when we left, and it smelled of freshly cleaned floors everywhere. There were some fun stories of the cleaning cooperation project between parties who did not share a common language.

The first order of business was to eat dinner! We were very hungry, despite having had dinner at the hospital only a couple of hours earlier. And then there's a party. There were napkins with "Happy Birthday" on them, the coffee table was set with cakes and candies, the playpen was decorated with balloons, there were gifts... definitely a birthday party alright.

However, after a hard ordeal, a long day with new experience for us all, tiredness overtook us, and we started preparing for bed.

Preparing for bed is one thing, going through with it quite another. Magnus felt he had had more than enough of new experiences for the day, so upon being put in his new bed, he would have none of it. He cried LOUDLY for several hours. Nobody in the house slept until he quieted down around 5am... but by then it was nice to sleep for young and old. Another day over.

At the hospital

After only all too few hours of sleep a nurse came in at 8.30 and presented herself as the one in charge of us on the new shift, and that we had better go get some food before the breakfast would close.

This was a new life. We got a small room with 2 beds in it plus Magnus' bed-on-wheels; our family room. If we needed anything, we could go out to the duty room and find help, and otherwise, we were checked up on at every changing-of-the-guards each 8hrs. Mama preferred to stay put in the room; she hurt in her body after the past couple of days of hard labor and was mostly preoccupied with feeding and sleeping.

Daddy was the one to go get food for each meal. There was a line consisting of 200 (many, at least) tired-looking ladies, half of which were bringing with them beds-on-wheels with cute and crying babies in them, and then there was me, the only rooster in the basket. (Actually not true, there were a couple more family rooms with daddies in them, but they were few) At first I felt kinda out of place, with a slight touch of red in my cheeks pronouncing "family room" so I'd get two portions of food. After a while, however, I felt more at home in these new surroundings. But none of those babies were as cute as mine, of course. Fortunately for the others they didn't need to discover this since Magnus was with his mama while daddy was on the chow line.

Now, the biggest duty of the day was learning to feed Magnus - we couldn't go home until he could be fed. This could be difficult, and unfortunately all the brochures and books around were in norwegian, so daddy had to read it all and explain. I quickly became an expert in breast feeding. And seeing as many of the vacation-influenced hospitals nurses and midwives were swedish temps, swedish being a rather difficult norwegian accent for Muna, guess who had to go ask all the questions over in the duty room when something was not working out? Yep, you guessed it, every time catching the smiles of every nurse and midwife in the immediate vicinity. "Hey, here is a daddy with questions about breastfeeding!"

The ultimate episode was when I was sent out to get some hemmoroid-soothing cream for the hurting mama. Now, these nurses were all too used to all the sore and hurting nipples in the area, and didn't catch that it was hemmoroid-cream I asked for. This woman, after digging out some cream in a cabinet turned to me and said "But surely you don't have sore nipples!"I think they will remember me for some time to come...

Another duty was learning how to change diapers. Mama was previously a pronounced sceptic of diapers and the changing thereof, and although daddy had tried this before what needed to be learned was how this little breakable baby body was supposed to be handled during the process. But as a matter of course; it wasn't all that difficult anyway. Unfortunately for Nurse Carina we had to name her pooping Carina, because she was the one to teach us the art of diaper-changing, and strangely enough every time she came to look at Magnus (take his temperature, for example) he just pooped and pooped a lot.

The greatest duty was to learn how to clean Magnus. We took station in a sort of labroom with a couple of sinks, and daddy was taken through the bathing process. What a joy! Although Magnus was a bit of a sceptic in the beginning, he obviously enjoyed being sunk into water. To have those big eyes look trustingly up at you with a pleasurable smile of sorts while you go through the motions of cleaning eyes and ear, neck and hair is just amazing. And a wet baby with wild hair in a big towel is an incredibly cute sight.

In the afternoon on the first day, a bundle of grandparents came to visit, which was very nice. Magnus seemed to like it, too - he slept equally well on everybody's arm and looked real good on pictures. Somehow everybody looks good with him around. Daddy fell asleep in the middle of the visit, but hey, who cares about such details. Both cell phones were beeping non-stop all day, pouring in SMS's with congratulations and well-wishes for the fresh family.

Second day was a hard day for mama. Daddy went out for some errands, and somebody came and took baby away for vaccines and tests. Mama just wanted to cry when baby was not there. She had to go back three times to look before they admitted that he was ready now. Also Magnus had his first doctor's visit, and everything was pronounced to be fine.

Daddy was busy picking up a car seat from the store, getting a haircut and other little things, like getting a gift for the exhausted mama. That was an incredibly gratifying thing to do. I both looked and felt tired when I walked into this jewelry store, and a lady came over and asked if I needed any help. Yes, I was thinking to find something for my wife. She asked if there was a special occation, and yes, I had to admit so. She had just given birth to our first baby, which was cause for some celebration. Now the lady completely melted and called the rest of the staff over; the rest of the store did no longer exist, and they tripped over themselves in finding the right thing for my wife, the freshly baked mama. They ended up rummaging through the back of the store where they knew they had a beautiful golden heart that used to be nicely discounted, and I was offered both the expired discount and a card to go with it and a lot of wellwishing on the way out. That was a definite highlight of the day, and along with Muna's tearful smile when she opened the gift, it completely made my day, not to mention the whole week.

Some time during that day we started thinking about going home. We didn't know how long we could stay in the hospital, and would rather make a decision than suddenly be told we had to leave. We arranged for an exit-interview with the midwife-in-charge that evening so we could leave the next morning. More visitors came today, and also a photographer from the newspaper. That is nice, we'll get our picture in the newspaper!

Thursday morning started with a another nurse knocking at our door (there sure are many of them around this place). She was wondering if she could borrow Magnus for some more blood sample. Okay, if you must, just remember to bring him back! She came back alright, and regretted to say that his bilirubin numbers were too high - baby was turning yellow. Unfortunately this meant we could not go home after all. The midwife complainted that the only exit interview she got to do the previous day turned out to be for a couple that didn't leave after all.

So in order to reduce Magnus' bilirubin level, he had to go to the beach. He was fitted with special baby sunglasses of sorts and put in a solarium box. He had to stay there all the time except for feeding time. It was kind of weird to see him in there, but we didn't have much to say about it. Our family room was now strangely empty. At the first feeding, or rather a bit before expected, the nurse came into our room with a wildly screaming baby who thought he had been abandoned, that was soooo sad, but when he got his familiar breast back he shortly became happy. Later feedings were fortunately more streamlined.

Already next morning; Friday; he could come out of the box. We still had to wait because they were doing more tests to see that his yellowness stabilized, and in the afternoon it became clear that he was doing fine. We were asked to come back for another checkup, but we could leave if we wanted.

After staying in the hospital so long - almost a week, we had gathered quite some stuff - everybody brought something in, but nobody brought anything out. So Daddy had to run several times down to the car to get everything out. The nurses just lauged at us. A new experience was getting the baby car seat properly installed in the backseat. Next was to get the family ready to go. The mommy pretty much had enough with herself, staying in the bathroom most of the time, so daddy and Magnus set off on a cooperative journey to the unknown lands of getting out of hospital clothes and into civilian uniform.

I have as of that day pronounced that babyclothes are torture instruments specifically designed to humiliate and defeat poor unsuspecting papas. Getting the old one off was fine. But man-oh-man. The opening for the head was SO SMALL. Not to mention kicking legs and all these tiny little fingers and toes to look out for. We got the top over the head somehow, but now what? By now Magnus was already not happy about the state of things, going through a second birth being pushed against his will through some dark and constricting tunnel. So "gentle" lost priority to "quick" in order to describe the process of getting the arms in the right place. Oh, careful to get a good count and not lose any of the 5 fingers on each hand - we want them all to be in the same place when they emerge through the arm of the sweater. Yeeay, made it! On with the pants! Yeah, that's fine, go kick it - soccer players make good money and you can support your daddy when he gets old. Look out for these little socks! Hmm, is the top supposed to be on the outside of the pants or the other way around? Who cares, Magnus doesn't know anyway. Now, we're going outside for the very first time, you should wear a jacket. Look at this nicely knit jacket from your very proud grandma. Now where did the matching hat go?

OKAY - we're ready to go home, mama. Are you done soon ?

A baby is born!

It is 5am in the morning Sunday July 9th. Muna wakes up because it gets very wet - all this water coming out! She is very hungry and goes up to make some breakfast, and then back to bed. At 7 she wakes up Morten. The water has broken?!? And the baby's head is not stuck yet? And no labor? You are not supposed to walk around! We have to call the hospital right away!!

I could feel the tension mounting, but manage to keep tolerably calm. Calm enough to know there is no urgency, I can get dressed and take a shower first before we go. We called the hospital to let them know we're coming, and Muna is not supposed to walk around. Just get her in the car.

While driving to the hospital I kept thinking that it's actually a lucky break not to have to drive there with a screaming woman in pain next to me, this is a pretty okey start on the ordeal. But what to do with her parents flying in to Oslo airport this morning from Indonesia! We were supposed to go pick them up about now. There is no rush, but still I speed a touch coming through Drammen. Oh man, why do I have to meet a police car just now!? Fortunately, it kept on going.

When we arrived I had to take her up to the 3rd floor in a wheelchair, and we were put in a waiting room with another woman who also had her water broke but no labor yet. After an hour I decided to go pick up Munas parents while she got some sleep.
A couple of hours later I am back again. The other lady started labor during the day and was a bit loud about it, so Muna could not sleep. In the afternoon a swedish midwife offered acupuncture to try and start the labor, which we accepted. At 1030pm still nothing had happened, so I decided to go home and get some sleep. Now Muna could also sleep because the noisy lady was taken into a birth room.

I just had time to get home and eat a bit before my phone rang - labor has started, please come! It was a long night, with the pains coming more and more often, lasting longer and longer. To my big disappointment she did not want to hold my hand, I have heard from several that she would hold my hand and be very strong, but she preferred to squeeze the heck out of a poor pillow.

So much for expectations, what else will be different? So I was left to running in and out with wet towels, warm rice bags and ice water to drink and begging for the attention of busy midwives. Somehow we seemed to have entered the hospital during peak hour deluxe, all available space are full of screaming ladies and there is a line to get in. So we in the waiting room did not exactly have highest priority.

Throughout the night her pains got stronger and stronger, and finally at 7am Monday morning a midwife had time to stop by and take a look. She checked out the status and found that there was only 2cm opening - after all that work!! Further she decided that Muna needed a rest, and prescribed some morphin. After some more waiting, morphin arrived on the scene, and she became very quiet. A tired daddy-to-be decided to go lie down in the car in the parking lot and catch an hour or so of zzzz's - there was still quite some time to go. Oh and remembered to call work to let them know I would not be coming...

When I got back in again the other lady was back in the waiting room - her labor had stopped and no baby had arrived during the night. But where was my wife?? After asking 4 different midwives and nurses in the hallway I found they had put her in a room to register the baby's heartbeats and kicking activity. It was 9 am and a doctor would come shortly to examine her. But no doctor arrived, so we asked to go back to the more comfortable waiting room. The missing-labor-lady now had to listen to Muna crying and writhing. Labor continued. Finally around 11am the doctor showed up to examine. 6cm opening!!! Oh yeah, this is going the right way. She said, however, we should be in a birth room now and not in the waiting room, but all of them were full, so we would have to hang in there.

On my many trips through the halls to get ice water to refill my wife I could hear moaning and crying everywhere, and it sounded like one baby was born in one of the examination rooms across the hall. They were really short of birth rooms.

At 1.10pm we were finally given a birth room, and we moved in there right away. It was now Tuesday, and we had been in labor for 13 hours. Now this was like a whole new world! The room was spacious, and there was only us there. We now had a dedicated midwife who spent the majority of her time in the room with us, and man, the chair in this room was something else. Finally something comfortable to sit and relax in. Didn't get to spend so much time in it, though, but it was there. Around me were all kinds of instruments, the sink was leaking, and the door had been wrapped with a towel to close up soundlessly. The midwife who originally greeted us when we arrived Sunday morning was supposed to be in charge of us, but got hung up with another birth, so we got a new one. She was very nice, and had a strong idea we would give birth on her shift. However at 7cm opening things started to slow down and actually reverse a tiny bit, so when her shift was over at 4pm not much had happened. Muna had been given laughing gas to deal with pains, but she was only moderately happy with the effect. I was still running in and out with wet towels, but the midwife took over the warm-rice-bags-duty.

I was getting a bit restless at this time, why was there no progress. I had been hearing for hours that it was 6 and 7 cm opening, but it seemed to stop there. Muna was torn with pain, and I was tired. She tried acupuncture against the pain, but it didn't appear to have so much effect on her.

Suddenly I remembered from birth class that the daddy-to-be didn't need to be inside all of the time, so when the midwife also suggested it, I decided to take a walk and get some fresh air and a bite of food. When did I last eat? A while ago.

When I got inside again a new era had started. In my absence, Muna had decided to go with midwive's suggestion to try epidural for the pain, because it was pretty bad. I am just as glad I missed that - I never liked needles. But it was a new era with less pain. The midwife kept taking semifrequent examinations to check on the opening and the progress, and she was looking for obstructions hindering the baby on his way out, suggesting positions so he would more easily slide past those. I thought of her as very methodical, and very much concerned with Muna's wellbeing. And - she promised us there would be a baby on her shift ! As the baby had started moving down the birth canal it was going to become more difficult to monitor his pulse, so they tried to set a monitor on his head. That took three attempts before it stuck. I had a funny vision of my son taking the monitor off his head, looking at it and throwing it back out again each time... but eventually it did stick.

Time went by, evening came and it got darker, and suddenly it was 9.30pm and time for shift change again. Still no baby ! This guy certainly had his own schedule.
The new midwife was very different from the previous one, but had an aura of proffesionalism around her. And she promised us there would be a baby on her shift ! And this time I decided to believe her, because suddenly Muna started complainting about pains again... it was time to start pushing. PUSH PUSH PUSH, and don't think about hemmoroids...

Now, for some reason, time got a bit blurry around here, but I think it was about 11.30pm Monday night, and the room became a bustle of activity. Another midwife came and went a couple of times, and the two of them consulted on various topics. A bit later the doctor we saw the same morning showed up again, and she decided that both mama and baby needed a break, so she would assist the birth with a vacuum. I was given the task of holding Muna's head when she was pushing, but otherwise I tried to stay out of the way.

After the doctor showed up with her vacuum things started happening fast. After the 3rd push I could see dark hair coming, and I started excitedly shouting out "I can see hair, I can see his hair, Hon!!" I am afraid I forgot my duties for a minute. And then on the 4th push out came a baby with a long swoooching sound (or maybe I imagined the sound? Or maybe it just felt like a swooching move?) I have a very strong picture in my mind of a long, dark face, the very picture of exhaustion, with lots of hair on. HELLO MAGNUS!! And then -and the staff found this amusing- he started crying while half of him was still inside the birth canal! Time of birth was recorded at 12:18am Tuesday July 11th. As they pulled the rest of him out I went to get the camera. When all of him was out, he stopped crying, and just looked around him with tiny black eyes and a sort of combined sour and interested look on his face. Like he was saying "Do you have any idea what kind of day I have had!" He disappeared in a bundle of towels and helping hands before they put him on mama's stomach. I remember thinking he looked darker than I had expected, and I also thought the whole experience was very different from expected. I didn't need to cry, I didn't need to faint, and I was not bothered by all the blood and gore, the pain, distress and crying. Huh.

I took pictures without flashlight in the beginning to not bother the Magnus, but some were blurry, and the staff said he would get used to flashlights sooner or later anyway. When first on mama's stomach they smacked little Magnus to make him cry a little more so they could hear all was fine, and he cried and cried for a little while, it was a big cry with a little baby around. Poor little thing. But then it was over and he resumed looking around him again. Obviously comfortable on mama's chest, listening for heartbeat, feeling her warmth.

I had been so focused on this little person who was now my son that I was surprised when they suddenly asked me if I wanted to cut his cord. I had been thinking about this in advance and wasn't sure if I really wanted to. But right then there was only one answer - OH YES! I want it, I want it. The doctor and midwife laughed and said they thought I would be wanting that. Huh, what did I do?? It looked strange and felt even stranger cutting into. On the first attempt the scissor slipped and did not cut through. But on the second attempt I had suddenly separated mother and baby. Sort of.

I am vaguely aware that some other substance I don't know the english name of came sliding out of the mama after a while, and eventhough I had a fair idea how big it would be, it still looked big to me. But I was busy anyway and didn't care much. Nobody paid any attention to the doctor, silently busy sewing the fresh mama back together.

Now came time to weigh and measure little Magnus, and he turned out to be a big boy of 3460g, 49cm long. "Big boy" they say, but he looked heartbreakingly small if you ask me. Weighing was okey, he still kept looking around him, but measuring was no fun at all. But it only lasted so long, and now there was time for an important turn of the road - FOOD! They put him next to mamas breast, and he sucked and sucked and sucked. It was very touching to watch; Muna was on her side, baby on the mattress, and I could see his head way down in a cauldron of blankets and mama. It looked incredibly... natural.

After a good while (time was actually passing?) they took baby Magnus away to clean him more thoroughly and we could get up, and they served us food in the middle of the night, with a flag firmly planted. That was a very nice gesture, and for some unknown reason food was very welcome just then.

Now mama went out to the bathroom to clean up and try to use the toilet. We were told she needed to be able to. Somebody came in with a babybed-on-wheels with my son in it, and I just sat next to him and just existed. Incredible feeling. I had a son! When Muna came back in she took the very first picture of Daddy.

This hospital offered something called a family room, where the mother, father and child could stay all together in a room by themselves instead of just having mom and baby in the hospital and send dad home. We had previously decided we wanted that if they had it. But now when Muna stood there and said she was unable to pee, I felt worried.

While Muna was in the bathroom 2 nurses came and said they needed a blood sample of Magnus and if they could borrow him a little bit. I have to agree that my brain wasn't moving very fast right then. Borrow my baby...? And when it finally started turning around, the first thought to hit my brain was No, you can't borrow my baby, who do you think you are? The next thought was who are these people, how do I know they'll bring him back. But reason took over before these thoughts made it to the mouth, and I grudgingly allowed them to borrow my baby. But I looked after them as they departed so I could see where they took off to. I probably looked pretty funny.

The hospital staff reminded us again that we could not have a family room unless Muna was able to pee, because one could only have that if everything was normal about the birth. I was a bit worried, enormously tired and very restless, anxious to get out of there, and tried to suggest don't worry about the family room, I'll just go home. But Muna persisted, so they put us in a room somewhere, I think it was one of the examination rooms. Not much space in there. I sat down in a chair next to Magnus' bed-on-wheels and immediately dozed off. Muna was meanwhile succeeding to pee, and we were told they had a room for us. Hoorray for mama.

I was more confused than anything and not quite sure where they took us, but suddenly we were in a room they said was ours, they would bring a bed for me. There was some info I couldn't remember anything of, and suddenly we were on our own. SLEEP! The long ordeal was just over, and we were now a family of 3. It was around 5am Tuesday morning of July 11th.

Prologue

For 9 months, or to be more thruthful, around 7.5, we had been watching this stomach growing and growing, and at some point it became evident that there was life in there. It started bulging out at random intervals when the baby would be kicking, and also respond to things happening on the outside. There was somebody in there!

At the ultrasound in week 18 it became evident that it was a boy that was expected. Oh yes, the first thing you learn when dealing with babies-to-come is that time is now measured in weeks. It is very nice to know the sex in advance, but mama Muna was the most eager to learn what it was. The little guy-in-the-tummy got a temporary working name while we waded through possibilities. It should be a name that could not be messed up by foreign tongues in neither norwegian, english nor indonesian.

Mama Muna went through the typical pregnancy problems; starting out with nausea and throwing up during the first 3-4 months, including XMas ! She suddenly could not eat fish -her previous favorite- and got lactose intolerant (no milk product). Her feet started swelling, she got heartburns, breasts grew to incredible size and became very tender, and towards the end she started getting high blood pressure, and we needed to step up the frequency of our checkups with the midwife. Twice we were sent to further checkup at the hospital due to high blood pressure, but both times we were sent home again.

At each checkup we were told that the baby's head was still not sufficiently "stuck", only almost. But baby was doing great. We participated in a birthclass where we learned that the baby's head is supposed to be stuck in most cases before the birth starts, sort of lined up in front of the entrance to the big world out there. Birth class behind us we were now ready for birth; we had collected some clothes, were given a stroller and other baby items by friends, assembled the changing station and the baby bed, painted the baby room. Now all we could do was settle down and wait. Our expected due date was July 17 2006.