When this baby hits 88 miles per hour, you're going to see some serious stuff.

I have a son. I don't know if I will ever get used to saying that. Although he is nearly three months old, the magnitude of having a child has still not quite dawned on me. I doubt it ever will. Magnitude is perhaps the wrong word as it makes my situation sound in some way heavy but it really isn't. I am one of those annoying mums that other parents avoid like the plague: my baby sleeps well, feeds with no problems and hardly ever cries. He's a wee star. His dad and I are smug bastards.

I knew that I always wanted to have children but throughout my adult life I could never really envisage myself as a mum. I'm far too irresponsible. Not irresponsible in a smoking crack, shagging strangers way. More in a - most folk I know have got grown up jobs whilst I dabble in a bit of this that and the other but have never quite made my mark - way. I sing, and I write but neither of these allow me to pay my way. Until one of these strings on my capricious bow can pay the bills, I will continue to dread being asked what I do for a living. It brings me out in a cold sweat.

My mum has no qualms in telling people that I'm a singer so I try to channel her unwaivering belief in me. I try to persuade myself to be bold and tell them that I'm a singer but The Fear washes through me and my ICV (Inner Cun...tradictary Voice) pipes up and convinces me that I'll be found out. IVC swears that there will be far less pity in the person's eyes when they hear that I'm a box office assistant as opposed to a singer who doesn't get paid. A box office assistant is the lesser of two evils. There is no solace in this though. It's a bit like avoiding dysentary then getting a dose of diarrhoea.

On the rare occassions when I dared to say that I was a singer, the light of genuine intrest that shone in their eyes dazzled me. It drew me in. I started to visualise myself on the stage of the theatre where I work, in a stunning sequnined floor length gown, singing Diamonds Are Forever accompanied by an orchestra. 

I'm about to hit the money note at the end  of the song. The audience is filled with my peers and influential people. 

'So where about do you sing?'

As I brace myself to hit the note, I clumsily stand on my dress and stumble.

'Well, there's no set place but I...'

I sense the change in the audience. Through the spotlight, I swear I can make out someone shifting uncomfortably in their seat.

'So are you gigging just now?'

My voice cracks. 

'Yes I am but I'm looking for more.'

The conducter raises his eyebrows at me.

'Oh right.'

I take a breath.

'I'm looking at getting into functions and weddings. It's just getting a foot in the door.'

I can't quite reach the note. I have gone from sizzling diva to cat getting it's tail chewed. I am engulfed by the waves of cringe oozing from the audience.

'So these aren't paid gigs?'

The orchestra stops like someone has pulled their plug. 

'No.'

The silence is broken by the influential people clambering over their seats,desperately searching for the nearest exit. The ushers apologise profusely and try to placate the angry crowd by giving them the number of the box office and ensuring that they will be refunded in full. 

Diamonds Are Forever? No. Selling tickets to snooty middle class twats with a massive sense of entitlement is forever.  

Anyway, I digress. Yes, so I have a son. There aren't sufficient adjectives to describe how much I love him.  I will attempt to describe how cute he is. Every morning when he wakes, I put my head over his moses basket so that he can see me. One morning before he had clocked me, I saw that he was practising smiling. His mouth would go from an 'Oh!' shape into a big smile. He was repeating this process on a loop. When he finally realised that I was there, he stopped, mid 'Oh!', began kicking his legs in excitement then broke into a heart meltingly adorable smile.

I don't use phrases like 'heart meltingly adorable' lightly; I risk souding like one of the several thousand Hallmark cliches that we received in the New Baby Boy cards. They are filled with gushing 'heart warming' sentiments.  People are execptionally kind to send cards, but is there really any need for this type of chat?

A baby boy, dressed all in blue  (why are they always in blue?)

A heart warming bundle, sent from heaven, just for you...

After the birth of my son, I've been encouraged by my husband to write about the experience. I wish I'd written about it earlier when the feelings and memories were more potent but it's only now that I feel ready. I've been consumed with love and hormones.

My son arrived two days before his due date. My husband and I felt that this was a very small victory, if you can ever describe the process of giving birth as victorious. We had been assured by our inept, jaded midwife that it was highly unlikely that our baby would be born on his due date. What did she know? You should never take the word of someone who tells you that your baby's heartbeat is too fast then sends you to the waiting room to give it a chance to slow down and forgets about you. She said she would come for us in ten minutes; we were left worrying for an hour. When we caught her in the corridor on her way home, all we got was a snort of laughter and a mumbled apology. I guess you never have your gun with you when you need it. 

I started having contractions on the 26th January. I laboured at home for sixteen hours before going into hospital. A lot of this time was spent thrashing in the bath like a whale with tooth ache and pacing the hall like a sweaty cow with Irritable Bowel Syndrome. Suffice to say that it was a glamourous affair. 

My husband was incredible. I felt all of my contractions in my lower back so he would massage the area until it stopped. Every time one was about to come, I would bark at him:

'HERE'S ONE NOW! BACK! RUB! NOW! DOWN, DOWN, DOWN, NO, UP, HIGHER, HIGHER, A BIT DOWN. NO, NOT THAT LOW. UP. A BIT TO THE LEFT. NO, THE OTHER LEFT.'  

My mum came round about ten hours into my labour. It was such a comfort to see her. She wanted to give my husband a break from the relentless massaging and give him a chance to have a cat nap before we went to hospital. Unfortunatlely, she just didn't have the magic touch so my poor husband was called for again. Well, screamed for would be more accurate. His massage was the only thing that took a tiny bit of edge off the contractions.

This ritual continued pretty much throughout the entire experience. I laboured for twenty four hours so now, all that is left of my husbands thumbs are bloody stumps. 

In the hospital, the midwives kept telling me how well I was doing. I refused to believe them, convinced that they were only saying that to be nice.  They found this quite amusing. By this point I was off my tits on gas and air and was saying a lot of random things. Add morphine into the mix and I was bordering on bat shit crazy.

After three epic contractions in a row had finally finished, I continued to take huge breaths from the gas and air. Now that the cattle cries of the contractions had stopped, something that had been bemusing me throughout the pain had come into focus in the serenity of the silence.

'Darth Vader'

'Are you ok?'

'That's what it sounds like'

'Eh?'

'The gas and air sounds like Darth Vader.'

I proceeded to quote a scene verbatim, from Back To The Future. Marty dresses up as Darth Vader to scare George McFly into asking Lorraine to The Enchantment Under The Sea Dance.

'Silence,Earthling! My name is Darth Vader. I'm an Extra Terrestrial from the planet Vulcan.'

If you haven't seen that film, I don't feel comfortable having a heathen like you read this. You must stop reading, switch off your computer and watch it. Now. Do it!

Back To The Future genuinely played a huge part in getting me through the birth. Every time I started to contract, scenes from the film would play in my head, particularly the one where Marty plays Johnny Be Goode with the band at the school dance. 

It wasn't a conscious effort on my part, it just happened. I think it was my way of coping with the trauma. It's pain that can't be descibed. You feel like you're body is moments away from combusting. It's a white hot pain that sears through you and takes your breath away. That doesn't even touch on it though. As I said, it can't be described. When it was happening, I couldn't think about it, I just kept telling my self to keep going. My mind split from my body. It knew that it had to keep it's distance from all the biology taking place. If it thought about what was going on, it would have lost the plot so instead, it decided to keep me entertained.  

I hadn't watched or thought about Back To The Future in ages, but an unconscious part of me knew that it would keep me distracted. I wasn't really aware of this at the time but I associate the film with my happy childhood. It's very comforting that my love of this film runs deep enough to have a protective power over me. I realise how ridiculous that sounds but I will never be able to express the gratitude that I have for it's existence. 

We had already decided before the birth that one of my son's middle names would be Berry as this is my mum's maiden name. The name has even more meaning now because of the Chuck Berry references in the film. I'm not usually the tree hugging type to say what I'm about to say but it truly was meant to be part of his name. And don't worry - my son's first name isn't Chuck. Or Biff. His surname is Scott though. As in 'Great Scott!'

I had been labouring in the birthing pool for what could have been an hour or several months to my gas/air/morphine riddled mind. Any concept of time had skipped out of the building hand in hand, with my dignity.

The pain caused me to throw up several times. Once on my husband. He hasn't divorced me. Between that and the bloody stumps for thumbs, it's safe to say that he's a keeper.

I began to feel what the midwife described as the urge to push but I didn't want to push at all. It wasn't like that for me. Whatever it was that I was feeling was so strong that it physically raised me out of the water. It was the most powerful force that my body had ever experienced. It terrified me. Up until this point, my contractions had been coming frequently but now there was a change in pace. I knew that I was on the homestraight but this was the first time throughout the labour that I started to think outwith the moment. Staying focused on the here and now had seen me in good stead but now I was starting to think about how overwhelming that feeling of bearing down was. I cowered from it and didn't think that I could handle it so my contractions slowed down.

The midwife suggested that I get out of the water and try pacing. Getting me out of the pool was like the reverse of trying to get a beached whale back in the water. My legs had packed in by this point; they had joined my concept of time and dignity for a fag around the back of the building. As well as the small of my back, my thighs had taken a brutal hammering from the contractions so I couldn't hold it against them. They'd certainly earnt a wee smoke.

My husband has filled me in on this part because I have no memory of it. Once out the tub, I was, apparently a sight to behold. I was butt naked, taking huge gulps of gas and air like it was Heneiken as my head lolled about like an auld drunkard. I looked like Liam Gallagher having a night on the sauce. 

I was hooked on the gas and air. I remember thinking that there was no way that I would be able to muster the energy to push but as long as I had my gas and air, everything would be ok. The midwife chose this moment to tell me that she had to take it away. Hearing this news was like taking a bullet.

I was instructed to wait for the contraction to kick in. Kick isn't a strong enough word. I was instructed to wait for the contraction to sledgehammer in then I was to hold my breath and push. Through my arse. What the actual fuck? No one warned me about this. I wanted a refund.

After several attempts at pushing what felt like Australia through a keyhole, nothing was happening. The midwife was taking my baby's heartbeat more regularly. I was asked to change my positon from lying down to squatting. God only knows how, but I eventually got into the position but nothing was happening and my thighs were completely kaput. I felt like I wanted to cry but I didn't have the energy. 

I was finished. Spent. Fucked. 

I told the room that I couldn't do it. They were having none of it. It's a good job that they were there otherwise I would have been hailing a taxi by this point. They helped me back down, into a lying position.

Although I was utterly spaced out, I could sense that the atmosphere in the room had gone from calm to slightly tense. I kept askng if everything was ok. Despite their best efforts at a poker face, I knew that something was up. The midwife told me that I was going to have to push much harder and that she was going to have to give me an episiotime, something that I hadn't even been able to read about because it filled me with tingly dread. The baby had to get out as soon as possible because his heart rate had slowed down. 

For the first time in my life, I felt real fear. I could taste it. I knew that it was an absolute impossibility to push any more. I had run four hundred marathons and I was being told that I had to run another hundred.

'Ok, Emily. On the next contraction I need three big pushes. I need really. Big. Pushes. You can do this, Emily. Just focus on pushing . Ok? Come on, Emily, I know you can do this. You've done so well. Ok, here we go.'

I will never know how, but I managed to push. I no longer cared what happened to me; she could snip herself silly, I just knew that my baby had to come out and be ok. The alternative was unthinkable.

The strength came from a secret place inside of me that had never been called upon until now. It was unequivocally the hardest thing that I have ever known. I hadn't slept in three days, my legs had stopped working and I had just been snipped in a place that I don't like to mention. Yet strength poured out of me like a dam bursting.

I pushed and pushed and pushed and pushed and pushed and  pushed and pushed and pushed and pushed and pushed and pushed and pushed and pushed and pushed and pushed and pushed and pushed and pushed and she snipped.

And I pushed and pushed and pushed and pushed and pushed and pushed and pushed and pushed and pushed and pushed and pushed and pushed and pushed and pushed and pushed and she snipped.

And I pushed and pushed and pushed and pushed and pushed and pushed and pushed and pushed and pushed and pushed and pushed and pushed and pushed and she snpped.

And I pushed and pushed and pushed and pushed and pushed and pushed and pushed and pushed and pushed and pushed and pushed and pushed and pushed and pushed and pushed and pushed and pushed and pushed and pushed and pushed and pushed and pushed and pushed and pushed and pushed.

'That's the head out!'

Fireworks went off and a fanfare of heavenly trumpets played. I'm not religious in the slightest but I was praising the Lord like a possesed preacher on speed. His head was out! His head was out! It was going to be ok. I knew it. The rest of his body came out with what felt like a mere exhalation in comparison to the previous pushing extravaganza.  

I didn't know at the time but there was a team of Dr's waiting outside the room with scary looking instruments. They were only seconds away from having to rush in and use them on me in an assisted delivery. It's testament to the midwife's professionlism that I had no idea that they had been summoned. That and being out my tree on gas,air and morphine. 

The atmosphere in the room was electric. Something incredible had just happened: my son had taken his first breath. I heard his voice for the first time and it can only be described in the manner of my pals from Hallmark: magical. The midwife placed him on my chest and a beautiful pair of blue, bewildered looking eyes met mine. I gasped. I had never seen beauty like it. It can never be matched. He was the most perfect thing that I have ever laid eyes on. I knew in that second that I would happily give my life for him. I had never felt so protective of anything in my life. Not even my Back To The Future Trilogy Special Edition DVD.

My son is now three months old and is officially the cutest child in the world. Ever. When I change him, he does this side to side movement that resembles Axl Rose's dance moves. He charms my husband and I into one more cuddle before bed time by smiling at us. He sneezes at exactly the same point every time his nappy is changed. Just when I think I couldn't possibly love him any more, he farts on me. He is my happiness.

 

 

 

 

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