Hurry up and wait.

The first time I saw my baby was terrifying. She was blue, covered with insidey juices and not breathing. The nurses pounded on Carys' feet like an Abu Ghraib interrogator. They suctioned out her little nose and mouth before pounding on her feet a little more. Finally, after what was no more than 30 seconds but felt like minutes, Carys gave a wee cry and her little body flushed bright red. It was a very quiet cry but it told everyone she was here.

I remember Sher asking me if everything was alright as they pounded on Carys'. I lied telling her it was fine they were just checking on things. It was awful. All the little thoughts that pop in your head every now and again while you're waiting for B'Day, the little thoughts that say something is going to go wrong seemed as though they were going to come true.

Thankfully they didn't and I now have what I know to be the most beautiful daughter in the world.

Unfortunately this was just one of a series of events that made the day of my daughter's arrival the most stressful and possibly unenjoyable day of my life. That fairytale Hollywood moment where the baby arrives and everyone is crying just didn't happen for me. If anything I wanted to cry out of frustration, anger and because of the God-awful stress headache I had. Many men have quite lovely birth experiences I'm sure. I can only attribute the terribleness of the day to having the birth in a Hong Kong public hospital. Cultural issues also crop up. Then irritate the crap out of you.

We were having a planned C-Section due to medical reasons. It was scheduled for the 17th of November. Maybe. They might decide to push the delivery to 3 days later to allow more time for the baby to develop. At this stage my wife was 38 weeks pregnant. Telling her she might be having the baby on the 17th made her feel like she might punch the doctor in the face. Repeatedly. Due to medical opinion or a sudden strong urge towards self-preservation the delivery was finally confirmed for the 17th.

The 17th rolled around. I turned up early to help in any way I could. We were scheduled for a 10am c-section. As Queen Mary is a public hospital I expected things would start late. 10am came and went, I sat outside the maternity ward waiting. And waiting. Because I'm a man and this is Hong Kong I'm not allowed on the maternity ward unless it's visiting hours. During the tour we had 2 weeks earlier we were told this was a cultural issue, Chinese women weren't comfortable with men being on the ward. At the time of the tour I thought this was fair enough. On the day of the delivery I couldn't care less what anyone was comfortable with, I wanted to be with my wife and our yet to be born baby because I knew she would probably be feeling immeasurably more nervous than I was. And I was bricking it.

I tried going onto the ward to see what was happening but was shushed out by the nurses. I was made to feel as welcome as a fart in a spacesuit. You'd think I was some sort of pervert who'd just waltzed in off the street to stare and breath very heavily at the (VERY few) breast feeding mums. I tried going in about three times to check on my wife. Each time I was shushed out. So I would return to sitting outside waiting for Sher. She eventually came out and joined me looking fabulous in a purple surgical gown, hair net and compression socks. We sat and waited together, making very strained small talk. By about 10:20 she was ready to kill someone, especially me. I can't remember what I did but I managed to piss her off. All she really wanted was the baby to be out, but more than that wanted someone, ANYONE to tell her what was going on. She eventually went back inside to wait. At 10:30 a nurse rolled up to Sher's bedside with a wheelchair and told her to hop in. They wheeled her past me and She told me to come along. I grabbed my overly heavy back (packed with laptop, power cord, camera, lenses, Kindle and various other bits and bobs) and ran after them, catching up at the lift. We rode up to the labour ward.

This is it I thought. Only it wasn't. As they wheeled her towards the operating theatre I was told get changed into surgical scubs. I knew I would have to do this, we were told on the tour, what I didn't know was that I would have to do it just a moment or two before my wife was to go in to the theatre. Surely, I thought, I would be given a few minutes. Apparently not. I fumbled about in the changing room. Do I put on the green or the purple scrubs? Where the fuck is the hair net?! Is there a lock on the locker or is that something I had to bring? Do I take my clothes off THEN put on the scrubs? Yes genius! Clothes off, scrubs on. Shoes.... surely there's something... AHA! Shoe covers. Slip them on..... bollocks, clearly designed with Asians in mind. My shoe covers rip as I wedge my obviously freakishly giant size 11s into them. Where do I put the key for the locker.... Bugger it, my wife is waiting.

I ran out of the changing room and down to the corridor outside operating theatre where Sher was waiting, now lying on a gurney. They were about to wheel her into the theatre to administer the epidural. There were about 5 or 6 people in a very small space. I could barely see Sher. I managed to weave in between nurses, give her smooch and tell her I'd see her in a minute. Just before they leave she has to hand over her iPod which she's been clutching throughout our wait upstairs. We had planned for her to listen to relaxing music and hypnosis during the delivery. Again this was something we were told during the tour. Apparently that's not allowed because the iPod could potentially cause an explosion in the theatre. The things you learn eh! I get the iPod and run off to put it in the locker. I run back and am told sit in the corridor and wait. No one had said anything about sitting on my arse in a corridor while they numb Sher from the neck down. It would have been nice to know. Not knowing that this was part of the normal procedure, that they didn't want the husband in the room because they were sticking an obscenely large needle into the wife's spine, made it very difficult to sit and not think of everything that might go wrong.

I was sat in the corridor for about 10 minutes by which time I needed to pee. I know what you're thinking, you should've gone before when you had the chance. Well I did, when I changed into the scrubs about 15 minutes earlier. Only I was hugely nervous and had been sat thinking about everything that could go wrong, before my thoughts inevitably wandered towards my bowels. What if I have to pee during the delivery? Wouldn't it be a pain in the arse if I had to pee right now. Sod's law I'll have to pee and they'll come out to get me. Lovely of them to have me sit right outside the entrance to the Doctors only toilet. I don't need to pee, I can wait, I can hold it, I'm a grown man damn it! Fuck I have to pee. I ran back to the changing room, whizzed, ran back to my seat. 2 minutes tops. What do I find when I get back. A nurse is waiting, "there you are, we've been waiting for you." Sod's law.

I walked in and they've already started the operation. I couldn't see anything because I didn't look. I don't think I'm squeamish but I have no desire to see my wife bleeding profusely or to see her insides, just call me old fashioned. I sat behind Sher's head on a metal stool, her body was screened off from view by a draped piece of material. Sher was literally strapped to the surgical table to prevent any movement. This was something we were warned about by a friend, but not by the hospital, and something that everyone should be prepared for. Sher was on a table, from what I could see, much like the ones they use for executions in the States. It looks like a very sinister Gumby.

On my left are heart rate and O2 monitors, on my right is the anesthetist. This was the second worst part of the day. It was not knowing what was going on, not being able to see what was happening and having absolutely no control over the situation. All I could do was sit and talk with Sher, try to keep her calm and relaxed. Natural conversation was out of the question. All I could see was my wife's body being violently jerked about as the doctors tried to get our baby out. Due to a medical condition the delivery wasn't easy. A specialist had been called in and at one point he told the other doctors to have a good look because they wouldn't see another case like this in 10 years. I remember this moment quite vividly because a doctor on either side of Sher grabbed a small step to stand on so they could see over their colleagues heads and peer into her. I remember 5 white hatted heads suddenly coming together to stare at my wife's insides.

My lasting memory of the delivery, aside from my baby crying quietly, is the beeping of the machines on my left. I couldn't stop looking at them. At one point Sher's heart rate dipped into the 60s, much slower than at any other part of the operation. Her eyes were closed and I really thought she must be hemorrhaging and about to slip into unconsciousness. Just for a second someone had dumped a truck full of ice into my stomach. It turns out Sher had just taken a deep breath and held it for a moment. I blame E.R. and Grey's Anatomy (which my wife cruelly subjects me to) for my hyper sensitiveness in the OR (I got the lingo!). One of the saving graces of the delivery was the anesthetist, a Kiwi born Chinese guy who told us what was happening behind the screen. He kept us calm and chatted away with us. I can't thank him enough for helping us.

Once they started closing Sher up I was asked to leave. I was told our baby would be in the NICU for observation and Sher would be in recovery for several hours. All fine with me. I was happy to get out and really eager/curious to meet my baby. I changed and came out to see my baby. Here's the where the number 1 worst part of the day happened. It's the source of almost all my negative feelings towards the day and the hospital. I was, once again, shushed out of the labour ward because I'm a man and my wife was no longer giving birth. I immediately went upstairs to the NICU so I could see my baby. I pressed the buzzer and asked to come in. They asked me for the mother's name, I told them. They responded by saying "sorry, your baby not yet here" and buzzed off. I went back down to the labour ward trying not to panic and trying not to hurt someone. I was angry.

I had to wait for a doctor or orderly to go inside the labour ward before I could get in. It was 5 minutes before I finally got in. Immediately I was set upon by a nurse telling me to wait outside, I wasn't allowed in there. I asked where my baby was and was again told she would be taken upstairs, the doctors were checking her over. I was shushed out of the ward and stood glaring through the tinted windows. I waited. And waited. And waited. No baby. No nurse to tell me where baby was. Given that I had just seen my baby being delivered blue and unresponsive I think you can imagine what I began to think. You can't get onto the labour ward without a security pass so I had no way of going inside to ask what was happening. After 10 minutes of waiting and glaring through the window a nurse came out and told me my baby was breast feeding as we had requested. Would it have killed her to tell me that sooner? How much energy would it have taken, how much thought or presence of mind might it have taken?

It was another half hour before they finally wheeled my baby out in an incubator. I rode up in the lift and was about to walk into the NICU with her when I was told.... wait for it.... I couldn't! They were changing shifts, I would have to wait 3, count them, 3 hours before I could be with my baby. I do wonder if the doctors and nurses have actually read up on bonding between parents and children. I had seen my daughter for a total of 3 minutes and now I was going to have to wait 3 hours. All I wanted was to sit with her and make sure she was alright, but I couldn't.

I've never felt so helpless or angry in my life. Everything I thought the birth would was wrong. From the first moment the birth, for me at least, was filled with stress, anxiety and anger. When I finally did get to spend time with my daughter those feelings were still very much there and I believe they contributed to my feeling very little else when I first met my daughter.

Now this is a very long posting. A bit of a vent for me as I haven't been able to with anyone up until now. What I want anyone who reads this to take away from my experience is that your expectations may not be met. You're in a working hospital which caters to thousands of people everyday. The medical care my wife and baby received was of the highest level. I can't fault them for that. What made the delivery day, and the day's following it so stressful was the inexcusable lack of communication. No one told you anything unless you asked or in most cases got in the way and caused a bit of a ruckus. You are left in an information vacuum. Every negative association I have with that day, EVERYTHING, can be attributed to poor communication. Had I just been told somethings I wouldn't have had to sit and worry. I wouldn't have thought my baby was dead and being frantically resuscitated by the doctors, I wouldn't have thought there was some sort of mistake and my baby had been lost in the system.

I'm a patient, level headed person, had someone given me a moment of their time and few words of information I wouldn't have had to get in the way of the nurses doing their jobs, I wouldn't have had to be an asshole. I would have been able to sit and wait patiently for hours on end waiting for the most important meeting in my life.

Read this... or don't

I'm a baby daddy and have been for 11 weeks now. I change diapers, I feed little bubs, I burp and change her. I'm as involved as I can be without breasts or a moob. For those who don't know what this is, it's a fake man-boob used by some men to feed a baby in a more 'natural' way. My wife threatens to buy me one every now and again.

The trouble is it took me a few weeks to get to the stage where I can say I unconditionally love my daughter and will do anything for her. I had to get past a stage of anxiety and feeling totally alien in my own home, adjusting to a totally new life. I'll give you a run down of how my life as a papa started. I'll tell you things that people just don't tell you because it might put you off being a parent (as if you somehow have a choice about being a parent once you're partner is pregnant). There seem to be an extraordinary number of taboo things that you just mustn't say to someone when they're expecting a baby. These are things that, generally speaking, aren't in any of the millions of books about pregnancy and parenting.

The thing is these are all things that I wanted to know, they are things that make me feel as though I'm normal and going through normal parenting feelings and anxieties. So I'm going to say some of these things in the hope that you read this and pass it on to someone, hopefully an expectant dad because there is a so little out there for expectant dad's to read, so they have a little more info for fatherhood.  Parents to be need to know that as well as being a wonderous, emotional and exciting experience, parenting can also be incredibly shitty too. You're fed so much positive crap when your partner is pregnant that when you're left alone at home covered in baby barf, desperately clinging to a screaming, wiggling demon child you can't help but think that either you're a terrible father or someone lied to you. Big time.

You should also tell whoever you send this to that they don't have to read this at all. God knows the one thing people expecting a child hate more than morning sickness or doctor's bills is well meaning advice from others.