The Birth of Darwin Baeron

28.02 - 01.03

Whilst sat at my computer photoshopping some derogatory photos of the Pope I heard a call from upstairs. "Monkeyyy". (That sounds a bit weird but that's Kerry's pet name for me).  I went upstairs and Kerry insisted that she had experienced her first contraction.  Her second contraction came 4 minutes later.  It wasn't supposed to happen this quickly was it?  I was still having my doubts.  She waddled down stairs and remained standing whilst supporting herself on the settee.  I called the midwife and told her to prepare herself.  I was then thinking about getting her in the car but by now her contractions were coming thick and fast, a home birth was on the agenda I thought, so I called an ambulance.

"I'm going to poo myself Monkey", she said with a mixture of embarrassment and relief. "I'm pooing myself Monkey.  I'm so sorry Monkey but you're going to have to clean me up".  She was apologising because she knows how squeamish I am about shit, blood & pain, but this was my time to be her rock.  "I'm doing another poo Monkey".  She hadn't been for a poo in 3 or 4 days!  I pulled down her pyjama bottoms and a weeks worth of shit plopped onto our newly laminated floor.  I didn't mind.  I had loads of kitchen roll and a bin liner. I scooped up the shit and soiled clothes and bagged them.  Before I got chance to clean her up she did another shit onto the floor. There were about 3 more shits in total.  Never once did I pull my face or wretch, all the time I knew this was the start of a beautiful experience for us both, and probably more so for me as I wasn't suffering.

The shitting stopped but the contractions didn't.  Janet from next door had heard the screams and offered to help, and I was glad to have it.  "Get some towels and hot water", she said.  I should have known this, this was standard operating procedure for every TV pregnancy in the 70's and 80's but it took the wisdom of a woman to suggest it.  We didn't use either towel or water, but I guess if things got proper mental then they would have been used.

Nearly an hour had passed and the ambulance hadn't arrived.  I had conducted myself like a calm and controlled airline pilot on my 2 previous calls but now I had to put my foot down, where the fuck was this ambulance?  Luckily on my third call, and before I asked the WTF question, the nice lady said, "He's just turning your corner now".

Andy and Andrea were the paramedics.  One of Andy's first questions was, "Have you got any slippers?".  "For you?", I asked.  He calmly said "No" and didn't call me a "Twat", but I bet he was tempted.  We put slippers on Kerry and with the assistance of Gas and Air slowly loaded Kerry into the ambulance.

Catherine spoke with a South African accent but she was actually from Paris.  She was our midwife for the delivery and she sat patiently by the bedside as Kerry guzzled down Gas and occasionally let off a little scream.  I tried to get the Gas off her for a taste but she was having none of it.  I wouldn't mind but she wasn't even using it properly, she was just using the mouth piece to bite down on, but I wasn't going to argue.  After a few hours of pushing Catherine said that she was now concerned and that we ought to get another ambulance to Burnley where the real experts were.

2 more paramedics arrived and by this time I had stopped clocking names.  I did notice that despite Kerry being in so much pain and discomfort her pulse didn't go above 74 BPM, but I don't know whether this is good or bad.  Within 20 minutes we had arrived at Burnley.

We arrived at 00:52hrs and was greeted by a team of 4 people, a trainee paramedic, a very midwifey midwife  a bloke who didn't say owt and a female doctor whose dissertation was about the correlation of the weight of a baby to the placenta.  If this was the Bravo Two Zero team she was Andy McNabb.  "Right", she said, "lets get this Mother Fucker out of here", or words to that effect.  She whipped Kerrys legs in the air and injected her down below.  She explained that she was going to cut her and produced some forceps that she called 'salad tossers' ('Dirty Bitch', I'm not going round to her house for a salad!).

It was now 01:10 hrs.  I looked down and could my sons head but at this point I was busy consoling Kerry.  Within the blink of an eye Darwin was then introduced to the world.  His little cry momentarily took away all of Kerrys pain and instantly made me cry.  The doctor asked if I wanted to cut the umbilical chord and of course I did, not so much out of desire but out of duty.  The man who didn't say anything took Darwin to the other side of the room, examined him and then gave me a smile and a wink.

I have never felt love like this, it felt and still feels fucking beautiful.

The next day I cried in the shower, cried on the toilet and cried in the car on the way to the hospital.

Darwin is not named after the Lancashire town (Darwen), he is named after one of the forefathers of evolution.

"The Ambulance"

"The Pain"

"Some Blood"

"The Baby (wrongly reported at 6lb 5oz, more like 7lb 2oz)"