The Day My Son Was Born

My first son was born on 30th May 1986 at 8:04pm . For some reason the cherry blossom was very late flowering that year and was in full bloom on Jaw Bone Walk as I walked back across the Meadows in Edinburgh to Simpsons Memorial Maternity Hospital where my wife was in labour. I picked a blossom from one of the trees lining the path and took it back to her.

It was a very long day from early morning when I awoke to hear her on the phone to the midwife telling her her waters had broken. Bleary eyed and ever so slightly startled I jumped up trying to snap into action. I was quickly reassured and told we had "plenty of time". Taking a breath and considering the options I asked if there was enough of it to wash my hair before we left.

In those days I had a little blue van and it took us to the hospital. The labour had started but it never really got anywhere. We were asked if we wouldn't mind if a group of student doctors followed the birth and we agreed. The day moved slowly but tensely. At one point I went to get a coffee and when I got back, slightly more relaxed and self aware, I looked at the scene before me, my wife lying in the delivery room, her ankles in metal stands either side of the bed. There were wires attached to the babies head which was becoming visible but most odd of all, there was a line of student doctors, male, female, black, white and yellow, like some extraordinary meeting of the United Nations all stood in a line against the wall opposite in various crouching stances peering into the birth.

We had reached an impasse with the baby seemingly reluctant to make it's appearance. Time moved on into the early evening and then the doctors told us that the baby was in distress. They informed us that there would be an emergency cesarean operation and I was asked to be in attendance. Without any real thought of what was about to happen I agreed and was led into a changing room where two senior surgeons were already getting changed for the procedure. I was given a mask, a gown and a pair of white clogs and the surgeons offered me some words of reassurance.

The operation now seems a bit of a blur in a surreal and very detailed way, they erected a little green screen in front of my wife's belly so I couldn't see the guts of the work and each time I leaned forward to sneak a peak the anesthetist leaned over and gently pushed me back. I think things happened quite quickly, I remember looking down and seeing blood all over the floor. "I'm paddling in you" I comfortingly told my wife. "Don't listen to him" the anesthetist advised her.

All of a sudden there were squelching noises and the baby was lifted clear. It had a pointed head! Literally he (he was now a he) had a pointy head. I decided not to mention this to my wife who later told me she had made the same decision.

There were amazing feelings of elation, pride and huge emotion. I had a son. I was a father. My wife was an actual hero, she unfalteringly had gone through this day and was now a mother. Never was any woman more meant to be a mother than her and she had done it without any thought for her own discomfort but at all times was concerned only for the baby and for me.

It took much longer to put her back together than it had to open her up in the first place. The two surgeons made an excellent job of doing this which was later remarked upon by the next surgeons who carried out the same operation for our second son. By the time I had gone back into the changing rooms and washed and changed and thanked those amazingly skillful men she and the baby where in a private room that overlooked the Meadows, it had its own balcony.

In the extreme emotion of the delivery she had said to me as we both held the baby with tears in our eyes "Oh he doesn't even have a name." then like a master chess player added " I want to call him Jason." I think I would have agreed to anything in this tumultuous instant and so Jason he became.

As I walked into the room several things hit me all at once, a nurse in white uniform, (not literally) my wife in the bed looking shattered but glowing with pride, the baby in a little perspex cot next to her. Then there were the bright yellow inflatable booties she was wearing, reminiscent of Billy Connolly's banana boots. They were attached to a pump and gently inflated then deflated continuously and consecutively. I later learnt this was to aid circulation and reduce the risk of clotting but I had never seen or heard anything like them before and the sureality of it all was magnified by 10 as in the background, across the Meadows I could see the flashing multi-coloured lights of a travelling fair with their PA system blasting out the Birdie Song for all it was worth.

"Would you like a cup of tea" asked the friendly nurse. "No thanks" I replied still in a bit of a daze. "I was talking to mum" said the nurse with a little glare.

A truly incredible day. I walked back across the Meadows in the dark, it was approaching midnight and I drove home to our little flat in Maryfield. Some hours earlier my mother and father had called to announce they were driving up from Liverpool so when I got home I had to wait two more hours until they arrived. No mobile phones so I was able to tell them in person that they had a very healthy 9lb 5oz grandson named Jason and that Gail was fine too - well mostly.

The next morning I took them to meet their grandson. I can only imagine how they felt. It was a nice sunny day and the Meadows Festival was in full swing. Gail had been up through the night and had showered, she was feeding the baby and despite the major surgery that she had been through just hours before, she was carrying on with the business of being a mother like the natural she was.

Her mum and dad later arrived and her sister and her then fiance. To reduce the congestion I took my dad out to walk through the Meadows and take a look at the festival. The whole park was full of stalls as well as the fair and a stage where young would be musicians were blasting it out.

I stopped at one of the stalls to introduce my dad to a guy I had recently met at work. His name was Donald McLean Logan. He and his friend had a stall selling junk and I bought a wooden plane from them. Donald had recently fitted a little wall mounted gas fire in our unheated flat in preparation for the arrival of the little baby that was now up in the hospital room overlooking these events. Donald would soon become my working companion and close friend for the next 16 years before a sudden and massive heart attack claimed his life and wounded mine. Donald bought Jason his first car exactly one year later.

Momentous days, it's all a bit of a haze, I hardly remember it really.