published online in 2016 from 2016 manuscript with rights reserved by the Author.

I am a Calm Birth fan; although I was not always like this. I am an Engineer, I believe in God; Art, Nature and Science. Our birth Journey both Challenged and Affirmed my belief system. I have one main concept to convey, that is you don’t get a ‘calm birth’ you get a beautiful birth supported by Calm Birth Techniques.

So, I am not going to trivialise this amazing experience, but I needed to get a handle on the whole story and realised that it was a lot like a Football Game; In this story I will use AFL and the 4 equal quarters that it is played in, but you could translate this to NFL Netball or any other ball sport that can have a bout 4 phases. For my Ice hockey Fans out there, this all works, just that there was a little more mess on the ice and just image the Zamboni broke down on the ice and delayed the  final period of play…

Before the Game:

Like any football game, most of the really work is done before the main event. Firstly get to training, there are a bunch of great courses, like calm birth and Beer’n’bubs to get some information, get a book, do some searching on the net if you need to but be careful that you are reading authoritative sources. There is also a lot of courses offered by the hospital or health facility of your choice. I highly recommend these, they are great for social time and they do give you an overview of the facilities offered by that particular facility.

So that bring me to my next part of this pre game phase that is to start building you team. I have already mentioned the health facility and meeting these staff before the event will help a whole bunch for all of you. You may want to enlist a Doula or birth support person. They are a great help if your choice is to stay home and labor as much as possible before heading in to the hospital (if at all)

Now a side note on medical people. I have recently been diagnosed with a stress disorder associated to my service in the military. I still have more Doctors than my Son and his amazing mother combined; So we really did have to start rolling in support. We were also new to Canberra so this meant finding a new social group also. We met a couple of great families in the classes and they are still the core of our bubs network a year later. We also got a Doula and started regular chats with our midwife and other support nurses from the hospital.

I offer these side notes early, to basically state that you need a team around you, but you need to understand what services those people provide. Some will offer a suite of services; some will only provide their services on their terms. That is fine, but make sure you understand how this impacts on decisions for you later.

And then back to football. We had our team; we kind of are starting to get our head around the job that is coming. The next thing for the expectant dad is to start working on the ‘oh shit kit’ the bag that will come to the hospital with you. Now it may be a choice to leave this in the car or maybe just beside the front door. That is fine; just watch what you store in the car for long period of time. ,what goes in the bag will be a result of what the hospital does and does not offer, but here is a start. Remember you are packing for a birth not Armageddon….

Spare clothes for both of you, including underwear and even some large or comfy knickers for her after the birth. Back Swimmers, you may end up in the shower with her for a while. Oh and clothes for bubs in a variety of sizes, pre washed.

Toothbrush, Gum, Razor, Mouthwash, any medications you both need

Family Photos, Music,  book, playing cards, iPad, charger, wallet, small change for vending machine, instant noodles and snacks.

Quarter one

Now the other side note is I have a twelve year old son. I was married to his mother who was a Theatre Nurse in the RAAF. We also were family friends with our Obstetrician. So you can see that the key people in here were all very process based and the story was very interventionist, Number One Son was delivered by Caesarean section and was a very healthy baby. There were loads of complications later, especially around the feeding and sleeping. We made a bunch of mistakes and most of these were never really fixed, combined with numerous failed attempts to have another child, more deployments and eventually a divorce.

So I was approaching all this very differently. The morning of the birth I was watching TV with the Number One Son. Expectant Mum was in the shower a while and we soon realised she had about twelve hours to go as her waters had broken. But she was not really getting many other pains yet. I started to check our ‘plan’ and we got the Doula to come over, I wrangled the Number One Son and got a sitter for him we also contacted the hospital.

Side note here on family and friends; you need to set ground rules early here, if there is someone you want on the team, get them on early. But for other like parents / in laws etc that show up during the labor and start to impact on your plan, you need to have a strategy to move them on, this happened in EVERY stage of our journey.

So now my role as the head coach of this team was really coming into light. We had got all our people around us and the game was progressing. The siren sounded to end the first quarter, we were up by a kick, not enough to relax over, but certainly a good sign.

Quarter two

The story re-commenced after a simple drive to the Hospital, I drove slowly, with our Doula and Expectant Mum in the back of the car. I had missed the fact that my Mother in law was on her way to the hospital also and had re-allocated sitting duties to ‘Fellow Geek’ and Awesome father in law who took Number One Son to the Australian War Memorial.

By the time I parked the car, Expectant Mum was in the room, clothes gone and in a deep bath, moaning like she had just helped my move the heavy bookshelf in the spare room AGAIN to make the rooms work for bubs. I could compose a very large side note on nesting, but let me just say it is the most significant Pre Birth expense in time and cash.

There was a lot of this moaning, I suggest that you tape SOME of it, but don’t make jokes about using it as a ring tone or editing it up for your wedding video… I got out photos and plastered them around the room, got the iPod running with Dessert Lounge music mixed from 4 Volumes of the Jumeirah Beach Hotel CD series

I had also made up laminate A4 sheets with positive stuff on them, flowers, motivational words to help visualise. I also made up one for Number One Son as he was also taking on a big change. I did cheat a little and had cartoon and maths equations on the back of them for me to read, I thought I was in for the long haul.

We had learnt all this meditation stuff, I really had very little interest in it. You see, as mentioned before, I tried a meditation class after some time in the middle east and my brain links meditation and the thought of it to sandpits, explosives and crap. My pulse actually increases… I still get a lot less sleep than my family..

The half time siren wailed and we had visual of the newest member of our family, only for a few seconds in between pushes, but things were happening, we were ahead

Quarter three

This bit here, often called the premiership quarter is where games are decided. And that was certainly the case for us. It is the phase you test your plan A and start writing up a plan B if you need to. Well Expectant Mum was NOT HAPPY, she was over it, in the bath, out of the bath, Loving Me, hating me, DEMANDING medications that were not on our plan. But by now our midwife was on other tasking, She was in some secret cupboard getting out a roller tray, no medical stuff just a cot and blankets. In my footy speak it was like she had gone to the bar at half time and come back with beer and chips, she was already singing the team song.

Anyway, even though it is the premiership quarter, unlike football, I am going to skip a lot of the commentary and just say that after about 5 really exhausting hours Bubs was delivered by me with a little help from the midwife out of the pool and up onto his Mum’s chest.

No comment here on how much or how little Dad’s want to do, but just remember, there is a lot of blood either in the pool or on the bed and there are some things, as beautiful and special as they are, that you can’t ‘un see’ this is all a choice that you can make with your partner. My suggestion, and this is my story, is leave this bit to the professional and play wing / flanker / left guard…

Quarter four

We were a couple of kicks ahead here, but the on field team were battered and bruised and we still had a long way to go, we still had to hold the lead. Bubs will get a few checks and hopefully get the thumbs up from the medical staff. The aim these days is for as much ‘skin to skin’ with mum as possible. There are a whole bunch of reasons, hormones, oxytocins, feeding, warmth, love, security, kick starting the immune system. This is in stark contrast to Number One Son being born. He was whisked away to the nursery, I got a cuddle to warm him up and he didn’t get back to his mum for her second round of touches for an hour or two.

Now regardless of how bubs gets out, Mum will be a bit damaged. A caesarean is massive medical procedure that takes a long time to recover from. A natural birth does a bunch of renovations to the down stairs regions and some may be permanent. There will generally be some minor corrective work required, perhaps a few stitches on the spot, or maybe some work down the track. A friend of ours had an extended labor then a messy caesarean; she still is waiting significant surgery 5 months later to restore even some of the basic functions.

So what I got from Calm Birth.  I had one main concept to convey, that is you don’t get a ‘Calm Birth’ you get a beautiful birth supported by Calm Birth Techniques.

Soon New Mum needed a shower, so she was fine to do that, I got some cuddles with Bubs who fell asleep in my arms watching the last quarter of the 2015 preliminary final between the Hawthorn Hawks and Fremantle Dockers replayed on TV.

I suppose the final siren on the Birth Experience was being sprung on the couch at the Hospital watching footy with our one hour old. We had the ward to ourselves and I had made tea and toast for the ‘player of the match’

Full Time

We made a few phone calls and texts and enjoyed some quite time before visitors arrived.  Again my notes here on family and friends; you need to set ground rules early here. People can pop in for a cuddle and to chat BUT remember that this stage of the birth is vital to forming the bond for Mum and her new Baby. There is a whole bunch of work written about imprinting and this time is precious. Sure show your new child to your village who will help raising them, but people that show up demanding some weird allocation of cuddle times depending on place in the family tree need to be shown the rules or asked to leave. Guests who bring food or offer to wash dishes etcetera are welcome anytime. Friends who expect a new mum to ‘entertain them’ should be given cinema tickets.

After the Game

The next day, we had to leave the hospital, mum and Bub were well and our parenting journey was on track. Number One Son was there with us so the four of us could check out together. I had one main concept to convey, but I need to extend it that is you don’t get a ‘Calm Parenthood’ you get a beautiful Family supported by Calm Parenting Techniques.

Your support role doesn’t change, some Dad’s are helping with feeding, some are not. Bubs is still on Beast Milk and this is super easy for the Dad and less dishes for all. We have moved him on to Solids now so there is a lot more mess, but it is soooo much fun. I took on a lot more of the cooking duties. I did a cooking course, not for anyone else, but I was getting REALLY bored with the 3-4 dishes I could cook well and need to expand the repertoire.

Laundry, do it, yours, hers and the expanse of mess that Bubs creates. Check the care instructions on stuff as it is not a good idea to ruin new clothes, especially if they are gifts from VIP members of the team.

Hopefully somewhere in your team is a great GP. Get in for a normal check up soon. I hope you can also find a good lactation consultant as breast feeding can be really great if it works, but often is very stressful to get it going. Also watch out for Mental Health. It was a big issue in my marriage and has become a concern in me due to my career. New Mum is great, but there are a lot of stress and changes around and they need to be managed.

Oh yeah a football game, no one escapes without nick names so our current list is about a dozen; if there is one you don’t like, edit it out quickly as Uncle Mark will do his best to gain traction with it….

That’s more story, not intended to make judgement or upset anyone whose story is different, it is just my story. Regardless of how your story is/was I think that having a good team around you, big or small, is a great concept

the end