It’s a Boy!

Last Thursday evening, just after seven o’clock news, our baby decided to meet the parents. The expected date was May 3, so the process was one and half week early. The delivery started with trickles of amniotic fluid, and soon I found myself packing my stuff frantically — Sanna, on the other hand, had packed everything already a couple of weeks ago.

After I had calmed down from the first panic, I got organised and arranged our stuff to bags and us to taxi to Kätilöopisto, one of the hospitals in Helsinki region for delivering babies. The taxi driver was most probably the most nervous of us three, fearing that the baby would be born in the cab…

The reception from the nursing staff was much cooler and professional. They checked the situation that the delivery was really going on and there wouldn’t be any possibilities for turning back. After waiting a couple of hours, we were ushered to the delivery room and surrounded with midwife and her assistant, a midwife student.

We spent agonising 15 hours in that room, Sanna in constant pains and I so restless that I couldn’t stand sitting a few minutes, but I had to be constantly moving. Some of the operations in modern birth are so gruesome — at least from father’s point of view — that I won’t describe them here.

We saw three shifts of nurses and midwifes, and two shifts of doctors before it was decided that the baby won’t born by himself, but a Caesarean section is needed. The preparations took almost half an hour, Sanna was taken away and I changed my clothes — just to see Sanna’s bed being rolled back. There were some more urgent mother before us, so we were put on the queue.

Finally it was our turn. I was so pale that the staff asked whether I’m going to faint or do something else equally stupid in the operation room… After fifteen minutes we heard the first cries and soon after Sanna got the baby boy in her arms.

Then I had the pleasure of bathing him, and he was measured. The next hour was spent with phone calls and SMS messages to everybody in my phonebook, until it was time for family reunion in the infant wing.

We spent three days there practising baby care and other basic parenthood tasks, and today we were admitted out of the hospital.

Below are a couple pictures of the happy family:

Our son sleeping near his mother (Sanna is on the upper left corner in the background).

Our son sleeping very near his father. Isn’t he precious? The baby, of course.