February 2nd. Friday afternoon. An otherwise normal day at work, followed by a couple of drinks with colleagues. Tina was 5 days overdue in her pregnancy and I, being nervous by the minute, reluctantly left the ongoing party while being sensible. The party promised Singstar on Playstation 2. I promised myself an early night, went home, had a sip of beer, sat down for 1 minute - and then the water broke.

Theory has never been the same as real life. At least not in my book. On a daily basis, theories does not hold up to their expected outcome - both�feeding my frustration and giving me new ideas. However in this case, the theory is that there will be a baby - how it arrives, within what timeframe, at what level of pain, with which tools to aid or with how many times daddy faints is never part of the theory. I expected the worst as we called the hospital to notify our arrival, my whole body shivering as the cold sweat started to build up. Even though I had mentally prepared for the situation, actually being in the situation was a different thing. There seems to be no turning back. It is not like a rollercoaster you can do over again if you liked it or a pencilmark you can erase if you weren’t pleased with it. It is a situation you need to experience “as is” and try to be in the moment as much as you can. I have discovered that I am not very good at absorb moments as they pass by. They always need some time to be mentally digested. Some would say that is normal and I would not disagree for many situations, but having this kind of single minded way of experiencing life, some awesome moments might slip right by you while you are unable to grab on to, taste, smell, touch, feel or sense what actually happened. Some of my nervousness was founded by this somewhat flawed architecture of my emotional self, some of my nervousness was founded by my fear of not being able to support Tina enough in her efforts, but most of my nervousness was founded by the fact, that this experience is for life.

During the last week before this friday, I have had two dreams of the baby. In both dreams he spoke at the age of one week, he could walk out of the delivery room, he had a developed personality and he was just a very tiny grown up person. I am not sure if this was a mental representation of my expectations of him, but the dreams were there and very vivid. My dreams normally are very vivid. My dreams also predicted that there would be a slight presence of panic once the water broke, but to my surprise, we had time for making a sandwich, taking a shower, packing the last things and sing a song. On our way to the hospital, Gloria Gayner sang “I will survive” in the radio. I gripped the steering wheel firmly, paced the car within the legal speedlimit, felt almost as if I was everywhere else but in the car and thought that Gloria Gaynor probably was right. Even though this journey was not a problematic love story, she have, according to the song, survived visits from outer space and even though I am not even sure if she has delivered a baby herself, her song strangely soothed me. This song is, in my realm, normally accompanied by several drinks, elevated ambience, previously pathetic attempts on sweet talking women and fun. On this trip to the hospital, I guess the mental reference I have for this song has changed forever.

With water flooding, we arrived at the hospital in our calm way. No need to rush as we were led into an examination room and a very mature and large Swedish midwife started her initial examinations. In a very brutal way, she deliberately performed some sort of tickling of the membranes with the result of sending Tina into false labour. Even if the water broke, the contractions hadn’t started yet, but that was wrongly rectified by this Swedish midwife mama. The water broke at 1930 and around 2200 the contractions slowly gained momentum. We managed to walk over to McDonald’s for a snack - I was hungry after a long day and I actually will choose McDonald’s over airline and hospital food. I am looking forward to the first McFlyby or the first inflight restaurant - screaming kids could be replaced by the sound of screaming grown ups during a violent artificial turbulence. But I also prefer healthy food over McDonald’s, and preferably my own cooking. To bad there is no kitchen for the patients at the hospital. Anyway, the food tasted OK. It filled me up - at least for 40 minutes and we headed back the the hospital expecting to get sent back home.

The contractions got stronger and stronger and the midwife decided to let us stay the night. I thought it was just routine, but when more proper contractions started at 0130 I could not longer joke my way around any obligations. Tina needed help, someone to lean on to, someone to help her breathe and someone to make her focus somewhere else than on the strength of her pain.

It is a strange thing, the pain the women experience. There is just no way of knowing how it must feel. One can see the pain is real, I can’t imagine that many women fake pains just to get in the center of attention. They can fake, bluff, distract and lure men into anything in the simplest way to get their will in every day life, but I don’t expect there is a secret “we don’t actually have pain, we just want to be cared for”-society, where every woman in the world registers when she recieves her first period. Hah - conspiracies are everywhere. Why not here? But before this theory can be proved right, I have to keep to my orally passed knowledge: during birth, women are in great pain. Would I like to experience it? I don’t really know. Would I like to experience taking another life if I knew there would be no consequenses? Would I like to try heroin if I knew there would be no risk of addiction and shooting an overdose? Would I like to experience every high and low in life if it was possible? Hell yes. But on one condition. I decide when the pain should stop. I am not a fan of pain. I am a chicken. Knowing that women go through this voluntarily is an effort ready for several awards.

Not feeling her pain, I was reduced to a prop. Dealing with the fact that I was just supposed to share my presence with Tina was difficult, because the real feeling of making a difference didn’t dawn on me. I helped fetching drinks, making the bed, calling the nurse, shutting up when the pain was too bad and otherwise try everything I could to sooth her in every way. I was reduced to a master of practicalities, but as I have been told - that is exactly what fatherhood is all about. Oh yes, you get the gift of life and the love for and of a baby, but with my lack of skills in the matter of absorbing moments as they pass by - would I experience it before it is too late?

Giving birth looks easy. Especially if you look it up in every written text book. Of course there can be complications, but there can be complications just by getting on the bus in the morning as well. It can leave the bus stop too early, so you miss it. You can get on it, but it crashes into an ambulance with car crash victims. It can be located in Lebanon and a bomb can be attached to it. Or the bus could have been the core of the 1994 American action thriller film set in Los Angeles where a police officer tries to arrest an insane bomber/extortionist, who sets up a bomb on a city bus that must keep moving above 50 mph or the bomb will explode. In theory, birth is: get rid of water, dilate, push and harvest the ovation from midwife, husband/man/bystander and stressfully relax for several months after. In real life - it is not that simple. Because of the rough Swedish midwife, lack of sleep during the friday, too little food and great pain, fatigue set in as Tina was nowhere near the level of dilation necessary for giving birth. She bravely suffered through 9 hours of useless contractions, before she needed something to sleep on, so she would accumulate strength for later. She couldn’t get morphine, because of the steady heartbeat of the baby and after some time, she accepted getting an epidural block. It was amazing to see how this worked. Within 5 minutes, she went from barely able to speak, to almost sitting up in her bed asking “now - what should we do next? Anything I can do?”. Within 2 hours 45 minutes, she dilated fully and within 15 minutes after she started to push, our little baby boy was born. 53 cm long and 3648 grams heavy. He was perfect, both medically and personally.

Everything happened way too fast for me. I prepared for several hours of pushing and I am glad I didn’t go to the toilet as I really wanted. The baby would have been out by the time I got back. When I first laid my eyes on the black haired head of his, it took Tina only 3 more pushes to get him out. Within a split second, this very blue, very wrinkly and very gooey lump of freshly born human being produced a mom and dad. Within a split second a moment had passed and I was way too focused on Tina, as I thought this would take loads of time. I guess I would have wished to be more prepared and that someone recorded it som I could have watched the rerun. Within a split second the umbilical cord was cut, by the hands and tools of the midwife, and the baby was detached from the life with and in Tina and within a split second he was attached to life. In a very quiet manner, almost like the world span in slow motion, the movement of the baby made me think of a turtle. Blinking his eyes made me remember a turtle I once saw on the Discovery Channel, slowly searching for food, slowly blinking his eyes, slowly and curiously observing his new surroundings. He left the comfort and warmth of Tina to start a new life in this cold world.

He will be known as Matheo.