Becoming a dad: Plans to relax sound good but bub has other ideas – Stuart’s 3rd trimester experience

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With the big day getting closer and closer, Stuart would really like his wife to take some time off work so they can relax before the birth. However, a fateful trip to the doctor’s clinic completely rearranges their plans and baby might be arriving a bit sooner than they expected!

Time to pull back on the reins

Now that the third trimester was upon them, Stuart was trying to get his wife to slow down a bit.

“Not that she was going overboard but she was still working full-time and I thought it would be good for her to take some time off especially as it was still summer,” he said.

Despite Stuart and his wife’s best intentions, taking some time off before baby was due didn’t quite turn out the way they had planned.

“She was going to take three weeks off before the birth, then two, and then it never happened,” said Stuart.

Surprise! It’s baby time

“We went in to visit the doctor a week before the baby was due and the scan was indicated that baby wasn’t moving as much as it should. Baby was getting too big to give birth naturally which is how my wife really wanted to do it.

“The doctor said that they wanted to deliver the baby ASAP and just by total chance they had an opening for an induction the very next morning.

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Stuart said that this made the whole situation feel a bit rushed as they were expecting to have another week to prepare and they hadn’t given themselves a chance to nest properly yet.

“It’s strange, we had almost 10 months to prepare for the birth, yet we were shocked it was actually happening the next day. My wife had been working every day in the lead up to the birth, going to the gym every second day and we were just going about our little routine. We should have stopped to take stock and nest. We will definitely do that next time round!

“Although it was a little confronting for us, at the same time it was more relaxing knowing that we were going back to the hospital in the morning to have the water broken and not be stuck waiting worrying about when it might happen,” he said.

That night Stuart and his wife were able to spend some time together to really come to terms with this sudden change of plan and to make sure they were as prepared as they could be for their big day.

Game day

“During the beginning of the labour I would talk to her in between contractions,” said Stuart.

“She actually told me to take a nap and save myself for later on, so I had a little snooze on the couch while she continued to labour.

“I became a little bit lost toward the end; she didn’t really want me to touch her which I think is pretty common for women giving birth so I just sat quietly next to her so she could squeeze my arm or talk to me if she needed to.

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“It was a pretty quick labour; it started about 6am and was finished by 4pm.

It’s a girl! Now what do I do?

“After the birth we had lots of our family in the room with us all making a fuss of the baby so there was plenty going on to distract us. But once they all left and it was just my wife and I, it really hit home.

“I remember thinking ‘wow how do I put a nappy on?’ And ‘how do I put a t-shirt on this tiny crying baby without damaging it?’

“They give you a lot of information at the pregnancy classes on breastfeeding but they don’t show you how to change nappies or that the baby needs to sleep on both sides of its head so there was a lot of learning as you go which was hard at the start but beautiful at the same time.”

Click here to read Stuart’s experiences during the 1st trimester.

Click here to read Stuart’s experiences during the 2nd trimester.

Read about other fathers to be and their experiences during the third trimester.
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Date Created: October 4, 2012 Date Modified: July 3, 2018