London - Your Royal Highness, Sir, we other dads know the feeling. The birthing process is agony - for men. Which father will not have felt sympathy for Prince William as he waited and waited and waited for the cork finally to pop?
Women, perhaps understandably, claim that for sheer, gory pain, they have it worse when it comes to a long labour. And one treads here on something of a minefield, so we must phrase this carefully; but the man’s suffering is no less intense - at least on a psychological level.
You just feel so helpless, so hopeless, and at the same time rather bored, and maybe a little neglected.
A royal prince will not have been used to that last bit.
You are the spare part in the pits lane, the stone in the shoe, the fly in the hospital ointment (of which they have plenty - ointments, not flies, or at least you hope not).
Everywhere you sit or stand, you seem to be in the way. And whatever they give you to do - “hold this clipboard while I check the contractions, dearie” - feels tokenistic.
Our first-born, Claud, took the best part of a day to appear. It was a hot morning in July 1997 and I was working on an article about Elizabeth Taylor when my wife Lois staggered upstairs to the little study in the cottage near Stroud, Gloucestershire, where we then lived. “It’s starting,” she said.
“Won’t be a mo,” I replied. “By the way, can you remember how many times Liz Taylor has been married?”
Looking back, I can see that it may have been an insensitive thing to say and it would have been more diplomatic immediately to have flown to her side, fluttering with concern, but I was on a tightish deadline and Lois is something of an expert on film stars.
To her credit, she very decently helped me complete my article then we set off for Cheltenham hospital’s maternity wing with bags of clobber which had been packed for days.
The ten-mile journey, in our little Mini Clubman estate was not easy, as we lived on a rutted, non-Tarmac lane and Lois, lying in the back, was bounced all over the place, moaning like a torture victim. I was just glad the Mini, which was called Mavis, had started. Mavis could be a bit temperamental.
On arrival, a fleet of middle-aged, expert midwives took over. Expectant husband was firmly barged out of the way while tests were conducted (close inspection of the undercarriage and guttural muttering about things such as dilation - things a man is better off not contemplating).
I was told to “go and make myself useful with some shopping”. Nappies, a tube of Smarties, a bottle of Champagne, that sort of thing. I said I would “go and get the stuff from Mavis” and the midwives looked at me in puzzlement.
So began the long hospital wait. The first part was a breeze. When Lois felt twinges, I had to give her a mixture of gas and air.
I did better than my brother-in-law John. His wife (my sister) was getting no pain relief from the gas tube. Why not? Because John was standing on it with his size ten foot. Gosh, he got a ticking off.
I disgraced myself when the anaesthetist entered. He was wearing a pair of white gum boots. That was bad enough, but then he produced a syringe which looked big enough to sedate a hippopotamus. He explained it was the epidural and that he was going to inject my wife in the back with this jousting stick.
At that point, readers, I am afraid I had to sit down, I was feeling so peculiar. The midwives took one look and told me to leave before I fainted.
Through the open windows of a nearby waiting room I could hear applause from Cheltenham Cricket Festival, where a Gloucestershire match was under way. Part of me was tempted to slip away and watch a few overs but I feared that might not be popular with the distaff side.
The midwives already had me down as a halfwit. I did not want to add “marital neglect” to their charge sheet.
My late father had told me once that I would find it similar to being the next batsman in: all padded-up, nerves jangling, waiting in the pavilion until someone is out.
I went downstairs to make telephone calls on the pay phone (I did not own a mobile then) and alerted the in-laws and my own parents.
My mother said gaily: “Good, good, the baby will arrive when it is ready.” Yes, but when would that be? Men like to know these sort of things. We like to have a schedule. My in-laws said they would be at the hospital in an hour or so.
I read the newspapers. All of them. Had the first of several walks of the hospital perimeter. Studied the wallpaper in the general lounge to which I had been banished. Watched daytime rubbish on its television. Scoffed my Smarties.
From time to time, a midwife would stroll by, imparting “no news yet”.
Cheltenham hospital is a splendid place but maternity wings are not for the delicate. Sitting in that waiting room, I could hear occasional screams from delivery suites. Shades of the Tower of London back in the days of thumbscrews.
These yells of pain - a natural part of childbirth, but still pretty horrible to hear - were not yet coming from my wife.
She was still at that phase of the process where Heathrow ground traffic control might say a plane was “stacking”, but it was obvious that her moment of agony would soon arrive. The husband, in such circumstances, feels a measure of guilt. He has been at least partly responsible for this pregnant state of affairs. And pregnant is the word for the hour, for it is great with fear and foreboding.
He may feel desperate worry for his darling spouse, hoping that her pain will not be too drawn out. We have all heard nightmare stories about 24-hour labours.
B y the time 6pm arrived, and the midwives’ evening shift was starting, I began to prepare for an all-nighter. You fall into inevitable pessimism of the “I knew it would go wrong for us” variety.
You try to imagine the woman’s pain - and give up. You picture how your child will look. You hallucinate about his or her first cries, thinking you have just heard them from the other side of the door. You fret like mad about something going wrong with the delivery.
Having opted not to attend the birth, perhaps I was bound to feel somewhat useless, but friends who have ‘donned greens’ and watched their wives give birth have not always felt much more useful.
One said his duties amounted to little more than selecting music from his wife’s iPod. Another, who had intended to video the event, felt so unwell he had to ask to stand “at the non-striking end”.
The anecdotal evidence, at least in my circle of friends, is that the trade union of women regard husbands as a distraction or worse. No wonder in the old films they always told the clueless male to ‘go and fetch hot water - lots of it’.
My late father-in-law Patrick was marvellous. He took me off to a nearby pub and poured a couple of pints of cider down my throat. We got back to the hospital at 7pm to find nothing had happened. Patrick fed me peppermints in case our breath smelled too strongly of cider. Matron might take a dim view.
My mother-in-law was to be the “birthing partner”. She assumed the glint of female superiority that women acquire in such moments.
It’s an entirely natural thing but blokes are made to feel surplus to requirements. We are third spear-carriers at best. I am sure that is just as true if you are a prince of the realm or a freelance newspaper journo.
HRH? It might as well stand for “Her Ruddy Husband”. Again, I mean no disrespect to Cheltenham hospital, which was terrific. It is just the way men feel when their lives are turned upside down.
Around 8pm, a rather interesting documentary about Michael Foot came on telly. It was made by Michael Cockerell and I was soon gripped. So much so that I stopped worrying for a while and became lost in the story about ex Labour leader Foot, one of the great parliamentarians of our age.
The credits were rolling when - pop! - there came, from the other side of the delivery room door, the unmistakeable “whaaaaaaa!” of a child. One of the best sounds in the world.
What looked like a dentist stuck her head round the door. It took me a moment to realise it was in fact my mother-in-law in a mask. “It’s a boy!” she said. “And Lois is fine.”
The wait was over. And it had been worth every single agonising minute. - Daily Mail