A not so typical birth...

K was born in October 1999..

It was anything but a typical birth. He is my second wife and Is 3rd child. The previous two were boys and both deliveries went quite smoothly. In fact our second son almost arrived in the hospital car park he was that keen to come into the world.

K was very different. To begin with he was almost a week overdue and my poor wife was as "big as a house". She had suffered very badly from fluid retention around the ankles and had had gestational diabetes during the pregnancy.

When it finally came time for K to arrive he was far more stubborn than his older brothers. Firstly the sac surrounding him refused to break. The pressure of him trying to arrive before the sac had broken caused it to blow up in a bubble that eventually burst like a pricked water balloon spraying all over the bed as it did. My wife I think nearly feinted. She said later that the force had been that great she thought that K may have came out with the sac.

At this stage the midwife had a foetal monitor permanently attached around my wife's stomach. I am guessing that, though they were not telling us, they may have been a little concerned and what they were seeing on the monitors as they kept it in place right through the delivery. K's heart appeared to beat strongly throughout. Even as I could see his head coming into the world. Then I saw every parent's worst nightmare. He was as black as the ace of spades. He had entered the world but looked like nothing more than a dark bowl of jelly. He had stopped breathing.

It was a chaotic scene. My wife was yelling out "is he ok?" because she couldn't hear him crying. I am standing there reassuring her that he is fine. "Everything is great" I am telling her while watching the mid wife working frantically trying to breathe life into him and thinking that it looked like a lost cause. Miraculously after what was probably a few seconds but seemed to be about 5 hours he let out a scream. I can tell you that I have never been so relieved to hear  a baby cry in my life. The midwife had just saved a life and spare a thought for the poor trainee she had with her. This was Michelle's first birthing experience. We ran into her about a month later in the shopping centre and when she saw how healthy K looked she just stood there and cried. She could not believe he had survived.

K went off to a humidy crib for the next month. I think the doctors told us about every second day that he wasn't showing any positive signs and that we should prepare ourselves for the prospect of him never going home. We now believe that he wasn't showing any visible improvement because of what we now know is Autism. 11 Years later he is the biggest kid in his class.

For mine. I to this day believe that his dying at birth is what caused his Autism but maybe that is just me wanting something to blame for what he has to go through.

Let's Talk About Autism!!