Holding the Baby

I had a very strange day today. I was on the way out of the building when I received a phonecall from my neighbour. He told me his wife was sick and could I go round to see she was ok while he came back across the city to take her to the hospital. 

"Sure" I said "No worries!" (picking up the Aussie lingo)

I turned around and went to their flat and knocked on the door. After some knocking she came out answer and boy oh boy did she look sick. Red faced and passing in and out, she couldn't construct a sentence.

And over the next 10 minutes while waiting for said husband to return, I discovered something about myself that I didn't know ... sh*t am I useless in an emergency!

Literally all I managed to do was to stop her from falling over when she kept passing out, get a container for all of the sick that was being produced, and tentatively offer a glass of water.

When husband arrived, we got in the car and raced through all of the beach bound traffic in North Sydney, beeping the horn, and flashing the lights to try to get people to move over ... no-one did. You could see them all infuriatingly sitting in their cars thinking "Whats this pillock doing? No way I am moving over". I don't blame them, I would have done the same (probably with an added finger), not knowing the reason why.

I had the job of trying to hold Wife upright (she was now completely out cold) while calling the emergency room , who apparently can't come to the car with a stretcher for some unknown reason, meaning that she had to be carried in with great difficulty by husband.

So there I was, outside the emergency room, with a 2 week old baby! Me ... with a baby! ... I did mention that she had a baby that was only 2 weeks, didn't I?

I think I have only once held a baby in my entire life, and that was my niece Amy several years ago. This frightened the hell out of me.

I took the car keys and parked it extremely carefully, thinking to myself all the while that this person, my neighbour who had only known me for a month had entrusted me with his entire life. His precious newborn baby, and more importantly - his new Mazda! If the baby hadn't have been there. I would have been tempted to steal the car (unfortunately he knew where I lived)

Seriously though, the act of getting the tiny little arms of a two week old baby out of the car harness was torture for me. Fearing that my big clumsy mitts (I cant even write text messages properly) would hurt his delicate fingers. Every so often (during the 10 minute procedure) I stopped to look round - hoping someone would rescue me, would take the baby from me and sort everything out. No such luck. 

All I remember from past baby holding experience is to support the head (that is my entire baby knowledge in one sentence). This I did, and hoped that the rest would sort itself out. then the baby (Josh - its a bit wrong using the terminology the baby isn't it? I think I will revert to real first names at this point) started to cry! Uh oh!

I decided there was only one thing for it, I had to live up to my responsibilities ... I had to be a man ... I had to be heroic ... I crept into the waiting room and thrust little Josh into the arms of the first woman in the waiting room who looked old enough to have had kids and politely requested "please stop him from crying ... oh and please don't steal him - my neighbour would kill me!"

The lady was successful, and luckily husband returned in about 10 minutes. they are all staying in overnight tonight. I don't want to go into details (I saw too many of them in the car), but I think his wife is over the worst of it, and should be out tomorrow hopefully. I wish them well.

This little disaster also reminded me of newly departed Lucy. She is always excellent in a crisis, and is always good with kids. This is why we make such a good team (she is good in a crisis - I am rubbish).