34 years of age and been around kids most parts of the last ten years, never my own, it finally happened. I became a dad, who would have thought that !
 
For men, the whole pregnancy isn't that of an experience, as I suspect it is for women. For all I knew, Jane was growing a lot. In every direction. Which is normal, but still, alarming. You know something is going on, but you have no part in it. Sure, I tried to put my ear on Jane's stomach, to listen for a heartbeat. And heard a lot of stomach, but no heartbeat. I kept my hand on her stomach, to feel it kicking (now, now !), but nope, never when I had my hands there. Never within those 30 seconds. I tried talking to it (the indoctrinating "be kind to your mom and dad", and "lower taxes", in case he ever made it as a prime minister), but never got an answer.  You can only hope that all will go as planned. But forget about getting involved. You're an outsider!
Last year (1997) we painfully experienced that not every pregnancy ends all good. In it self it was a small miracle that I became a dad, less than nine months after.

Now, I always laughed about the melodramatic behaviour of new fathers. Proud young men, steering their strollers through thick rows of shopping women, midtown, on a busy Saturday afternoon. No thanks!
On the other side it scared the hell out of me. My adult life would start for real now. My spare time would be diminished to only a fraction. My responsibilities would grow out of proportion. I was to walk in the park with my wife, and go on coffee visits every Sunday afternoon to other couples with small babies.
 

Well, I've already done all that by now. And come to think of it, I did it even before I became a dad. Just didn't recognize it. And proud too. He looks like me, they all say. And wheeling your baby through town on a busy day, really is a big deal. Never got that much attention!

For those who have experienced this miracle, for indeed it is, they probably might understand the emotions I went through at the time of birth. For those who haven't: It's rawer than everything you've ever gone through.

I had seen some great pictures from Lennart Nilsson a Swedish paediatrician and photographer (known from his in-womb pictures published in the 70s) who had published some great pictures of just-born babies, (within minutes after birth!) showing the new-borns with an incredible eye contact. I was determined to produce something of the same nature. In black and white, no flash, using only available light. It was to be tight timing, getting the baby faced to the camera, the second it was placed on the mothers stomach. Snap! I had to be all prepared. Light, aperture, focus, The Lot !
 

Anyway, we were so lucky we could practice the whole thing a week earlier. I ve had time to test film (TMZ 3600) for low light scenes. The year before I was caught by surprise, and had to show up with only some APX 100 and no tripod (forget 100 ASA, if its gonna happen at night you'rlnot gonna have any pic's !). Now I was all prepared, even bought me a monopod, cause I figured a tripod would probably only get in the way.

Jane was in her 34th week when the contractions started one afternoon. We made arrangements for Erik (Jane's 11 year old son from a former marriage, who lives with us) to stay at my sister in law, and on to the hospital (all births take place in a hospital her in Norway), where we reported at the check-in desk of Labor & Delivery, at the local hospital, 9 o'clock the same evening.

Like we had to explain why we were there. Well we had! After a bit of waiting we were met by a Swedish midwife (guys, never stick your hand out to say hello in these situations. They walked straight passed it, and welcomed Jane first. Than after a minute or so, " ... and you are.. ooh yeah, the father". Which is understandable, I guess,  but it took me a few nurses to get it right). Another Swedish nurse showed us to a room, where we were met by an obstetrician (a Norwegian, he even produced some Dutch !). He examined Jane (guys turn around, you don't wanna see this !) and told us there was an opening !!. "Sure", I thought. "That has been there as long as I've known her". The other valuable piece of information he gave us was that the baby hadn't turned around and was sitting in breech, (with its ass downwards). We had to prepare, again, for a premature birth. This time though with the odds on our side.

Now remember with births, nothing is certain ("When do you think it'll happen"? "What are the chances it'll turn around"?, "Is it healthy"?). nobody knows a thing for sure. And everything will be explained as quite normal (low heartbeat, NO heartbeat !). There seems to be no assuring standard schedule. We were shown into a different room, Jane in bed, me rigging up my camera, counting the time between each contraction. 8 minutes, 5 minutes, 10.., 15.. 10 again. Time sure goes fast, looking at your stopwatch all the time. I shot a role or so and learned how dark, dark really is (and what huge difference there is between f4, the smallest aperture on my 28-105 Sigma zoom and f1.8 on my 50mm Nikon lens). 4 o'clock in the morning, Jane felt asleep. I went home to do the same, and succeeded after several hours trying so. The next day, bleu sky, no clouds. And the weather even improved during the weekend. Two days later, Jane came home, and we thought we just might steal a few weeks more.

Forget it! After just a few days: BANG. This time we knew it was for real (don't ask, it's a "women know" thing). I could just pick up the unopened bag of nonessentials (you're really not going to use all that equipment) and reported back at the same Labor & Delivery, now 8 am Tuesday morning, the 28th of April 1998. You suppose they would recognize us by now. Nope! Different Swedish nurses this time (I've got absolutely nothing against Swedish nurses, nor Swedes in other professions, for that matter. It just struck me that there were such an awful lot of them in a Norwegian hospital). More experienced now, I waited patiently to do my story, but nobody seemed to notice me. I did notice some terrible tired looking young bloke, sitting on one of the benches outside the birth rooms, with his 50th cup of coffee. Man did he look tired! But I guess this was quite normal.

We were again examined (I did my part and turned around). Room no 7, huge hospital bed. Jane dressed in hospital undies (one size-drowns all). I rigged up my camera. "Ooh, that's a nice camera !" (Its only a F50, but it probably looked pretty impressive on the monopod). We had daylight this time, which is all the difference in the world. I could get away with rating TMZ at 1600 ASA to get a higher shadow detail. I was even to use the roll of TMY i took along just in case.
 
The supervising midwife (we actually call them earthmothers in Norway) was an experienced nurse (you could tell, she was a lot older, with a flair of experience and a bunch of students following her around), in a perfect good mood. But she sure talked a lot. So much that she, in her eager to cheer us up, didn't notice a thing we were telling her. Several times, she entered the room yelling, "Your baby's fine". "Its shouting Hello here I am mommy ! I'm coming through !" (she did this, say, 10 times the first hour !). But she didn't register, us telling her, that the child would come through all right, but bottom first. It sure cheered us up, Jane and me, we were to be in good hands.
Checking Jane's opening ( I figured that out in the end !), she suddenly stormed out the of the room in panic ! Leaving us to guess. She returned after a short while with a bunch of doctors, and they found out, what we had tried to tell them all the time. "She was sure she felt some legs"! You know. All very normal, I guess!

After that little incident, more things went on, sort of parallel to each other. I was definitely losing control of who was doing what, and why, cause nobody told me a thing anymore. New doctors entered, dressed in different colours (they aren't really all doctors, but I couldn't tell the difference. White is for normal cases, but when it gets tricky, they'll throw in the light bleu ones!). Anaesthetics ! Doping Jane with a horrible looking needle and some fast working drug, since it all was about to happen pretty soon, as I now understood. It was either very quite at the Labor & Delivery or a premature breech birth was part of some kind of practical exam, since half the hospital walsed through our room. Not so normal, if you ask me. But nobody did ask me.
I took some shots ("No no"! "No pictures of me please", a young female obstetrician snapped at me. I wasn't taking any pictures of her. She just happened to be in the way!).
 
 

Yet another doctor popped in (a large Swede !). He seemed to be in charge, even though the young female doctor was to deliver the baby. Increasing heartbeat because of the anaesthetics! Lost the heartbeat ("I might just pulled out the plug a bit by accident", Jane whispered in pain, but everybody was to busy finding that heartbeat. I started sweating. They found out after some nervous minutes. Somebody pulled out the plug !)
We were getting into the final phase now. Jane was in serious labour. This was the real thing. I tried to make myself useful but was too busy holding Jane down and keep her from falling out of bed (which is probably the only useful thing you're capable off.). Serious contractions were coming down one after the other. The white dresses were putting on their white plastic (butcher-) robes and placed themselves on "first row" (No place for us guys! And just forget about taking any pic's from that angle). Blood splashed through the room (the water had broke? That wasn't any water, it was red !). "Hold her down!", Jane was slowly sliding out of the bed. Man, I wasn't going to be any big help, I wasnt going to be any help at all. "We got 10 cms"! (4 inches ) 10 cm's of what ? Can someone PLEASE fill me in ! "Come on, you can push now!" More blood. More pushing. What happened to the doggy-breathing, she never did that?. Jeesus, was all of this still normal?  "Yep, completely normal, don't worry!". But I couldn't do a thing. I was having serious doubts my supporting role, wasn't so supportive at all. Nailed to the floor.

Everyone in the room was shouting something, to coach my moaning wife through the final minutes. I meant to shout some too, but what to shout ? "Come on" ? I had a huge job, just holding Jane's hands. I was about to fail in my supporting role. "Everything is going to be fine, I told Jane, but I was merely talking to myself. Concentrated on Jane's hands, her head buried somewhere between the bed and my stomach. I tried to lift her out of there, without any satisfying results. More blood. Jane was screaming her throat out ! I noticed everybody was standing up now. All were highly concentrated, shouting something. Did they all know what they were doing? I doubted it.
Legs! From where I stood I could see some tiny legs in the hands of the obstetrician. "Pull", the large Swede said, and the other white dress pulled. "Turn", the Swede said, and MAN, she turned! I saw the those two tiny legs swaying around like rubber tubes. "Just down a bit, up, and turn NOW !". All the white dresses gathered on first row. Wasn't it over yet? Jane was squeezing the blood out of my hands. WHAT THE HELL WAS GOING WRONG ???!!

And than! I saw the obstetrician holding a tiny body in her hands. One head, two legs, two arms.. Yep! Bloody, but very alive. The yellow umbical cord was cut. (I thought I would come in there!) Nurses were pinching its feet. I saw a little penis! A boy. Some other nurses pinched his cheeks, his nose (careful now ladies!)! Some sort of breathing: Everybody was quite in the room and seconds passed, until I heard a weak scream. The scream lasted for a few seconds and was followed by a louder scream. A cry. Tears filled my eyes. I got a son ! This was MY CHILD !
A team of standing-by paediatricians looked at him for a few sec's, but didn't find anything wrong (what do they do, count fingers and toes, as I did ?). "He's all right", they said, "He's all fine"! "Congratulations !" All medical personal showed smiles on their earlier so serious looking faces. They were quite satisfied with the whole affair. If only they knew I was just about whacking the obstetrician, who so violently twisted the little body of MY SON out of his mother.
Jane was getting back into reality: And the boy, wrapped in a towel, was placed between her breasts, where we, still holding hands, looked straight into the open eyes of our son. Man, was I happy !
 

It turned out to be a 2,3 kilo (5,1 lb), 45 cm (11,5'') wunderfull boy. A bit on the small side, but that'll be the least of problems. Medical personal were extremely satisfied with the birth (I bet they say that to everyone !  No honestly, they were great !, "Thank you Sweden").  Mother and son came home after a week and joined Erik and me at Hinnavaagen. We nicknamed the little brat "Tarzan", but under press off both grandparents, changed this into Ruben a week or so later.

It might be no surprise to you, that I came home without any of the pic's I had so carefully planned. I got some pretty nice shots though, before, and after the birth. But the difference between me and Nilsson might just been the fact that this was MY son getting born and MY wife, screaming her longs out. All of the pics where shot on Kodak TMax 1600 and 400 (TMZ and TMY). I developed the films in Xtol and the negs where scanned on a Kodak Photo CD.
 

Stavanger, Norway May 1998
All pictures and text © Marcus van Koningsbruggen