The three stages of labour

I had always thought the three stages of labour were as follows:

Clement Attlee >>>> Harold Wilson >>>> Tony Blair

It appears that it actually refers to the labour process that women go through during child birth. This was extensively described to Mrs Bear and I at the ante-natal class last night.

At stage 1, the cervix becomes all stretchy like a medium rare steak – what a nice thought? No need to get to the hospital just yet, the best advice is to stay at home, eat lots of snacks and have a nap; luckily Mrs Bear is good at all these things.

Contractions become longer, stronger and more frequent. This is the point where I start to panic as I will no doubt be at a meeting in the Outer Hebrides and will need to get to the hospital ASAP.

The midwife advises that you should ‘go to your happy place’ when the contractions start getting more and more painful. She suggested an imaginary igloo – I thought it was getting a bit Fight Club at this point!

At the second stage, junior decides to make an appearance as his head decides to pop out. We watched two separate videos of childbirth which were most reassuring (!) At least 50% of the women were sat there is abject terror as they saw the women going through it on the TV. The men were even worse!

Finally, at stage 3, junior pops out. We put on his (or her) BCFC romper suit and jobs a good ‘un.

Yes I know I am slightly trivialising the process here and am acutely aware of the forthcoming pain that will be endured during the birth. I am fully prepared for my role as birthing partner; kits kats purchased and ready to go.

We also had a tour of the delivery suite which was again most re-assuring. We are now even considering a water birth as the facilities look excellent and somehow seem more relaxing and comforting than the very clinically focused delivery rooms.

Anyway, whilst all this was going on, Bradford went out of the League Cup to Wolves – a narrow 2-1 defeat which was better than the whitewash I was expecting.