Very early this morning exactly 27 years ago, your father and I got ourself the most beautiful present anyone could ever get, the both of you!
Around twelve last night I got fed up with it all, it had been an early start, driving from Akersloot where we just finished moving in, all the way to Lelystad to my lovely friend and gyn/obstetrician Frank who would assist me in your birth!
We planned this day only three days before when he said that he would go on holiday for three weeks coming Friday which would have been the 27th. I looked at him and said that he better get his ass into gear because the only reason I had been coming to bloody Lelystad of all places, first from Capelle a/d IJssel and from september from Akersloot was that he would do the birth.
I mean I could not even stand his colleagues for Gawd sake!
Knowing me rather well and realising I was not joking he checked his calendar and said, okay we have to do it on Wednesday than, if they take their time we have one more spare day…
So yesterday 27 years ago, we stepped into the car with Boultje, brought him over to friends and got ourselves into Hospital at 8 am. Somewhere along the line your father asked me if I was nervous, and I remember telling him that I should have thought about that 9 months ago, we laughed happily, that there was no point in starting that now.. I was in control, so arriving at the Hospital, laying on a bed, Frank put some tablets in me, in order to start the birth, hoping we could be home by teatime.
Unfortunately, it only made me feel like I imagine taking speed or something feels like, all my training of keeping my borderline under control went out of the window with this stuff.
So when I alerted a nurse that nothing happened except me getting rather worked up to the point of becoming aggressive, which I very much disliked, she send for one of the other obstetricians, a woman I knew and very much disliked, who had a bed side manner like: “oh come on, it cannot be this bad, get your emotions under control, you wanted to get pregnant etc”
I threw her a look that should have warned her, but the woman was totally oblivious to anything else but herself, I asked her politely if I please could see Frank as he was my physician, but she poohed it away like I was 5 years old and quite a nuisance..
I was a nuisance , but I was definitely not five years old, so I smiled and let her come near me, than I grab her by the coat, got her face near to me, lifted her and said very nicely that I-wanted-to-see-Frank, preferably NOW!
You see watching your maffia films, it will teach you all kind of things.
Your father did his best and tried to ease my grip, but I held on to her for one just one second longer, and then asked her if she had any other suggestions..
My own physical powers not stop to amaze me.
She practically ran out of the room, saying that she would call Frank to come up and I smiled at her like any shark would do..
He did come up, not quite laughing his head off: what the hell Colette? You see we knew each other from wayyyyyyy back, when we went dancing and such. He had seen me getting into struggles (huh fights) and getting out of them, never stepping back, just being clever!
He had also seen me getting into a fight with The Khu a gang in the early eighties defending two policemen who were accosted by gang members. I used to be a fighter when I was in my most intense stage of Borderline. Some commit suicide, some make themselves invisible and I fought.
So Frank comes in and admonishes me about my behaviour, I explained that we talked about this all during my pregnancy and that this was part of the reason that I would give birth over here with him, instead of anywhere else nearer home.
So he checks and tries something else and also starts an epidural in case the pain would take over and get me aggressive again. which is somewhat ironic if you know where my pain levels are, far to high for a normal girl, but hey if this is what he wanted, that is what we will do.
While I go into a room to do the epidural, I challenge him to just start the cesarian section, but he says that he prefers a natural birth so I have to wait..
I trust him, so I comply and get back in my room.
I am bored and tried to sleep a bit, meanwhile we are getting through the day. your father has taking a book and so have I so we will pass the day going over into the night.
Finally around 23.30 Frank comes back into the hospital to make a last round, he tells me that form tomorrow I will be in the “safe hands” of his colleagues, because he needs to other things and he is going home now…
I look at him, while being attached to loads of machines, epidural in my back, needle in my hand, having strings hanging out of me, and belts around my tummy so any sneeze from my baby lets a lot of bells going off and I am soo incredible fed up with it all.
I tell him that is the best idea he has had all day, so I start loosening the belts while mayhem starts on the machine, I tell him with a smile, that I will go home and have my babies in a Hospital nearby my home, seeing as I am not really impressed by his colleagues, so why the hell would I stay.
Nurses are running in, wondering what is going on and I am already throwing my legs of the bed, oblivious that my back is till attached to the epidural.. He throws his hands in the air and says that he will start the procedure. He tell the nurses to prepare me, tells Eric to get a coat etc and come down with me when I go down, because he has to get a team together to operate.
Meanwhile I have been listening for hours to women screaming, nurses running and me trying to keep calm as much as one can while realising that I might be the next one screaming. This was also due to a nurse telling me that the epidural would be stopped if the real work would start… Something I can still not get my head around, any other country you can get a semi painless birth, except in this country.
At the time a ms Beatrijs Smulders, an Amsterdam midwife has written some book, wherein she proclaimed that husbands felt better if their partners suffered during births..
This from someone who had never given birth at that point…
I still think the woman is an idiot, but I have read somewhere that she had kids, so I imagined she might have changed her tune since….
I must have really gotten worked up about it, because I still remember her name.. bloody lunatic!
So the nurse told me very sweetly that at the moment supreme, they would cut down my epidural because other wise I would not work enough to get the children out…. I asked her seriously how they did so in the US because they have epidurals also during births, but according to her that was why so many births went wrong in the US.
Which only proved to me that a midwife from Amsterdam in all her looniness had far reaching effects for all those mothers giving birth.
Within the hour I was driven downstairs in to a small operation room, I was still very quite opinionated and asked my anesthesiologist where my husband was, because I did not want anything to start without my love.
I was laying on a table, totally nude, like a whale or Jesus on the cross, which ever makes it clearer for you and surrounded by a small army of unknown experts.
The assistant anesthesiologist was being very nice and somewhat apologetic to me and told me he would be there in a jiffy, he too had to be dressed etc.
Some guy walked over to him and said something and all I remember after that was nothing, his chief told me to out me under, because I was far too excited.
He did it probably because he had to be lifted from his bed.
If he would have asked, I would have explained that I have huge problems with being put under, or if you like coming around for me is like swimming to the surface while not being able to breath and then being totally disorientated and thus being aggressive without control, which scares me to bits.
But he did not ask, so I could not tell and Eric came into the operating room not even able to share the birth with me. He had decided to take a marker seeing as in another hospital they had switched kids around and leave me on the operating table. Frank solved it by showing that they had a bracelet and Eric went with you boys to the babyroom where they put you together in one crib.
You both only escaped the incubator because major was 2610 gr while minor was 2350 gr. One of the smallest babies, ever seen in that hospital.
And look at you both now, you outgrew us both and I think I speak for papa and myself, we are so proud of you both! Although you irritate the hell out of us in your teenage years, 😉 you have finally found your dream and are working your ass off to grab and hold it.
But more than your careers, I but I am sure your dad would heartily agree, so I say WE have become sooo proud of the way that you both have become fathers.
In my eyes you are a father like your own father was and would still be!
Enjoying, singing, cuddling, explaining and pumping it full of semi useless information which it will enjoy throughout its lifetime, like you are doing now!!
So from dad and me: we wish you a fantastic first day of the new year in your life! 27th today, you have done well and you are making us proud.
Eric and Colette
24/11/2021