Room number ten in the delivery suite, Östra Sjukhuset, has seen some heavy use over the years. Much of it by us.
Some twist of luck got us back to the exact same place that F was born in, two and half years ago. I was looking out of the windows at the same tired portacabins that still seemed like a temporary solution for building works, with the same moss and permapuddles on their asphalt roofs. No sprinkles of light snow this time. The Gothenburg summer may be crap, but there are limits.
Once we'd got over the deja vu, installed V and spread our stuff over the chairs and window ledges, I went straight to sleep.
I'm a very supportive husband, okay? I wanted to help V relax, so I set a good example. If she wanted to squeeze my hand during her labour, I felt having hands as limp as a stress ball would be helpful. And okay, she might have been working full time through the labour to support our family whilst carrying another whopping baby, but I was tired too. I had to stay up late writing this blog, for example. About once a month. So I deserve my rest.
I'm only mostly joking, is the sad thing. I wasn't as stressed about this pregnancy, partly because it almost never quite felt as real. Some of that was about it being unexpected, some of it was knowing a lot more about what to expect. Some of it was even that I speak a lot more Swedish this time, and wasn't trying to guess if the midwife just said 'twins' or not.
And reading that back to myself, I just want to clarify that 'not being stressed' isn't the same as 'not being fussed' or 'not giving a stuff'. I gave a big stuffy fuss about it. I was worried and apprehensive and in partial denial about potential complications, and all the rest of the horrific gnawing worry that accompanies parenting. Or that is the entirety of parenting, if you want to be negative about it. At no point are you not worried. There is always something to fret over, some dark doom waiting to encompass you. Something real and plausible and all too nearby. I get that, I have the fear. I have it right now as I type, I certainly had it in spades in Room 10, a room only a single digit away from being filled with rat-in-your-face hats and uncomfortable truths about human nature and jackboots.
I just did all of that stressing while asleep. In a really uncomfortable chair that's given me a really bad back. I'm also a victim here, let's not forget.
V was amazing. She powered through labour in what felt like no time, and made it look relatively easy. Even compared to being asleep in a chair. I managed to wake up for the last couple of hours, and saw a lovely fuzzy purple creature arriving. She's got spiky red-blond hair, same colour as V, but no name yet. You never really know how worried you are until it all dissolves in a wash of love for your wife and new and existing daughters.
This was Sunday, a few days ago (this bag of news is entirely catless, the news that we have a second daughter arrived on Facebook before we managed to leave the hospital). However advanced F's iPad skills are, however, she can't use Facebook yet. So there was someone who was yet to find out.
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