Having been parents for 16 days, we feel we are now able to offer expert advice and reassurance to other parents to be....
When the health professionals are unclear about what will happen, it's because they have no idea what will happen. Mother nature will prevail and sort things out, despite the intervention of clueless yet well-meaning medical staff
Keep everything you need in the car, all the time
Dad - estimate how much water and snack foods you'll need on the day. Then triple the amounts and keep them on your person, all the time
When the hospital staff say "we'll probably let you go home later" then the birth may well be imminent
When the hospital staff say "oh no, there's no way we would do xyz" then xyz may well be about to happen
If you're in the hospital, stay there. If you go home, they may not let you back in
Buy Infacol now, unless a 24 hour pharmacy is close to hand
Whatever happens is quite normal
When registering the birth, you need to know where both parents were born, and the date of your wedding
Prior to the birth, the medical staff have no way of knowing what will happen, how big the baby will be or which way it will come out. However, once things start to happen, doctors and midwives come out of secret tunnels and respond quicker than you can do something that you normally do very quickly. Even when they don't know what's going to happen, they know exactly what to do once it does, and they do it even quicker than you can do a really, really quick thing.
The equipment and facilities in the wards and day clinics bear no relation to what's available in the delivery rooms and theatres.
This is a list of typical equipment to be found in a day clinic:
This is a list of typical equipment to be found in a delivery room: