NEW BABY!!!

I was awoken by text at six o clock this morning. Mamacrow (my long suffering wife) was indeed downstairs and informed me the contractions were now strong and regular. The night before things had gotten semi exciting but had calmed down by eleven o clock and so she had retreated to bed and I stuck up my regular Monday post and followed her.

I got up, headed down and ran the bath as she puffed calmly on the rocking chair (no she wasn't smoking). The home birth we had in mind had been slightly under threat at the end of last week as she went seven days over her due date and she had been handed a booking in date for the eighteenth to be induced in hospital. Now, thankfully, it looked like we were going to avoid going into hospital, something mamacrow desperately wanted to do (avoid the hospital birth that is)..

Bath, contractions, all the mess and noise of a birth but tone it down and you have the right idea. mamacrow calmly went through the process and didn't shout and didn't really moan at all and no, she didn't take any pain relief at all. She truly is an amazing person. As the contractions got stronger her waters broke, they were very cloudy and contained a fair amount of Mulconin (that's the wrong spelling but the right substance) which meant that no mater what we were looking at a trip to hospital for the baby and her.

At 8 03 the lovely Midwife called for an emergency ambulance, as I listened to her mamacrow sat up and I could see she was obviously having a very strong contraction. I was stunned to look down into the water and see Babies head, I called the midwife (pretty panicked I must admit) and she took hold of  the baby as I helped hold mamacrow up and with one push out came the baby!

Straight out of the water, straight into his mothers arms and covered with a towel to try and keep him warm. We knew we were due to head to the hospital but now it wasn't an emergency, now we could take the panicked rush and bin it as the midwife did a quick check and confirmed baby was absolutely fine.

Baby was born at 8 05. Awesome!

My wife never ceases to amaze me when she takes something like this and makes it look easy, obviously it isn't, but that is what she does. She enters into the pain, hormone floods and instinctive craziness that is child birth without drugs, gas and air, or panic. This is our last child, number seven, we both agree on that so its worth stating even more than normal that she is without doubt truly remarkable.

We went to the hospital later and rested in a quiet room off the ward. The nurse came round and snipped the excess skin in babies mouth so freeing his tongue so he could latch on properly, he was doing well before the snip, he was doing brilliantly afterwards!

I left mamacrow and Baby at the hospital at 3. 30, picked up the kids from their granma's (who lives next door) and have sorted the house and chilled with the kids. We can't wait for mum and baby to come home tomorrow and I think that they both proved they were awesome today.

Baby was 8lbs and 10 ounces, has a very strong neck and is named (quite fittingly I think) Hector.

Here come the awesome baby pics.