BIG NEWS!<\/p>\n
On Wednesday 15th June, at 15:45, my daughter Elizabeth was born!<\/p>\n
She is gorgeous, and looks a lot like her brother when he was new. She weighed 6lb 2oz.<\/p>\n
It was a very strange day – our son was a (planned) home birth, and we\u2019d looked into getting a birthing pool. Unfortunately, they are expensive to buy or hire, and we lived in a smaller house then so there wasn\u2019t space for one. Southmead Hospital (the premier maternity ward in the area) had a pool, but it couldn\u2019t be reliably booked (babies don\u2019t normally conform to schedules). Add to that he was due at the end of November, and the associated problems with keeping a large body of water warm in a cheap house at that time of year. We scrapped the idea, had a lovely home birth, and completely forgot about it for Elizabeth.<\/p>\n
On the day, we happened to be in hospital for a quick check up and assessment. They finished with \u201cwe can see you want a homebirth, so we\u2019ll just get your notes ready and you can go.\u201d By the time they came out with all the discharge paperwork, the contractions had come on thick and fast and we weren\u2019t sure we\u2019d make it home in the morning traffic before the baby decided to arrive, so we asked to stay and deliver in the hospital.<\/p>\n
At this time, all the visions that made us want a home birth came back – the beginning of Monty Python\u2019s Meaning Of Life being among them (the machine that goes ping<\/em>, etc etc). We\u2019re practical people, and always knew that we might not get what we wanted, so we were prepared to just knuckle down and take it. However, since our notes had \u2018home birth\u2019 listed on them, the midwives made a point to check the availability of the birth suite in the hospital. A birth suite is a bit more of a home from home than the ward, with separate kitchen and bathroom facilities, living room type rooms to deliver in, and a more comfortable environment in the middle of the hospital. Like having a home birth, with the machine that goes ping<\/em> on standby down the corridor if it\u2019s needed. After a few phone calls, they worked out it was empty but could be staffed. Result!<\/p>\n As we were being shown the suite, the student midwife showed us the rooms and said \u201cand the room at the end has the birthing pool.\u201d My wife\u2019s ears pricked up. \u201cCan we have that?\u201d she asked.<\/p>\n So a completely unplanned water birth, which was a million miles from what we expected. A hospital delivery with no problems, mother and baby are doing brilliantly (if tired) and daddy and the little man are adjusting well too.<\/p>\n I\u2019m back to work on Wednesday, but I\u2019ve booked off Thursday and Friday for the next few weeks to settle in with everyone, since those are the days that Freddy is home from nursery and I can\u2019t leave mum with both the kids on her own so soon! It\u2019ll be a wonderful short week then!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" BIG NEWS! On Wednesday 15th June, at 15:45, my daughter Elizabeth was born! She is gorgeous, and looks a lot like her brother when he was new. She weighed 6lb 2oz. It was a very strange day – our son was a (planned) home birth, and we\u2019d looked into getting a birthing pool. Unfortunately, they … <\/p>\n