This is the second post about the birth of Henry, the first can be found here.

So here I sit, a moment of calm after a night of adrenaline fueled activity. My little purple dude in the cot next to me, I’m watching him closely just to make sure he’s still breathing. Doesn’t matter that it’s the second time it still as scary as shit isn’t it? I mean it’s magical and all that how humans are made and born but you still take some convincing that it’s an actual real life human that has popped out and is now lying in front of you. (and yes I know they don’t just pop out but hey this is a man’s view don’t forget).

This birth involved nothing that we planned, no home birth for us as there weren’t midwives available to send. We had no bag packed, no plan of what to take or where it was. No decisions made about what we wanted to happen at the hospital etc. Somehow I seemed to have managed to get pretty much everything we needed into a bag in 5 minutes and off we went. But it worked out, it went well, it went quickly.

We lucked out and there was no one else in the delivery ward so we could use the pool. Which although we’d never discussed actually suited us pretty well and in hindsight made for a really ‘nice’ labour. Certainly the lady of the manor seems to have recovered much quicker than with Matilda.

There was a real heart stopping moment right at the end of the labour when the cord got stuck around his neck and the midwife wanted the lady of the manor out of the water NOW. But she stood up and his shoulders popped out and we were home dry. But then we looked at him and he was blue, I mean really blue. And not breathing. SHIT. My heart  was beating at a hundred miles and hour as they put him on the resuscitator. Then we heard that all important cry and touch wood everything looks to be ok.

Now we have a few hours of chill out in our own little cocoon in the delivery suite while the little purple dude warms up. A precious few hours before we face the reality of 2 children under 2 and the chaos of the many visitors to come.

I’m pretty tired, but no man is brave enough or stupid enough to actually say those words out loud in a delivery suite are they? I mean it was tough doing all that on 2 hours sleep but ‘all that’ isn’t much contained to the woman’s job is it? The lady of the manor was of course a legend, honestly never ceases to amaze me how she deals with the whole thing with just a bit of gas and air for assistance.