the adlards

Everyone’s home now (as of about 23:45), so we all got home on the day the baby was born. Just. As it turned out baby was cleared by the paediatrician at 7pm, but with shift-changes and an apparent complete lack of communication and management, it took a further four hours before anyone would actually let Michelle go with the requisite paperwork.

Josie was very excited to meet her baby sister in the middle of the night. Pictures added to the gallery.

Miss TBA Adlard was born at 12.12 today weighing in at 8 pounds 91/2 ounces. Mum was terrific and baby is well, in that newly squashed sort of way that babies are on day 1.

Michelle evidently decided, when she got up at 6.30, that today would be the day. We were at the Hemel Birthing unit (an absolutely superb midwife-led home from home we would recommend to anyone; the en suite was certainly cleaner than ours) by 9.30 and the new arrival was newly arrived not three hours later with no pain relief other than warm water and two paracetamol. This is not something I understand, it’s something I marvel at. Michelle enjoyed this birth.

Unfortunately the little girl didn’t breathe for a few minutes after birth so had a bit of oxygen and mum and baby were transferred during the afternoon to Watford General so that baby could be monitored for a few hours. Paediatric staffing being what it is, they are still there while Josie and I are at home drinking Harviestoun’s excellent Bitter and Twisted, thanks to Mark. Well I am, Josie’s asleep.

It is a source of immense irritation to me that my wife and child aren’t home with me. Quite apart from having to cook my own dinner, the whole rationale for this state of affairs is wrong. I asked three people at different times whether they’d be able to come home tonight (Michelle wants to, and I enjoy cooking for her).

The third, not to bore you with the first two, told me my wife had run a marathon and needs rest. What? Where was I? Did she win? And when did my wife learn to rest better in a 25C ward with four babies taking it in turns to scream the place down rather than in our nice quiet loft conversion? I thought this was about monitoring the baby’s breathing? If there’s something wrong with my wife could they perhaps tell us that?

I confess we gave up. We couldn’t in all fairness ask to leave – there might be something seriously wrong with the little piglet. It does seem that after such a positive start to the day at Hemel, the machine’s grabbed hold of us at Watford General and is working hard to destroy the warm, confident, satisfying experience this birth has been. Tell you what, they better bloody be monitoring her tonight.

We are, of course, delighted with the little girl and I look forward to having everyone home safe and sound soon 🙂

Well, integration of the gallery into the new site look and feel is complete, although there’s some pretty clunky css behind there. It’s just about impossible to find help online to integrate Gallery with WordPress so I’ll probably write a tutorial in the next few days. Or perhaps I should write a Kubrick-esque skin for gallery… . Next steps will be to run an rss feed from the gallery to the homepage and to set up caching on the gallery so that performance improves a bit. And of course I need to sort that contact form.

But that’s probably not why you’re reading this.

Today passed uneventfully on the baby front. Michelle managed to pinch a nerve in her back yesterday, down the pub with Pete and Ros, which sounds far more interesting than it was. She’s been pretty much immobile all day as a result, crawling upstairs to “make use of the facilities” as Kinsey Millhone always says, and bumping down again on her bum, which didn’t help her back at all and brought on agonising contractions with no obvious benefit thus far. You would think her dear husband might have helped her up and down the stairs, wouldn’t you? He was hard at work, unfortunately, society being what it is … nose to the grindstone and all that bollocks.

Michelle has retired early, hopefully to an excellent night’s rest in preparation for another day of waiting for baby. I’m working from home tomorrow to give the little blighter every opportunity to pop out with minimal panic.

We shall see …

Spring Bank Holiday and all’s quiet. Waist measurements this morning are 128cm, 46cm and 78cm so one of us is still pregnant. More interestingly if we were russian dolls there’d be more than twice as much space as needed in each of us. We’d probably need two more dolls. Is that a good reason to consider having four kids?

We had a severe sense of humour failure yesterday, but are better after some sleep last night. Off to the park now to have a gentle stroll. Best avoid steep slopes …

Back home now. Not a false alarm this time, but a “go home and try and get some sleep”. I think the contractions were scared off by the three midwives – not that much like the three in Macbeth, but contractions are sensitive things.

I fully expect to be back there before the night is through, so intend trying to follow their advice and get some sleep.

So due day is nearly over. 7 hours 42 minutes left to be on time. Jo was on time, so must take after her mother; we shall see this time round.

We spent the afternoon at Willows Farm, which is brilliant and a firm favourite with Jo. Josie played with guinea pigs and generally ran wild while mum waddled sedately as one only can on due date, feeling not unlike an ageing german shepherd (dog).

Contractions are now light and four minutes apart, so we could be on. Michelle’s sprawled on the sofa watching Pingu with Jo. Pete and Ros are on their way over and might have the pleasure of catering to Josie’s every need while we go and have a baby. Hope so. It’d be good for them …

Had a very close call last night. We’ll call it a dry run I think, you know, fully tested the rushing-home-from-work-packing-the-bags-dropping-jo-at-her-childminder-remembering-the-route-to-the-birthing-unit-moving-all-the-kit-into-the-room-getting-examed-and-being-sent-home routine.

Jo had a great day; mum and dad were a bit stressed by the end of it. Not even a good tweak of a contraction today. Due date tomorrow, so just half an hour left to be early … more likely that we’ll enjoy the symmetry of two children born on bank holiday weekends. Enjoy the symmetry? Where does that come from?

I have had the singular opportunity in the last two days of spending time at the Government UK IT Summit. I have emerged, like the Gruffalo’s Child, very grateful, for reasons I will leave to your imagination.

We are preparing to welcome our second child into the world this week (subject to the usual vagaries of gestation), so are doing all the usual preparatory things .. rebuilding the family website, having the bathroom redone, refitting the nursery, having a conservatory built, and that bloke is coming around at 3.30 today to quote for the fencing and gutters.

We’re really looking forward to the new arrival …

So this is the new-look website. The most obvious difference is that the front page is no longer the gallery, but a family blog which promises to be much more entertaining all round. The gallery is still around, but cut down and more manageable for those sitting behind dial-up lines on the other side of the world. The contact and about sections are finally done too. One could probably make a convincing argument that the benefits of having children are felt most keenly immediately prior to their arrival in ones house and immediately after their departure.

Enjoy the blog … all comments welcome (almost).