Reasons why I stopped blogging seven months ago #1
"Things seem to have progressed slightly quicker than we anticipated", I say down the phone.

Standing over my wife, who is currently sat in the bath going through the second stage of labour (i.e. the bit where the baby comes out) I wonder whether we can still get to the hospital in time. We can't.

The midwife tells me she's sending an ambulance and a community midwife round. Which is nice. I run down stairs and make sure the front door is unlocked, before dashing back to my wife. I can see the baby's head.

The midwife asks if I can get my wife out of the bath - I can't. She then gets me to let the water out of the bath. Despite evil stares from my wife, I manage to pull out the plug.

My wife does some pushing - more head appears, and I pass this information down the phone, as though this will somehow be helpful.

Suddenly, the number of people in our bath increases by one. Picking up the crying baby, with generations of genetic training coursing through my veins, I pass it to my wife. The whole episode takes maybe twenty minutes, and then, in an instant our family has grown by 50%, all of us in the bathroom.

Thankfully, the baby seems well (in as much as you ever can do, having just experienced the miracle of birth from the perspective of the deliveree).

At which point the ambulance crew arrive.

They meander into the house, and I tell them that we've just had a baby. They ask what we've had, and I have no idea - the little one having kept its legs tucked up obscuring its genitalia from sight. To be honest, I don't care, my wife seems OK, and our child is clearly breathing.

Despite being awake at 3.30am, the world is all good as far as I'm concerned.

I have a son.
- posted by Paul @ 2:11 pm