Conor

What a day! It began for me with a nice long walk to work on a sunny morning in London and finished with our baby boy Conor being born in Larbert.

This was the first day this week that I didn't bring my suitcase with me to work, packed and ready to go in case I got a call from Anne. After Anne's monitoring yesterday went well we were expecting nothing to happen until next week so I booked my accommodation and flight home on Friday. It did occur to me that at least Limehouse was on the way back to City airport just in case the call came but I really was not expecting it.

Of course the call did come. It was about 12:45 whilst I was out with the team for a welcome lunch for me! We were in The Drift and I had just ordered a Malaysian fish curry. Everyone wished me luck and I headed off back to the Gherkin to arrange a flight and get my overcoat. Then over to Tower Gateway to catch a DLR train to Limehouse, go get my stuff from the apartment, then back on the DLR to London City Airport.

Thankfully there were no delays and Pat picked me up from Edinburgh airport at 5:30pm and took me to the hospital arriving about 6:30pm and finding my way to triage to take over from Catherine who come in with Anne.

After a short while we moved from triage to a sitting room where we watched some of the Channel 4 News. I went to the M&S shop in the main hospital building to get us something to eat. We were waiting for a free bed in the antenatal ward. Anne's contractions were starting to really hurt.

Thankfully we didn't have to wait too long. Orla was being brought in to see us by Gran and Papa and we happened to meet them on the way to the antenatal ward. Only Orla was allowed up with us. She very kindly explained to the midwife that inside the big bump there was a baby. Orla was with us for about 15 minutes before Anne abruptly said it was time to go. It wouldn't have been good for Orla to see her in a lot of pain.

We talked about the fact it then seemed inevitable that the baby would be born on the Aides of March (15th). The chances of being born before midnight (and to share a birthday with Einstein) seemed very very slim.

Anne then got on the bed and knelt down, resting on the pillows. The contractions were getting really bad but she was able to get short naps on between. Then all of a sudden her hind waters broke. A midwife examined her and to Anne's disbelief she was 9cm dilated already. (It had taken forever to get to that stage with Orla).

The bed was wheeled through to a labour ward and Anne was transferred to a new bed. It was about 9pm. Anne was given gas and air and told to continue to breath through the contractions and not push yet despite the urge. They put a drip in preparation, just in case they needed to take her to theatre (like with Orla). There was a radio in the background playing the Rihanna song that Anne doesn't like.

When Anne was examined again she was 10cm dilated and the pushing began. She had wanted an epidural but it was too late for that. Before long she was absolutely screaming. She asked me if she sounded like Miss Piggy! (She did!) After a couple more contractions Anne started saying (groaning) that she just couldn't do it anymore. But then the midwife said she could see the baby's head and just needed a couple more big pushes.

When the baby's head finally appeared there was no crying. I'm not sure I was expecting to hear crying, seeing as Orla didn't cry when she was born, but the initial lack of movement or sound was a little worrying as there had been some signs of distress from the fetal heart monitor on the way out. Once the rest of it's body was out I could see it was a boy so announced it to Anne. The midwife wiped him down a bit (he was covered in blood) then gave him to Anne to cuddle. She then asked me if I wanted to cut the umbilical cord. It took a good few cuts to get through it and thankfully it was not too bloody.

The midwife then noticed that there was a knot in the chord, which would have explained why there was some distress on the way out. The pushing would have been tightening the knot.

He was most definitely asleep while were saying hello to our baby Conor. It was such a contrast to Orla who was most definitely awake for her first couple of hours. But then labour had been much longer with Orla. Because labour had been so short, Conor was also a bit snuffly in his nose and was not breathing smoothly. He had to sort of breath through his mouth, but because it was closed it looked like he was blowing little kisses each time he breathed out.

It was quite a long time before he was weighed. We had to wait until they had finished sorting Anne out and cleaned up. The scales were in kilograms and it read 4.1. Converted that is almost exactly 9lbs. A big boy.

We had a feeling it was going to be a boy so we had already decided on Conor as a name. For a while he was going to have been Arthur, after my Dad's dad and then maybe Leo.

Here are some more photos.

Here are some videos.