Tuesday 9 September 2008

HELLO WORLD

Yes! I was born today in the La Milagosa clinic of Madrid at 17:55 weighing 2670g and measuring 50cm.

Mummy & Daddy, now over their initial shock, came into the clinic at 11 and Mummy got a drip of oxytocin to get the contractions started. Today is a local holiday, so they were told there was only one anaesthetist on call and she would be unavailable (at an operation) from 13:00 to 13:30. The contractions were pretty bearable, so Mummy said fine, she'd wait for the epidural until afterwards. As bad luck would have it, at 13:00 on the dot the contractions started getting nasty, and Mummy & Daddy had a horrible 40 minute wait until the anaesthetist was free.

By 15:30 Mummy was dilated to the max and ready, but then we had another 2h wait for our gynaecologist who was also at another operation at another hospital (we preferred to wait for him rather than go ahead with the gynaecologist on call as everything seemed OK). He finally arrived and off we went to the delivery room. In less than 20 minutes it was all over (or all begun, depending on your outlook) and proud parents were beaming and getting flooded with phonecalls. After a short stint on mummy's belly and then being examined I had a few minutes under a lamp to warm me up but was soon in the room with them and with Abuelo and Abuela and Bisa.

Spent the first three hours in bed with Mummy, all wrapped up. Everybody was dying to hold me (and Mummy was dying to put me to her breast and also take a decent look at me) but weren't allowed to until I was all warm. But finally the wait was over, and I had a few gulps of colostrum, and plenty of photos were taken. The nurse came over and said I needed to cry and did something annoying to my feet, which made me cry and exercise my lungs a bit. Tita arrived with Tito and the girls, as well as a whole bunch of Mummy & Daddy's friends. Some brought me a lovely towel which was just as well as my parents hadn't brought one and I needed it for the bath next morning. Then all calmed down, and I was taken to the creche so Mummy & Daddy could rest for a few hours that night.