February 3, 2010
The Joys of Fatherhood!
This month I was going to look ahead at 2010 and consider what might lie in store for us all.
If I had done that, no doubt I would have looked back in 12 months and realised it was a stupid idea with my 'predictions' way off mark, thus allowing me to join Alistair Darling and his annual Budget GDP growth projections of late (which, as you may be aware, have often been dismissed by many economists as being totally unrealistic).
The great news is that I have a good excuse to avoid all of that dry talk.
The arrival of my baby daughter just before Christmas!
My wife was due to give birth on January 19th, but baby decided to come early. Here's how it all happened…
21st December, 3.30am
I was woken to the words "My waters have broken"!!!
Being in a state of shock, I confirmed to my wife that this was definitely the case (she didn't want to look).
'Operation Baby' was now in full swing…
Bizarelly, my wife had packed her hospital bag the night before (did she know?) so we were pretty much 'good to go'.
A quick call to the hospital confirmed that we had to get down there pronto as the baby was a month premature.
We drove to the Royal Victoria Hospital in Newcastle at 4am, which incidentally is a great time to travel 
My wife was 'plugged in' and the monitoring started. By 6am she was moved to a delivery room and the birthing ball was put to good use.
Fast forward to 2pm and we now had the gas and air and diamorphine, much to the relief of mother-to-be. Labour was really motoring now and at 5pm the midwife said she expected baby to arrive by 7pm.
Well, she was spot on! At 6.27pm Ava Isabelle was born, weighing in at 5lb, 10. Mum was totally exhausted but absolutely delighted. I'm sure you know the feeling if you're a parent.
Here's Ava a couple of days later.
Mum and Ava managed to leave hospital on Christmas Day, so it was certainly the best Christmas present one could hope for!
Since then, the last month has been one of those learning curves that I'm sure will continue forever. But the alarm calls at 2am have been well worth it
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Filed under Personal 'Bit' by Ray Prince
