Born 12:02 on Saturday 7th August 2010, we now have a little son William. He was born in Campbelltown hospital (after Camden's maternity ward was closed after we had signed up there) with the assistance of the amazing midwifery staff there and primarily our midwife Linda.
Liz once again amazed me with the way she gave birth - this time not even taking the two Panadol she had
birthing Phoebe. It was all very natural, in the water, and in retrospect about as relaxed as you could expect such a process to be. Although I'm sure she wouldn't describe it using that word!
Being very close to choosing a homebirth originally, we were intending to leave hospital as soon as possible as it's never the best place to be for what we feel is a very natural, non-medical process. However the hospital staff had some concerns about his well-being and he and Liz ended up staying two nights in various tight spaces amongst the amazingly busy maternity ward. We were extremely happy to be given the all-clear to return home on Monday morning, and have spent the time since coming to terms with two little people living in our house.
Neither Liz nor I want to jinx the process, but thus far he's been very settled, feeding well (almost constantly!) and sleeping contentedly. Time will tell if this excellent state of affairs continues.
Phoebe is doing really well, understanding that our "family cuddles" have grown from three to four people, being gentle, and at least trying to understand when we can't give her immediate attention all the time. I have two weeks off and with luck this will continue after I return to work.
As you may expect, our little man has
his own website at williamgould.net, currently containing a selection of pregnancy and birth photos.
His middle name Claude honours
my mother's father, and the first name we chose on its own merits, but also ties in nicely with grandfather Claude's surname - Williams.
Many people asked if we knew what gender we were having -
we didn't this time - and then whether we wanted a boy to "balance things". Neither of us believed this was in any way necessary, but now that we have our little man, we wouldn't change him for anything.
Welcome to the world, William. We're so happy to have to have you in our family!