Matthew Knott

After 9 months of seemingly unending waiting, Michael finally arrived at 07:28, Tuesday 15th April 2008, weighing 7 pounds, 4 ounces.

The Start

Labour began in earnest at 1:45 A.M, with contractions every 20 minutes or so. We rang Lisa's mother and she was there by 3 A.M. The contractions were now every 10 minutes or so apart. We rang the hospital, but because there was no-one from our birth team on duty, the midwife advise us to stay at home.

At 4 A.M Lisa's water broke with a pop, then the contractions were coming every 4-5 minutes. At 4:30 A.M we arrived at the hospital. Lisa was 3 cm dilated, it was just a matter of waiting now. 

The End

As it happened we didn't have to wait long. By 6:30 she was on the gas and air, in a lot of pain. At 7:00 she got onto the bed on all fours, and at 7:28 he came out in what was a pretty easy birth all things considered.

Michael was here, all wrinkly and gorgeous. I let Lisa's mother cut the cord, she was dying to do it :)

There were no problems and everything was perfect. As an indication of how well it went, but 9:30 Lisa was showered, and dressed ready to come home. Michael had his vitamin K injection and took it well, no crying. Any hopes of coming home early were snuffed out because he wasn't very hungry.

The waiting game

We went onto the ward and waited for him to have a feed. This proved more difficult than we thought. When he did have a feed he wasn't sucking very strongly, so the midwives were concerned incase he wasn't eating properly.

When he was feeding we couldn't find a midwife and when we did he'd stop. Eventually, at around 8pm, we finally got him to feed in front of a midwife and were free to come home.

We all slept like a log that night, until Michael woke us up at 2 a.m. Wednesday morning, but he's so gorgeous he can wake me up all he wants.