A Story of Paint, Little Sleep and Natural Childbirth Part 1

Well, the dust has settled a little bit and I have now got some time to put the story of last weekend on the blog. John was due on 18^th February in the Chinese year of the Rabbit – but he turned out to be a Tiger, just like his dad. I reckoned that I had one week, perhaps two, until he arrived and so last weekend, I wanted to do something that had been bugging me for ages – paint the laundry room. The laundry room was a ghastly mix of dark Prussian Blue and nasty fake wood panelling.

So I went to Lowes and got some nice light blue/grey paint to cover it all up. I jumped out of bed on Saturday raring to go and spent 12 hours frantically painting. I had been waiting 10 months to do this!

I was really pleased with the results and even managed to twist Darius’s arm into saying that we would start tiling the floor on Sunday. Both Deena and Izzy painted a bit as well. I was finished about 9.30pm and we were delighted with the results.

Deena mentioned that she was pretty certain that we could finish it tomorrow as she didn’t reckon that she was about to go into labour. So we went upstairs and lay on the couch and watched a couple of episodes of Top Gear. I was really tired and had three beers and really relaxed. About midnight, Deena said that she was having a few little contractions. This wasn’t new as she had had them before. I went to sleep hoping that she wasn’t going into labour as I wasn’t in the best shape to cope with it……. At 2.30am, she woke me up to say that she thought that her waters had broken! I had had one hours sleep. Over the next ten minutes, the flood continued unabated and it was clear that her waters really had broken. This was not a drill!

It is amazing how realizing that your wife is about to give birth can sober you up! We called Darius, who fortunately hadn’t drunk as much as me, and he came round to look after Izzy. We quickly packed Deena’s bags and jumped in the car. The hospital is only about 2 roads and two minutes away and we were there by 3.00am. After a quick sign in, we went upstairs to the “New Beginnings” area. Deena was checked over. She was barely 1cm dilated. It was a start, but we had a long way to go yet……

To be continued........