Sammy Arrives

Samuel Haydn Freeth-Thomas arrived Friday 6 March, 10.43am, 6lb 8oz / 3kgs. 37 weeks and 3 days, so another early bird. Beautiful day, beautiful homebirth, and lovely days since just staying at home looking wonderously at our perfect lovely new addition in my arms rather than in an incubator. Spring is definitely everywhere.

So the story went like this….. The Thursday we needed some things from IKEA so we tootled off to Tours (80 miles away) and I had to waddle SO slowly round the store. After, we stopped at Buffalo Grill for tea and the waitress asked how long I had to go and I said 2 or 3 weeks but wished it was sooner. She wished us Bonne Chance. Got home at 10pm and fell into bed, asleep I’m sure before I hit the pillow. Midnight – ping, waters broke. No contractions until 2.30am so we then called Joelle, our midwife, as she lives 2.5 hours away. It was actually a rather peaceful and cosy night with the boys fast asleep and just Ben and I lying on the sofa. There was a frantic moment for Ben when the contractions speeded up and Joelle hadn’t arrived so he was desperately scanning the net for guidance on how to deliver a baby. But things calmed down again much to his relief. Joelle arrived at 5.45am and was just so lovely and laidback. The boys woke at 8am and were happy to be allowed to go out in the garden to play in their pyjamas. Fortunately it was a lovely warm day as things might have been a bit more stressful if they’d had to play indoors (Ben’s Mum, flying in to be on stand-by for child-minding during birth wasn’t flying in until the following Tuesday). 9.30am things got going in earnest and just over an hour later our gorgeous Sammy Sausage squeezed out. The boys came in to see him and were quite interested to actually see the placenta and the cord that attached Sammy (Rowan had talked a lot about this throughout the pregnancy – how does a baby get its food when it’s in your tummy etc etc). Brodie adores him and keeps bringing toys (Lego) for him to play with and Rowan has raked out baby Lucy (my nappy demo doll) and keeps changing her clothes and putting her in the car seat, arranging boob feeds for her etc etc.