He's arrived!

Our son was born at 12:11 on Wednesday afternoon, 3rd October 2007.

He arrived a day before his due date, and his amazing mother Khadija delivered him with no pain relief whatsoever, not even any Entenox, after a labour of 3 hours and a final delivery stage of 20 minutes. She first felt contractions at 4am , and we managed to snatch a quick breakfast and wave goodbye to my 12-year-old stepson Aymane as he set off for school, before leaving at 8:35 for the hospital where Khadija was admitted at 9:03...

We were lucky to have two lovely midwives, Rosaleen Jackson, a charming Sligo lady, and Alison Crombleholme who is in training, and was born on the same day of the year as Khadija (1st January) albeit some five years before. Alison and Rosaleen helped Khadija deliver our 3.54 kg son (that's 7 lb 14 oz in old money), who is 50 cm long and has a head circumference of 36 cm. I informed the midwives just before the delivery stage that my babies tend to have big heads (can't imagine how that happens... ;-P ), which was the first Khadija had heard of it too: never mind, she instantly forgave me when she saw our lovely son. Khadija wanted me to cut his umbilical cord, so with the kind assistance of the midwives, I gave him his freedom...

As you can see from the photos, he is dark haired like his Mum (I was born blond, which maybe explains some of my moments..) and quite pink skinned, although like most babies he was somewhat puce and a bit congested straight after the birth. He is, at least for now, calm, which makes our likely name of Roy Alan Shaw quite appropriate, since my Uncle (by marriage) Roy was a calm and wonderful man. My Uncle Alan was quite a character too, so our son has a lot to live up to!