Sunday 16th of January and it was a week to go before the big day. Lisa had been busily nesting like a women possessed and I had been carrying out lots of manly tasks like mending the car, putting the odd curtain rail up and buying a tumble dryer ready for the never ending supply of baby clothes.
Monday the 17th of January started the same as any Monday with me going to work and Lisa also working. She had booked holiday from the start on January but had agreed to help out for a couple of days before she was due to give birth, partly to help Halifax with a new Lloyd's computer system and to maximise her maternity leave. I called Lisa as I was leaving the office, she sounded slightly more anxious than usual about how long it would take me to get home but I thought nothing more of it.
As I walked through the door I was greeted by Lisa with her coat on and overnight bag in hand. I dropped the empty recycling container that I had picked up from outside the front door as she said the words "We need to go to hospital!" It was on!!
Auto pilot took over, I grabbed a couple of things in case it turned in to a long night/day but still managed to find time for a quick shave and iron a fresh shirt as I didn’t want to disappoint all those nurses and midwives ;-)!
Lisa had called her mum who turned up just as I’d finished pressing my collar and we were off to Bristol. Originally we were due to have the baby at Paulton or Bath, we rang Paulton to see if we could nip in there on our way to Bristol for them to confirm if Lisa was in labour or if it was just a false alarm. They gave us a flat no because if Lisa was in labour then they would have had to put her in to an ambulance that would then have taken her to Bath where the baby would have been delivered and then transferred to St Michael's! We decided to drive straight to Bristol.
The care at St Michael's was brilliant and we were shown to a delivery room (minus the TV, this was Bristol after all!) The midwife hooked Lisa up to a machine so they could monitor the baby’s heart rate and Lisa’s contractions. All seemed well but Lisa was in the very early stages of labour and we were told to prepare ourselves for a long wait. After an hour Lisa’s mum (Kath) and I had eaten most of the chocolate and sandwiches that we had packed for Lisa and I had pressed all the various buttons....so I was told to get a couple of hours sleep at our friends Tim and Laura's just up the road in Clifton.
I didn’t want to leave but decided that I would be better support for Lisa if I was awake. I'd just dropped off when my phone rang, I answered it on the second ring, it was Kath. Lisa had gone in to full blown labour and I needed to get back to the hospital ASAP!
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