Announcing the arrival of....

Deborah Anne, born at home at 4:30 am this morning (13th of October). She weighed 8lb 7.5oz and was 57cm (nearly 22.5 inches) long.

Here are a few photos of her first day:

First photo of her

Happy big sister and brothers (even if Benjamin wanted to put on an ugly face!)

A delighted Clement! :-) He's been in love with babies for months now - he spots them everywhere and in everything. So he was very excited to find a baby sister this morning! He's been going round the house all day with a massive grin on his face saying "bay-bee" - and he's amazingly gentle with her too.

Peter and Clement with Deborah

All cosy and sleeping!

After her first bath! :)

We are thankful that all went so well with her birth and that it happened at home (as planned), and at night, with all 3 of the children *asleep*!! We were quite impressed that Benjamin (who can be a very light sleeper) slept through everything in the room next to where she was born! I have to admit that I was very exhausted after 3 days of labour starting and stopping - even down to 3 hours of contractions every 10 minutes one morning. Tuesday evening it started again, but this time with even more painful ones, which lasted well over a minute, some about 1.5 minutes long. By 11:30 last night I was feeling this was the real thing, especially after I started getting chills and was shaking very badly (something I'd experienced in the past at the *end* of my labours). So we phoned the midwife and she said she'd come out shortly. She arrived soon after midnight and then the 2nd of the midwives arrived. They started getting everything organised. Despite having progressed quite a bit before the midwives arrived, it was still a further 4 hours before she was born! Perhaps if I hadn't been so tired out things would have moved along more quickly. The Entonox (gas & air) was very useful in helping me stay calm and helped with the breathing - can't imagine having been able to go through those hours without it! And my 3 midwives were brilliant - I felt relaxed and comfortable with them, which goes a long way. So in every possible way, it went really well and is a relief to have it over too!

Now, if only my lovely little girl would like to settle for sleep tonight! She's quite grumpy and windy just now and doesn't want to fall asleep! And having had less than 2 hours sleep last night (not falling asleep until 6am this morning) I'm rather shattered and would like nothing more than to go to sleep - especially as it's nearly midnight!