marc.vic.max.elliot

Just a quick note to let y’all know that Vic and Max are home now and getting settling in.  The trip home was uneventful and until now I hadn’t realised how bumpy the streets in London are! Max slept the whole way home though so it couldn’t have been too bad.

Thanks to everyone for their love and best wishes either by email, phone or on their weblogs.

Vic will be doing an update hopefully in the next few days in our joint weblog to give you her side of the story

PS: Not a big deal but I changed my first (and Max’s second) shitty nappy today (well, Meconium actually which as some of you may know is a real bugger to clean )

Well here he is and he now has a middle name

I’ve just got back from the hospital (and changing Max’s first nappy/diaper ) and have left mother and son to get some well earned rest.

Here’s a brief run down of my last two days……..

Vic woke at about 02:30 on Sunday morning and was concerned about some unexpected bleeding taking place.  After a quick call to the hospital it was into the car and 20 minutes down the road to St Thomas hospital. Vic was checked over by the medical staff and given the all clear. They did however want her to stay in overnight and they were going to do a scan this morning to check things out.

The scan never happened though because at 02:50 this morning I got a call saying “your wife is 9.5cm dilated and wants to push so you’d better get down here!” The trip this time took 9 minutes (speed limits and red lights? pah!) and at the time I was really annoyed that they had let it get that far without calling me, grrr. Little did I know that she had only had her first decent contraction at 01:30 and by the time they examined her she was already 9cm!

So an hour or so of pushing while I was there, a bit of help from some scissors and a ventouse and out he popped (I make it sound so easy!) Vic was planning on having an epidural at some stage but because of the speed that events happening and the fact she didn’t feel too bad the only pain relief she had was gas and air (oxygen/nitrous oxide) and she didn’t even use that for the last 30mins! I’m so very proud of her for the way she handled the whole thing and I don’t think that an expectant father could ask for better.

Anyway, we are now the very proud parents of a lovely little boy who will hopefully be coming home to be with us tomorrow.

PS: here’s the view from Vic’s room…..

Yep – a private room overlooking the Houses of Parliament, not bad for the NHS!

Max {middle name to be decided} Cramer was born today after a brief 3 hour labour at 04:32 weighing in at 7lb 11oz. Mother and son are doing well. He is, of course, perfect (new parents HAVE to say that don’t they!)

More news and maybe a pic or two to follow soon.

Today at lunchtime I went to a park about 10 minutes from work. I thought that it might look nice in the snow and I’d heard there were some deer wandering around. Little did I know that I would end up in the middle of a herd! There were about 30 of them of various breeds and I could get to within about 20 feet of them. As I didn’t have a jacket with me I didn’t stay long but managed to get a few snaps – no long lens and mediocre shots but what an experience.

There are two more on the following link….

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Brrrrrrrrrr – there’s a couple more if you click on the link below

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I love Vic

She called this morning to say it was snowing heavily at home and so I asked her to take some photo’s with my digital SLR. The problem with this is she had to put the thing together first and she had never done this before – she’s never used an SLR before and thinks that my strong interest in photography borders on the obsessive at times. She had to get the batteries off the charger, insert the batteries, attach the right lens, find the memory card, insert the memory card, switch it on, choose the right mode and then (at last) take some photo’s! She did all this under my instructions over the phone and everything went OK.

But that’s not what made me all gooey.

As she was looking out the window though the viewfinder she asked me Do I have to do anything with the exposure because of all the white snow?

Bless her little cotton socks

I’m at work and it’s bucketing down with snow! YAY! This is proper snow – not the crap stuff we had yesterday. It’s not supposed to last long but it’s falling pretty heavily and we should get a few inches over the next couple of hours. I left my camera at home though 🙁 I’ll have a go with my PDA and see how they turn out……….

Update: see, and it’s still going…..

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Two days with no access to the site and it seems that so much has happened! Boring for the rest of the world but interesting/exciting for us.

1) As mentioned previously we had our antenatal class on Monday. 7 straight hours of information relating to childbirth! There’s not much to say about it except for the one major fact that I learnt: If Vic has to ask “Am I in labour?” then she’s not lol! The one thing that I was worried about was knowing when we should go to hospital – after the class I feel a lot more comfortable with that bit of it.

2) It snowed yesterday! We very rarely get snow that hangs around for any length of time in London but yesterday it lasted until about lunchtime – pictures to follow (they’re on my PC at home) People that actually get snow regularly will think it’s pathetic though

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