Hello little Genevieve Claudia!

The procedure to get a kid out of your belly is actually quite quick. Although there is a lot that goes on, I suppose it really is just getting in there and getting it out as quickly and safely as possible. It ends up that she was 'posterior', meaning head down, but spun around so that she's facing out, not in, with her spine against Naomi's. That brings about a more difficult, and generally more painful birth. Most posterior babies require some sort of intervention (often suction of forceps, or caesarian).

So, at 9:21pm on Saturday, Feb 11th a wonderful, healthy, noisy little punk angel monkey was brought into our world. I was escorted over to a side-area where she was checked, sucked, crimped and wrapped. That was all quite speedy, so that they could get her back to Naomi as quickly as possible.

So this is where our little girl met her mummy. You've gotta love the look on Naomi's face!

After around 10 minutes, it was time for her to head down to the nursery area to get weighed etc. Dr Lionel and the gang also had to keep going with stitching up the seven layers they'd gone through to get her out.

So she was put in a humidicrib and I escorted her back downstairs to the 11th floor. Although Naomi couldn't be with her at that time, from the point she was born until the next day, I never left her.

Naomi and I had our preferred names, but we didn't want to actually 'call it' until we saw the BB to see if the name(s) suited. So, when I was continually asked "Do you have a name?" My response was "Genevieve, pending". This, generally, brought about a pretty confused response, while they slowly realised that 'pending' was not going to be the child's second name. Having said that, while reviewing some video I shot at the time, I'm calling saying "Hello little Genevieve.... aren't you gorgeous?"

I was told that Naomi would be around 30-45 minutes. After around 45 I was starting to get a little worried. Again, the video shows me asking Genevieve "Where's your mummy?" By about 60 minutes I was asking if someone could go upstairs and see what was keeping them. By one hour and 10, I was working out how I'd cope as a single parent, and the loss of my wonderful Naomi. (I'm sure this was just biology messing with me).

Finally, after around 75 minutes, I saw Lionel and he said that it'd gone very well and Naomi would be down very soon. And indeed she was, and I carried our little girl out to again, be with her mummy!