We don’t say thank you enough

(I wrote this on the International Day of the Midwife)

On March 11^th 2008, my wife Sally was pretty busy. About two weeks later than expected, she was giving birth to our son at home with two midwives caring for her and me hanging on for dear life. We (i.e. Sally) had decided on a home because her experience of hospital birth hadn’t been all that positive because of demoralised staff and there being nowhere near enough of them. We had rented a “birthing pool” in which our elder son learned to swim and the emptying and filling had given me something to do. I think I should hold some sort of record for draining-cleaning-filling-warming of birthing pools.

And so it came to pass, our beautiful baby was born in our kitchen. It was with relief and joy (but mostly relief), we saw our baby. Sally was magnificent and…