Birthday Part 3

Stage 3 - The Actual Giving Birth Bit

Some time later, Freja Mary Kristina turned up, weighing 3640g and measuring 50cm long. That's 8.02 lbs and 19.7 inches in pounds and pence. We used up a total of four midwives, who were all brilliant but are now discarded husks littering the ward.

During the process, I learnt some new words. My favourite is lustgas, laughing gas, which sounds like it's going to be even more fun than usual in Swedish. I tried some when the midwives were out of the room. Made me feel like I was being Hunter S Thompson, which says a lot about what a middle-class Guardian reader I am. There was actually a point in the pregnancy where Tristan was a serious contender for boys' names, come to think of it.

Some of the other words might have been swear words. I need to look them up and check, I'm not sure.

My wife did us all proud, though, she was very strong and determined after a pretty long haul. 66 hours in total, I make it, from waters breaking to finished product. Of all the racing emotions, tiredness and hunger were near the top. All the same, as Freja emerged and turned from blue to pink, Veronica instantly went from exhausted pain to total joy. Almost as quickly as I started crying, in fact.

So after a lot of excitement, panic, pain, amazement, hard work, worry and joy, we now have our wonderful daughter. If we can just go through some combination of that every day for the rest of our lives, we'll be excellent parents.