#2 Daughter is born

Weighing six and a half pounds, #2D was born five weeks early by emergency Caesarian section at ten seconds after midnight. Warning: don't read on if you're a wimpy male or of a squeamish disposition.

I'd had a hospital checkup that morning; everything seemed fine, and all the midwives were talking about the first-baby-of-the-decade competition; apparently a baby-food manufacturer was offering a £5000 cash prize to the first baby to be born in the UK in 1990, with £500 to the neonatal unit of the hospital where he or she was born. There were several babies due at Whiston hospital that day, some already on the way, and the nurses were joking with me, saying to try not to fall down the stairs just to be in with a chance. I did not fall down the stairs, but just after making dinner and putting it on the table, it became damply obvious that I had to get back to hospital quick-sharp. I should explain that #2D, being as awkward then as she is now, was not a normal presentation or even a breech, but in fact a "transverse lie", which means that getting her out naturally would be a bit like eating a banana sideways in one go, if you get my drift. Once in labour there was a real danger of a prolapsed umbilical cord, which would starve her of oxygen before she could be born.

At the time there was a strike of ambulance crews, and only a small number of vehicles were available. The one that eventually turned up was from miles away, and did not know the way to my hospital, so I had to direct from the back of the van where I was lying with my legs pointing up in the air (don't ask). While all this was going on, amid the confusion our two cats got on the table and ate everyone's dinner, I found out later.

Once at the hospital, I was told that as they had to operate right away I would have to have a general anaesthetic instead of the epidural I had planned for, in order to be awake during the birth and to bond with her right away. After a bit of persuasion they agreed to give me a spinal block instead, which was quicker but meant I could still be awake. A sterile screen is placed in front of the face so that you thankfully can't see your stomach sliced open, although there was a teeny little hole just in front of one eye and I had to try very hard not to look. Having a child delivered in this way under spinal anaesthetic is the weirdest feeling; no pain at all, just a lot of pulling and pushing and the sense of someone "rummaging around" in there like a basket of washing with one elusive sock at the bottom. Of course you get the full impact of that missed pain once the drugs have worn off.

The surgical staff who had drawn the short straws and were having to work New Year's Eve were making the best of it, laughing and joking in jazzy masks and scrubs and with a radio on to listen to the countdown to 1990. All in all a cheerful party atmosphere. Before long we heard the chimes of Big Ben, on the 5th of which #2D entered the world to the cheers of all the staff, who wished her a happy new year and happy zeroth birthday.

I still can't listen to those chimes at New Year without being transported right back to that great night 20 years ago... In case you're wondering, we didn't win the prize, as there were 12 babies born in the UK in the first minute of that year, and so they decided to draw the 12 names from a hat. We did get a picture in the local paper though and a nice letter from the local MP on House of Commons notepaper. She is not crying in the picture as the newspaper picture title suggested ("roaring nineties"), but rather yawning in her habitually laid-back way. She still has the widest yawn of anyone I know.