A Basketful of Memories.

Christian's Birthday.

Today in Australia it was hot, vastly different from the dark, cold, snowy day in the UK when Christian was born 29 years ago.

Christian must have been impatient to be born, as he decided to arrive 4 weeks early. I had decided to have a bit of a rest, having felt more tired than usual, when I heard this pop, I stood up, and my waters broke, luckily I was standing on the Radio Times.

I phoned the Drs. 'Don't worry nothing will happen yet, we'll send the Dr. round soon.'

I phoned my husband's office, he was a photographer on the local newspaper,
'He's out on a job, we'll get hold of him as soon as we can.' (No mobile phones in those days.)

The pain was getting worse, hadn't been able to get to any ante-natal classes as we had been too snowed in, so knew nothing about deep breathing.

The nice local doctor arrived, after a quick examination, 'I think I'd better call an ambulance.'

Still no husband.

Ambulance arrives, after what seems like ages, and the driver and his mate look with horror at the fact we had no floorboards, in the hallway, just the joists,
we were renovating. They looked relieved when I said, it was ok and I'd walk to the ambulance rather than them trying to manoeuvre a stretcher across the joists and up our very tiny staircase.

Husband arrives just as we are leaving.

Made the seven mile trip to the local hospital, fairly quickly, especially when the ambulance officer in the back with me said to the driver, 'I think you'd better put the sirens on, or she's going to have it in the ambulance.' All very exciting.

But I didn't have him in the ambulance.

And over 9 hours later I still hadn't had him, and things weren't going too well.

I'd had an epidural, which I swore I'd never have. But the pain was so intense.
And they'd topped it up with more drugs. It was getting to the stage where they could've chopped my head off and I wouldn't have cared.

So, as the baby was getting distressed they decided to do an emergency caesarean. I really didn't care anymore.

Only thing was, I'd sent my husband home whilst I was in labour, to feed our cat and our doberman puppy. I'd expected him to come back, but he'd sat down in a chair and fell asleep, we only had one phone in the house, and he slept through the hospital trying to contact him.

Christian was eventually born at 1.32 am.

But I didn't see him for another 6 hours, as he had taken such a battering trying to get out, and his head was a funny shape, so they took him to special care.

But when they handed him to me later, he was perfect, and remained so for the rest of his life.

I was lucky to have had him for 28 years, but I dearly wish he was still here, I wish I could say ' Happy Birthday Christian, I love you so very much'.


(In the basket of flowers, is the card that was in Christian's crib in hospital, a small poloroid picture the nurses took of him so that I could see what he looked like, and a photo of me and him that was on the front page of the local paper, as he was the first child to be born in our village for over 20years.)