Here's our sweet little Samuel

Well Samuel has finally arrived!!

I woke up at 5am on Monday morning, the day Samuel was due, as my waters started to go, and they continued to the rest of the day. I had finally bought a gym ball for £5 from Tesco last week, while still attempting to turn Samuel from a very uncomfortable back-to-back position. It was very comfortable to sit on, and on Monday it came into good use while in early labour. Hannah took this picture because I spent a while playing the piano to stay relaxed, and ended up playing "Come, Come Ye Saints" which was a perfect tempo to bounce to! It was quite funny as I bounced my way through the song.



Later on on Monday afternoon, enjoying a cooling ice lolly in between 10 minute contractions with most of the children, soon joined by all of them. I really liked these pictures. Rachel got SO excited at this point to hear the contractions had gone from 30 to 10 minutes apart. Hard to deal with at the time, but fairly relaxed in between - I wasn't totally exhausted from no sleep at this point!




The last picture of "Bump", taken almost exactly 6 hours before he was finally born, just before going out for another walk with Michael to get things moving a bit faster. We'd just been for a longish walk and had to come back as I was soaked by the rest of the waters coming away!



Oh, and having gone to bed as we thought, Sarah was soon up and about and very excited because her first tooth ever finally came out, so we had to have a picture of that too - too exciting to pass up even though it was getting late!



Once I really managed to work with the contractions it got extremely fast and furious. An hour after calling the hospital there was still no sign of a midwife. Too late though, as we were committed. All of the extra learning and preparation I had done this time round though meant I knew what to do even if I happened to be on my own (and gratefully wasn't!) Michael was great. He left helping me to deliver Samuel, and did a great job. It was just a very special experience. By the time the midwife came in I was holding Samuel, wrapped in a towel to dry him off, and she said "Well done!", asked a few questions about how he'd been straight after birth, and got on with helping us have the rest just how we'd like it to be. The midwife on call that night happened to be the senior midwife that had come out to see us a few weeks before about having a homebirth, so she already knew what we wanted to have happen, having already discussed it with her. She was so respectful of our wishes. It was perfect really.

So here is Samuel David Kruger shortly after being born. His face was very red to start with.




Can you see how tired Rachel and Sarah were, and how excited Rebekah is?! Hannah and Rebekah had heard me scream as he was born, so they were already wide awake, and their excitement and enthusiasm could not be contained. Hannah just couldn't stay away!



Michael brought them in about 10 minutes after he was born, which was about 5 minutes after the midwife arrived! So they had a first brief look and came back later after the third stage was over, ready to be amazed by how much he loved to feed from the very beginning.



Hannah was the first lucky sister to get a cuddle.



He was weighed as 8lb 4oz, and then we got him dressed to keep him nice and warm.





Getting to know Daddy the stand-in midwife.




My body experienced a bit of shock, as I recall happening after Rebekah was born too, so I was wrapped up warm, fed some warm food, and went to have a bath once I could stop shaking. Which gave Rachel a chance for a cuddle. He went to sleep being cuddled by her in the end which she loved. :o)


Somewhere in there Rebekah got a very happy cuddle too.


Then after just a few hours sleep for Michael and me (amazingly refreshing though being able to rest a whole lot more other than during the afterpains) Peter was wide awake and ready to meet his new brother. He watched him from on my lap (I have one of those again now!) and just gradually too him in in a happily interested and very definately hands-off kind of a way. He checked my tummy too to make sure there was no baby still inside. :o)Sarah got a more wide awake look at him too - she was so tired in the night she had barely woken up and very quickly gone back to sleep.





More photos coming soon...