16 May 2012: Amelia Kay

That's Amelia Kay, born at 12.03pm on 16 May 2012, 8lb 5oz and 20.25 inches long.

She came by c-section - we had been planning a 'VBAC' but the scar was sufficiently hurting during the final week that Gloria in the end just had to ask the doctor to get her out. So in we came to the hospital at the thoroughly civilised hour of 9.30am (far better than 2.30am after four hours of labour!), prepped and went into the operating room around 11.40 - and she was with us in time for lunch.

Everyone doing well, including Hannah, who came down to visit with Pop Pop yesterday afternoon, and was pleased to find that Baby Sister (who we now know is named Amelia) had brought a gift for her. Here's the vid (HD available for this version, unlike the one we put on Facebook!) of Hannah meeting Amelia for the first time:



So far the consensus is that Amelia looks remarkably like Hannah, including lots of hair and eye colour, but in personality she seems to be a little more of a cuddler and also has far more patience when it comes to nursing, which this time seems to be an actual possibility.

More photos as we get time to deal with it, no news yet on going home but given standards for c-sections I'd think we're looking at Saturday morning. After that it's time to pack up and move to Louisiana, but that's another story...

Update:
Some more photos from day one:

Quick photo with Hannah and one of Baby Sister's outfits before going to the hospital.

Birth weight in kilograms, equivalent to 8lb5oz.

Hannah sees Baby Sister Amelia for the first time.

When asked "would you like to hold her" she says very clearly "yes please" - you can see that moment on the video!

Baby sister brought Dora toys and stickers, a guaranteed winner with Hannah.

Later on, Hannah kept climbing on chairs to check on Amelia. Possibly to see if she had any more Dora merchandise for her.

Pop Pop (Gloria's dad) made a valiant attempt at getting both grand-daughters in one chair, but it never really worked out.

Duncan wore a Saints shirt for the occasion. Amelia, like Hannah, may turn out to be a Saints girl rather than an Argyle girl, but we'll see.

Ryan, Alyssa and ten-week-old Emery pay a visit and wonder how it is that Amelia already has much more hair than Emery.

14 May 2012: Nearly

Becky quite rightly asks why no comment on the football.

Answer: we're about to have another baby, currently at the point of counting contractions when they happen and looking for various other signs that things have actually started and we have to go to the hospital!

Also, Gloria's dad (known to Hannah as 'Pop Pop') is here and that's making Hannah very excited:


(That one's available in HD by the way, courtesy of our exciting Sony HDR-CX160 camera that is so small you'd think it's incapable of doing anything yet it records in 1080i/p and has 16GB internal memory as well as an SD card. But enough specificationing.)

The thing about Argyle staying up is that it seemed so amazingly unlikely back in September. There's an old saying in most sports that you can't win the title in the first month of the season, but you certainly can lose it. And back then, Argyle had the worst start just about any club has ever had - clicking this link will take you to a match report and league table from 17 September, nine games in to the season. Argyle had just lost again and had amassed (if that is the right word to use here) a mighty one point from those nine games, and that was due to a miraculous last-minute equaliser from soon-to-be-manager Carl Fletcher, one of the very few players who didn't leave. Argyle were regularly fielding teenagers to make up the squad and it looked bad.

In fact it reminded me of something Danny Baker once joked about regarding a league table once - Argyle would be the team this time who would not just finish bottom, but they would finish SUPER-bottom, so far adrift at the foot of the table that the Football League would have to send out search parties to try and find them.

But, James Brent came in, got a few players in, replaced Peter Reid (who frankly did his best) with Carl Fletcher, happily removed Peter Ridsdale (never trusted him) and the results slowly, slowly turned around such that the final 37 games of the season yielded 45 points, not wonderful but enough to keep Argyle up with a couple of weeks to spare.

Meantime Saints were at the opposite end of the Football League - in the top two of the Championship the entire season and despite a couple of wobbles, made it back to the Prem. Saw the final day 4-0 win over Coventry and very much enjoyed it. Curious thing is that the core of the team is the same one that struggled under Alan Pardew at the start of the League One season the previous year, Billy Sharp and Jack Cork (and possibly Steve De Ridder) being the only notable additions, with Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain the notable absentee. So, a settled squad but one that did, for a while, struggle in League One. I dunno. They say Hooiveld and Fonte are a good central defensive partnership, but frankly Saints shipped a LOT of goals, especially in the second half of the season. Just as well West Ham forgot how to win games...

Anyway - so baby sister coming sometime soon and who knows what fun we can have with the HD camera after that!