We Have A Baby!

If you follow me on social media you’ll know our amazing news that we now have a little baby in our life!

I was actually in the process of writing a blog to announce that we were expecting when Kelly’s waters decided to break 5 weeks early! This was quite a shock considering the baby wasn’t due until 21st December!

So I thought the blog can wait and we made our way into York hospital to get checked out. The midwife explained that it can be normal for some women's waters to break a few weeks before the baby arrives and that they’d prefer to keep her in overnight just incase it was actually the start of labour...

Instead though, Kelly decided that she'd rather sleep in her own bed because she felt otherwise well and since we only lived 10 minutes down the road, we could easily drive back in if needed. After getting the all clear from the doctor who checked the baby was ok, we left the hospital.

On the way home everything was normal, we went for dinner and did a bit of shopping but Kelly was saying that she did feel a bit of pressure, like her bump was getting heavier. She thought nothing of it though and so we just carried on home.

A few hours later this pressure got a bit worse so we thought just to be safe we‘d better pop back to the hostpital.

We arrived at the hospital at 9pm and as soon as the midwife saw Kelly (who by this stage was being sick), she suspected she was in labour! She checked her over and she was correct... The baby was coming now!

We were then rushed down to the labour ward and it all began to get very interesting. After years of watching people give birth in movies and on TV I thought that we were going to be in there for hours, maybe days... How very wrong I was! It was VERY quick...

I didn’t realise how quick until I asked the midwife if I had time to pop to the toilet and her reponse was “if you’re really quick”

I was given all sorts of ‘man advice’ from my male friends who had babies but that all went out the window at the time. I didn’t really know what to do with myself so I asked if I could be of use and the midwife said to get the cardboard toilet thingy and start fanning Kelly as she found the room too hot...

So that was my job.... To stand at the side of the bed fanning Kelly with a bloody cardboard toilet!

I’ve also got to admit that after like 30 minutes of doing this, my arms started to get tired, but I knew I couldn’t say anything because I was surrounded by women who had all pushed a human being out of their floof and with Kelly currently in the process of doing just that next to me, if I’d have moaned about my arm aching I think I would have been punched!

Anyway.... As I said, it all happened so quickly and after just 1 hour and 22 minutes, we welcomed Holly Keen into the world at 22:22

She arrived 5 weeks early, so as soon as she arrived we just had time for a few cuddles with her before she was taken to SCBU, The Special Care Baby Unit at York hospital to be checked over.

At first she had a bit of trouble breathing so she was placed into an incubator to help with that and was given antibiotics for arriving so early. She also required a bit of phototherapy for jaundice, however despite all this she was doing really well, and continued to improve every day!

The nurses at the unit are absolutely amazing, getting Holly well enough to come home as soon as possible. We ended up staying in there with Holly for a week and were able to bring her home on day 8.

It is so good to have her home and to have our little family (including the furry ones) all together. It has though, as suspected changed our lives... Massively! Particularly mine, because after much discussion we’ve decided that I’m going to take a break from my work and become a stay at home dad, which I know is becoming much more common these days. I won’t be working ‘full time’ in radio anymore, however I’ll still be doing freelance stuff so hopefully you'll still be able to hear me on the radio now and then!

I used to think that when I finish working full time to become a stay at home dad I would have so much time to do lots different things, but I’ve been told that’s really not the case as looking after a baby is actually a full time job... So from here the next adventure begins, and I look forward to sharing it with you!