29th March 2011 - Hello Vesper Indira Hillary Thomlinson

Think the castor oil Susie took yesterday helped things along. Susie woke me at around 2.30am as contractions had started properly. Like a well oiled machine, we quietly went about collecting up the packed bags and made our way down to lower parking. I fired up the Innova and got the aircon on as even at that time of the morning it is warm now. Arrived at the hospital in 5 minutes and tried to drive into Casulty but an old truck delivering liquid nitrogen was in the way so I blocked it in and left the car whilst we went inside. The guard woke up and tried to get me to move the car although to his credit he realised quickly that this a mistake and rushed to get a wheelchair! So the process should have been to relax in Casulty, transfer to the NICU, have the baby, then transfer to the 12th floor to the suite I'd booked.

But this is India....Having convinced the guard that I wasn't going to move the car until I'd got Susie safely booked in, the Dr attending then started to fill out a mountain of paperwork before she thought it might be a good idea to check on progress! Needless to say when she did come back only 10 minutes later, Susie was fully dialated and Vesper was on her way! This created an alarming amount of panic in the department as the team then desperately tried to shift Susie, who was on all fours at the time, out of Casulty to the Maternity ward 2 fllors further up! At this point I stepped in and stopped the move, informed the Dr that if Susie wanted to deliver on all fours then that is what was going to happen and set about controlling the process. Head out, I coulkd see that Vesper was blue and not breathing, the Dr just not coping so I took over and delivered her, rubbing her back vigorously until she started to cry. I can't tell you the relief I felt and how stressful it was to have to take over and see trainned medical staff panic. The Dr then topped of her treatment by trying to cut the abilical cord straightaway, which I stopped and also to try and pull the placenta out with the abilical cord! All over in 30 minutes we even beat the consultants who turned up after the fun was over ;-)

Anyway the result is a beautiful little 3.85 kg (8.5lb) baby girl and we are all very happy.