Congrats to GL, his wife and baby Daughter. (in Off-topic)

5 weeks early and GL just received the Christmas present of a lifetime !!

Emma was born at 6:30am on Christmas morning and weighs a healthy 6lbs 8oz.

I've talked with him on the phone and you can imagine, he's on top of the world.

Best wishes from the Beee family to Claire, Emma and GL himself. Well done!

The best present you can get. All the best and a Merry Christmas!!

Wow, nice. :)

Congrats! and Merry Christmas as well!

:D

Thanks!

Claire and Emma have finally been moved to thier own private room (with TV and Phone!) so I've come home to catch some shut eye. ;)

Full story later, when I'm coherant! ;)

MERRY XMAS!

Now that is a true christmas miracle. Cherish and spoil her GL. Happy holidays and best wishes from my family to yours :8^)

Wow! Congrats man..

good to hear, gratz!

Well at least you can save money and only give her one present for birthday-Christmas eh?I know you won't get away with it GL but I figured I'd bring it up first!

AWESOME!! Congrats to GL and his amazing family !!

Tis the best xmas gift you can get, a healthy child.

Congrats GL, and Claire.

Welcome Emma to the world. Our prayers of good health are with you.

Ranger and Family.

It's an extremely happy X-mas for GL this year. Congratulations and happy holidays!

:) Thanks all. I hope Santa was generous to everyone else as well this year! ;)

No shut eye for me. ;) Too many people to talk to, and Claire and Emma need stuff. So I'm up for a while.

It all started 7PM yesterday. I came home from a round of gift giving and Claire told me she felt a little funny. Either her waters were leaking, or she had a weak bladder. ;)

On speaking to our midwife, we took a trip down to our hospital, to get checked out. One thing Claire didn't want to do this year, after spending Xmas day in the same Hostpital last year having her second misscarriage. :(

A trace was set up on the baby, to make sure she was active and ok, while we waited for the doctors to finish in surgery. Just as they did, was asked one of the nurses what that percentage figure on the trace was, as it had started to peak at intervals, and we'd not seen it before.

Just as she replied "It measures your contractions", it shot up to 50% and Claire felt her first contraction! ;)

From there, they wanted to exmaine Claire, but we had a scan booked on the second of Jan, as our last scan showed the placenta to be low lying, which would block the birth canal. If this was still the case, they wouldn't be able to examine her for fear of puncturing the placenta, wihich would have been bad news for everyone.

So, Claire was whisked off to the Labour Ward, and booked in for a scan there. It revealed that the placenta had moved up,and everything was fine. The following examination revealed no dilation, and they weren't too sure where the fluid was coming from. They also atrributed the contractions to a problem Claire had a few weeks ago with a lower back muscle.

She was given Diamorphine to help with the pain (Very brave girl, second injection in the backsie she had to have, and they were both quite painful!), and to try to stop the contractions, as general concensus was this was some kind of early alarm, and being pre-term (earlier than 37 weeks) they really didn't want to encourage labour.

Claire dropped off to sleep at 1:15. I'd not eaten and was starving nd tired, so siad I was going home to get some food and sleep. ;) I would be back in the morning when the hospital opened again.

4AM, the Doctor looking after us called me, to tell me to come tot he hospital as Claire was fully dilated, and in the last stages of labour! All I could say was 'OK'. It came as a bit of a shock to all involved! ;) She woke up needing a wee, then told the midwives she needed to push!

Two and a half hours later, Emma was born! :D Both mother and daughter are doing fabulously, and Emma is the most beautiful thing I've seen in the world. :)

We weren't fully prepared for the birth to be so early, and this year is a shocking contrast to last! But I can't stop smiling at the greatest gift I could have been given. :)

Wow, congrats GL! What a nice Christmas gift! :)

Congratulations GL, that is so wonderful! All the best to all of you, and many very, very merry Christmases now and to come!!!


:D

Congrats to your very special present, GL :)

MERRY CHRISTMAS MOVIE HOUSE!

That's wonderful GL.
I'm VERY happy for all of you!

I got a call about 830am Christmas morning from the proud father himself. He was very shellshocked at that point but so obviously over the moon!

Congrats from the Lennons (that's the Johnnywas family to those people who don't know!)

Best Christmas news ever!

Congratulations man. I can only imagine how it feels to finally been the road down to being a father. Take care of her, she carries your legacy.

Congrats, GL...

Wow! Truly a great Christmas present and a blessing. I wish your family a great Christmas (and everyone else on CB too, of course)!

Awwwww, congratulations GL! =D

Congratulations GL and family.
The gift of life is the greatest of all.

Awhhh, a little Shadie :D

I wish you Claire and your little darling all the best in the world, and I demand a birth card from you by mail! ;)

Congrats :)

Thanks everyone! ;) Finally off to bed. Claire and Emma should be coming home some time tomorrow. :)

Yes, get yourself off to bed mate. It's the last peaceful nights sleep you're going to get in a long time...

Again, congratulations !

Congrats!

Congrats GL! That's incredible news! Of course you know, we're all very happy for you. I expect to see pics up ASAP! :D

You know, it's quite a coincidence, but my girlfriend's brother just had a baby girl today, 20 days early.

Best of luck to you over the next while. Get some sleep while you can!

Oh, and once Emma gets older, she's not going to be happy. Xmas birthday means only one set of gifts! ;)

Big congratz to you GL! Please do share some pictures when you get the chance :)

:D Pic's will be coming. ;) Time for camera today. ;) We totally forgot about it yesterday.

Thanks for all the support, I had a great nights sleep, Claire didn't. :/ Seemslike we have a little screaner! ;)

It's only because she's having trouble feeding. Hopefully, when she get's the hang of it, she'll settle down a lot more.

Now to figure out how this car seat and base work...

Well, now you have the perfect BA timer, every 3 hours :)

Congrats GL!!!!

and give up on the car seat and base they are made specifically to annoy new parents ;)

Congratulations to you both & a holiday welcome to Emma! (No taxi delivery! Good news!)

Congrats, GL!

:D I was fully prepared to a taxi delivery though. ;)

what'[s the html commands for posting images? :/

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she is adorable you're a lucky couple :8^)

Congratulations GL and Claire! She is adorable.

Now come the sleepless nights and worrying about everything. What a ride! =)

What a gorgeous daughter you and Claire have GL, Congrats again. I hope you have a stick to beat back all the boys you will know doubt have beating a path to your door sooner than you think!

Tell Claire to keep going with the feeding, it is sooo worth it in the end.

I hope we can meet up with your family in 2007.

:D that would be great! You'll have to come down, I don't think we'll be doing a lot of travelling! :P

Already have the sticks!

we;re using formula atm, just to feed her, Claire will try breat feeding again tomorrow. if that doesn't work, she'll express.

Congratulations to you GL and Mrs. GL! Merry Christmas, what a wonderful gift. My wife and I very happy for you. The pictures are wonderful!

I wanted to say personally, as a first time father at 33, the thing I can absolutely relate to the most, is that smile on your face as you hold your first born child.

very nice baby and wife GL. congratz on the one christmas present you wanted. =D

My wife had trouble feeding our daughter for the first few days. We'd taken a class and had a nurse at the hospital help ... but she didn't really get the hang of it until we had a session with a professional lactation consultant come. It's was kind of amazing how quickly she got things sorted out between mommy and baby.

(So much for "the only intuitive user interface" eh?)

You might want to have someone like that spend some time with Claire.

Hey I forgot we were getting pictures lucky for me I looked again.Sweet looking baby, hope she takes to long naps and skips the terrible twos.Hoping that Luck and all thats good is in the works for your family.

That's an adorable kid. Congrat GL!