Samuel Michael Alexander [surname] arrived at 7.20pm on Wednesday 18 May, weighing 2820g and measuring 49cm. Labour had started on the Monday (!) with irregular cramps on one side, misdiagnosed as IBS (!!), then more defnite contractions on the Tuesday, irregular but often very frequent (i.e. none for 3/4 hour and then 4 in 10 minutes), so we headed for the hospital at 3am on Weds - 2cm dilated. Spent the morning having contractions and sleeping on and off, they disappeared completely around lunchtime but then came back with a huge vengeance - after caving in and having an epidural I went from 2.5cm to completely dilated in not much more than an hour (!). However, then everything stopped again - had my waters broken but contractions dwindling - was put on a syntocin (sp?) drip, which helped. However, it still didn't seem time for the big push - but as Samuel's heartbeat was dipping a bit they decided to let me go for it, and after maybe about 1/2 hour of pushing and the help of an episiotomy and ventouse thingy Samuel arrived. I was in hospital with him until Monday (pretty standard here - they also made a big fuss about my blood loss, although I felt fine more or less straight away) and sadly he's still there now because he needed/needs phototherapy for his jaundice. I'm staying in with him and trying to feed him up - have just popped home for a couple of hours now. Anyway, Samuel is absolutely adorable and I and Mr Berolina are smitten and very very indeed!