Happy 13th Birthday Joshua!

My baby, my last born, the baby I was so reluctant and fearful to have.  After our daughter Sarah died from SIDS in 1994 the natural thing, eventually, was to want to have another baby.  And we did.  Emily Rose was born in March 1996.  But when she was less than a year old, we found out that we were pregnant again, a bit of a surprise (I was still breastfeeding Em), although Phillip still swears to this day that we planned it.  I don't remember that part.  I went through absolute hell for the first six months of Emily's life, there wasn't one waking minute that I wasn't horribly, painfully afraid that she would die too.  In some ways it was worse than losing Sarah, although that may sound strange to some.  So when I found out that I was pregnant again I went through a whole new hell, not sure I could go through that paralysing fear again and if the worst happened, God only knew.

But we grew used to the idea of a new baby.  Because of my age and our loss I had a more detailed scan than the normal ones at that time, and we found out, to our great joy, that we were to have our first son, a healthy normal baby boy.  I don't think Josh had any baby clothes in any other colour than blue!  We named him and waited for him to arrive and complete our happy little family.

Of course he was overdue, I've only had one baby, Amanda, who wasn't out of all seven of them.  I was huge, tired and way over being pregnant by early November of 1997.  Melbourne Cup Day came and went and I was getting really impatient.  The Birth Centre didn't do inductions as such, and if one was needed it was up to the labour ward in the main hospital and I didn't want that.  On our visit on November 6th the midwife ruptured the membranes at my request, the most they were prepared to intervene, and we stayed at the centre for a while, at the time we lived in Kiama, a long drive from Camden Hospital, but nothing happened so we came home.  We had two little girls to care for although my darling sister Julie had come to help out.  We had dinner that night, Phill went to work (????) and the rest of us settled down for the night.  I slept fitfully and woke around 1am with contractions.  I timed them for a while and considered my options, looking back I could have called for an ambulance and delivered at Shellharbour Hospital, but in the end woke my sister and we bundled the sleepy girls into her car and began the long drive up to Camden.  I was labouring hard by this stage and my poor sister thought I was going to deliver in her nice clean car I think! 

The midwife hadn't arrived yet so they put me in a labour ward in the main hospital and threw a gas mask at me and left me to it while Julie settled the girls into the waiting room downstairs.  I sat on the bed and when I dropped the mask I was in so much pain I couldn't even get up to pick it up, but nobody came until the midwife showed up and wheeled me downstairs to the birth centre.  What a bitch she was and what a different birth experience this one was to Emily's (in the same centre but with decent carers).  I was left on a rubber mattress on the floor unable to reach the buzzer to let the midwife know I needed to go to the toilet and unable to get up by myself.  It was horrible.  She was in the office doing paperwork or something.  Finally she came back and helped me up and I went to the bathroom and felt like I needed to poo.  She panicked realising I was about to push the baby out and hurried me back to the room where, standing up and leaning over an armchair, I finally gave birth to my beautiful baby boy Joshua Phillip at 5.41am on November 7th, 1997 weighing 11lb 1 1/2 oz.  Soon after that the new shift came on (thank God) and one of them was one of the girls who helped deliver Emily and suddenly everything was wonderful.  Julie and the girls came in to see us.  Josh had come down the birth canal so quickly that he was what they call "flat" and needed some oxygen.  This scared the wits out of Julie and I but all was soon well and he got some pink into his skin.  I was able to have a shower and as I sat and held my precious son, Phill poked his head around the door having only just made it up from Nowra where he was working a train.  I have never been so glad to see anyone in my whole life.  It was so sad that he missed the birth and it was awful going through it alone with such a horrible midwife but none of that mattered as we marvelled over our new little boy.

I cannot imagine our lives without him, he is the sweetest, most loving, funniest, and smart kid you could meet and I'm so proud of him, and in awe of him at times.  He makes me laugh every single day and is rarely if ever, any trouble. 

It's hitting me hard because he's my baby I guess, the childhood years are pretty much behind us now and we head into a new phase, the teenage years.

Yes we spoiled him, and he deserves it.

He loves his new DSiXL and the games. 

Emily made him a "special" card which I cannot show you.  It's a joke between them.

And he loves his pen and pencil set, engraved with his initials.

Cake's in the oven and once it's cooked we're off out for a fun day.