A birthday to celebrate

A few memories too.  The YFG is 14 today, and I so clearly remember the day of her birth those 14 years agio.

The FH was in hospital miles away in Glasgow, my brother-in-law had been up from the Fens to stay with the EFG and I for a few days, and he had just left, and we had a neighbour and her dog sleeping in the house with us "last" night.  I had to let the dog out in the night, and I woke again in the early hours, about 5am, I think, and started going to the loo quite a lot.  The pains began, and I woke the neighbour to say that we would have to get the EFG up, and get her over to her godfather's house, as he was taking her with his daughter to their childminder when I went to the hospital.  His wife, her godmother, would be taking me to the hospital, except she had been on a nightshift in another hospital and wasn't home yet!  We called her, and she came home, took a bracing shower to keep herself going, and we left for the maternity hospital.

I do remember calling the FH in his hospital and telling him that the YFG was on the way and that we were off, so when I rang him back just after 1pm, there were cheers in the background as he came to the phone to hear that he had another daughter.  He was very pleased!

The YFG was born on a Friday, and my sister came up on the train to be with us on the Saturday, and then the Glasgow hospital decided to release the FH on the Monday, so we didn't have a lot of time to get over the birth, before I had an invalid to care for as well as a newborn.  I remember one of my friends telling me that I would be able to get a home help for a few weeks, given the situation, so I rang the health visitor to see how I went about arranging it.  "What makes you think that you would get a home help?" she said, in a rather dour Scottish voice, so I replied, rather meekly, "Well, my husband is coming out of hospital today after having a heart transplant and I just delivered a baby on Friday...." to which she gushed, "Oh, my dear, of course you must have one!" which was quite a relief, and we had the amazing Nora for 6 weeks then.

And here we are 14 years later.  The FH is still going strong albeit with his ups and downs, and the YFG and EFG are such lovely young women that we are so proud of.

They are all still asleep so I had better waken them as we are going for a day out today at 10, and they have showers to get, lunches to pack and the sitting room to repair after the sleepover last night - there are sleeping bags and quilts all over!!  Hope to be back later with some photos.