Just to let you know - Elliot Arthur Hargraves - was born by C section at 9.17am, Tuesday 17th March 2009.

Which, for Estelle Hargraves, is quite frankly a huge relief, as he was supposed to turn up on March 4th.

After a laborious labour (I see now where they get the adjective) which began in earnest on Friday the 13th (that should have been a clue!) at 5am, we went to the maternity ward at the Liverpool Women's hospital late sunday night and tried every trick known to medicinal science to facilitate the arrival of the quaintly and underestimatedly termed "bump."

When a battalion of the finest midwives known to man where unable to shift the little blighter - who by now had put the expectant parents through 5 days of almost sleepless torment - the decision was made for a c section - and after 10 mins of terrifying surgery behind a screen this morning - he arrived.

All 9lb 4oz of him!

Both of us have had a useless amount of sleep-per-day for the last 5 days - but I do recall my brow-mopping pillow-arranging back-rubbing lip-balm-applying skills were tested to their extremes; but of course that is nothing compared to Estelle's mighty resilience over the duration of her delivery and the herculean efforts to re-gain the ability to walk 10 feet again without needing to lie down because of "bump."

Mother and small child are doing well - I am now briefly back home to wash the cats and hoover the dishes and feed the house and generally let everyone know whats happened!

Check out the pictures - he has my colouring and Estelle's ears and nose. (And he can keep them too - tee hee...)

(Oh dear - I so need to get some sleep!)

Ste

(18th March 2009 - 1.59am)