The newest addition to our family

The wait is finally over. At 17:15 yesterday afternoon our new son was born weighing 3.61 kg and everyone is recovering nicely. 3.61 kg is massive for a baby considering that the two twins born just before him weighed 4 kg combined but he’s still such a small and fragile thing that his size is almost insignificant.

Colette and I haven’t agreed yet on a name for our new son but this will be revealed when he has his Bris in about 8 days time.

The 15th of April was a rather crazy day and I went through a vast array of emotions in the process; stress, fear, excitement, nervousness and ultimately – elation. There are no words to describe what it’s like to watch a child being born and I’m truly humbled to experience the miracle of life once again.

Colette was forced to have a C-section due to the fact that she had one when Luke was born and while it’s a fairly quick operation it got very scary at times. Unlike Luke, our newborn just refused to come out and Colette had to endure some serious physical pain before eventually he popped out.

At one point I really wasn’t sure if they’d ever get him out but thank God it all worked out in the end and I’m very excited to show you what a miracle we’ve produced.

You can view all the birth pictures on my Flickr stream.

My biggest concern today though was how Luke was going to handle the whole affair. For a 4 year-old, who’s never been subjected to pregnancy and birth, this is an unimaginable scenario to put him in and I have been paranoid for months on how this will affect him.

Over the last couple weeks we’ve been trying to prepare him for the events that would transpire and while this wasn’t easy he showed some immense enthusiasm at becoming a big brother. At the same time he was also very scared of the unknown but we tried to reassure him about things whenever we could.

At around 18:15, only an hour after our baby was born, I left the hospital to go and fetch Luke but he simply didn’t want to come back with me to visit his mom and brother. He was overwrought with fear but eventually, through some bribery, he reluctantly agreed to come with me.

We stopped off at the hospital cafe to buy his new brother a present and while we were at it he and Colette also got a couple gifts. Stapled to my side we made our way to the devil’s lair so that Luke could finally meet his new fate.

While it was very uncomfortable for him initially (he refused to look at his new brother, let alone touch him) we made some great breakthroughs. By the end of the hour that we spent there Luke managed to overcome his fears of his new sibling and the result of their relationship is highlighted beautifully in the pic below.

Yesterday was fascinating for me because while I was extremely honoured to become a father again I had to focus more on making this day special and important for Luke rather than myself.

There’s a lot more I did for Luke when he was born such as bathing him for the first time, changing his first nappy etc. but instinctively I knew that my newborn son needed his mom and Luke needed me.

Luke can’t wait to go to the hospital again and I can’t wait to spend more time with my family.

Finally I have to say that I am so proud of Colette for her courage and endurance. It really wasn’t easy for her during pregnancy but she has handled the whole thing so well and put up with my crap in the process. She was amazing today.