It has, figuratively, been a very long day. At 02:30 this morning I called the maternity ward of the local hospital to ask for advice on my partner's state, and the advice was to come in to hospital to check on the stage of her labour. So we did. The check revealed that things were good to go, and so after a few hours (of which I will skip the graphic details) our baby daughter was born. She is doing well, as is her mother. Unfortunately I missed the birth of my first daughter, and it was quite an experience to see the birth this time. Quite amazing, as I'm sure anyone who has stood and watched without that difficult pushing role will attest. At least daughter #1 did declare that today was "the most exciting day in my life so far".
It was well that she was born today - induction would have begun tomorrow and despite my physicist's expertise with both mathematical and electromagnetic induction, I understand neither have much to do with the induction of labour, which is - well - more laborious than non-induced labour. Anyhow, there she is in the picture attached to this post. She's called Alba, and I could write a separate (and more interesting) post about the dynamics of the discussions between my partner and me about baby names, but I will not turn this one into that. Now I'm back at home while Alba and Natasha are staying overnight in the hospital. As if there is some strange causal effect of being off work, I'm watching "The Karen Carpenter Story" on a TV channel called Movie Mix that I'd never even noticed on my freeview TV before.
I made sure I bought a copy of the newspaper today to file away as a momento. I still have a copy of a paper from a few days after I was born containing an announcement of my birth. It contains interestingly gender specific job adverts, such as "Slaughtermen required. Piece rates, good wages and conditions," though "Butcheress counter assistants" and "Saleslady required for wholesale fancy goods warehouse" or "Retired Lady and Gentleman required to take care of toilets in a city discotheque." Since I don't really follow a local newspaper, I guess I'm not going to do the same about Alba, but hey, I'm writing a blog post all about her, albeit without the readership of the Glasgow Evening Times.
Well, finally, I looked up birthdays of famous people born on this day, and so, for Alba, here's a rather morose sounding song with what appears to be a more upbeat and relevant message:
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