Well, not the very beginning, which we shall keep to ourselves, but the beginning of Marisca as we know her. I will leave it to Elspeth to share her views, but I was very proud of both of them. Relative to various birth stories of friends we seem to have had a straightforward day: it was only one day, for a start, and we didn't need any serious interventions to help Marisca out.
The hospital was having a very busy day, but this turned out to be very positive for us. When we went in too early midafternoon we were sent back home, and so spent an extra 4 hours at home than we would have done on a quieter day. I was asked to cut the cord as there weren't enough pairs of hands available, and because there weren't many in the room at the actual moment of birth that weren't focussed on whether Marisca was actually breathing, I was the very first to know that our new baby was a girl. We then had much longer together in the delivery suite than we would have done had there been more people with spare time to usher Elspeth and Marisca upstairs to the postnatal ward. This was brilliant to have some bonding time for us all for quite a few hours before going home for my last night of full sleep for some time.
I remember being struck by how blue Marisca's extremities were in those first hours, and how wrinkly. I remember wondering how we knew when we were supposed to clean the muck from her hair, and then realising there were going to be a lot of such wonderings over the years to come. I remember the strange emotion of shock when she was actually born - as predicted by my choice of laminated emotion cards at NCT - that we actually had a baby and had turned from a couple into a family. I remember the blackcurrant jam on the toast that the midwife provided. It's only been 16 days but the picture above reminds me how much has changed in those two weeks and how much we've learned. It's been such a full fortnight that the term "I remember" makes as much sense now as it will in 2 months, years, decades.
Her fingers were much pinker by the time I got to the hospital 30 seconds after visiting hours started the next morning. Eventually we persuaded the hospital staff to release us at 3 (a busy delivery suite one day makes a busy postnatal ward the next) and we took ourselves home.
Marisca with Grandpa at one day old
and Grandma...
and A Mosedale.
Then we had Gran and Grandad from further afield, staying for a few days
which included a sunny day for photographs in the garden
which was conveniently the day that Jennifer came to visit
and so we have a Crocker family photograph.
Well, not the whole family as Catriona was of course at work. Now she works in Bedford Elspeth and Marisca see more of her. We've also had Ian visit but he seems to have avoided the camera lens!
Marisca then got to visit Milton Keynes as a not-very-halfway spot to meet up with the other little ones in the family. Our other brother in law also seemed to avoid the solo Marisca shot but we've got a nice one with Rachel and a whole family shot below.
I like the details in this last shot particularly: the pairs of eyes pointing at the other camera to the left of the shot, Izzy with the coaster she's been playing with all afternoon, Elspeth attempting to hide the muslin she's just wiped Marisca's face with. Who needs photographic perfection when you have a family like this?!
