The Delivery (only for those interested in this stuff)

So we got to the hospital in the middle of the night. Everything was very quiet. The night porter tooks us to the maternity ward, hidden in the back of the hospital but newly refurbished. Contractions every 3 minutes but bearable. The head midwife checked me out, and told us, I was pretty much ready to deliver, fully dilated etc. Not sure why but I was surprised. I'd heard the stories about second babies coming much quicker but didn't quite believe this. I'd planned an epidural. She said I could still have one, but that the baby would be out in 30-45 minutes so did I still want one? With Isabella they stopped the epidural for the actual pushing/delivery, so I would feel the pain to help things along, so we figured it would be the same as last time, and passed on the epidural. This was a decision I have to admit I questioned later, wimp that I am, but I had committed. It was longer than 30-45 minutes, as she had to call my OB with it being the middle of the night. He was pretty quick to get there. Transpired actually that the baby was still quite high, despite everything else being ready to go, so neeed some pushing to get him down and in position (as I said maybe an epidural after all..). Well they did a good job. Imagine all of this is taking place in French, despite this being the American hospital all the staff are French. Allegedly they all speak English but you wouldn't know it. I'm not sure my French degree teacher would've been particularly impressed with my French under pressure, oh and the occasional English swear word. Anyway it became apparent that he could be born at the same time as Isabella (2:45am) so we had a neat deadline we narrowly missed as he arrived at 2:47am.

He came out all fit, healthy and crying. Another blondie - no surprise there. The midwife was desperate to find a tape measure so she could measure his apparently huge head. Same size as his chest she gleefully told us, and the hat they provided wouldn't fit. Well thank you for that. It's actually the same size as his sister's was and it didn't seem to cause such a stir in the US. Ha.ha. He weighed 3.825 kg which is just over 8.4lbs, and 54 cm (21.25 in), so not a giant in my World, certainly healthy, although apparently top of the French scales.