Baited Breath

Early on Saturday evening, around 6.30 pm, my DIL in Australia telephoned to say that she was experiencing the first niggles of labour!

OMG!

Great excitement!

She sounded hushed and breathless. "What time is it there now" I asked, unable to quickly do the maths necessary to work it out for myself, partly because the telephone ringing had woken me out of a snooze! They are 8 1/2 hours ahead of our time. "it's 3 am" she replied, "I couldn't sleep and I knew you would be awake". Bless her heart. We chatted for about 10 minutes and then she was going to try to get some more rest, so rang off promising to call as soon as she felt ready to go!

No call during the rest of the evening and at bedtime I put the telephone within easy reach, my glass of water beyond it, for when I had to hurriedly reach out to answer the call in the night. I woke at 6 am, got up and rang Australia. DIL answered the phone. Niggling pains had subsided and she had felt nothing for several hours. I would wait to hear. By the way, baby's due date is 4 September.

Later in the day, about 1.45 pm, the call came - DIL was now having fairly severe, evenly spaced pains, about 10 minutes apart and was preparing to go to the hospital. In Australia it was then 10.15 pm.

I will add here that my son and his wife already have 2 children, a boy and a girl. Fortunately DIL's parents are visiting, their visit being timed for this occasion in order to (a) help out and (b) to see their new grandchild as well as their daughter and the rest of her family, of course.

So once again a promise was given and we waited for the call.

It came at about 10.30 pm. DIL had gone into hospital, was admitted and put to bed and the pains subsided! She was kept in overnight but sent home around 6 am (their time). Baby is obviously not ready yet. And so we wait. We do know the sex of this new baby but I'm keeping it a secret for now!

I'll keep you posted!

PS. All this working out time differences would wear us out, as we also have a daughter in New Zealand, a different time zone again. So we keep 3 clocks on the kitchen wall!