Oliver being born

I am Oliver Hugo Burden, I was born on 03/11/07 at 22:58. I weighed 3.6kg when I was born and I had a bilateral cleft lip and palate which my mum and dad already knew about. My mum said that she had a relatively easy birth, she had been out for lunch with some friends that day and then when she got home her waters broke at around 3pm. My dad took mum, and I suppose me, to the hospital to let the midwife have a look at mum, they sent mum home after a couple of hours and said that she should come back the next day, unless things moved along - I guess they did, otherwise I wouldn't be writing this! Mum's contractions got stronger and at 7:30 in the evening she phoned the hospital, they said that she should wait another hour. 45 minutes later mum wanted to phone the hospital again, dad said that she should wait the hour as the doctors had suggested. At exactly 8:30, one hour after the first call, mum phoned the hospital again and when she had to hand the phone to dad because of a big contraction the doctors said that mum could come to the hospital again. When dad got mum to the hospital she had to walk really slowly up the stairs and kept on stopping because of the pain of the contractions. I was quite eager to arrive and meet my family.  Mum was taken to a birthing suite, and when she was examined they found that mum was 9 cm dilated, which is apparently a very good thing. Mum had gas and air and dad rubbed her back between contractions to help ease the pain, and after being admitted in the hosiptal at around 9pm I was born two hours later, I was checked over at birth and I had an APGAR score of 10, which is good. I was quite worn out after being born, it really is hard work.  I had my picture taken with mum and people thought that she looked a little pale, dad fed me with a syringe of formula, I only had 5 mls but everybody seemed happy that I was eating something. A little bit later I found out that there had been complications, mum had to go under a general anasthetic and the doctor on call had to give mum some blood, apparently dad was really worried. Mum came back after a few hours, and I let her give me a cuddle which seemed to cheer her up. A new midwife turned up at 6 in the morning and sent dad home telling him to get some sleep.  He went home and phone my grandparents and fell asleep.

Quality Time with mum
	I don't remember much about the next morning as I spent a lot of it asleep. Mum spent alot of the time asleep too, but there were lots of nice midwives around to look after me.

Dad's back

Dad came back later on Sunday, he looked like he had some sleep, I let him give me a big cuddle.  Apparently dad got lost as I had been moved up to the Iffley ward , this is where babies who have had a complicated birth, or in my case have feeding trouble get to spend some time with their mum.  There were lots of nice people on the ward, I particularly remember Ruth, she made sure that my mum fed me properly, and as that is one of my favourite things to do it was nice to know that a professional was showing mum how to do her job properly.  I was also visited by Tina, she is from the cleft team in Oxford, and she made sure that I had the special orthadontic teats and squeezy bottles to help me drink mum's milk. In the evening loads of people came to see me, Nana Hales, my aunty Amy and Grandad came to give me a cuddle and little Nana and Grumps came and gave me a cuddle.  I was quite surprised when Grumps gave me a cuddle as I didn't think he'd want to pick me up, but it was nice that he did. People took lots of pictures of me, and there are some nice onces of mum and dad holding me, after looking at the picutres I must say I am really glad that I have mum's ears rather than dad's.  His ears stick out far too much. Everyone left after a while leaving me with mum, I heard dad talking about the pub as he left, I don't know what the pub is but he seemed to be looking forward to spending time wetting my head, I don't think he was being literal as I didn't have enough hair to be washed.

My second night with mum

Dad's first day of paternity leave

Dad didn't turn up right away, I don't know if wetting my head took it out of him, or if his claims of having to sort some things out for work were true. Mum had started trying to express breast milk for me to eat and Ruth showed mum how to get as much of the milk into me as possible. I had lots of visitors on Monday, not only did Ruth spend time with mum but I also saw Mr Harper he is my orthadontist, he put something soft in my mouth which I bit down on, he told mum that he was going to make a plate for the roof of my mouth to make eating easier, and as eating is one of the things I like to do I thought that this was a jolly good idea.  Mr Harper said that mum and dad would need to be around later in the afternoon so he could fit the new plate. On Monday some of mum's friends came to see me, Kim a Brownie leader I liked Kim and I let her give me a cuddle, they had a bit of a chat about all sorts of things.  Then two of mum's work friends came to visit Liz and Kelly, dad nearly didn't let them in, I think he was really tired.  I must admit that Liz and Kelly didn't catch me at my best, well it was nappy changing time and dad had taken my nappy off before I'd finished filling it up.