Kids Birthdays etc

Yesterday saw another milestone in the Gumbo household -the 2 littlest ruggies reached the age of 8 (bit of a miracle considering all of the %*#( that their older siblings etc have subjected them to - lol.)

Perhaps I should throw in here that they were eventually delivered as emergency Caesarions at 4 -15 & 4-17am, the doctors were very concerned that the littlest was not strong enough to survive a natural birth, esp if she was the second child that would have been delivered this way, and all the tests indicated that this was the most likely scenario.

So rather than being in the labour ward as was the case with the first 3 (and it is rather amazing what expletives that women can think up in that room -would rather leave the best of "Bullockies" far behind in the dust - lol),I sat outside the operating theatre door for a llllong time till there was a cry at 415 am, then the extra llllllloooong wait till the second cry at 417. Add to this that there had been a few sessions over the week or so prior (Iwatched the 9/11 events unfold on the tv in the maternity ward over a few days)

So there I was waiting outside, then one of the natal care gurneys came out and was rushed off to maternity, followed a short time later by the second one. It was a fairly long interval between this, and finally being told that all was ( nearly) well all round - there was some concern that "the littlest feral one" might have suffered oxygen starvation for a few minutes, with the result that she was put into specialised treatment for a fairly long time - a period that was distressing to the ex (she hadnt seen the baby at that stage - only a polaroid snap taken by the staff - and was still coming out of the post op shock as well) ,tho surprisingly,I was not as concerned as some of the staff at the time - it was an automatic reaction on their part given the circumstances, but the little tiime that I spent with her in those early hours of her life did not indicate any negative effects, and this was the general consensus of the midwifery staff - but they were initially looking at it as a possible "worst case" scenario - and the treatments (mainly an oxygen rich enviroment) could not harm.

Ironically, it ends up that the littlest feral one is a normal, healthy "tomboy", and her brother has been classified as autistic - something that the ex has never showed any interest in sitting dwn and talking through what thing can be done to enable him to lead a normal life -just a pile of papers that I was supposed to be able to sit down and understand the medical gobblygook after being at work for nearly 11 hrs.

(ps. Kid pic is the two littlest & the next one up}