Snow baby

Our baby Phoebe finally arrived on Tuesday 30th November :) 

Our St Andrew's Day baby certainly timed her arrival to make things interesting!  This is a long wordy post, the Baby Post, enjoy...!

This was my car on the morning I went into labour...

Baby Phoebe decided the day to arrive would be the day a massive snow blizzard hit Kent.  It had started snowing overnight and when we woke up we'd already had a couple of feet, and the snow just kept coming, it didn't stop.  The schools were closed so hubby set off to get Lillia to her Granny's whilst I stayed at home to handle the contractions.  Two hours later hubby had to turn back as he just couldn't get there - the roads were gridlocked.

By this time things were getting quite painful and the weather situation was looking a bit worrying, the snow just kept falling.  Luckily the traffic coming the other way from my mum's was ok and she managed to get to us in the end, making the usual ten minute drive in forty-five.  We set off for the hospital as soon as she arrived, me wired up to my tens machine and clutching a bowl in case I was sick! 

The hospital is usually a ten minute drive away - it took us just over two hours.  The roads were gridlocked so we had to resort to the motorway in the hope it would be clearer, but there were several lorries stuck unable to move and we couldn't get past.  At one point I thought I would end up giving birth on the motorway, I could almost see the local paper headlines! 

When we finally got past and off the motorway, negotiated a couple of gridlocked roundabouts and turned the corner on to the final stretch of road we were confronted with a long queue of cars stuck behind a lorry stuck in a snow drift.  There was nothing left to do but to start driving madly: hubby put on the hazard lights and we started our way up as far as we could on the opposite side of the road.  Then we pulled in, hubby got out and ran up the the policeman who was helping dig the lorry out, he explained his wife was in labour and we needed to get to the hospital fast!  The policeman initially offered us a lift in the police 4x4, but all we needed was to get up the hill and round the corner so in the end he stopped all the on-coming traffic to let us through.  One of the memories that will always stay with me is driving past that policeman, clutching my tens machine and breathing through a contraction, with him shouting "good luck!" and giving us the thumbs up.

In the end we made it in plenty of time.  Phoebe was born just before 11pm, with the snow still continually falling outside, much to our joy and relief!

We made it home the next day - the roads being snowy but no longer gridlocked - but the whole country had come to a halt and all we four could do was pull up plenty of blankets and hunker down.  No visitors, no post, no midwife visits, no getting out and about, no school!  We have been completely snowed in.

The thaw started on Saturday and visitors have started to trickle through, though the roads are now icy and dangerous.  We are hoping school will be back tomorrow so poor Lillia can escape the cabin fever.

It has been quite a week to say the least!  I will be back very soon, but for now I will be mostly crying, breastfeeding and feeling tired but happy :)