Mark wrote:
I even missed the actual birth since the cafe was
closed and I had gone to find something to eat!

And I'll bet you'll never, ever, ever be allowed to forget that!

The birth of our last one was a bit like that. Nothing at all was
happening in the delivery room so SWMBO dispatched me home at lunchtime
to check all was well there; the two grannies(*) having been imported to
look after the elder two toddlers. So I'd just got home and was eating
a swift sandwich whereupon I had a phone call from the midwife
suggesting in a
WTF-do-you-think-you're-doing-swanning-off-for-lunch-while-your-poor-wife-is
-here-in-the-latter-stages-of-labour sort-of voice, that NOW would be a
rather a good time to get my butt back to the hospital. In the ensuing
excitement, one of the grannies 'saved' my two-year-old from falling
over by yanking his hand, and in doing so managed to dislocate his elbow
(it had happened similarly very recently so the joint was rather weak).

Oh Christ...

So I zoomed back to the hospital, one granny and whimpering son in the
back of the car and into A&E. I thrust my son at a surprised nurse
'sorry, can't stop my wife's about to give birth upstairs - here's
granny' and rushed up in time to welcome my next son into the world.
God, we guys have it tough.

(There were more shenanigans down in A&E, since because we'd just moved
house days before, granny was completely unable to provide an address or
phone number for this injured child in her care. We got it all sorted
eventually though, including the elbow. But hey - maybe a home birth
would have been easier?!)

David

*yes, both of them - long story