First timer..

Hello and welcome to my first blog post. I decided to create a blog to share my experiences and thoughts on becoming a Dad for the first time. My wife Corinne gave birth to our little baby boy Gray DJ on January 30^th and he weighed in at the size of a smartie just 5lbs 12oz, to say our lives changed that day forever is an understatement!! I will get to Mr Gray Bear in a later post but for my first time out I want to write about my trooper of a wife Corinne or as I like to call her “C”. We were just coming up on a year being married when we decided to try for a baby and it was just my luck that we hit gold pretty much the first time – I was thrilled we were pregnant but gutted the “ trying “ was over. I will never forget the moment when I looked at the test and saw “ pregnant 1-2 “ it was as close to feeling like I had just scored the winning goal for Arsenal in the Champions League Final. I jumped around the bedroom while C was in shock and then the reality set in – we are going to have a baby. The first few weeks were pretty quiet, we got some pregnancy books, decided on a Gynecologists and waited patiently for our first scan. All was going swimmingly until we hit week 6 weeks when C started to feel really rubbish and she started to vomit a ridiculous amount. After a few days of nonstop vomiting we took a trip to the Doc and C was diagnosed with Hyperemesis gravidarum, for those of you that haven’t heard of this pregnancy complication it’s characterized by severe nausea, vomiting, weight loss and possible dehydration. C described it as being hungover every day for months on end. Hyperemesis is considered more severe than morning sickness and it really did knock C for six. We spent the next 16 weeks going to and from the hospital. C was kept in for a few nights three times, she was given fluids and initially it seemed to work and got her back on her feet but within 3 days we were back to constant vomiting and feeling dreadful. We got to week 22 and things finally got back to normal with a little help from a magic tablet every morning (the tablet she had to take was the tablet they give pregnant ladies who have to go through chemo) well as normal as one can be with a human growing inside them. At week 26 the world threw another curve ball at us, Corinne’s dad passed away while he was on a business trip in China. He was only 56 and had a massive heart attack in his sleep. This really knocked us for 6 and to make matters worse it took almost 2 weeks to get him repatriated. C didn’t get much sleep through all this as you can imagine and it really was a horrible time for all of us as Derek (Corinne’s Dad is also called Derek hence we have Gray DJ – DJ is Derek Junior after C’s Dad) was the rock of the family. The main man or as I called him the big dog see below. We attended the Coombe and Prof. Sean Daly was amazing throughout the pregnancy but he really went above and beyond when we got the news about C’s Dad, he scanned her 2 days after we got the news just to check that everything was ok and continued to monitor her all the way to the end. I will speak more about Prof Daly and in a later post. I would like to say it was plain sailing from here but C ended up with a chest infection Christmas week and it was another stay in hospital, she was allowed go home Christmas Eve but she was told she had to come back in the 27^th and it was the 30^th before she was home again. We agreed the date January 30^th with Prof Daly for our new arrival and he would be entering the world via cesarean section. We told C’s Mam the news but decided to keep it from everybody else until our little boy was safely with us. We didn’t sleep much the night before and we had to be in the Coombe at 7am on the Monday morning, I can remember lying in bed and it was nervous excitement but the fear of not being in control was the hardest thing, you literally put all your faith in these amazing doctors and hope everything goes as it’s supposed to. I am normally a light hearted guy but I went full on serious for this post considering the tough time C had and the sad passing of my hero Derek Wickham the big dog”. If I am a tenth the Dad he was to C and her 2 brothers to Gray DJ I will have done an amazing job with my little man. I will finish this post with a shout out to my wifey C, I don’t know how she got through those 10 months considering the horrific time she had and she is definitely the toughest lady I know. As I said to her only the other day “ thank you for giving me a best friend “ as now I have 2 – Corinne and Gray DJ.