Killian's 8th birthday and 1st choir rehearsal!

Good Evening Dear Reader,
8 years ago today the little guy on the left came into this world. 8 years ago I my life changed forever. 8 years ago I became a father! I am no longer Ian, Mr Myers, or that English bloke. No. I am Papa, or Daddy...

I remember it as if it were yesterday. Well not exactly yesterday - more the day before yesterday.

Fade into 11th December 1998 just like they do in the films...... It was 16h and I was working at the SITA in la Défense in Paris. I got a phone call saying Virginie, hospital and maternity, and come. I'm sure there were lot's more things but those were the words I understood. I am living proof that the journey from desk to bedside in the CHU Intercommunal de Montreuil sous Bois can be done in one hour. I had given up running after my flirt with the British army. Bad joke and all that. But there I must have been faster than an Olympic athlete! Compared to the RER I was quicker! Normally it took at least 1h30...

I arrived at the maternity ward and saw the great while whale waddling towards me. Very pregnant ladies don't walk, they waddle like ducks. In fact it's sometimes easier to spot a pregnant lady from the rear ad from her gait , then from her tummy. Here as I expecting to see my wife with various tubes stuck in her and people and machines that go ping! But nothing. My first question was, well where is he? He was still in the same place he had been since we made love about 8 1/2 months earlier!

Despite my great and utter confusion I gathered that my wife was to stay over night in the hospital, and that I could go home and the yes of course they would call me, when my son decided it was time to show up!

The next morning at about 8h30 I received a call from the hospital. Was I Ian Myers, yes I was, well if I wanted to be there for the birth of my son it would be a good idea to get a move on. Virginie's labour had started at 3h and she got the peridural at 7h30. Now a contraction is something a guy can never even hope to get a grasp of. It's like the stomach cramp you get with a really lovely tummy bug, multiplied by about 100.

I arrived by 9h. What really was bothering me was what on earth was I going to say to this woman for so long. We had never had to spend so much time together in such a confined space. I also felt this obligation to stay there rooted to the spot for fear of going for a coffee and missing the important delivery. Something like that would have been grounds for divorce and my mother in law would have reminded me of it until the day she died. To be honest the time passed quite quickly. She even fell asleep on the table! Every half hour a nurse would come in and stick fingers up Virginie where I would never have though and the countdown began. Dilation 1, Dilation 2 etc.

Dilation10, let's get going. I faded into the background whilst the team set up stall in front of my wife. This modern idea of the male sharing the birth experience is a load of bollocks! Not true. A complete fallacy. I was a mere spectator. They used the forceps to get him out, and he popped out like a champagne cork. Thank heavens the doc was there to catch him. I remember asking is it normal that umbilical cord around his neck, then seeing this huge Midwife's arm pull it from around him. I also remember just crying and going on about how beautiful he was. He was and still is very beautiful. But I don't tell him too much or he'll become unbearable. Yet another thing I remember was seeing him getting his first nappy. I saw his bum and saw thin huge black hole. There was this black toxic waste type substance that was there. Disgusting! What had they given him in the womb? He was cleaned and put in his adorable little pyjamas and hat.. He was so small. Here he was in my arms not even crying. It was the first of many father son moments.

Fade back to 12/12/06....

So years later, here I am writing aout something that happened 8 years earlier.