pregnancy timeline

3.30am
deb's waters break
a few minor contractions

8.30am
ring midwife

10.30am
meet midwife at hospital
run some tests and a scan on deb, decide to keep her in hospital as the baby's head is a little high

2.00pm
labour starts with first contractions

3.30pm
deb taken down to delivery suite

4.30pm - 5.30pm
regular contractions
deb feeling cold, shivering, vomiting a little, feverish
specialists and doctors visiting

6.00pm
decision made that deb has a streptococcal B infection, and therefore needs a caesarean section

6.30pm
deb taken to operating room, put under general anaesthetic

6.46pm
matthew liam brown born

And your life changes utterly and irrevocably when your baby takes its first breath.

Matthew Liam was born at 6.46pm on Tuesday 16. He weighed 7lb 9ozs. He is my son.

I've cried occasionally in my adult life - death of my grandparents, when I left Dana in Montana, during some major arguments with Deb - but I don't think I've ever cried tears of joy.

I wondered how I would react when Matthew was born, and knew it would be emotional, but I wasn't prepared for the tears streaming down my face. A lot of it was being in the operating room and seeing Debbie lying there unconscious. After all she had gone through, it was so hard that she wasn't able to see the birth. But seeing something you had had a part in creating, being lifted from the womb and starting to breathe, was just overwhelming.

A nurse asked me to read the nametag to make sure they had the names right. I couldn't read it through the tears.

It's 2.30am as I write this. I've just got home from the hospital. Matthew's been placed in an incubator while they give him anti-biotics to ensure he doesn't catch an infection. Deb was let out of recovery at midnight. She managed to see and hold Matthew on her way to the ward she's staying in.

He knew her. Her touch and her voice.

I'm feeling drained, hyped and ecstatic.