Hello everyone,

As Delphine told you a few days ago, my baby boy born nearly 7 days ago. His name is Thomas Gabriel Luc.

I was told he would be a big fat boy, but nope ! He born 3,4 kg (plain average weight) and just hit back the 3 kilos, so I am finally home !

He is quite naturally the prettiest one (though, let's face it, he's got some white pimples on the face...), and looks very much like myself (two eyes, one nose, one mouth and a double chin). Actually, he looks very much like his older brother, so I keep calling him William :-)

We are both fine now. The most powerful lesson of my third child birth would be :

"do not pick up the fruit when it is not ripe yet".

After more than 2 weeks going three times per week to the hospital for full check up due to preeclampsia disorder, the docs decided to chemically induce the birth. 2 days in a row, they applied a cervical prostaglandin gel, which caused very very very frequent contractions. A more natural way of doing this is referred to as the "italian technique" (the male sperm does contain this prostaglandin, so having love moments with partner is often recommanded to gently induce child birth... Right, I mention this only because it is Valentine's day :-))

In my case, no such delicacy. I had the dubious pleasure to spend two full days in the childbirth area (not exactly 4 stars hotel), with basically no food, screaming women all day and night long, electronic gear on chest, arms, hands and tummy. I *hated* it. And hated even more when after two days, nothing was occuring but painful very frequent contractions.

At that point, I was so tired they gave me something to actually *slow down* contractions so I could rest a bit! And decided to rupture the amniotic sac, telling me I had 12 hours in front of me before the c-section if nothing was happening.

It may have scared my body badly... in hardly more than 60 mn, I went through the 10 cm dilation, the expulsion of the child and finally placenta. It was quite explosive :-)

For the wikicommons addicts, no pictures of the delivery itself were taken :-) Even if we had wanted to, there would have been no time to do it. So, no bloody pictures of delivery will be uploaded ;-) sorry...

I put a few pictures on yahoo to share with family and friends.

http://fr.pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/fdevouard/album?.dir=550d&.src=ph&s... So, everything is fine :-) I do have hundred of emails pending, not counting RC to check and mailing lists to go through. And odd sleeping patterns right now. So, I'll go slowly through all pending issues. If there is something urgent, please notify it to me specifically.

Also, thank you for all the congrats left on my user talk pages, ml and private emails.

Cheers

Anthere

PS : Did I mention I was happy ? I am :-)