Scarlett Carys May Stothard

This is how our no. 2 daughter arrived safe and well, even if 3.5 weeks early. Due to her being classed as premature we weren't allowed a home birth, but I have to say, apart from the pain, it all went as perfect as it could have. We had a really lovely midwife, who'd had 4 homebirths of her own and so did everything she could to make it right for us, including talking the doctor in charge that night into letting me have a natural 3rd stage, (if you ever want to see a jaw drop tell a hospital midwife you want a physiological 3rd stage, aparently they're very rare!) My waters broke, trickled, at 4pm and my contractions started about 6, but didn't really start to hurt till about 10, when she said I was about 4cm's. 10 mins later they really intensified and a bit later I felt the urge to push. At 11.15 she popped out with such a whoosh, she nearly fell off the end of the bed! No idea how long the 3rd stage went on for, but it seemed like hours, probably wasn't though. Scarlett was put straight on my chest, so quickly we didn't get chance to look see if we had a he or a she, so tried to have a peek after a little while and got it wrong, thought oh good, a boy, but then got Chris to check again and turned out to be a little girl, Oh fantastic, a little sister for Rhianna! She fed after about an hour and has been a real natural, which Rhianna is not too impressed with, everytime I feed Scarlett Rhianna tells me she's drinking from her side, but we've got the hang of tandem feeding quite well, Rhianna thinks it very funny as she gets to play with baby's so cute tiny toes!
As it happened just that bit too early, I hadn't got the car seat yet, so we had to stay in overnight till Chris could go shopping and get one, but we got home the next day.
When I knew I was going in to hospital, I called my friend with the little gril who is Rhianna's freind and they came round. Rhianna stayed up playing till 2am, when she got quite upset, but only for about 10 mins, and Chris was on his way home by then, but she was fast asleep by the time he got in. She was cross with me in the morning, and wouldn't talk to me on the phone, but when Chris brought her in, he hadn't told her I'd had a baby and her face when she saw me and then noticed a tiny baby was priceless, she was so happy and has been in love since then, I have to keep taking photos of her giving the baby cuddles.
Considering she was a bit early, not a bad size, she's 6lbs 8oz, tiny enough to be even more adorable, but not so tiny I think I'll break her!

Forgot to say, she's got loads of dark hair, whereas Rhianna had loads of platinum blonde.

AWWWWWWWWWWWWW!!!

Fab birth story - been desperate to read it!

Huge congratulations to you all!

Aww wonderful!

So happy shes here safe and well and it went well too

aww Mary thats beautiful,fab too on the tandem feeding. look forward to some pics x

Awwwwwwwww. Congratulations.

What a fab story .... scarlett sounds just perfect!

CONGRATULATIONS HUN::::XXXX

Awwww beautiful story Mary!
Congratulations

Awwww
Well done, Mary!
Congratulations again !!!

Sounds like things went really well considering the shock and hospital birth.

Glad Rhianna is taking to sharing

I can sympathise with the no car seat and not being prepared - Emily arrived 3 weeks and a day early and I didn't have anything packed and ran around the house while my waters leaked - lol.

Enjoy these precious moments - they go too fast!!