birthday number 3

Today is another special day for me..[ I am so lucky that I seem to have quite a few of these days, ]but this one is extra special because its the anniversary of the first day I met my daughter Gabriella.. Despite it being November, the sun shone that day too.. I had had a couple of false alarms before, and my poor husband had to rush around trying to find a telephone box to call the hospital for an ambulance to take me in.. I was due on the 9th of November, but on the 7th had had to attend a wedding .. I had thought that it would have started me off as we had to travel quite a distance to get there.... but no. there I was in all my finery and a huge bump in front... On the evening of the 20th November I had re folded all the baby clothes, moved a huge wardrobe and laid a carpet [with the help of my husband of course..]. but in the early hours I knew I was in labour... of course having had a false alarm twice, my beloved lying in bed did not wish to get up and go out in the cold and dark to find a phone to call the ambulance..!!!!!! but he did, and when they arrived around 6 am I was really in the throes of it all... Husband had to stay behind as the two other little ones were asleep.. I found myself in the hospital very quickly and the pains very close to gether.. My pet way to cope,[ this beiing my third child I was getting cleverer, and had found that counting out loud helped manage the pain].. crying out for an epidural but refused as they did not have any, and the next hospital was too far away and I was already nearly pushing, so had to shut up and continue counting.!!!.. At 9.25 that morning, 21st November- my second daughter came into the world, as bright and bonny as she ever was! Realising that at last that push had got baby out.. I waited to hear what I had had... [bearing in mind that I had carried exactly the same way I had with Daniel my first, Rebecca who came second carried completely differently..] . I had assumed it was also going to be a boy and knitted everything blue!!! When the doctor called out 'you have a lovely baby daughter' I cried out, 'but I can't have, I've knitted everything blue... he replied..'well I cannot put her back, so you will have to tie pink ribbons around the knitted garments to try and alter the look!!!! Because I was so sure it was going to be another boy, I had not decided properly on a girl's name... then my mother disagreed with my choice of Lorna Elizabeth...so for 4 days she was nameless.. then being close to christmas, I thought of Angel Gabriel, and decided to call her Gabriella Maria... all italian like... but pretty all the same!!... [ of course as she was growing up into teen years she hated the name and wanted an ordinary one instead.!!] .. I've never regretted having any of my children, and when the health visitor asked me when I was home, whether I had finished having children - I replied.. no, realising how much I enjoyed meeting the new babies, even though the pain was undescribable at the time... they were all worth it!!!