Oliver Te Awa Prebble

Little Oliver was born at 18:53 on the 4th August 2009. A good baby already coming on his due date!

Contractions started just before midnight the night before, irregular in pain and timing, which continued til about 2pm the next afternoon. I was able to get some rest with some panadol on board. By about 2pm I was quite over it and went for a couple of walks with Dan with not much effect. I totally lost it and Dan took off to the chemist for some castor oil to try and 'encourage' things to happen. It must have just been the thought of the oil that made the contractions a little stronger, enough to call the midwife and go in to get checked out (they were still ages apart - like 6mins min). But because they were getting more painful, I still felt ready to go in to hospital, probably just for something different to do than wait around at home and know if there was some purpose to all the contractions.....

So we met the midwife there and she checked things out and everything was good - 5 cm dilated. I think they said that 4cm is officially the start of labour, so they officially counted my labour starting from around 3 pm. A few hours, a few change of positions and a few 'colourful' words later - I hopped in the bath (which was great for the back pain)..... about 10-15mins later my waters 'popped' and a few contractions later he was out! Glad the pushing part didn't last as long a Zeek, but that is also probably the reason that his nose got bruised on the way out!

Brand new!... well he was probably about an hr old at this stage. We forgot to take the camera in and had to wait for mum and dad to come in to take photo's.

Oliver Te Awa Prebble

We had fun choosing a name for our new little boy. We have always loved the name Oliver.... it was on our short list when we had Ezekiel and always thought we'd keep it if we had another boy. So it was at the top of our list since we found out that we were having another boy. As for his middle name.... we had no idea what to use. Dan was certain he wanted a maori name like Zeek. We had looked on the internet and through family history charts for a meaningful name. Then Dan asked one of my cousins for some names/words that had a nice sound to them or a nice meaning. In the end we got both. Te Awa means 'River' in maori, so liking the sound and meaning and even the fact that Oliver was born in the water, it just seemed to fit perfectly. I just hope they get it right on the birth certificate!

Weight: 3540 gms (7lbs 13ounces)

Length: 52cm

As you can see in the photo's he has thick black hair, crooked nose (which will hopefully straighten), hairy all over. He has a cute cry and is already interested in what's going on around him....

Our family of 4!

Zeek thought this was just great!

Cutie... only a day old:)

I came out of hospital just after lunch the next day. We celebrated that night with an actual birth - day cake! Had an interesting first night... think he was wanting my milk to be there right away, and seemed like he fed for about 4 hrs straight. Now that the milk is here I've had to wake him a few times to make sure he gets it into him!

We are all now excited for the next few days.... months.... and years ahead:)