The morning after the night before ...

... and now reality sets in!  Anybody who has had a baby knows how unpleasant the first few days after childbirth are.  You know that your body is not your friend. You know how physically, mentally and emotionally drained you are. You know how difficult it is to do the smallest task and you know how desperately you want to sleep and allow your body to heal itself.

You also know how difficult that is when you don't have the perfect support system.

Vegan Chickie has the perfect support system in her Bare-chested chef.

He is my current hero.

He has cooked and kept his wife nourished with food and fluids throughout the labour, and still been at her side for every contraction.  He has single-handedly set up the birthing pool and when the hot water ran out in the hot water system, he boiled huge pots of water on the stove to finish filling the pool in readiness for the birth.

During this time, he was running back to Vegan Chickie every 5 - 10 minutes to help her through another contraction.  He single-handedly made the bed up with the various layers of bedding required, for if they chose the bed instead.

He has tirelessly practised acu-pressure through 18 hours of labour.

Even when he was at his most afraid, during the final stages of his first birth experience, he was strong and supportive and unfailing in his efforts to make this as easy as possible for Vegan Chickie.

At the end, when his beautiful wife gave that final push and his perfect daughter was born, he was overwhelmed with emotion and happiness and with tears of joy, he wrapped his arms around his family and held them close.

At that moment, it was as if they were the only 3 people in the entire universe.

When it was time to climb out of the birthing pool, he was there helping the midwife lift his wife and baby out of the murky water.  He sat right by his wife's side as the midwife checked his daughter over and weighed her.  He then sat for over an hour on the couch holding his daughter in his arms and staring lovingly at her face while his wife was taken into the bedroom for stitches and checking over.

With all the mess that goes with that, even though he was worried, he remained calm and took care of his daughter.

After Mum and baby were re-united, he then made food for his wife and after she was taken care of, he had to empty the birthing pool and clean up all that goes with giving birth at home.

Never did he complain and always, he had a smile on his face like this was his 'calling' and he was happy that his family were relying on him to be their rock.

Today, after just a few short hours sleep, he has done more cleaning, gone to the supermarket for Vegan Chickie's and Chicklet's requirements, changed his daughter's first nappy, nursed his wife and helped her to the bathroom and cleaned up all the messes along the way.

Now he is in the kitchen preparing their first cooked meal of the day.

He is an amazing man and he just oozes love whenever he is near Vegan Chickie and Chicklet.  I consider myself blessed to have someone like the Bare-chested chef to take care of my family.

I know I said in my last post that I was going to talk about the birthday (with hindsight) but I just needed so badly to tell the world about my hero son-in-law.  I have always thought very highly of him, but now I have him on a pedestal and I have a renewed love and respect for him.

So, on the morning after the night before, I have 2 reasons to rejoice!   I have a perfectly wonderful brand new little Granddaughter and I have perfectly wonderful son-in-law to love her and be her father.

Life is good :o)