Friday 9th September 2005
First and foremost, Fiona and baby are both in good health.
The say moving is one of the the most stressful things you can do and I know that our child would agree, she is still quite tired after the move.
Born on September 9th at 8pm, after 22 hours of being squeezed, pushed and begged to 'move into the light', the poor kid was literally sucked out of her mother, and into the lap of a bewildered and incoherent buffoon, (this being the father and not the doctor) whose only grasp on the English language seemed to be wuzz a wuzz a wuzz and 'where's the baby? there she is!'
The ward was busy, when our lass came into the world. Our doctor literally ran out of the room straight after the birth!! This could be taken as a major insult to the baby, but thankfully this was not the case. Friend's of ours, more expats from Cambodia, in the room across the hall were having their baby at the same time.
We had joke about this happening previously, but who would have thought? Their child was born at 8:10 pm. An hour later the doctor had Fiona fixed up and ready to hold her baby for the first time. The Dad, reluctantly, let go.
A quick finger count, good 10, toes. 10 too, good so far. All fine except for the head shape from the suction cup. Jokes are passed from Niall about being able to go out and get some ice cream in her hat, but needless to say no-one giggle but him. 
The name, the name, the name. How many emails, texts etc have we received on that. We have called our baby 'Aoife Rose Kelly'
Aoife is an Irish name and phonetically it would be spelt 'Eef ah' for you non Celts. Fiona is from the white rose Shire, 'Yorkshire' and that is where here second name comes from. The 'Kelly' part is Niall's surname and not yet another first name.
ARK is 50cm in length and weighs 3.258 KG (about 7 1/2 pounds for none EU people).
Fiona has had a few stitches so we will stay in the hospital for an extra day or two. Yesterday Niall went back to the apartment to update the web (which he did not accomplish) and managed to leave the mobile behind him in a rush to get back to the hospital to play with the baby, but he has it again now. Please feel free to give Fiona a call (keeping in mind that we are 7 hours ahead of the UK in time diff please), I would imagine that she would greatly appreciate it.
Her mother is not being 100% fair about not letting me take Aoife to a elephant polo match this evening, so we are going to stay in the hospital and watch the Spa Grand Prix. Her first words are going to be 'VROOOOMMMMMMM' and 'Crash Schuie'! More photos Now!!!
Thanks soooo much everyone for texts emails (which we cannot check for a few days but saw a serious amount yesterday (please keep them coming and we will reply to each and every one), they all meant so much.
Aoife's main page!
Leaving Cambodia, in week 38. Waiting around Bangkok in the 39th Week. Is it ever going to happen? Week 40 takes its toll! At last, the arrival of Aoife