It comes with great pleasure to announce the arrival of my first born son, Oscar James Jobling.

Last Monday, my wife and I made the last journey to Walsall Manor Hospital as a twosome for her to be induced for the birth of our first born child. Unfortunately, Lizzy had been struggling with a pelvic problem during the latter months of pregnancy which caused her great discomfort and made her pretty much immobile. I won’t go into the technical (or medical) side of it but the doctor thought it only appropriate to book her in to be induced now the pregnancy was in its 38th week and the health of the baby seemed perfectly fine.

After a long day of waiting around for the inducing to take its cause, her waters broke just as we were watching Vernon Kay cover The Paul O’Grady Show on Channel 4 (isn’t daytime TV great?!) and the labour commenced. It was now time for the Journey of the Unknown. How long was labour going to last? Was it going to be straight forward or were we going to encounter complications? Was our little bundle of joy going to be born on the Monday or Tuesday? Would it be done in time for a late night supper?

Well, after 6 hours of contractions, gas and air, no swearing (amazingly!) and just half an hour’s use of pethidine (not in the original birth plan but became evidently useful), little Oscar James arrived just after midnight at 12.18am on Tuesday 24th October 2006. He was a Scorpio rather than a Libra. He was born exactly six years since his mummy and daddy first met (to the day!). Our perfectly healthy 6lb 3oz baby boy had entered the world and brought tonnes of happiness to his entire family.

Thankfully, his Nanny was on hand as the second birthing partner throughout and helped his Daddy keep Mummy as calm as possible for those six hours of pain. I spent the entire evening chanting “In… Out… In… Out…” while Lizzy puffed on what must have been gallons of near-pure oxygen. At the end of what seemed like days, our little son appeared on the bed after two big pushes.

It’s been a five days since Oscar arrived in our life. There have been a couple of noisy nights along the way but progress is much better than normal. He has only lost an ounce since he was born (babies can lose up to 10% of their weight in the first week!) and the midwife is really happy with the health of Baby and Mummy.

Life is never going to be the same ever again but, so far, it has been more amazing than words can describe. I’m sure there will be some trying moments to come and I’m sure I’ll never be able to afford that LCD flat screen I’ve always wanted. But I don’t care. I’ve been blessed with the best thing that life can bring anyone.

(For those who wish to see more photographs of Oscar James and his family, I suggest you pop on over to my Flickr account and add me as a Friend or Family Member. It was the quickest way to get the photos out but I’m not much of an advocate for public baby photos online for obvious reasons. I hope you appreciate my concern.)