Just a general message here for anyone who might not have read this somewhere else (mainly email, Ozcomics and Delphi when it works again).

Here is something big and surprising to tell you all – and yet it’s not so surprising for me, yet the timing of it certainly is.

I hadn’t exactly intended to keep this a secret, but it’s just how it turned out. Isolation, various complications and the general newness of it all just led me to not exactly “blurt it out” to the world. But it’s a little beyond that now, so here goes:

Well, this week I would have told people that Sallie, my long term partner (well over six years now), is pregnant, and expecting our child in June. So it seemed like I had at least six weeks to get things ready, and tell more people about it 🙂

But it’s funny how things turn out. All of last week Sallie had been feeling unwell. There’s been a lot of complications in the pregnancy that I might tell you about one day, but sufficed to say we’ve had some reasons to be worried (one of the main reasons I haven’t been too open about it all.) She spent last Wednesday night in hospital with high blood pressure, just to be monitored. Then she came home on Thursday, and all seemed normal. She was due to return there on Friday for a brief day stay though.

Then on Friday, which coincidentally was my last day at my current job, (with my first full day at my new job being the very next day!) I got a call from Sallie. She was quite distressed, and said very simply that they planned to deliver our baby by caesarian that afternoon.

Holy shit, is all I could think to myself.

Being the last day of the job, it was really easy to get out of there early (I was allowed a short farewell lunch before I left,) and I got over to the hospital as soon as I could. Sallie’s there and ready, and she tells me it’s all going to start by 4pm. My parents are the closest other people that can make it, as Sallie’s live several hundred kilometres away. She gets ready, I provide moral support, and then we’re off.

I get the gown and everything else to go into the operating theatre as well. I’m with her all the way down to the theatre, about three levels below ground. She goes into the theatre and I have to wait for what seems like an eternity before they let me in as well.

I sat up at the end with Sallie, who was still conscious (a strong but local anesthetic), and helped her through it all. Almost before we knew it, our son was born.

William James Robert Turner arrived in the world at 5:37pm on Friday April 23rd, 2004. He’s a very healthy 3.6 kg (7.9 lb), happily surprising everyone considering his premature status.

We decided on William as a name by Sunday – Sallie had family reasons for it, but I was convinced when I discovered that he shares his birthday with William Shakespeare 🙂 (Also Michael Moore, Judy Davis and Shirley Temple, from what I read at IMDB.) James was Sallie’s choice, and Robert is my Dad’s name.

Sallie is fine – she seems to have almost entirely recovered from the operation after only a few days. William however has needed a lot of testing to determine the status of various issues. All indications so far are that he is basically fine, but there’s a number of long term things that need to be looked into.

Unfortunately, this means that he was taken to Westmead Children’s Hospital on Sunday, which is apparently the best place for this. A shame really, since we live so close to RPA at Camperdown, and now it’s been almost impossible for me to see him, with no car, a big distance and a constant workload. Sallie went to stay out there on Tuesday (the earliest the doctors would let her,) and I’m going out there today, which has been my first day off.

Ending my own job, watching my son being born, starting a new job – it’s all been happening at once. And I’m just worn out I think 🙂

Thank you all. Wish us the best for the future.

I’ll post some pictures here in the next few days.