Dark days to sunset...

When your first baby is 11 hours old, two words you do not want to hear a paediatrician say in the same sentence are "intensive" and "care". However, those were the words that TP and I found ourselves hearing, 11 hours into MC's life.

The doctor can tell you it's precautionary, they can tell you there's nothing to worry about, they can tell you it's routine - and you can believe them - but it still doesn't make it any easier.

Watching tubes being put into any new-born would be tough - watching a doctor put a tube into your own child's nose is excruciating; watching a doctor find a vein in your baby's hand and then insert a cannula is worse. Add to this, the fact that it's 2:00am and you've had no sleep for 36 hours and you're about were I was in the early hours of day 2 of MC's existence.

The next few days of intensive care were hard (though a lot harder for mum - recovering herself). However, through it all TP and I remained positive and managed not to worry - it was a process, we had to wait it out and hope that MC would escape intensive care as soon as possible.

After 5 long nights, MC did make it out and one of the happiest moments of parenthood so far was being able to carry her to a window and show her the sunset over London. This was the first time I could say to her "This is all yours - go out and get it".