A New Life....

Have been a bit quiet on the old blogging front. And this is the reason why. He arrived at 3 am on Tuesday night. Mum went into labour at about 8 pm so it was a relatively quick process this time around.

Sticking to our "natural as possible" ethics Mum went without pain relief for most of it. Last time we had a baby our teacher told us to concentrate on breathing through the pain - it worked and it worked again this time. Even the midwives said "we don't see people doing this anymore", meaning most Mums are drugged up and feel hardly any pain. Which to me is not what labour is about. I can sympathise that some people really may need pain relief but I think the pain is part of some deeper spiritual reasoning. This is a woman's jihad - just as a man may have to go and fight or struggle in other ways in order to be spiritually cleansed, women get a very similar reward through labour. My wife can testify that through the pain you slip into an almost trance like state, and if your intention is correct backed up with a connection to the Divine it can be a deep deep experience. And at the end of it what do you get?? Allah says in the Quran, "Inna ma'al usri yoosra" - after pain comes ease. In labour not only does ease come but the greatest of gifts, a new life. MashaAllah.....

Anyway she didn't manage the whole thing. Right at the end when it gets very intense she starting asking for gas and air. There I was going "come on, you're doing great, let your dhikr be your gas and air," to be shoved out of the way to take a huge gulp of the stuff!! At least i kept her quiet for all of 1 minute....

So our family has increased by one. It's so nice that these two boys will get to grow up in such a nice environment.

Pretty much everything has come to an end outside now. Just waiting to get the field fenced off to get my first flock of sheep. Also I've noticed loads more pheasants on the roads which means hunting season soon!! More plucking and gutting to look forward to.