Three days in the life of the Miles Family

Leaky house

For the last few weeks we had been experiencing a variety of water problems in our house. Some of the problems had been fixed but there was still a lot of water coming through the roof of both of our bathrooms and in the hallway. Some of this water was dripping through the light fixture and had caused the light bulb to blow.

The plumbers were coming in and out of our house, the flat above us and up and down from the roof, trying to diagnose the problem. Were concerned that the house was a rather unhealthy and unsafe environment for our family and not quite ready for Kate to give birth in, but we also knew that the birth was imminent.

Good timing

The next morning we managed to have a bit of a lie in because it had been declared a national holiday on account of the snow forecast. Shortly after waking up, Kate's waters broke and so we called the midwife who made her way to our house, and we also called a friend of ours to come round and play with the kids while the birth took place.

 

Labour pains started a short while later and we put the gas heater on full blast to try and get the bedroom warm enough for giving birth. In the winter, we normally only keep the lounge warm and the bedrooms can get as low as 8 C. I was aiming for 18 C, but only managed 16 C. Fortunately, the midwife was busy warming up towels by the heater and laying them over Kate's shoulders. After two hours of labour, the baby was born. We still hadn't settled on our final name choice, and the midwife suggested 'Thelgy', which is Arabic for 'Snowy', on account of the imminent snow. In the end, we agreed on Jenson, which means 'God is gracious' and 'God protects'. We were thinking particularly about the time when Kate had a threatened miscarriage after 4 months of pregnancy but God, by his grace, protected both her and the baby.

A couple of hours later, the snow started and I gave the midwife a lift home before she would become stranded at our house. Travel in Jordan in the snow is very dangerous because there are no gritters and a lot of steep hills. Last time it snowed there were 100 accidents in the first hour of snow and a further 500 accidents over the next two days despite the 6pm curfew.

Snow baby

The following morning, we woke to find a foot of snow and I managed to take the kids out to do some tea tray sledging and make a snow man while Kate stayed home with Jenson.

In retrospect, it's amazing that Jenson came into this world the day after all the plumbers were coming in and out, and just a couple of hours before the snow would have forced me to be the midwife. The plumbing problems upstairs are still not diagnosed but at least the water has stopped coming through after they closed off one of the upstairs bathrooms.