You arrived in a hurry. Two weeks early was not what we expected. We had everything perfectly planned. But as we would come to understand over the years, when it comes to plans, it would be your plan or no plan.

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Through my private health insurance, we had made a birth booking at St Thomas' Hospital in Waterloo, the hospital I was born at. The birth bags were packed, the pram bought, the room decorated. With two weeks to go, we were ready. So ready, in fact, that we made a few pre-baby plans, one of which was to see the Lion King musical.

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That morning I went to work as usual, at Eurosport's offices on Drury Lane. The plan was for mummy to meet me in town for the theatre. Then my phone rang. Mummy's back was really hurting. My colleague Mel told me, "She's in labour, mate." I jumped on my scooter and ran every red light from Covent Garden to Streatham.

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By the time I arrived, mummy was in the bathroom and in quite a bit of pain. I leapt into action attaching the TENS machine, designed to disrupt pain signals. However, in my rush I was also running a bath, and water was trickling down her back onto the electrodes... mildly electrocuting her. I stopped that, telling her the machine was probably broken.

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The midwives arrived shortly after, and just a few hours later you were here. As family arrived to meet you, mummy turned to me and said, "Shit." Still on high alert, I asked what was wrong. She smiled. "We're going to miss the Lion King."

There will never be a better reason to miss a show. You, my perfect little girl, had arrived.

 

Our adventure had begun.