The day before

(Apologies for the reverse chronological order). Here are a few photos of Noemi the afternoon before Leo was born. At this point, she was already having contractions within three or four minutes of each other. While they were gaining in strength, and I was acting a bit like a headless chicken, she casually took an hour-and-a-half nap -- her sleep was of course a bit choppy, but stood her in good stead later. I was in awe at her coolness, you'd think she did this every day.

Here she is gathering essential supplies - the box is dark (75% cocoa) chocolate from Ecuador. Noemi never travels anywhere without dark chocolate:



Here's Noemi about to pack her snacks into her hospital bag. I hope I helped her rather than just standing around taking pictures of her trying to bend down. You can see Leo lurking, waiting for his big moment.



And here's Noemi breezily chatting to her friend Stephanie via Skype while getting strong contractions every few minutes that left her almost unable to talk.



Then finally we trundled off to get a taxi. It was a good, relaxing start to a busy night.