Callum John Huang Yu Chua

Once again it's taken me longer than I would have liked to write something about the birth of our children. After a much longer than expected labour (especially after our experience with Eleanor) we welcomed our son, Callum John Huang Yu Chua, into the world at 16:16 on Sunday the 16th of March 2014. Our boy bested his sister's initial measurements with a birth weight of 3.25KG, height of 51cm and head circumference of 35.5cm even though he had less time in the oven (born on his due date no less, I like punctuality!).

It was a comparatively relaxed birth this time as we even got a chance to have breakfast at home and say goodbye to my mum and Eleanor before driving into the Mater. Alison had her epidural and waters broken early on in the morning as we expected things to move a lot faster for a second baby. The next six hours of playing trivia games on the iPhone with our obstetrician gave us plenty of time to reset our expectations.

Of course once things started to move they did so quickly and in a handful of pushes we were able to meet our son. He announced his presence to the world with a quiet and considerate wail that we found to be rather adorable. Callum also emerged with some of the longest fingernails I've ever seen so I'm taking that as a sign that he will follow in his dad's footsteps to take up fingerstyle guitar when he grows up.

So onto the name. As with Eleanor we found it hard (even harder actually) to come up with an English boy's name that would be well suited with Chua. We had very few real options that both of us could agree on, and in truth we had "Callum" on the shortlist way before we knew Eleanor was a girl so it's been locked in for over three years now. The name is derived from Alison's Scottish side of the family with the most recent inspiration being Alison's mother, Sheena McCallum Snow. One doesn't have to look much further than Alison's dad to see where his other middle name comes from.

As with Nell, we entrusted the responsibility of coming up with a Chinese name to my mum once more. Again she has delivered with something that we feel summarises all that we hope for our little boy, Huang Yu (煌愉). Huang is directly translated as "bright" while Yu can be interpreted as "happy" or "pleasant". I think that's a reasonable goal to strive for in life.

Our stay in hospital wasn't as hectic this time around as we enforced a moderately strict "No Visitors" rule. The family and Eleanor were allowed to come and see us on the second day of course to meet the new guy, an event which Nelly was extremely excited about.

In fact I can't believe how well she's coping with the new addition to the family. It would be a turbulent and challenging time for anyone to adjust to and she's been an absolute darling over the last week with helping out around the house and looking after her little brother. Hard to believe that our ridiculous expectations of our three year old are actually being met if not exceeded. What a beautiful girl.

It wasn't long before we were packing up to head home with a new child. We used the same blanket that we had for Eleanor, which was actually made by my mum for me when I was a little baby. He was perfectly content in the car and continued to sleep for another two hours in his capsule when we got home.

The last week has been tiring though it feels different to what we went through with Nelly. Having mum here to help out with cooking and entertaining Eleanor has obviously played a role but I think the key difference is that we already went through the midnight debates and dilemmas last time around so it has largely been a matter of executing the parenting playbook we already have. Every kid is different and Callum seems to be a lot more laid back as well which has been fantastic for settling and feeding.

We're trying to enjoy the moment with this little guy and not get too excited about what he's going to be like as he grows up. If he's anything like his sister we're in for a real treat.