Royal Couple Make First Appearance With Infant Son - New York Times (blog)

Royal Baby Makes His Debut: Raw footage of the new prince as the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge left St. Mary's Hospital on Tuesday. LONDON — After a long day spent in the privacy of a hospital maternity suite, Prince William and his wife, the former Kate Middleton, emerged on Tuesday evening into the public spotlight outside, taking turns cradling their infant son, with Prince William telling reporters massed on the sidewalk that "We're still working on a name." The baby — third in line to the royal throne after Prince Charles, his paternal grandfather, and Prince William, his 31-year-old father — appeared to sleep throughout the two-minute hubbub that ensued when the royal couple stepped through the doorway of the Lindo wing, the private annex to St. Mary's Hospital in the London district of Paddington, at 7:15 p.m. London time. "He's got a good pair of lungs on him, that's for sure," Prince William said in response to questions from a packed gallery of reporters and photographers, as he held the infant in his arms, with Kate, formally known as the Duchess of Cambridge, standing beside him. "He's a big boy. He's quite heavy. We're still working on a name, but we will have that as soon as we can." The couple had waited 27 hours after the baby's birth at 4:24 p.m. on Monday before emerging to the cheers and shouts of good will from the crowds waiting outside, including uniformed members of the hospital staff. Striking an informal note that suggested something about the changes they may wish eventually to bring to royal life, the duchess was hatless and wearing a short-sleeved blue polka-dot summer dress, with William in black jeans and an open-necked blue shirt with the sleeves rolled up. Kate, who held the baby with one arm to wave, passed the child carefully to her husband before they crossed the road to speak with reporters, described her feelings as "very emotional," and added, "Any parent will know what that's like." William, responding to a question, said, "He's got her looks, thankfully." Kate quickly demurred, "No, no, I'm not sure about that." Swaddled in a white baby shawl, his fair hair and fingers visible, the infant was carried by his beaming parents on a brief walkabout down the serried lines of the waiting news media, before being taken back inside the hospital and buckled into a car seat. With Prince William driving, a royal security aide beside him, and Kate with the infant in the back seat, they then set off in a black Range Rover for the baby's first night in a royal palace. Their destination was Kensington Palace, a short drive away across Hyde Park, which is to be the royal couple's London home. It was also the home in which William and his brother, Prince Harry, spent much of their childhood, and where they were living when their mother, Diana, Princess of Wales, by then divorced from Prince Charles, was killed in a Paris car crash in August 1997. Members of the royal family, when discussing the duchess's pregnancy in recent months, have carefully avoided any mention of Diana, who was regarded as a virtual pariah by the royal court at the time of her death, after her acrimonious divorce from Prince Charles and their mutual acknowledgments of infidelity during their marriage. Some British commentators have described her as the phantom of the occasion. But Kate wore Diana's blue sapphire engagement ring as she appeared for the first time with her baby, which conveyed its own message. So did the BBC's use, during the vigil outside the hospital wing, of archive photographs of Diana and Prince Charles emerging from the Lindo wing with William, their firstborn, after his birth in June 1982. It has been common royal practice — as it was with the infant William – for the parents to wait days, even weeks, to announce a name. Although royal officials have insisted that the choice will rest entirely with William and Kate, the newborn's status as an heir to the throne adds a special dimension to the task, and the widespread expectation is that they will settle on a name with a resonance in royal tradition. Rick Gladstone contributed reporting from New York. via Top Stories - Google News http://news.google.com/news/url?sa=t&fd=R&usg=AFQjCNEuR9zhO4WDD_fTx0lnuTYtJPDWXA&url=http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/24/world/europe/royal-couple-make-first-appearance-with-infant-son.html?src=twr

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