Category: Family

I left the hospital to pick up my mother from the airport at 14:40. It turned out that the airplane pretty much landed around that time. I arrived at the airport’s arrival pickup at 15:10, but it took until 15:45 until my mom came out. She was in pretty good shape and very happy to see me, of course.

We quickly went back to the car, I briefed her on the way for what was going on at home. Manuela can stay a little longer to make sure she is all comfortable. We had a great quick ride and were there by 16:05. I quickly paid Manuela and made mum a coffee, showed her the minimum things to not get lost and off I went to the hospital. I was worried to be too late I had said I would be back by 16:15-30. Due to the light Sunday traffic I was actually back almost precisely at 16:30. They were just doing the epidural and I could not enter right away, but well nothing really had happened. Excellent!

Now, Ana is already at 7cm and she got some Petosin to make the contractions more regular and stronger. She is feeling fine. We ordered dinner at 17:40  and are now watching some TV to relax.

Everything is on track and they tell us by 20:00 the baby should be there. That would be perfect!

Finally we decided that I can go to pick up ‘Grosi’. The flight is scheduled to arrive for 14:45, I will leave in a few minutes and bring her to our house. Ana has few but strong contractions. Also asking the nurse it seems ok if I leave and get back within the next one and a half hour. Leaving now….

We have just changed into the delivery room. It is a nice big room, where Ana and I are quite comfortable. We will get something to eat in half an hour or so, all included in our health insurance. At this point Ana is dilated to 5cm but the contractions have gotten less.

We are pretty convinced that the baby has decided to show up when ‘Grosi’ arrives at the airport. We are trying to find Steve Nahn to pick her up… We found his son Adam at home but Jen and Steve were supposed to show up pretty soon. We will call again a little later.

Today, finally after all the back and forth — we wanted to induce by December 23, then December 26 — we are sitting in the labor room at the hospital, waiting for a delivery room to free up. There is one coming up very soon, they say.

It all started today around 4:30 when Ana got some stronger contractions and they built up until 7:00 when we called the Hospital/Doctor/Babysitter. By 9:00 the kids had breakfast and Manuela had arrived to watch the kids. Ivan was very concerned of us leaving again and insisted on knowing exactly the sequence of events, including when I would come, Grosi  would come and finally when Momy and the new baby would arrive.

Now it is 10:10 and Ana is laying on the bed, connected to heartbeat and contraction indicator and a blood pressure measuring device. I am watching her and we are waiting for our delivery room. Grosi is going to arrive at 14:40…. and I am almost convinced the new baby will arrive while I have to pick her up. Well, let’s see what happens.

This year is the year of the first times….. First snow fall, first visit to Boston, first house bought, first sub zero bike ride etc. etc. Today we bought our first Christmas tree. We were not yet sure were to put it, Ana was thinking about the right side of the living room, were the speaker usually stands, I was rather thinking about the left side, replacing the floor lamp. Well as it turned out, Ana was right, the right side is nicer and the tree fit in very nicely.
Anyway, after the breakfast we went to get my warm winter boots, and after that we looked for a tree at Mahoney’s and we met Krishna with family (Dana, Isaac and ? hmm… forgot the name). They bought a big tree together with a nice large new support. We went for a somewhat smaller tree and a support which was cheaper but had the possibility to fill in some water to keep the tree fresh for longer 🙂 of course we made the better choice.
I went with Markus and Ivan to find our tree. As usual it is not easy to find the perfect tree, but finally we found a decent tree. I do not like the tip too much but it was reasonably regularly built (and cut) and would fit well into our living room.

Today is December 19th and our little guy has not yet seen the light of day…. Ana is putting us every night in excitement but finally everything calms down again and I wake up in the morning in Markus bed….
Today we have a long laundry list of things to do. We will start with a good family breakfast and will continue to buy a Christmas tree. A real one, a few years back we bought a small artificial tree, but now as we have a house and the kids are all over Christmas we need of course a real tree. Afterwards we will buy some good snow boots for me because we are expecting half a foot of snow tomorrow. We also need a coffee machine to make sure my mum is going to be well caffeinated while she will be here. Some cigars are of course on my wish list, but of course what we all really want is to go to the hospital.