SHE is Here...

... and already 9 days old!!! Ok, so I am not quite on top of things (though I did get an e-mail out to a good number of people). The big news is that baby is a GIRL! So now David is a proud Papa of THREE daughters. If that doesn't say "drama," I don't know what would. :-) We are absolutely delighted little Alexa Belle has finally decided to join our family early last Saturday morning (11/12), and the way she chose to make her appearance was quite dramatic. Here's the story:

We went to bed like normal on Friday night, glad that another weekend had finally rolled around. At 1:29 a.m. I woke up to a VERY strong contraction (much stronger than I remember having with the previous two babies). So I decided to wait for one more contraction to see how far they were apart and then possibly wake up David. The next one came at 1:36 a.m. and was just as strong... to the point that I wasn't sure I could do many more of those on my own. I woke up David and told him I thought this might be the real thing, that we should call the midwife (even though I felt kind of silly calling her after two contractions because she had told us to call after I was having contractions 5 minutes apart for an hour). So David called her around 1:42 a.m. to tell her that we thought I was in labor and that we would be coming to the birth center (30 minutes away). In the meantime, I decided I had to go to the bathroom one more time and while sitting there, I got uncontrollable shakes. I had one more (lighter) contraction, and suddenly realized that baby was pretty much crowning! So right after David hung up with the midwife, I told him: "Actually, I don't think we're going anywhere." He looked at me like: "What are you TALKING about?!" He verified for himself that baby was at the door, and then called the midwife back, communicating the change of plans. I started making my way over to the big tub and tried to sweep away the dust bunnies with my feet to get them to go down the drain -- I didn't want all that floating in the tub with my brand new little. :-/ In the meantime, David called the midwife again from the home phone to put her on speaker phone so we could be in constant contact with her while she and her fiance sped their way over to our house. By way of how the events transpired, we ended up saving $300 on the midwifery fee because she didn't call an assistant (whom we would've had to pay), but she ended up having her fiance, who happened to be visiting that weekend, drive her so she could be on the phone with us and leave the navigating to him. On their way over to our house, they got pulled over by the police for speeding, but after explaining the situation he waved them on immediately and didn't write them a ticket, so that was a blessing. :)
So... I had managed to get in the tub, "clean" it roughly with my feet and David turned on the water to rinse down some dust. He put in the plug and turned around to put down the phone, when I could feel another contraction coming on. I decided to let the events take their course -- there was no way the midwife would make it to the house in time anyway, so why fight nature? My water broke and out came baby! I caught her head with my right hand and her little body after that with my left -- a very surreal and amazing experience! :) So by the time David had turned back around, he exclaimed, "Baby is out!" So then the midwife gave us basic instructions on keeping baby warm with blankets and towels, finding a hat, asking about her skin tone, the color of the amniotic fluid, whether or not she was breathing or making any sounds, etc. I sat back in the tub with baby on my belly, piled high with towels and blankets, and David and I just looked at each other like... "what on EARTH just happened?!?!" We couldn't believe it! At some point, David thought to check and see whether we had a boy or girl -- everything had happened so fast that that was a complete afterthought. Another girl! Just what Lucia had been hoping for. :) Poor David is hopelessly outnumbered! But he's in love with his litte Alexa Belle, and a great Papa to his girls.
After about another 15 minutes or so, the midwife finally arrived with her fiance, and started whirling around, bringing me water, honey for blood sugar, the fiance heated up some chicken enchiladas for protein and nourishment, and we then we started thinking about getting me out of the tub and into bed. Unfortunately, at that point I started getting really weak (between the birth itself and delivering the placenta, I lost quite a bit of blood -- more than I remember losing at the previous two births). Thankfully, it quit after the placenta came, but all in all it must have been enough to put my system into shock. When I sat up to get out of the tub, I could tell the blood was leaving my head and I was close to passing out... which I ended up doing. Next thing I know, I'm being slapped, I distantly hear my name called out several times, and it was like I was waking up from a deep, dreamy sleep, far far away. All the sounds were really muffled and distant, and I smell... nailpolish remover. :-/ Later they told me I was out long enough for them to start getting worried and call 911, who came to the door within 4 minutes, but since I had come around by then, they sent them away again. Ok... sit back again in the tub, fiance is told to go find some broth to heat up for me to drink, more honey, some NASTY herbal drops (to help circulatory system?! or something), sniff some more nailpolish remover, and this delightful sensory combination, along with general weakness, just made me lose my ... recent intake of honey, water, broth, herbal drops and whatever else I was given. :) We waited a good half hour or more (my rear was getting rather sore sitting in the tub like that for several hours... no water, mind you), until we tried again. Same result -- I passed out again. So, at this point, the midwife decided that I had to wait another good hour or so for my system to stabilize, and then it was going to be up to David and her fiance to lift me out and carry me to bed. This is what they ended up doing, and I was very thankful at that point that she didn't have a midwife assistant there (who would've cost $300), but that we had a free :), strong male who was able to work with David and finally get me in my bed (by about 4:30 or 5 a.m.).
The midwife stayed around until about 8 a.m. making sure we were all doing ok, recovering well, and that little Alexa was starting to nurse (which was somewhat of a struggle, but by now we're getting the hang of it).

Oma had heard some of the commotion during the night and came down to a new grandbaby and me still in the tub, and couldn't believe her eyes! She heard David walking around the house with a flashlight and going to the front door, and heard little Alexa's squeaks, and she thought to herself: "What is he doing? Is there a cat outside, or coyotes, or what's going on?" Haha.
By the time the girls woke up in the morning, most of the drama was over and they were excited to meet their new baby sister! The midwife weighed Alexa right before she left, and she was 9 lbs 7 ounces (our initial announcement said 4 ounces, but was revised because the scale was showing 9.43 lbs, which we interpreted as ounces, but are in fact decimal points). Big baby! No wonder, since she took her sweet time in my belly. :) She's a healthy little chunk, much more communicative than Rhea was as a newborn, and sleeps well. The past several nights I've only had to get up once to feed her around 2, and then she sleeps until 6:30 or 7:00.
I'll add a few pictures and post this -- it's getting late (9 p.m. is LATE when you have a newborn ;-) ) and I need to get to bed here pretty soon.

Still Waiting...

Well, even though there are quite a few things I should post about before the current day (considering my last one was about leaving Germany over a MONTH ago!), I figure I should at least capture the fact that baby COULD have had a pretty cool birthday of 11/11/2011, had (s)he decided to come today. We're only 6 days overdue, so I guess it's nothing dramatic, but it is interesting how your mind fixates on the due date and after that it's a psychological waiting game. At least for me. Thankfully, I'm not physically uncomfortable at all -- I told David just last night if it were just for the physical, I could go on being pregnant for months without much complaining. (However, it would be nice to have my lap back soon so I have room for both of my girls at the same time, and so I can hug my husband more efficiently, and so I can scoot up to the table with my chair without having food land on my belly whenever I drop something.)
Also, maybe waiting would be easier at this point if we knew if baby was a boy or girl, but the family's curiosity is certainly mounting! It also didn't help that I had a false labor alarm the other night from 1 until 3 a.m., complete with timing contractions, getting up for a snack of cereal in the middle of the night since I wasn't sure I'd be getting a good breakfast any time soon, and texting back and forth with the midwife. All that ended up with me going back to bed at 3:00 a.m. to see if I could get some more rest, and then I woke up at 7 when David had to go to work and that was that. Regardless of when this baby comes, I'm already grateful that (s)he'll be ready to face the world (unlike Rhea, who was 2.5 weeks early and not quite "ripe")! Hopefully that'll make the first few weeks a bit less stressful on the whole family. :)

Baby, we're ready and waiting to meet you!!

And That Was That

It's almost 11:30 p.m. on our last day in Germany -- the bags are mostly packed, the girls are sleeping, and their Mama should be, too!
We leave for the airport tomorrow (Thursday) morning around 8:00 and our flight departs at 11:00. Texas, here we come!!! :) We are SO ready to be a family again (which of course does not mean that we ladies haven't had a great time here in Germany with Oma and Opa). The girls are excited to see the new house, and I'm sure David is ready to have his family back. He's been working some crazy hours and I have no idea how he could possibly find the time or motivation to do anything else (like laundry, unpacking boxes, or make himself dinner). All that to say... families are meant to be together. :)

Our trip has been a full success: the baby is still comfortable in my belly (no super-early birth, as some people mused), the girls' mastery of German has improved again, Lucia had a great time in the Kindergarten, and Lucia is now night-time potty trained, and Rhea is day-time potty trained!! Oma was ambitious enough to help me attempt to train both of them (and she was a huge laundry help :) ), with great results. So ... the money we're now saving in diapers can go towards baby #3 when (s)he arrives. Haha. (Though it's really not all that much considering we mainly cloth diaper anyway.)

We're looking forward to returning to some late summer weather... fall is definitely settling in here. And it's supposed to be 86 in Dallas tomorrow. :D Aaah... I can't wait! Now if we just didn't have to survive an 11 hour flight...

More updates and pictures when we're "back" home.

Mysterious Messages :)

Today, Lucia and Rhea skyped with each other -- one sitting at Opa's desktop, the other at my laptop, in the same room, video conferencing with each other and sending chats. Rhea's chats were much more haphazard than Lucia's (I had to supervise that she stayed in the text box, otherwise her random clicking and button pushing got her into other windows and programs and opened menus and all sorts of things). But they both had lots of fun. :) I was pretty impressed, though, when Lucia decided to write Rhea something, and this is what she sent:

"manspraymryprsestuglörfaygaadandengoehmforavr"

I obviously knew right away what she had written since she took a while to sound it out while she was typing. I will leave this post a cliff-hanger... let's see if any of you can figure out what she wrote!! You can either post a comment if you're viewing the blog directly, or if it's in your inbox I'd enjoy an e-mail back from you hearing your interpretation. :)

From the Lips of Children...

Tonight was a special bed-time. Since Rhea had had a good nap, I let her stay up a bit longer and so we all cuddled up together in Lucia's bed. First, we tried to call Papa at his desk in Texas to tell him "good night", but unfortunately, he wasn't there. So then we sang some songs together. First, Lucia requested Jesus Loves the Little Children. All three of us sang together, even Rhea sang along loudly: "Jeeeesus litto chiiildweeen, all in de weord." Then, Lucia requested Our God in Heaven. Meaning: Our Father Who Art in Heaven - the Lord's Prayer.
So we sang that three times. At first, both girls listened to me singing it, and then Lucia wanted to sing it again so she could sing along. I was surprised at how much of the lyrics she had retained -- she really loves the song (and so do I).
I just couldn't help but giggle at some of her interpretations of the words. I will record them here because they are exactly how she sang it from the bottom of her heart. One part in particular is quite the distortion and I struggled whether or not to correct her immediately, but I know that she will figure out the words over time. And I wholeheartedly believe that her rendition of the words, sung with passion and a four-year-old's capacity for worship, please God more than mindless and distracted repetitions of the prayer that we so often render up, even though our words may be "right".

“From the lips of children and infants
you, Lord, have called forth your praise."
Matthew 21:16b

Here are Lucia's words to the Lord's Prayer:
Our Father, who wart in heaven, how little be Thy name.
Thy kingdoms come, thy will be dumb, on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts, as we forget our debtors.
And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil,
for Thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.

Below is a video with the correct rendition. :-)

More Fun in Germany

More impressions of our last week.

Here Rhea was keeping Oma company while she was cleaning the car, but then she had so much fun that she outlasted Oma by quite a while.



Rhea admiring the ladybug Lucia found

Sweet girl :)

Here Rhea was sleeping off her stomach bug/food poisoning -- last weekend, she very randomly started throwing up on Saturday evening. This was Monday morning; she had slept in until 9 (!) and then fell asleep in the chair on the porch at 10! Poor little thing - but now she's all over it and back to eating normally. :)

Playing "people" with Oma :) -- and this even before breakfast!

Some more fun...

Playing "Click" with Opa

Celebrating Oma and Opa's 41st wedding anniversary with... ice cream!

The town we went to had a wine fest going on, along with some merry-go-rounds that the kids enjoyed. (Though... VERY steep prices - EUR 1.50 per ride!! Gulp. I'm spoiled from taking them to Bay Beach in WI where each ride was $0.25 ... needless to say, they didn't get to ride very often!!)

Back yard entertainment with Opa on Saturday morning. The girls wanted to go find some apples and pears, so Opa took them on a little walk around the yard. Self-discovered apples taste much better (apparently) than store bought or cut up ones. :)

Mmmh! :)

Then the girls helped Opa plant some flower bulbs around the trees in the yard

The next highlight of the weekend: A tractor ride :)

Then the girls went to pick some more crab apples (?!) - they are miniature apples and rather tasty -- the girls eat several of them each day. And they hang well within reach of both of them; another plus.

Some quality sand-box time with Mama (who can barely sit on the side anymore because the belly is getting so big :) ).

Then: a random flock of pigeons came to visit the pond. They stayed for a good half hour and were rather tame (as you can tell from the picture). They seemed thirsty and in need of a little splashing around in the water. We all had a great time watching them do their thing. :)

But THEN: they started pooping on Opa's new bridge. He was not a fan and decided the time had come for them to leave. :) They weren't quite convinced, but when he got close enough they finally complied. (Check out that teacher finger! He was giving them a stern talking-to! :D )

Video

Oh, and I forgot to post a video of the girls "dancing" at the garden exhibit. :) Enjoy!

Bundesgartenschau 2011

These pictures are in reverse order of our day, but I'm just going to post them like this anyway. Last week Thursday, on my dad's day off from school, we went to the Bundesgartenschau in Koblenz. It's a national garden and plant exhibit that is organized every several years, and this year it happens to be pretty close to my parents' house. Since they already had two tickets, we decided to make a fun afternoon of it with the girls. They had some fun play grounds for kids with unusual "attractions" like this sideways rotating "table", a platform in the trees with bridges going up and down, and a great water play area (see more pictures below).

Opa on the platform between the trees

More playground

A group picture toward the end of our day

Rhea catching a ride on Opa's shoulder

Stopping to smell the flowers along the way

Lucia taking a quick rest on a bench

Checking out the "poor man" that really concerned Rhea - there were so many holes in him!! He was some sort of war memorial in the midst of the flower beds. Rhea kept saying "poor man, poor man" for quite a while after this.

Rhea enjoying the view over the river after our coffee break

Posing with one of their favorite treats! :)

Mmmh, the real deal: Gelato!

Lucia picked lemon and mango... a girl after my own heart. :)

Coffee time - or ... ice cream time.

The fun water play area: Lucia turning on the water mister by climbing up the "web" and pushing a button on top. She enjoyed seeing the rainbow that appeared whenever the mist was coming down.

Taking a little break with Opa

So much fun!

Getting ready to splash in the water!

An area where the kids could dam the water in different places to see how the flow changed. Pretty cool designs! And here you can tell this picture was taken in Europe: A little boy running around in his undies (not pictured: the decent number of kids running around in their birthday suits :) )

On the cable car above the Rhine river, crossing from one side of the exhibit to the other

Another view from the cable car

The kids had a blast (so did we), and were exhausted by the end of the day. On the way home, we stopped to get a bratwurst, the real deal (in my humble opinion ;-) ), so the kids would be fed by the time we got home, and they fell into bed at 9 p.m. We had GREAT weather for the day (even being able to enjoy the water play area... rather unusual for this time of year) -- I would certainly go back (even without kids -- that way I might be able to enjoy the plants a bit more. :) )