Month 17 {March 16-April 15}

The highlight of Month 17 was Lincoln’s birth, right smack in the middle on April 1. We finally became legit expats being able to say we had a baby in a foreign country! We anxiously awaited his arrival while trying to make the most of our last couple of weeks baby-free, and celebrating Easter when my mom flew in. Once Lincoln was born, things were pretty low-key for a while – we enjoyed our newborn hibernation period and the kids enjoyed having their Grandma here while they were on their 2-week Easter break from school.

A few highlights of Month 17:

Sunny St. Patrick’s Day day at the farm park with friends and shamrock-shaped sugar cookies with green frosting (one of the other moms at the park came over and asked what the green stuff we were putting on our cookies was).

Bus ride downtown for a shopping trip with friends; and Eliza’s first haircut.

  

Easter Celebrations

  

Celebrating Nate’s birthday a day late because we were still in the hospital on his actual Birthday.

Nate’s bike ride with the kids while he was home for Lincoln’s birth (Bennett and Ryan were on their 2-week school Easter break)

 

Playing tennis in the driveway with grandma

 

Hanging out with little Lincoln

  

Celebrating Ryan’s 5th Birthday

Saying good-bye to my mom. Such a sad day! She was a huge help with all the kids, and spoiled us by doing laundry, cooking, cleaning, taking care of Lincoln during the night, and playing with Bennett, Ryan and Eliza. We were so grateful she was willing to fly halfway across the world to be with us!

 

Eliza’s tantrums – hiding out and pouting against the wall, and behind her helmet at the bus stop.

 

Eliza filling Lincoln’s swing with books, and say cheese!

 

In Mid-April, we said good-bye to our good friends the Oateses. They were our first friends in Luxembourg, and we were so excited to get to know them and feel like we weren’t going to be totally alone. We have so many great memories together – from traveling to Paris and Amsterdam, to celebrating holidays together, and many park days and days just hanging out. Many tears were shed in the days before and after they left! We had one final park day so the kids could play together and say goodbye.

Ryan Turns 5 {April 8}

We finished off a week of birthdays (Lincoln’s + Nate’s) by celebrating Ryan’s on a Friday. The kids were still out of school, and Nate and my Mom took Bennett and Eliza to run some errands in the morning, and it was fun to have some one-on-one time with Ryan on his birthday. We played some games and had lunch together. In the afternoon, we all went bowling. It was so fun to watch Ryan bouncing around so excited. He would run down and bowl, then crouch down to watch his ball and come running back. He loved it. We came home and had spaghetti for dinner (his favorite) with a soccer ball cake and ice cream.

I feel like I always think of Ryan being older than he is. It’s probably partly because he is so close to Bennett and they do a lot together, and partly because he is in school so much for his age. But he is so fun to have in our family and is usually going full-speed everywhere he goes (frequently injuring himself in the process), singing songs (real or made up), playing Legos, and drawing. We love having this cute boy in our family!

 

  

  

Lincoln’s Birth

My due date with Lincoln was March 27th, and my doctor had said she would wait until 10 days after to induce me if I didn’t go into labor on my own. She wrote on my chart that induction would be April 3 (which is not 10 days after), then left on vacation. Day 4 after my due date, I went in for a checkup and the midwife noticed the discrepancy in dates and asked what I wanted to do. Since my mom had arrived and was staying for 2 weeks, I really didn’t want to go the full 10 days and have her leave right after the baby was born. The midwife checked with the on-call doctor, who said I could be induced the following day.

The morning of April 1, I checked in to the hospital and waited all day with not much happening. They would check me every once in a while and then send me to walk around the hospital. I could leave the maternity ward but couldn’t leave the hospital. Nate and I became very familiar with the tunnels that connect the maternity ward to the other parts of the hospital. They started Pitocin around 3pm, and when there still wasn’t a ton happening, they broke my water at 5pm. That’s when it got really fun. I had considered a couple times throughout the pregnancy trying to “go natural” and avoid the epidural, but didn’t feel strongly about it. About 2-3 weeks before my due date, I decided I wanted to try it. I didn’t do a ton of prep, and it definitely showed. By the time I was really in pain, it was too late for the epidural to do anything, so I didn’t really have a choice anymore. If I thought it would do any good, I may have given in and asked for an epidural. Childbirth in the movies is always dramatized with lots of screaming, and I never pictured myself being one of the screamers. But I was. I blame it mostly on my lack of preparation, and on my 9-lb 11-oz baby, but I almost couldn’t control it – that was just my way of dealing with the pain.

Other than my screaming in pain, Lincoln’s birth was a fairly peaceful experience. The only people in the room were Nate and I, the on-call doctor, and the midwife (they didn’t have nurses in the hospital, but had midwives who did mostly the same things as a nurse in the US). They weren’t in a rush to take Lincoln to bathe him or even weigh him, but let us hold him for a while first. The doctor didn’t realize we didn’t know the gender, so he just wrapped up the baby and handed him to us, and we checked ourselves. I have to admit I was a little surprised it was a boy – for some reason I had been picturing girl. But we were excited to have another little boy in the family, and so grateful that he arrived safely and healthy!

 

The next morning (Saturday), my mom brought the kids up to see the baby. They loved him! Eliza and Ryan were especially excited and kept pointing out his cute little toes and fingers. We stayed in the hospital Saturday and Sunday, and were able to go home Monday morning. My mom and Nate took turns going home with the kids during the day, and Nate was able to stay with me at the hospital overnight. Nate spent his birthday on Sunday at the hospital – definitely not the most exciting! We tried to go home Sunday but that morning Lincoln had a slight fever and had lost weight, so they wanted us to stay another day and make sure he was getting enough to gain weight and not be dehydrated. A few more pics from our hospital stay: