Thursday, January 31, 2008

The Beginning of Another Extraordinary Journey

It's funny how things can fall into place in a matter of days.

Today marked a couple of big milestones for us here in Zeeland.
First, I took Lukas to his first day of "school", a small pre-K program here in town, which he'll attend two days a week, for two and a half hours per visit. Lukas did well, but I can tell that he'll be resistant to me actually leaving when the time comes. A sweet little old retired grandma came an hour into the class to read books to the children... courtesy of the local library. Lukas and I both really got into it, learning several Dutch words as we listened.

Afterwards, we met Papa at the hospital, where a gynocologist performed an ultrasound showing us that I have a happy, healthy little fetus swimming around in my belly. As I begin the second trimester of this pregnancy, I finally feel confident enough about everything to be able to talk, and write, about what I consider to be yet another adventure that we are embarking on.

Delivering a baby in a "foreign" country is sometimes a daunting task. Some interesting facts about childbirth in Holland include:
1) Home birth is preferred to hospital birth
2) Even those delivering in the hospital (which is what we've chosen, given Lukas whopping 10 lb arrival) are only offered pain medication in extraordinary circumstances
3) Hospital deliveries usually do not involve an overnight stay, and - my personal favorite
4) In exchange for shorter hospital stays, those giving birth in The Netherlands get 5 days of help (at home) from a qualified nurse.

So there's our big secret. In a half year, life will be considerably more hectic, but in exchange for that, we'll have another little incredible being to help teach us the very essence of loving, and living, as we ramble on along this extraordinary journey.

2 comments:

Jen said...

congratulations! when is the due date? perhaps i'll be there to help out! you are an amazing woman, liz kraft.

Miriam said...

Congratulations!!!!!