06:00 Woke to strange rumblings in the baby area (by this stage that's quite a considerable proportion of the body)
06:30-06:45 After eliminating other possible causes of stomach rumblings, the conclusion was: this is baby related.Yyikes. I wasn't sure if I was +/- 37 weeks- the borderline between premature and non-premature birth. In any case, it would be a hospital event; the former by necessity and the latter by choice. I packed my hospital bag in between the 6 minute-spaced contractions.
Kelly: 'Douwe, call the midwife/neighbour/your father/your brother'
Douwe: 'Really?' (Repeat 3-4 times)
07:00 The rumblings became contractions and I remembered the mantra from the prenatal course 'the pain has a function' *puf *puf *puf. Apparently I did that too well as the midwife came, nicely declared it was too late for the hospital. The kids woke up, and Douwe quickly bundled them downstairs to watch cartoons with Nobuko, our neighbour.
07:18 Baby was born! I was laughing a little hysterically: we were counting on having 3 weeks to get the rest of the baby things organised...but it was a beautiful surprise for a Saturday morning to have the baby arrive (before breakfast)! While we had to cancel a few appointments planned for the weekend, life went on otherwise undisturbed but with 5 in the house!
All pregnancies here are kitted out with a home birthing box full of 'goodies' just in case, even if a hospital birth is planned. So while we were relatively unprepared, the midwife took care of everything single-handedly and the place was spic and span in no time. While in most parts of the world, home birth enthusiasts are considered a little left of centre, here in the Lowlands home births are the norm, to the extent that hospital births are considered by some as 'risky'. I'm one of the 'nervous' ones that would always choose for a hospital birth...however small the chances of things 'happening'. All things aside, we are ever so thankful for Quinten's* safe delivery.
* Yes, he was born with no name and we tried out different names for 3 days.
this is the maternity home help lady Ans: she was great and took care of the house (cleaning, tidying, laundry, cooking) and sometimes kids too for 1 week.
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