Linus

Here it finally comes: The whole story.
I am glad humans do not need to be pregnant as long as an elephant . 40 weeks is just right - enough time for the baby to grow, and enough time for the mommy to recover from being sick in the beginning, then pretty soon to forget all about it, considering to have even more children, to feel and to connect with the baby, to feel better then ever before in your whole life, to understand the true purpose of life and what is most important, to develop a love that cannot be deeper and stronger and which turns us into a better person.
After 38 weeks I was ready to hold my little baby in my arms. Linus was thinking about it, but he took his time. During my pregnancy, I could sense his personality already as being very calm and laid back. It felt like he slept a lot and when he kicked, it was always very soft. This was the same case during labor and even now. However, he still surprised us very much when he decided to be born. I had contractions on and off for over a week, some days I really was not feeling well at all. It got a little frustrating because I had all the signs that labor was not far away, but nothing happened. On April 2, we had a very busy morning. When we came home I talked to Amelia about this certain pizza that is supposed to induce labor…we were thinking about having a pizza dinner. In the afternoon, Amelia baked a whole bunch of very good ginger snaps for me. Later on, I had contractions again; but they were not very strong and I did not feel very well. When Ben came home, he sent me outside to take a walk and made dinner in the meantime. I walked four times around our neighborhood with one foot on the street and one on the curb (it helped a lot when I was pregnant with Jakob). After that, we had dinner, got the kids ready for bed, cleaned up, and had popsicles while watching “Pirates of the Caribbean.” I slept for two hours and woke up around 1am. At that point my contractions were pretty strong, about five minutes apart. I did not take them too serious and thought that if those were “real,” I would have enough time to wait till the morning to get to the hospital. A little later I had to get up because laying down did not feel that great anymore. I cleaned up a little and packed my bag. Ben woke up at 2:30am and called Amelia. I thought he was hurrying a little too much. Amelia came over and we chatted before we left for the hospital at 3:30am. It was quite a storm out there. The wind was very strong and the rain was coming down very hard, but we made it to the hospital safely. Trying to handle the contractions, we made our way up to labor and delivery. When we came in, the nurse asked which child we were expecting. When she heard that it is the third, she started to hurry - I guess I must have looked tense. After we got to the delivery room and I got changed and checked, around eight nurses started running and got things ready - I was dilated to 8cm. They expected me to have the baby within 30 minutes, but as laid back as Linus is he took a little longer than that. Luckily my doctor was on call that night and was already in the hospital. At 7:50am Linus was born, weighing 7 Ib and 14 oz and measuring 19 inches. Even though Linus is our third baby, his birth was very special and I am amazed how much love we are able to feel and experience with every child.