Kirsten, welcome to the world!

Sigrid and I are very happy to announce the birth of our baby daughter Kirsten!


She was born Wednesday May 30th at 8:20pm Phoenix time and weighed 7.2lbs. She is a real cutie (must take after me?)

We will of course post more pictures as/when we can. Sigrid is due to come home Friday evening.

The Final Countdown

I'm now at 38.5 weeks and really getting limited in what I can and cannot do. Anne-Lise, my mother, comes into town week today (May 31st) and stays until July 2nd so we're looking forward to having her here. I now have check-ups every week and so my last one was on Tuesday 22nd. The likelihood is that something is going to happen in the next couple of days. The doctor is trying to get an appointment for an induction and has indicated that she will take a cancellation so I live minute to minute, and hour to hour. In the meantime everything is ready at the house, the fridge and freezer are full of food. Various friends and neighbours are on standby and John just awaits that call from me to say that it is "all systems go". Thankfully we've got our first bank holiday weekend of the year this weekend to celebrate Memorial Day which means that I have John at home for 3 days.

Temperatures last week were really high for the time of year (in the low 100s F which is the very high 30s C). This week they've been cooler and only in the mid-90s F (mid-30s C). Although I've pushed the air conditioning down to lower than we've ever had it before at 78F (25C) I still keep suffering from severe hot flushes, and of course I daren't use the pool unless John is home. If I'm not in hospital this weekend I'll definitely be in the pool as it is now 76F (24C).

As soon as we know any more we'll let you know. An email will go out probably within 36 hours to most of you and a select few friends and family of course will be receiving that all important phone call. We'll do our best not to forget anyone!!

37 Weeks

Wow. We've made it to 37 weeks (yesterday, Saturday), but only Just. Friday we came very close and I had to make a trip to the hospital to be monitored for an hour. On Friday I felt like a bit of a fraud, but by yesterday I was glad I'd done what I'd done. There was very little movement on Friday from baby so at 10am I called my doctor and at 11am they asked me to go to the hospital for a non-stress test. Janet took me down and Lisa met us there. I'd told John to stay at work until we knew what was happening. It turned out I was slightly dehydrated and also got a lecture on taking it easy and was sent home. Yesterday morning baby was kicking continuously from 6am.

The temperatures here have skyrocketed and we've jumped up to around 105 F which is about 40C. John and I actually used the pool yesterday (that is ours not the one at our club) as it had reached about 76F (24C) and was beautiful. The next couple of weeks is about taking it easy and resting up until our daughter is good and ready to arrive.

Thanks for all your well wishes.