Today, 5 years ago...

At this moment, 5 years ago, I was sitting around with a big big belly. According to our own calculating our baby was due to be born the next day but since the older 2 kids came way to late and not exactly spontaneous I didn´t count on it all!
At noon, we were just having lunch with the kids, I felt a soft `plop` and a little later I lost some blood and fluid. We called the midwife and she said that we could come over for a check up.
After lunch, we brought Anne back to school and lennart to grandma and then went to the hospital, I told the midwife I thought my water broke and she examined me. She said it wasn´t the water since my belly felt like all the water was still there. Maybe this was the beginning, maybe it would take another week.
So I got off the table to get dressed again and there it was… pang… and all the water came out at once!
Hehe, so much for another week! But still I hadn´t any contractions or whatever, so the midwife told me to take it easy and if nothing happened over night we had to call her in the morning. We went home, had dinner, brought the kids to bed and watched some tv. It was a Friday evening and we watched Baantjer, like every Friday. At 9 p.m. I said to Erik: “ I don’t know, I feel some cramps, maybe something is happening. They started to come faster but they were not that bad so after Baantjer was finished we decided to go to bed early and try to get some sleep before it really would start. Erik slept the minute his head hit his pillow but 15 minutes later I had to wake him up. This was it! This was for real! I knew, after all... I’d done it 2 times before! So we called my mom to come over to babysit, then we called the midwife that we were coming and at 11 p.m. we were in the car towards the hospital, with contractions every 2/3 minutes.
We arrived at 11.30 p.m., checked in and got a room all for ourselves. They tried to make it look like you where in your own house. We had a room with a bed, a couple of comfi chairs, tv, stereo, newspapers, books, bathroom and shower. We were left alone to have some privacy. The midwife went to her own space in the hallway and if we needed anything we could just ask. Great!!
Erik read a newspaper while I was puffing my contractions away, phuh, phuh, phuh, phuhhhh... I decided to take a shower, because with the other two taking a shower really speeded things up. And so it did now. At about 1.30a.m. I told Erik to get the midwife because it wouldn’t take long anymore. She came and talked me through the last part. And just when I thought that I really couldn't do this...

... there she was… at 2.12a.m. October 26, 2002, right on time and all by herself… our perfect little baby girl Marlijn!


(this is the only digi picture of her from that time, I was still shooting analoge those days. Hmmm sounds like an awful long time ago...)

Tomorrow she’s turning 5 and I’m still as happy and thankful for her as I was the first minute I held her. And I love her even more!

Birgit