Here He Is..

Thank you so much everyone for your beautiful messages. What an amazing, Full-On, most rewarding and most beautiful and possibly the toughest 19 days of mine and Shane's life ...:-) We are so in love with our little man.

I have alot of ideas for future posts on organising with a newborn- especially in regards to what IS important and what is NOT important in the early days!

IS- wonderful family coming around, cleaning and bringing food, and visiting us in the hospital, buying bits and pieces for us that we needed
IS NOT important- having wondersuits etc beautifully folded

Ah so many lessons learned, so many things put into perspective and so much love has filled my heart until I feel it will explode.

Many thanks and love from the 3 of us
Xoxox

Alexander Georg Hetzel

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Our beautiful little Alexander Georg came into the world on Sunday the 10th July at 4.20pm. He weighed 3.24 kg and has a light splattering of dark hair. His eyes are dark blue-green, a mixture of Mummy's and Daddy's. Shane and I are ecstatically happy and cannot express our joy at our little miracle.

I will post some pics soon. There are already hundreds to choose from :-)

Thank you so much for your well wishes everyone. We feel the love.

Love Sarndra, Shane and Alexander

Responsibilities

I've been contemplating certain responsibilities of being a parent. No longer can I pretend I'm still a teenager "playing house"- I am married with our first baby very, very much on his way (any day now in fact). Shane and I are looking at things such as life insurance, making sure our superannuation accounts are consolidated, private health insurance, car insurance, and making sure our dental and health checks are up to date. We will have more than ourselves to think of from now on- and I want to make sure that our futures are as secure as possible, for the sake of our little Peanut.

Post-irrelevant, but wanted to show you very thoughtful and gorgeous gifts from my sister Benita who has arrived from the UK and NZ- cutest bear, and wireless headphones- so TV noise doesn't bother Mum & Baby. Very thoughtful eh?? Also Benita suggested the headphones would be great for me to wear to listen to music if I get stressed about Peanut crying- I can hold him and still stay calm. SUCH a good idea eh? Thanks so much Aunty Benita! Xx

Of course there's also everyday parenting responsibilities as well- making sure our baby is safe and secure at all times, making sure our home and car are safe, and making sure we are happy and live a stress-free lifestyle(as much as possible-), as stress can be the biggest killer. I am ashamed to admit I have never had any form of insurance, I've never thought it worth the expense up until now. I have also been pretty slack with getting regular dental and health checks, but now I have our son to think of. I have to make sure Shane and I are healthy so that we will be around for a long, long time to care for our son and to still be there for him when he is a grown adult.

I am booking Shane in to the dentist this week, and I will do the same for myself in a month or two after I am settled in with Peanut. We will strive to keep on top of age- and sex-relevant health checks, and others such as diabetes and skin cancer checks; as we are all told time and time again early detection is the best way to survive such things. We also need to organise our wills, with God parents named in the unlikely event that both of us should die.

I have mentioned before my dislike of paper work, but in this case I need to bite the bullet and knuckle down and get these important things done. There is more than myself to consider here, and these things are possibly the most important tasks I should have on my To-Do list over the next few months. Don't worry- I won't put pressure on myself to get all of this done with a new-born- I will just make sure they are completed when we are settled in with Peanut.

What kind of things have you organised in your life, to make sure your parenting responsibilities are taken care of? Or if you don't have children yet, what other life responsibilities have you organised for your own future?

Hope you are having a great week :-)

If you're not Completely Sick of reading about my Birthing Plans...

Thanks to everybody's great suggestions I have added a few things to the Bag. Lis had a fantastic idea to break the bag up into 2 bags- one for if all goes to plan and I give birth without complications in the Birth Centre (located within the Gold Coast Hospital, on the same floor as normal delivery); the other for if I am transferred to normal delivery, and stay 3 or 4 nights.

If I am in the B. Centre I will be sent home 4 hours after giving birth, if neither Peanut nor I need medical assistance. This is because there are only two B. Centre rooms, and these two rooms are in high demand. However they will only take on a certain number of mothers in the B. Centre. I believe there are 6 midwives, split up into two groups of 3, and each group takes on one mother in waiting per week (the week the mother is due). Of course there is the chance that a few mothers may go into labour at the same time; if this happens its basically first in, best dressed (the unlucky mother would go to normal delivery).  But this rarely happens. This is why there is a waiting list to get in, here on the Gold Coast there is a very high rate of births for some reason. I guess due to the density of population but also apparently because alot of mothers come here from afar to give birth and have a holiday at the same time! My midwife told me. I thought that was fascinating; I can't imagine going away from home to have a holiday and give birth! But that's me :)

I am hoping all goes to plan and I have my room. It is very large spacious room on the third floor of the hospital, there is a huge spa bath for pain relief and/or birthing, a double bed, a large bathroom and various things to aid birthing such as those big bouncy exercise balls, bars to help with squatting, shower stool, mats for kneeling on the floor, and a birthing stool.

If you or someone you know are pregnant and may be interested in "active birth", I recommend you find out if there is a Birth Centre nearby. I'm only saying this now because before I was pregnant I had no idea that these places existed, and only found out from my friend Dana. She had a wonderful water birth with her first son, and was so excited to share with me her amazing drug-free birthing experience, at a Birth Centre in the Royal Women's Hospital in Brisbane. I too am hoping for drug-free birthing (I won't go into my reasons here but if you are curious or would like some links for reading materials please feel free to email me).

In my other bag packed for in case I am transferred and stay a few nights, I have added more clothing and tracksuits (suggested by Chrissy), more underwear of course, more baby clothing, tissues (suggested by Jamie), my own soft non-hospital toilet paper (as suggested by Kendall), pen and paper for thank you cards (suggested by Archer's Mum and Joolz), and Ural (thanks Julia). Also have thrown in a robe and extra slippers, socks etc.We got a great bag of goodies too, muesli bars, powerade, boiled lollies, and blue cheese like I mentioned earlier :-). I will also be hanging out for a strong coffee but alas, that is not recommended with breast feeding either. I guess another year or two wait is in order, unless I am going to pump...

We now have our new (old) car, handed down to us by my very kind brother and his girlfriend. They bought new cars each and wanted to help us. How lucky are we?? It needed a little work but not nearly as much as expected so it hasn't cost us much at all. It is a '98 Holden Barina and its fantastic! I absolutely love it, as it has power steering, air con and is automatic (unlike the Ute which my father in law very kindly sold for us).  So today I rang RACQ to book in to get the baby car seat installed. They are calling me back on Monday and hopefully we can have it done on Wednesday. It's only $25 and I think it's worth it as Shane and I know nothing about installing baby seats and of course its very important it is done properly.

There is really only one more thing on my To-Do Before Peanut Arrives list, and that is to take some final documents in to Centrelink to finalise the family payments application. I tell you, I have been in there 3 times now to get this done and each time I was told to bring something else in. And I did research this before I started the application, the first time I went in I felt very prepared but of course, not prepared enough. It's not very straight forward, as most dealings with Centrelink aren't, I've found. Fingers crossed this last visit next week will enable me to cross this To-Do off the list.

SO now we just play the waiting game and try to patiently wait for our precious little Peanut to arrive...
:-D

These Last Few Days

9 days until our EDD!... Today I have been thinking about the significance of these last few days in my pregnancy. Mine and Shane's lives are about to change forever; we are about to become parents. We will never again just be 'the two of us'. I really want to take a step back, take a deep breath and appreciate these moments. We are both completely over-the-moon-excited about Peanut's arrival, and we absolutely can't wait to meet him. But we also realise how different everything will be, and how much our lives are about to change.

Last night I babysat our gorgeous nephew Jamie for 4 hours. He was an absolute darling and I loved every bit of it. He only gave a tiny whimper now and then, and I managed to work out what he wanted before it turned into a cry. So I felt quite proud of myself and it was great practise :-) The experience gave me a little taste of things to come- feeding, holding, getting to sleep, changing nappies, changing wet clothing, feeding, getting to sleep, etc etc. It amazed me how much we did in those short 4 hours. I had planned to cook dinner while he was here but it didn't get done. (It didn't matter as Kerry and Sunny came back with delicious Japanese food for me to say thanks :-)).

And I realise this is what it will be like with Peanut, only for 24 hrs/ 7 days a week. It's amazing how much my life is about to change, and even though I've tried to prepare myself for what's to come, even though I have talked with parents and read alot of books on parenting; I know that nothing can really truly prepare us for the job of parenting.I will just have to dive on in and get the job done- just as all of you who are parents out there, have done. And while I know that we may not love every minute, I do know that we are absolutely going to love our new roles as parents.

This weekend Shane and I are going to spend some quality time together. I'm not going to do housework, I'm not going to organise any cupboards and I may not even get any washing done. I'm going to make sure we relax together, watch a movie together, go for a walk, cook and eat a lovely meal together. We will sit and listen to our favourite music together, chat and laugh like we do. And we will appreciate these beautiful moments, and not take them for granted, as this may be one of our last weekends where we can do what we want, when we want, together as just us two.

Sound like a good idea?
Xxo