She is here!!!

Just like the boys she wanted us to wait, and wait… The due date was July 25 and she was born July 31! She was the first baby I had planned to have in an American hospital and because they can be very medical and not very natural when ur comes to childbirth I was more prepared than ever for my natural birth. I had listen to a book about natural birth in a hospital (compared to taking petocin, epidural, C-section etc). I had also written a well prepared birth plan about how I only wanted laughing gas (which is common in Sweden and I used for Marlee and Noah) and nothing else, and that I wanted it all to be as natural as possible. I did not follow my plan at all…

When the contractions started to be more intense I just felt like I could not take the pain and after much back and forth I decided to take an epidural. I had a great nurse who tried to encourage me to not do it but I got really determined. Having the epidural was amazing!! I could not feel anything except some back pain that was surprisingly noticeable despite the epidural. I later learned that the baby was sunny side up (meaning it was facing forward instead of backward and that can cause severe back pain. Now I was even more grateful that I had taken the epidural. However, I know there are many risks with epidurals and I did get pretty nervous after she was born and it was supposed to wear off. They had told me it takes about 2h before I can walk again. When two hours had passed nothing had changed. It took 9h before the epidural was completely gone. After 8h I could walk by myself. It was totally worth it! Our little princess was born at 1:17am, July 31. 8lbs 12oz/3980g and 20 3/4in/52.7cm. Heavier than all her brothers but not the tallest.

Just got the hospital and changed to their charming outfit.

She is born!!! Alex cuts the umbilical cord. :-)

The Celebration meal. We ordered steak and chocolate cake for dessert. It was really good!

Mormor, Morfar and moster Linn celebrated on Fårö :-)

Kathy came with all the boys to visits their baby sister. It was the first time they were able to come visit and all but Noah were excited to hold her.

Before leaving the hospital we managed to agree on her name, Maria Lynn Lilleba :-) and we also had a chance to get professional photographs of baby Maria. Something we don’t have of any of the boys. She is getting more spoiled already!!

Waiting for baby sister…

 Baby sister’s due date was July 25. The 25th passed and no sister… We spent a lot of time at home and tried to get things done. Farmor came up to help with the boys. Alex and her made sure they got out of the house and had several visits to the beach. 

Playing David’s board game.

So happy to have his cat in bed :-)

This little guy does great with sorting and puzzles. He is still working on the colors. 

Marlee got to go see Trump speak with one of his friends.

Our olive tree is doing great!! Some olives have turned black already. 

Watching TV at farmor’s  house. 

David has had a bad cough for a while not when we are trying to make it better using the nebulizer. He is so smiley and happy despite the coughing. 

Noah at a Nerf gun war party. It was party pool party, too, I guess :-)

Beach time and more camp

We have managed to go to the beach quite a lot lately. I’ve been to pregnant to spend long days at the beach but we have had a couple of hours where and there. 

Gabriel

Rafael 

Watching TV in style

Rafael and David

My sweet friend Ella gave me a pedicure and her daughter had made us lunch. 

At an event for one of the politicians that we know. 

Second trimester, third trimester and baby :-)

Marlee flu by himself to Boston to meet up Alex and Noah for Camp Constitution. Alex and Noah came home Tuesday and Marlee stayed the whole camp. He flu back home Friday, the same day as all the technical problems and canceled flights. It took Alex and I hours to find him a flight home after his original flight was canceled. But, we got him home :-)

Camp and Independence Day

 On our way back from Miami we dropped off Marlee with his friend as they were leaving for camp early early the next morning. The first time he would go by himself for almost a week. The camp was in Tennessee so it was quite a drive.

While Marlee was gone we enjoyed a birthday party for a friend. 

Independence Day! Alex and all the boys except Marlee went to Madison to celebrate with family. I decided to stay home as I didn’t think I would feel comfortable enough in the heat in Madison so pregnant. Marlee had work as well so he needed to stay home. We celebrated the evening with some friends in ormond. 

David in Madison. He was not grumpy, just looked like it in the picture. 

Family reunion with an extra adventure

 In the beginning of July we went down to Miami for family reunion. The kids and drove down and Alex flew in from somewhere else in the country. We were supposed to pick him up at the Miami airport, but… that didn’t happen…

Gabriel found a snake in our drive way.

Sleeping in their new bed. 

Back to our adventure… About 1h and 45 min away from Miami the light for low air in a tire came on. We stopped at a gas station to fill up the air. We have a tire that does leak a little and needs air about ones a month so nothing strange. However, the tire had enough air according to the machine so we tested another one. That one had enough air, too, so we tried a third tire… it was just that the valve broke and all the air escaped! It was pretty late and the gas station we were at was closed… long story short, Marlee and I worked on getting the spare tire out while Cory and Emily drove up from Miami to help us!! Alex was on the plane and had no idea whatever’s going on. The spare tire looked kind of warm out to me so I was so glad to have Cory there to help us and drive behind us all the way to Miami. When Alex took the car to fix the tire the next day the tire guy said our spare tire was fine so that is good to know. 

Finally in Miami and having fun with cousins and other family!!

We had a great time and ate to much delicious food!!