I would follow up with a bit longer post as I said in yesterdays Twitter message.. And next to that, someone also asked for some explanation of what happened, why we want to sell one of the houses and one of the cars so all of the sudden, so let’s do that for now.

Because it wouldn’t be so nice of me to go too much into details, I will try not to do that (also because it would be just too many details haha). However, in short (ahum) it comes down to the following:

Michelle, Isabella, and myself, currently live in a pretty big house which we share with Michelle’s mother (both Michelle and her mother are owner of this house). And for a long time several things happen now and then, which makes it harder and harder each time to live here in the same house (ok, we do have our own part of the house, completely separated, but still, you’ll get the idea.. if you live in the same house, even though it’s big and separated, to avoid each other gets pretty hard, you still see and hear way too much).

So, Michelle and I decided that it would be better to live somewhere else (and this is actually something we’ve been thinking about for a longer period of time, but we never did anything concrete). We thought about all this for a longer time, to see how we would do it, and about a week ago we decided that it might be best to just sell one of the houses, from which half of the house is being rented, and to buy a better suitable house somewhere else with the profit (a large of the people who live there now can then live in our part of our current house so they don’t have to live on the streets).

Indeed, we could of course also go and live in that house ourselves, but to live with the three of us in a house that has 10 bedrooms, 6 bathrooms and 4 kitchens, that seems a bit excessive.  We also don’t exactly like the idea of living there while other people rent the other part of the house (you still have the same situation, and a lack of privacy). A new home with three to four bedrooms would be more than enough for us.

So that’s a bit the story of why we have that house for sale.

However, Michelle’s mother is not happy at all that we want to sell that house (to say the least) and that created even more friction (and even more so because she did not hear it from us but from someone in Michelle’s family. We told them about it in trust (or so we thought).. nice.. I’m unsure if that person follows this blog also, but if he does: Thank you very much!! Like we tell your mother about what your wife told us that day… geez, talk about creating family problems..).

So anyways, her mother then said with her angry head that she would not pay for the Toyota Matrix anymore (the car story starts here). Michelle received that car last August as a gift from her mother. The car, and the loan, are both in Michelle’s and my name (because, due to circumstances, her mother could not do this), but she would pay for it. We actually didn’t want a second car at that time as we didn’t really need it, we were just thinking and doubting about it. Nothing more. Of course it is easy to have a second car, but there is no real need for it (I work at home and watch the baby, while Michelle only works 4 nights a week).

You could ask why we sell that car, that a loan is not that high. Well, that’s true, it isn’t that high, but we still have to make a lot of other expenses right now (plus we also have to renew some of the things in the other house if we want to sell it, and that costs money too) and that car is also still a bit of an extra luxury. We could also get rid of my BMW, however, because we did a high down payment, we pay less for the BMW each month than what the Toyota costs (and the time frame is also shorter - 3 years compared to 5 years). The best solution would be to get rid of the Toyota. We wanted to do it like this, so we have the least problems with debts, and that we do not have to break our good creditscore..

But oh well, we hang some papers on the inside of the car, to sell it, and we placed it on the net, and what do you think… Michelle’s mother had to speak to us urgently.. why? Well, she saw that we meant business and all of the sudden she still wanted to pay for the car. Where she gets the money is beyond me, but she wants to pay it of in one time (yeah, the same amount which you’ve seen in my ‘tweet’ earlier).

She also still did not want us to sell the other house (she once gave it to Michelle as a present (you might think that you can do whatever you want with your received gifts?)). No, instead she would go for another mortgage on monday, and make sure we will get the house with that..

Yeah, what to do, what to do… that is, or actually: ‘was’ the question. I have had a long talk with my mother a bit earlier (yep, it’s night for her, so that wasn’t much fun for her I think) but she did help me, I think, to be able to make a decision.. Or at least so that I think to know what we should do.

As far as I can see now, there are a few possibilities:

• We sell the house, and buy a new house somewhere else. Michelle’s mother will be very disappointed, and we will get another fight with her.
• We don’t sell the house, and do what her mother offers us, namely that she gets a mortgage over this house (the one from both Michelle and her mother) and that she buys another house for us with that money.
• We go back to the Netherlands (and still leave her mother disappointed behind as she doesn’t want to lose her daughter, which is also one of the reasons why we live here and not in the Netherlands).
• We go to live in the other house, and then nothing will change much. We will, however, live in a house that is way too big for us, and we don’t want to live with others in the same house.
• We stay where we are now, her mother happy but we will not and it might do an enormous damage to the relationship between Michelle and me.

Nice choices, right? Whatever we will choose, either her mother will be disappointed, or we ourselves will be.

Well, I think it will become the first choice, this because of a number of reasons. One of them is, for example, that we do not want Michelle’s mother to be able to keep having some kind of grip on us by paying a mortgage for us. We cannot afford a mortgage of 2500-3000 dollar a month ourselves (yes, Hawaii is very expensive), and I really doubt her mother can (she also pays for several other things, amongst which 3 other mortgages). And then the most important thing is that we do not want to be depending on her, we want to do these things ourselves. It would not be fair either to let her get such big debts.. and besides, what if she cannot afford it anymore? Then we will still have a problem, and then we still might have to sell the other house?

The other three options are also not very good possibilities. The last one is the least of all as it doesn’t change anything to the situation. Out of those three, going to the Netherlands is still the best.

Bleh, no this is not a fun situation. For now we removed the for sale signs from the car, and put that on hold for now. If her mother really has to pay that one for us, ok, we can live with that. But to accept a house of 600,000 dollar is something else, especially when we just know that she will bring herself into a big pile of debts with that, and even might have to work until the day she dies because of that same debt. She would be better off if she would go retire, or at least would take less of a workload on herself, and not always try to make everybody else happy by giving them all so much money (honestly, she could’ve been rich).

Yeah.. what to do, what to do… sigh.. I couldn’t think of a better title for this piece because it is indeed the question what the best will be.

Oh well, fortunately I can go back to the Netherlands for a few weeks, together with Isabella, so I will see  some change then. However, Michelle does not have enough paid days off due to her pregnancy leave, so I will have to go alone (which is pretty scary, alone with a baby, flying so long), but that will be ok, we know what the tax refund will be this year, so most likely she will receive her holiday a bit later this year.

Like I said before in a tweet: wish us luck

Isabella is finally home since Sunday afternoon!

She was able to get into her new carseat pretty easy, so we didn’t have to purchase another one lol. I have to say that I feel a bit like she is drowning in her carseat, she is so small compared to that seat haha. As you can see on the following pictures, she really needs some extra support from those sheets:

This carseat is, however, just a temporary solution, as soon as she is big enough, she is going into her own real seat. Personally I think her real seat is a lot nicer and better in color.. plus we can have it on a stroller, so I don’t have to carry her constantly, which is also nice haha. Her own seat looks like the following, by the way:

Next to the seats above, she also has another seat which is placed in Michelle’s car for when she takes Isabella with her. But ok, that one is also a bit too big at the moment haha.

We stayed in the hospital the following night, Saturday to Sunday, because they offered us to room in for a night, so we could see if we’re ready ourselves.. they offer this to everyone so everyone can get used to their child for a night, to see if everything goes as planned, and when it does not go as planned, so that the nurses are still close by also. I had never heard of it before but I kind of like the idea, it is a good tool to get a feeling of how things are.

Of course we didn’t sleep much that night, of course there was Isabella making all kinds of sounds (not much, but still), there was a lot of noise coming from the hallway (after all, it is a hospital, not a hotel), and every now and then there was someone checking up on us around the time that Isabella needed to get her food. So we didn’t get much sleep and are pretty tired right now (because, yeah, try to catch up on your sleep when you have to feed a small kid every three hours haha)..  oh well, things will be alright

Here’s a few pictures of Isabella in her new environment, we will post some more photo’s of Isabella in her new room later of course:

It looks like we, even though it is a bit faster than expected, can bring some good news. But let me first start where we ended at the last post about Isabella.

The day after Isabella was allowed to stay out of the isolette, she was allowed to try breast feeding. This was, again, above all expectation. Instead of just playing around, which was the thing they expected, she seemed to be able to drink pretty well already.

When we arrived the day after that, it turned out that Isabella was moved a bit to a different location, but when we opened the door, we didn’t know this yet, so we saw the following:

This didn’t look anything like Isabella haha, it’s a doll which they also use for CPR classes and such. But, yes, it did make us wonder about it at first haha.

Then there were a few days in which not much new things happened, this is one of the reasons why I waited before I would write a new post. One of the things I can tell you, however, is that she wore some very cute outfits, like this one that she got from my mother:

Besides this there was not much to tell you, until we heard a couple of days that they would start to let her take all the feedings during a day by bottle or by breast, and that she would probably be allowed to go home in about a week. That was really good news, so we thought

When she would come exactly, was unknown yet, but we were asked to bring the carseat for her, so they could test if she fitted in it and if she wouldn’t get any problems with her breathing and such when she was in it. So we brought this carseat last night, and they tested it out last night (by the way, the carseat is a little bit too big (Isabella is only about 4 lbs, and just too short for it), so we can buy an extra seat for her this afternoon for the first week(s)).

Yesterday, when we visited her, I noticed that she was missing a cable on her body, as they took off the cable which they use to measure the oxygen in her blood. The nurse asked us if we didn’t notice anything else, and at first we didn’t as she was laying on her side, but it turned out that she also missing the feeding tube. They told us that this was done because she now took all feedings from the bottle,and they told us with that, if everything stays the same, that she could go home on Sunday.

Wow, that was really good news. I thought it was also a bit scary, which is not that weird of course, but oh well, it will be ok. We’re very happy about this news!! Really good news, and that it came on the day that marked her as being a month old (time flies), made it extra fun.

Tonight we will bring a new, and smaller, seat (this is one of the conditions to get her home.. in the Netherlands they do not make a problem out of it (well, not with Larissa back then anyways) and you can actually just hold your child, but over here things are a bit different, they don’t give you your baby without a fitting carseat.. oh well, it does make things safer, of course). So hopefully (and I expect it will be) we will be able to take her home this Sunday, we can’t wait!

Here’s some more photo’s of her without the cables in her face:

So, the next posting will probably be about her finally being home

Last week was a week full of surprises. First was there the helmet that she was allowed to take off, and all the other good news, and then we got to hear on Thursday that they wanted to try for the first time to let her drink from the bottle (the breast would be too heavy for her)! They didn’t expect that she would drink a lot, it was more to give her the taste of the milk, but unexpectedly she still drank a bit (4ml). She gets 28ml every three hours, so the rest was given to her through her feeding tube. Michelle was the one who gave her the milk:

The day after, on Friday, it was my turn. The nurse said that she didn’t think she would drink much as it was only the second time she tried to drink, a few ml would be all according to her. But what do you think? That little one drank 19ml of the 28, a lot more than expected. Isabella was really awake at that time, so this probably helped, but still, it was great to see her doing so well.

It was Michelle’s turn on Saturday again, and the nurse that was there at that time asked how it went on the days before Saturday. She said, after she heard how things went, that she expected it to end up somewhere between the 4ml and 19ml. But what do you think? She drank 27ml, almost everything that she had to drink at that time! Unbelievable, right? And that was not everything on that day, they also took out the tube that was up her nose for the extra air, so even that backup was not needed any more. That was another pleasant surprise for us, but not the last one haha.

Tonight, Sunday evening, we were at the NICU again, and on the moment we opened the door, we looked into the direction of Isabella’s isolette, but.. we saw the following:

An empty isolette? We didn’t know what happened, so we got kind of scared, but quickly the nurse told us what happened. They lowered the temperature of the isolette today, and that went pretty well, so well that Isabella now is allowed to lay in an open crib next to the isolette, without any extra heater. This means that Isabella now probably has no problems to keep herself warm. They do frequently check up on her now, to see if her temperature is still ok, and the isolette is still next to the crib, just in case she is cooling down, but still, it gives us some new hope that she can come home soon.. for now it all looks well.

Of course she had to drink again, she came up until 25ml, so the other three were given to her through the tube, but this was not really weird (and again it was above expectation) because, not long before she got this bottle, she also received 15ml through a bottle from a nurse. So in total she drank more than before. She is doing a bit better everyday, before you know it, she can come out of the hospital.

Yep, the helmet is gone since a day or two, they also took off her IV and PICC, and she gained over a pound already. Things are going well with the little one.. she even wears clothes these days, she starts to look more like a baby this way

Isabella still has a tube going to her nose for air. The airflow is off, but it is out of precaution so that, when they need to give her extra oxygen, they can easily give it to her also. There are actually two tubes going to her nose since today as her feeding tube is now going through her nose so that Isabella cannot easily pull the tube out of her stomach (she is very lively and she loves to grab things, and when it was in her mouth, it was very easy for her to pull it out).

Isabella is also allowed to get outside the isolette longer when we are there. I had her for a very long time in my arms yesterday, and today it was Michelle’s turn, we kind of take turns with each other. Isabella mostly does have to wear a hat when we she comes out of the isolette, but that looks pretty cute on her

Fortunately there’s only good news to tell when it is about Isabella, and that is a very good thing I think. I can ensure you that it is not always good news on the NICU floor. When you are there for a couple of hours, you can easily hear and see some of the things on the other baby’s and, no, that is not always good news.. sometimes I feel a bit guilty towards those people because I am happy that Isabella is doing really well. But oh well, those things happen, I know that too.

Anyways, we have a few new pictures to show you of Isabella without a helmet, while wearing clothes haha. You know, I wonder if Isabella is the only one getting clothes (the clothes are coming from the hospital, by the way), I haven’t seen any other baby’s in clothes anyways. Oh well, doesn’t matter, it looks pretty cute I think

Yep, we can’t get enough of her, so, on request, here’s another post with pictures and a video (in which we show a routine that is repeated every three hours in the hospital)

I had the idea to put some more photo’s online today, but I received an email from my mother this morning, asking if I couldn’t upload a few longer videos.

I have to admit, the videos until now were pretty short. I did this to keep the processing (uploading (which is very slow here), the encoding and all those other things) of the videos a bit shorter, especially yesterday when it took me almost two hours to write that long piece (I had to think of what to write exactly, translate the whole thing and such).

I think the question is understandable. The folks in Europe are pretty far away from us, and no matter how much they would like to be with us right now, to admire the baby, they’re unfortunately unable to do that. The videos are the only way which they can use to see the baby. So, instead of the pictures without the helmet, I will put some videos here (in one of them she also has her helmet off).

The first video is the one in which Isabella could take off her little helmet. She gets some sort of a head massage every three hours, because of the helmet, for the blood flow and such. She doesn’t really like to take it off, which I can understand as she is probably used to the helmet by now. It isn’t so bad for us, though, this way we can admire her without the helmet.

In the second video, Isabella is being prepared to be placed in her mothers arms outside of the isolette. I can tell you, this is a lot of work for the nurses. The video doesn’t show everything of that process, they have to move every single tube and cable, for example, and that isn’t always as easy.

I wrote a pretty long message earlier today, so I will try to write less in this one and show more of Isabella

I will have some more pictures of Isabella tomorrow, also a few in which she did not wear her small helmet.

Below are two more short videos of Isabella. The first one is a short video in which we get to hear her cry for the very first time (today we heard it for the second time haha). And the second video shows how much she moves around. And as much as she moves around now, is exactly how she was inside Michelle’s belly.

I promised to write a bit about everything around the delivery of the baby, and since Michelle is home right now, I get a little bit more time (even though I will need to write this over multiple parts of the day before it comes online as a whole haha).

Last week, on Saturday August 22, Michelle woke me up around 6.30am, saying she saw blood after she went to the toilet. She was a bit worried and my first reaction was that it would probably be a hemorrhoid or something. It was exactly the same during the last time she saw some blood, and you have a lot of chance of hemorrhoids during your pregnancy, so it’s usually not something to worry much about.

She told me “no, I really think it is a vaginal bleeding”. I understood that I would not be able to sleep for a while so I asked her if she wanted me to take a look. After she told me that she wanted this, I took a soft and clean tissue to see if there was any blood coming from the hemorrhoid. Nothing. I then swiped gently near the labia and noticed that there was indeed some blood coming from that area.

It was no serious bleeding or anything, it was a bit red, nothing else. My first thoughts went to something my sister told me before, that when you cough, that it can happen that a small vein can collapse. It happened to her during her pregnancy and since Michelle coughed a lot (still from the flu earlier this year), I didn’t think it would be so weird if she actually had the same going on. I told Michelle that she shouldn’t worry too much right now and also checked online to see what else it could be.

Everything I read on the internet was different from what she had. Heavy bleeding, abdominal pains, nausea and so on and so on. She did not had any of those things, it was just a bit red. I told her that we might as well sleep some more and, if she would still be worried in the morning, or if the bleeding would become worse, we would call to the clinic. And so we did.

When we woke up a bit later that morning, Michelle went to the bathroom again, and noticed that it was still bleeding a little bit. She was a bit worried about it, so we called the clinic to see what we had to do. They told us on the phone that we would be better off by calling the hospital itself as there was no OB/GYN available at the clinic that day (Saturday) and so we called the hospital. The hospital told us that we could drop by that day, we could just come in on whatever time would be best for us, so they could take a look. About an hour later or so (we still had to wash ourselves, dress and eat something), we drove towards the hospital and went to the ‘labor & delivery’ floor.

Once arrived at ‘L&D’, Michelle got a delivery room assigned and she was told to put on a gown from the hospital and that a OB/GYN would take a look soon.

When the OB checked on Michelle, they did all kinds of tests. Michelle had to give some blood and urine, they felt her belly, the heart rate of both Michelle and the baby was checked, the blood pressure of Michelle was measured, and a lot more of these kinds of things. They also took an ultrasound of the belly, and they looked if the uterus itself was still in tact.

It showed that the delivery process didn’t start yet and that everything, at first look, looked ok inside the belly. However, they thought her bloodpressure was pretty high, it was around 155/100. We had to wait a bit more for the results of the blood and urine samples, and until that time, Michelle had to lay down on the bed that was available.

After a while, the doctors came back with the message that almost every value of the blood was ok, except for the white blood cells, which was a bit too high. The urine showed a higher amount of protein and since this all could show a preeclampsia (toxemia), they said they needed a 24 hours urine test. To conduct such a test, they need to collect urine over 24 hours and that meant that Michelle had to stay a night in the hospital.

The next morning, the doctor went to Michelle and told us that they found a much too high amount of proteïn inside her urine. He explained that when the value goes above 300, it is a mild form of preeclampsia. When the value is at 5000, they speak of a severe form of preeclampsia. Michelle’s values were above 7000, which meant a very severe case of preeclampsia according to the doctor. The high blood pressure and the thick (fluids) ankles also added to that diagnose. The doctor said that he wanted Michelle to stay another day in the hospital, and that they would give her magnesium-sulfate through her IV to prevent a seizure to happen (this is something that might happen during preeclampsia) We also had to take into account that the baby might be born premature, and since this also brought a risk for the baby, they told us that Michelle would receive two injections of steroids in her hip (one directly, the other 24 hours later), so the lungs of the baby could mature a bit (the lungs are normally not ready before 34 weeks of pregnancy and that makes the respiratory issue a big risk). A bit later that day, a woman of the NICU (neonatal intensive care unit) dropped by to tell us what would happen in the situation that the baby would be born prematurely. For me, I really started to think that the baby would be showing herself within only a few days from then. The doctors were not so sure they said, but in a way, I already knew.

The magnesium-sulfate Michelle received is apparently a real mess. I read on the internet that some people compare it to an electrocution, and while Michelle did not agree on that, she did become very sick (probably also in combination with the preeclampsia). She felt warm, and was really nauseous. She couldn’t eat or drink anymore as it came right out of her stomach again (one of those nights, she actually vomited 6 times). They gave her medicines against the nausea and that made her very sleepy, she slept more than anything else after that. This was good for her as she would not feel the nausea any more (until the medication would stop working, of course). I already read it on the internet, and I agree on it: it is really strange to see that they make your wife sick because of the medications, just to give the baby a chance of survival. Because that was what they wanted to do, wait as long as possible so the baby would receive as much survival chances as possible.

Last Tuesday, the day of the delivery, it was not any different. She felt very sick and slept a lot, while she hardly ate or drank (she was not allowed to drink by the way, she was only allowed to take some water or ice to wash her mouth with) because of her IV which brought a lot of fluids into her body. The doctors would make a decision on this day to see if they would let the baby come, or not. And around the afternoon, the word was finally there: they would let the baby come through the normal way, the baby was in the right position and Michelle had a contraction now and then. I was happy with this news because Michelle was getting sicker and sicker each hour. The reason of that was of course the toxemia, which caused a lot of things, think about Michelle’s problems but also the fact that the heartbeat of the baby went slower and slower. It should normally be between 120 and 160, but more and more it was between 110 and 120. Not the best thing to have, although they did say the baby was healthy.

Here’s a picture of the monitor that measured almost everything:

The orange-like 113 shows the heart rate of the baby. The number in green is to see if there’s a contraction (it should be around 20 when everything is normal, 40 or above could mean a contraction). Below the baby’s heart rate, you can see Michelle’s blood pressure (upper and lower values) and next to that, in blue, you can see the oxygen Michelle is getting (the 99) and next to that is Michelle’s heart rate.

They brought Michelle from the bedroom (or whatever you want to call it, I mean the rooms where the women are brought to after the delivery is over) to a delivery room (she had to move between both rooms a lot last week. Around 4pm, they gave Michelle a third IV, this time with a fluid (Pitocin) so they could start the contractions. I asked the nurse how long it might take on average before the delivery would really start, and she told me that it could take anywhere between 5 hours and 2 days. Brrr.. that’s long.

Anyways, about an hour and half, to two hours, the OB went to check on Michelle. They felt a bit on her belly, and they suspected the baby to be in a breach position. The ultrasound, which they made right after this, confirmed their thoughts also and they decided at that point that it would be better to get a cesarean section. It would be possible that the baby still would turn around, but they couldn’t guarantee this, and turning her around themselves might be fatal as the baby might be chocked by the umbilical cord when it comes around the neck of the baby. They explained Michelle and me a lot of things and then they had to ask the question if Michelle approved a cesarean section (they wont do anything without your consent over here, really a difference with the Netherlands, but ok, that is probably because you can be sued for the most silliest little thing over here, which is very unlikely in the Netherlands). Michelle approved and they started everything so they could do the cesarean section.

They asked me if I wanted to be in the operating room during the cesarean section, of course did I want to be there. I received a short explanation of where to sit (at Michelle’s head, so I could stand her by), and received some clothes to wear. Here’s a picture of my head that I took with my video camera:

Just like the real deal haha. Michelle told me later to keep those clothes as she thought I looked handsome in it. I didn’t exactly follow her request and gave the clothes back after all haha.

The delivery, or surgery, was quick and went fine. All in all it lasted less than an hour (including the preparation of about half an hour). Michelle didn’t feel a thing but she did feel a bit nauseated during the surgery, even though she had some medication that should have prevented it. One of the nurses asked me somewhere during the surgery how I did, and I did perfectly ok I thought… I just felt sorry that I couldn’t look into Michelle’s belly while they took the baby out haha. Luckily a bit of blood doesn’t make me sick or anything

When the baby came out, they first cleaned her and before they would put her into an isolette for transport to the NICU, they showed Isabella to both Michelle and me. I filmed this moment, so here it is:

She was only just cleaned and put into warm blankets. She even looks into the direction of her new daddy as you can see in the video. I asked later on how much they could see, and even though they cannot see things as we can, they do believe that they can see shades and such. Faces they should also recognize. Who knows, she might have been thinking ‘is that the guy who I always heard talking?’ haha, who knows. I just thought it was great she looked into my general direction.

After they showed her to us, I went with the baby downstairs, to the NICU, so the brandnew mommy could come to her senses again on the recovery room. They did a lot to her in the NICU, as you could also see in the previous posts, just look at the cables and such. Sometimes it really hurted me when they put another needle into her.. I know they have to, but it’s not much fun.

And that’s about the whole story. I might have forgotten something, but I cannot figure out now if I did and what it would be.

Instead of 2 days of a delivery process, it turned out to be just two hours. When I see how fast Michelle is recovering, I think this has been the best solution for her. Pretty quick after the surgery she started to feel better, the first day a bit sleepy but when they finally removed all of her IV’s 24 hours after the delievery, she woke up pretty fast to go and see the baby and after three days (yesterday) she was allowed to get out of the hospital.

The only downside that I see right now, is that we don’t have the baby at home. Especially for Michelle this was a bit harsh yesterday when she was allowed to go home with me, she wasn’t so close to the baby in the hospital anymore. But oh well, it does give us some time to get everything ready for the baby here, within no-time Isabelle will be here, just watch.

Well, some of you might not believe it, but on August 25, 2009, at 7.08pm, Michelle gave birth of a little baby girl: Isabella Johanna Joosten.

It is a lot earlier than we planned, the due date was originally on October 27, 2009, so this is about two months early. Michelle has been in the hospital since last Saturday due to severe preeclampsia, or toxemia, and they decided today to bring the baby into this world today.

I will tell you a bit later with more detail about the preeclampsia of Michelle, and everything around it. Thing is, I really want to go to get some sleep as I did not have much sleep during the last days (neither did Michelle), but I couldn’t go to bed without posting a small message and adding a short video of the newborn.

Isabella is, even for her 31 weeks, way too small. This is due to the preeclampsia, but fortunately she will make up on this loss soon enough. She only weighs 2lbs and 10.9oz (1220 gram) and is 13.5 inch (34cm) in length. She is born through a Cesarean section because Isabelle was in a breach position (with her butt down first) and they did not want to wait much longer because of the severity of the preeclampsia.

Anyways, as said, it is getting late right now (it’s around 1.45am), so I will tell you guys more later about everything. Here’s a small video of the baby to show you, though (more will follow later):