Niels Andreas Lorenzen

English version further down this page

Den 28. November 2005 kl. 18:50 GMT, blev Laure storesoester til "Niels Andreas Lorenzen"

Niels Andreas kom 4 dage for sent, men uden medicinsk hjaelp af nogen som helst slags

Vi var ellers begyndt at blive lidt utaalmodige og taenkte at hvis han ikke havde lyst til at komme ud at lege saa kunne vi ligesaa godt gaa videre med byggeriet. Jeg havde ellers gjort hvad jeg kunne - Jeg har lige koebt 20 kg Lego, og dekoret huset med tusindvis af julelys saa storken vidste hvor den skulle lande.

I Week-enden var Henning Bo her, saa vi proevede med straek-oevelser. dvs vi satte gips-plader paa loftet i et af de nye vaerelser ovenpaa, men det hjalp ikke.

Saa igaar sendte jeg Deborah op paa det oeverste loft for at isolere, det hjalp, det er aabenbart godt for mavemusklerne at kravle rundt paa spaer, og mon ikke de hoste man faar naar man leger med glas-uld hjaelper med at saette veerne igang.

Deborah gik ned for at lave kaffe kl. 14:00, uden at der var gang i noget, men jeg skulle lige... (min mor sagde altid at mit valgsprog var "jeg skal lige..") saa jeg kom foerst ned kl. 15:00 og kaffen og frokosten var naesten kold. Det var dog ikke det vaerste. Jeg fik laest og paaskrevet at jeg skulle have vaeret der, for nu var det ikke sjovt laengere - der var vel tre minutter mellem veerne. Der skulle dog lige vaere tid til at faa glasulden skyllet af og ringe efter en baby-sitter, saa kl. 16:20 var vi paa hospitalet. De kiggede lidt paa Deborah og sagde at han var stadig ikke gledet ned i retning af at ville ud. det var ikke lige det min smukke kone havde lyst til at hoere.

Men jeg havde lyst til en kop kaffe og ville gerne vaek fra alle maskinerne, saa vi gik ned til Cafeteriet for at faa en kop kaffe og en sandwich, Deborah ville dog ikke have noget, faktisk saa ville hun helst ikke noget og specielt ikke ud blandt almindelige mennesker. Det var nu ogsaa lidt traels naar folk midt i en rigitg god "ve" proevede at berolige med at de havde selv haft en grufuld oplevelse ved en af deres foedsler. Men vi fik da en time braendt af paa den maade (hvilket faktisk var min plan) og paa vej tilbage gik vandet, hvor heldig kan man vaere, Deborah blev koert tilbage til afdelingen, og godt en halv time senere kl 18:50 smuttede Niels Andreas ud for at beundre verden, tre timer senere var vi alle hjemme igen.

Niels Andreas vejede 4180 gram da han blev foedt og er ca. 52 cm. lang og ser ellers ud til at befinde sig godt.

English

November 28, 2005, 18:50 GMT, Laure Christine became big sister to Niels Andreas Lorenzen

This is an otherwise direct translation from the Danish above, but translated by Deborah so perhaps written from a slightly different perspective.

Niels Andreas came four days late, but once he decided to come along, he did it so fast his dad is proud to say he did it without the help of any drugs at all.  His mom, of course, was screaming for an epidural...

We had begun to be a bit impatient thinking that he didn't want to come out and play with us, so we may as well do some building work on the house.  Peter had otherwise done what he could to be prepared - he had just acquired 20 kilos of Lego on eBay and decorated the house with thousands of christmas lights so the stork knew exactly where he should land.

Over the weekend Henning Bo was here, so we tried with stretching exercises - setting sheet rock up in the ceiling of the childrens-bedroom-to-be (Henning Bo and Peter holding and Deborah screwing in the screws), but it didn't help.

So Monday Peter sent me up in the attic to roll out insulation, which helped, it is apparently good for stomach muscles to crawl around on the 2x6's, and I coughed enough from the fiberglass floating around in the air to start the contractions going...

I went downstairs to make a pot of tea (it was tea he said he wanted, not coffee) at 2pm, before I really realised anything interesting was happening. Peter said he was right behind me, but then he got distracted by something he just had to... (his mother said always that they would essentially write something to that effect on his gravestone).  So he finally came down about 3pm, and the tea and lunch were stone cold.  That wasn't the worst, since at that point I essentially let him know directly that he should have been down when he said he would since it wasn't any fun anymore trying to have really painful contractions and take care of an active toddler at the same time.  I was trying to figure out how long and how far apart the contractions were - 3 minutes it turns out - but trying to manage the pain, the toddler and the watch was proving too much.  Peter called Elaine to come and take care of Laure, I called the hospital, and by 16:20 we were out at East Surrey in the midwife unit.  They took a look and said it didn't look like much - i.e. we'd come too early - which was exactly what I didn't want to hear.

But Peter wanted a cup of coffee and wanted to get out of the room with all of the machines, so he put my trousers and my shoes on me (remember I'm still having massively painful contractions every couple of minutes so wasn't really much use to myself) and off we went for a cup of coffee and a sandwich.  Odd for most people to understand I'm sure, but I wasn't hungry at all.  The smell of the chicken sandwich Peter ate may haunt me for years.  The worst part was sitting in this crappy little cafeteria having horrible contractions while my husband chatted away with the other people about the fact that I was in labor...  He also agrees that it was getting a bit much to hear the helpful commentary from the nice people right in the middle of strong contractions.  But we burned up an hour with the trip down and back (Peter says that was his plan) and in the hallway on the way back to the birthing unit my water went.  How lucky can you get he says in the danish version.  I was dropped into a wheelchair and driven back to the room (backwards - why I'll never know).

The part he leaves out above is that when we got back to the room they took another look and said I was 1 or maybe 2 centimeters dialated, and you of course need to be 8 or 9.  Peter asked how long it would take, and the midwife said on average about 1 centimeter per hour.  I was trying to cope with the contractions, ask for an epidural and calculate the time remaining all at the same time.  It was so incredibly depressing to think this was going to go on for another 6 or 7 hours, when suddenly I had to push.  Ultimately Niels Andreas was born only a half hour after my water went - either it wasn't 1 to 2 cm or it is physically possible to push a child out through a 1 to 2 cm gap! - at 18:50pm.  Three hours later we were home again and Laure got to meet her little brother for the first time.

Niels Andreas weighed 4180 gram (9lbs 3oz) when he was born, and was about 52 cm. long.  He is a gorgeous, healthy baby with a tiny bit of brown hair, and all the fingers and toes you would expect.