Cuddly cuddly...

Thijs is so adorable, we love to hold him as much as possible, and so does he!

Shopping with Master Thijs

Shopping with Master Thijs is a new experience.

Thanks to the very generous colleagues of Ploy we have very good car seats (2!) and Rob has bought a baby stroller in Malaysia.

That means that half of the car is full of Thijs's stuff and we can just fit 4 people extra....

Besides that we have to prepare the needed diapers, clean wipe's and towels, blankets etc.

For breastfeeding Ploy has bought a "HooterHider" (the real brandname, really) which she demonstrates here:

After the feeding I get to burp Thijs on my shoulder.

In this case we are in a coffee shop at the bookstore.

Her we are buying the books how to raise babies and children as that is still unknown territory to us!

Thijs gets his identity

Thijs is the result of our love and marriage, 2 people from very different countries and background.

That means that we have to give him the right papers and identity for his future.

Being born in Thailand from a Thai citizen, he is automatically of Thai nationality and he already has his personal ID number.

The hospital did the first work, as they have to submit the birth details to the Thai office.

Then Ploy's mother went with the papers from the hospital to the Amphur, the "Gemeentehuis" van Rangsit because Ploy is still registered there.

Thijs will get his ID card when he is 15 years old.

After that we went last week to the Dutch embassy to submit the application for the Dutch passport. For that we had to make passport pictures and that was not an easy task. At first I tried it myself, but the background was not right and we could not get a good picture with Thijs sitting up straight and looking into the camera.

So we decided to go to an official photoshop and there we got the pictures from above.

Still not perfect but good enough. They had to "Photoshop" my thumb away behind one of his ears.

Tomorrow we will go the the Thai Consulate, to apply for his Thai passport. We have to make new "approved" pictures there and again, that will not be easy. Thijsje can hardly keep his heavy head straight.

At the end of this week he will have double nationality! He can travel all over the world!

Happy at home!

We arrived on saturday 24 July in our house, with the "whole" family.

The hospital has been really helpful and nice, but going back home is always the best!

Here I am burping Thijs after breast feeding, notice how I am still uncertain how to hold him, his nose is buried in my shirt and he can hardly breath.

Luckily for him I improved my technique so he does not bump his nose against my shoulder anymore and burps freely...

For the first 2 weeks we will have the help of Aunt Ja and Khun Mae.

They are so happy with the little man and with them around Ploy can focus on breast feeding and her recovery of the operation.

2 very proud women !

Here we have a large part of the family together in our our house. With Thijs in the center, of course!

Attraction # 1

Thijs is a big hit!

Very popular of course with the family, the first-time grandmother khun Mair is so happy with him as is Aunty Ja.

They sing and walk with him and he surprisingly easy to handle, quiet and relaxed.

Aunt Ja discovered that he doesn't really like Thai songs......

That is because Ploy always sings in English and also we played the same songs frequently next to her belly, coming from the Iphone.

Several of Ploy's colleagues come over to have this photo-opportunity with VIP Thijs

There were more people here and we apologize for not showing everybody, but really, thank you all for the support, the smiles, the gifts, the laughs, the pictures, the genuine feeling of happiness that you all gave us!

WOW !!! He is finally there!

These last weeks have been really stressful for Ploy and me.

We had changed to another hospital - Samitivej - and a new doctor, who is all for natural birth.

However, Ploy's due date past by and the next day we had an appointment with the doctor. Suddenly she became panicked, telling us she wanted a C-section right that day. According to her the baby was "disproportionate" and deemed to big for Ploy to birth naturally.

We were surprised because until then she never indicated that this would become a problem.

We wanted to wait and ask for a second opinion. Then Ploy contacted another doctor, mr. Ekachai, who has written books about natural birth and home birth in Thailand.

We went to him - in the same hospital - and found him very understanding of our concerns.

He did another Ultrasound, where we found that the baby was in de good position but not engaged yet. That explained why Ploy was over her due date (which is almost considered "holy", but is still an estimate).

He also showed that the baby is large, 4+ kilos.....

Nevertheless, he said that a vaginal birth should be possible and we waited until Monday afternoon (19th) for labor to start by itself.

That didn't happen and as he advised not to go much longer than 41 weeks he "stripped the membrane" of Ploy's uterus which brought on the contractions right away!

That night Ploy's contractions became stronger and stronger and the next morning we went to the hospital around 9 o'clock to check into the Birth Unit at the hospital.

At this point we had given up hope for a Home Birth, as the intervention/induction required fetal heart monitoring.

Ploy had contractions every 4-5 minutes and they were strong, however at the end of the day, despite all tricks like nipple stimulation, walking, soft bouncing on the ball, the head of Thijs still didn't engage (floating) and the dilation got stuck at 2cm only. And at 21.00 hours the doctor saw on the heart monitor that Ploy's uterus was exhausted and advised to go on to the next stage: the C-section.....

We had both been working to avoid that but seeing that Ploy was very tired and would probably be completely exhausted after another night of labor without any indication that the head would engage, opening up the cervix, we decided to go ahead with it.

We still requested delayed cord clamping and cleaning of Thijs on her chest, with eye contact.

That was unconventional for the operating team but Dr. Ekachai discussed it and they agreed to do this! We were very relieved to hear that.

Here is the first moment Ploy en Thijs can see each other, with the operating team still working in the background.

After that they cleaned Thijs and I could be close to him all the time. Then I could hold my first son for the first time and be next to Ploy's head to show her.

Thijs is weighed at 4105 grams and 52 cm long. He is a BIG BOY!

Born on 20 July 2010, 22:28 hours. The Thai year is 2553.

That night it took about 2,5 hours for Ploy to recover before she could see Thijs. These were long hours but Thijs and I had some good conversations already and I think he really recognizes my voice already.

When Ploy came to the room - groggy from the morfine sedation - she was also very happy to feel him for the first time on her skin, on her breast.

Preparing the baby room!

Since we got more and more items from very supportive people around us, especially Ploy's colleagues, we have now a "complete" baby room. We got a bed and bed-linen, lots of toys and play-learn material and cute clothes from all (thank you, thank you :)).

We also got car seats and baby carriers, we have been spoiled by everybody and are very grateful for that.

Here is a look in the baby room, it was our guest room that we now have converted. Sadly, guests will now have to sleep in our dressing room (no airconditioning, just normal electric fan-think of it as a sauna then heehee).