Hospital website picture

Daddy learned to blog yesterday. We hope you all enjoyed his first post and catch-up of our amazing (and exhausting) week so far. Thank you all for posting comments and warm wishes for our new little girl. Just wanted to post really quickly to let you know that a professional baby pic can be seen on the hospital website at http://www.joho.de. Click on Babygallerie on the lefthand side, and you can view Michaela and many German babies, if you so wish.

Back from the hospital

Here are some of our pictures of Miss Michaela. Mommy spent a total of 17 hours and 49 minutes in labor, but every minute was worth it. Daddy was extremely busy during labor and finished it off by cutting the umbilical cord. Now we have a beautiful, alert, and lovely baby girl. How blessed we are! Thank you God.

A 24 hour old family!

Welcome Miss Michaela Joy!

Mommy couldn't hold back the tears when she saw this.

1 day, 1 month, and 3 months old.

Our postpartum room.

Getting an EKG this morning.

Miss Michaela


Post EKG, everything is normal.


Mommy before the real pain.

Joy oh MICHAELA JOY !!!

Michaela Joy Cookey, born to an exhausted-but-thrilled-set-of-parents at 20:50 on 27 April, 2009 at St. Josef's Hospital. Mommy gutted it out without the epidural, Daddy was "very involved" and Baby Michaela is an inquisitive, alert little beautiful angel. 7 lbs. 2 oz. 20 inches.

Date change

Just wanted to let you know that the date on the last post is wrong...today is Monday, April 27.

Also, I had a contraction in the middle of writing that post and was a bit selfish in my prayer request after experiencing the pain. A healthy baby is all that really matters, so any prayers lifted up for us should be for just that. Thanks again.

P.S. The contractions have slowed a little, so MDC just ran into work to finish something up before we head to the hospital. We'll see what happens....definitely seems like true labor, so I'm not sure why they have slowed.

Is it baby time?

Today just may be the day! We were just at the hospital last night for fetal monitoring (they call it CTG in Germany but what we Americans call NST). They do them weekly here starting at 36 weeks and since the due date passed on Saturday want them every 2 days now. Anyway, everything was fine and dandy and absolutely NO contractions or anything happening. However, I was awoken with a quite real contraction at 4:00am and have been having them pretty steady and closer together ever since. I was amazed how fast they went from 15 min apart to 10 to 5. I really didn't get much sleep (maybe 2-3 hours) and know I will be needing my birthing partner's support later on, so I am trying to distract myself while he sleeps a little longer. If they stay this steady (about 4 min apart now) and strong, I think we will be headed to the hospital about the same time he normally heads to work. Will let you know when we have updates either way (baby or false call).

And please pray for me/us today if you are reading this today...I really want to do this naturally, and these contractions are so strong already! I can't imagine what it's going to be like in a few hours! OW! Thank you in advance.

One more thing...

please pray for the Cookey father-to-be. Since painting the baby's room on Sunday (pics of that to come when it is completely finished), he has been having increasing pain in his surgical site. We are hoping that it will continue to heal with rest and prayer. He had a busy week at work and did not have time to get it checked. So, prayer that it will be healed and feeling better by the end of the weekend would be appreciated. :)

The baby will come...

when he/she is ready. The mucus plug was lost on Tuesday, so I began to think that the baby may come sooner than I thought. (I have been thinking the baby would come late since the beginning of the pregnancy.) I cleaned the whole house just in case labor was imminent, but don't worry, nothing happened. Supposedly, many people do go into labor within 48 hours of losing the plug, but it can take up to weeks later. I went to the dr. yesterday for check-up (and because I wasn't sure if there was a slow trickle of amniotic fluid leaking). I saw the half-American (he claims to be American but one would never know), and he did an ultrasound and said there was plenty of fluid in the womb. He did a thorough pelvic exam. There was no pooling of fluid, so he did not think the amniotic sac was ruptured. The baby's head is engaged in the pelvis, but there really isn't any action happening to the cervix. It is soft and shortening, but no dilation yet. So, I am not expecting the baby to come anytime too soon. For those wondering, the due date is tomorrow. This is the due date according to my fertility sign charting (so it is according to my exact ovulation day). If you go from my last menstrual period like most women in the world do, the due date would have been this past Monday, 20 April.

But I like what Dr. Bradley of the Bradley method has to say about due dates. He says that no one is ever overdue. The baby comes when he/she is ready and in God's timing. Dr. Franz Naegele made the 40 week/10 lunar month rule back in the 1800's because of his assumptions. More recent research (published in 1990 from Harvard) shows that the median length of pregnancy is 41 weeks and 1 day. And, of course, this is in the bell shape curve (that we all know) so that the baby can come days or weeks before or after this. So, we will see when the little Cookey comes, but for now, he/she seems very content continuing to bake in my healthy uterus. I will try to keep you updated if any changes in progress occur.

39 week baby shower!

The wonderfully, creative hostess and me.

One of our last photos together before becoming parents.

What could cause such awe in all these children?

3 grown men trying to drink from preemie bottles!

So cute!

1 year from now, one of these could be ours...which sex will it be?

We were blessed with so many thoughtful and useful gifts! I was impressed with the selections for an unknown gender 1 week before due date!

And the winner is....10 squares of toilet paper!

And again, the men gave us all some entertainment with deciphering the diaper contents.

What a fun shower! Thank you AWOL Mommy for all your hard work, Bailey Babblers for coming so far to join in the fun, and to all our friends who made it so special!

(You can view pics bigger by clicking on them.)

Beautiful Easter (last week)!

It was a beautiful, spring day last Sunday (Easter), and we really didn't have plans except to spend the day together, so we meandered downtown to the gorgeous park (and vacant courtyard) to practice with the new camera before baby comes. 38 weeks pregnant for me and almost recovered for the daddy-to-be. Hope you all had a great Easter! Happy Spring!

March Madness Catch-up (of the non-basketball type)

March was a very busy month for us. Here's an attempt to fill everyone in - moving from most recent back to where we left off a few weeks ago.


This past week, Spencer found himself a comfortable new seat. At the time of these photos, he and the baby under him are about the exact same weight (6lbs).

He loves being closer to my face for attention.

Cookey baby and me at 36 weeks from the front.

And from the side.

Convalescing Captain after double hernia repair.

Cookey Baby and me at 35 weeks.

The 3 babies and me. The 2 white ones had just received haircuts (from us), and the one inside is about 35 weeks gestation and 5.5 lbs.

Papa-to-be got a new toy.

These were our gracious babysitters of the fluffy ones while we enjoyed a nice long weekend alone together in Garmisch (photo below).