Well, there is one thing I can say about living in Deutschland…there’s
never a dull moment.
The most joyful excitement of the last couple weeks was the
arrival of our baby girl on November 2nd. I can’t even begin to say how GRATEFUL we are
that she is here safe and sound, happy and healthy! Hooray! But I’ll tell that
story in a minute.
First, I want to document a couple less-exciting stories that
could only come by living in a foreign country…
Story #1: The Mysterious Ticket Booth Message
Once upon a time when I was still pregnant, we were invited
to a playdate with the boys’ classmate. They lived downtown next to a grocery
store, so I parked in the store parking garage.
After a good time had by all, we head down to the parking
garage to leave. I corral the kids in a
corner next to the shopping carts and insert my parking ticket into the ticket
booth to pay the parking fee.
Suddenly, a mysterious message pops up in German.
“Shoot,” I think to myself, “usually a price
just magically appears, I put in a few euros, and bam! I’m good to go. What
does this mysterious message mean??”
So I begin asking people entering the store, “Sprechen sie Englisch?”
A nice lady answers “Yes.”
She also admits she doesn’t understand much German.
“I think this says your parking ticket expired,” she says.
“Shoot. What does that mean!?” I think to myself.
I ask another guy. “Sprechen sie Englisch?”
“A little.”
After reading the message, he tells me in broken English
that I need to go back up to the store and get my ticket stamped by a cashier.
As I begin to gather the kids, one of them starts to cry frantically.
I look at what he’s pointing at and see that he’s dropped
his toy inside one of the carts, which is locked in the middle of a long stack
of chained-up carts that only can be released by inserting a 1 euro coin.
I search my purse to find 1 euro while kids are crying and
also trying to escape the confines of their corner.
I insert the coin in several different carts, wiggling and
yanking them apart, trying to figure out which one has the dang toy in it.
A woman stops to watch and asks if I need help.
“No, I think I got it!” I say and frantically pull out the toy
from the cart, a look of triumph on my sweaty face.
Next, we all head upstairs to the store.
I herd the kids towards a line. (They aren’t listening very
well and I’m trying to be patient).
A guy cuts in front of us, even though I don’t have anything
to buy and just want the cashier to stamp my parking ticket.
I give him the evil eye even though he’s not looking at me.
I get to the cashier and ask, “Sprechen sie Englisch?”
“Nein.”
For a moment, we stare at each other blankly.
I get into another line.
Kids attempt to sneak bubble gum from off the racks while I
repeatedly tell them, “Stop it!”
After waiting my turn, I find out this cashier speaks a
little English.
She tells me I need to insert my ticket into the ticket
booth downstairs.
After a second or two, I say, “I think it’s broken."
“No it’s not,” she says.
I corral all the kids back downstairs.
I ask one more man, “Sprechen sie Englisch?”
"Yes."
“Do you know what this means?” I ask as I insert the ticket.
“This machine is out of order. Try that one,” he says
pointing across the parking lot to another ticket booth.
I corral the kids to the ticket booth and insert my ticket.
A price magically appears.
“Why didn’t I think of this before?” I wonder.
The end.
Story #2 Car Accident with the Shady Lady
Once upon a time five days after the baby was born, I was
driving home after dropping the boys off at school. A few cars ahead, two cars were merging and almost ran into
each other.
The cars stop suddenly, which causes the car in front of me
to stop suddenly, which causes me to stop suddenly.
As I wait patiently for the cars ahead of me to continue
moving again, a car unexpectedly rams into my bumper, crashing me into the car
ahead of me.
We all stop and get out of our cars.
I am met by the woman who just ran into me.
“I’m sorry, I’m so nervous!” She says, showing me her
shaking hand.
The man in front of me is now joining us. I put my hand on
the shaking woman’s shoulder while saying, “It’s going to be okay. Let’s all
pull over so we are safely out of traffic and we’ll figure this out.”
We get in our cars and pull up onto the sidewalk so we’re
out of the way of traffic.
I ask the woman if she can call the police.
The woman reaches the local police. They say we are not a
priority, so they may take a while to get here.
I worry about my 5-day old infant at home. I hope she isn’t
hungry or crying.
We all awkwardly snap pictures of each others' license plates and cars.
The local police arrive. I ask them the line that I’m really
really good at: “Sprechen sie Englisch?”
They say they do but then they begin speaking with the other man
and woman involved in the accident.
They talk a whole bunch in German, for a really long time.
Occasionally they point at me and say "American."
I wonder what the heck they are all talking about and start getting a
little suspicious.
Finally, I am spoken to in English.
The officer says, “Since you make a mistake, you need to pay
35 euros for police report.”
I say, “Huh? I didn’t make a mistake. Can I please tell you
what happened?”
I then tell the police officer exactly what happened. He
looks surprised. He then says, “The other woman says you hit the man in front
of you first and then she hit you."
“WHAT? No,” I say, “I was stopped and she hit me which
rammed me into the car in front of me. That. is. what. happened.”
The officer shakes his head and sighs before talking to the other two again.
The lady, who is still shaking, nervously approaches me and
tries to tell me that I hit the man in front of me first.
I tell her she is mistaken and proclaim my innocence.
The lady keeps lying and shaking nervously.
I think about how shady this lady is for taking advantage of
the fact that I don’t speak German and trying to blame the unsuspecting American wrongfully, especially
after I was so nice to her after the accident…
I am told that I will have a chance to make a statement to
my insurance company and they'll decide who is right.
We all exchange insurance and contact info and go home.
The end.
Now for the arrival of our baby girl!
For weeks leading up to her birth, I told this baby (and my
body) that I was not ready for her to come yet. She needed to wait, I expressly
told her, for a number of things. There were clothes and supplies to buy, tasks
to complete, and we really hoped our minivan would arrive in time so we’d have
enough room for 4 kids…but most important of all, I needed my mom to get here
before the baby could come. (Otherwise, I’d have to find childcare and rides
for the kids to school and a whole lot of other things that would cause great
amounts of stress and worry).
On Halloween, I had an OB appointment. I was almost 40 weeks
pregnant. The doctor checked me and said absolutely nothing was happening. As
in, I wasn’t even close to showing any signs of delivering any time soon. This
wasn’t really a surprise because up until that point, I had told myself I wasn’t
ready – I hadn’t contracted much at all, and knew that I just didn’t “feel”
ready.
However, now I was worried that my mom would get here and I
wouldn’t have the baby for another week and a half and by the time the baby
would come, my mom would be leaving and I wouldn’t get any help!
The next day, I picked my mom up from the airport. After we
got settled at home and I did a deep house cleaning/organizing, I said a prayer:
Please let baby come soon, while my mom is here to help. Then I sat down, looked
around, took a deep breath and told my baby (and my body), “Okay. I’m ready
now. I “feel” ready. You can come, Baby!”
That night, I was woken up several times by some painful
contractions. This was definitely something new. The next day, I took the kids
to school and went grocery shopping. I paused several times through increasingly
painful contractions.
I got home and started timing them. They were 10 minutes apart
and getting more and more frequent.
I called Mike to tell him I was in early labor. He didn’t
believe me at first because of what the doctor had said just 2 days ago. But I
knew this was IT, so I told him to come home early and pick the kids up from
school.
A couple hours later, my water broke and we left the kids with Grandma (Thank you Mom for coming to the rescue!) and we were on our way
to the hospital in the van – the van that had JUST been shipped here that very
morning. The timing of everything really was a miracle.
Once I got to the hospital, labor progressed hard and fast. I
went from a 3 to a 10 in about 2 1/2 hours. What can I say about those 2 1/2
hours?… Well, between the fact that there was one shared bathroom for the whole
labor and delivery unit, the German philosophy that withholding epidurals is
best practice, and my doctor’s preference for tearing over episiotomies, let’s
just say it wasn’t pretty. It wasn’t pleasant. It definitely wasn’t quiet. But
thankfully, joyfully, baby girl arrived just after 7:30 that evening. The relief in the moment she
was born was so wonderful! She was finally here! She was healthy, content, and
just perfect. I was (and still am) so SO grateful she made it safe and sound
and without complications!
I stayed in the hospital two days. That was an interesting
experience. Ask me in person sometime to hear the full story…I was supposed to
stay another day, but I was very eager to get home so I talked the nurses into getting
all my paperwork done so I could leave early. Looking back, what I can say is that I’m just so grateful the whole thing is over.
Haha! I’m so glad I’m no longer pregnant. I’m so glad we both came out of the
delivery healthy. I’m so glad baby is in my arms for me to snuggle and kiss and
rub my cheeks all over her cute, fuzzy little head! Hehe. Ohhhh how I just LOVE
newborn babies!!
And just like that, she’s over 2 weeks old already. She’s
been an absolute angel so far – sleeping and eating so well. We all love her so
much and we feel very blessed!
