>13 March
This is the fairly-graphic story of his birth, so if you don’t want to read details, suffice it to say that he’s here now and you can close this window. (You can scroll down to the bottom for quick stats!)
- I remember thinking about the other visits to hospitals I’ve made and seen ladies in labor walking. I have never been “one of those ladies” as my water tends to break and I end up laboring in the bed. Now I have joined the ranks of the “hospital walkers.”
- Only in Germany will you see a man in the cafe pushing his IV with one hand and carrying his beer to his table with the other hand.
- The sandwiches were made with really hard bread but were very tasty. The pretzels were really yummy but my favorite was the coffee! Oh that reminds me, the macchiato ice cream is fantastic!
- In the lobby, right beside the regular paper and at knee level (therefore kid level), was a newspaper with a totally nude couple on the front. By nude, I mean, NUDE, with nothing blurred or covered. And the photo was only of the couple from waist to knees. Got the image? Gross.
- I passed by a particular window several times and I can remember trying to spot my room from the hallway. It took until after I had Parker to figure out which one was mine!!
- There was a smell of something burning near our set of elevators, which made me quite happy to walk the stairs as often as possible. We never did figure out what the smell was but it was very strong!
- At one point Matt went out to car to get drinks out of the cooler. We didn’t bring that in but had a stash of “wasser-still,” Coke, Dr. Pepper, and Diet Coke in the car.
- I was wearing my green maternity shirt and jeans.
- One time we were heading to the room going past the OB clinic and a man came walking in holding his nose which looked to be bleeding profusely. I decided very quickly that I did NOT want to go that direction so we made a 180 and went a different direction! Grossed me out, and blood doesn’t normally do that to me.
- As I was walking I had to stop and hold onto rails in hallway, breathe through contractions, and pause conversation. It took about 30 min to get from our room to the cafe due to stopping for contractions, while walking at a normal pace one could get there in five minutes. Looking back at the time I spent walking I know I had done much of my laboring in public. I didn’t know it at the time, but I was actually “getting somewhere” with all that walking in circles.
- I had to keep telling Matt I had reached my “top speed.” He had a hard time walking slow enough for me to keep up.

At some point, not sure the exact time but I’m guessing around 5 (I can correct that after watching the video) Bettina told me that very soon I could push if I felt the need. I remember I was getting to the point where it hurt SO badly and I could hardly bear it any more. I think this might be called, “transition.” (In fact, I just googled it and it was, in fact, transition.) I remember mom telling me that I was going feel much better as soon as I could push and relieve some of the pressure. I was not convinced, but listened to Bettina as she told me to get turned on my right side. I was confused by this as I had delivered my first three babies in the traditional, “made for t.v.” position. She explained something I had never heard before… My spine ran from my neck to my tail bone and when seated in the traditional position baby had to come down the canal then back up over the tailbone that was being pressed upward by the pressure of me sitting on it. If I were to lie on my right side and rest my left leg on her right shoulder, that bone would bend out of the way making it much easier for baby to come out. I was down with that. I felt bad that my leg might weigh 100 lbs and break her clavicle but she assured me that it was fine. I pushed and, just like mom said, felt much relief. When I was in the pushing stage with Hayden they brought me a mirror. I would push and see his head make ever so slight movements, then when the contraction ended, he’d go back in a bit. Well, that was discouraging so I had them remove that mirror. I wanted to “think” that every push brought him closer to deliver and that he did NOT go backwards at all. So, during my pushing stage with Parker I naturally assumed that he was making very slow progress and quite possibly going back in with each break. After one of the contraction they said, “freeze.” I had never heard that in labor before and wanted to know if that was what I really heard, meaning to STOP PUSHING or if they were yelling to “PUSH” in German. I asked and I remember mom telling me to stop pushing. Not sure why they told me to stop but before long I was able to push again. After the 4th contraction he was here. As soon as he was born they placed him on my chest and he didn’t cry for a long time. I though he was choking but everyone assured me he was just fine. He eventually did cry and I remember saying at one point, “I’m GLAD you’re a boy!” Guess it’s a good thing! He was warm and gooey, but absolutely beautiful. He was quite swollen, which made him look much bigger than he really was. (Pics taken at delivery and then a mere 12 hours later show just how swollen he was!) Matt got to cut Parker’s cord and eventually Bettina gave him a quick bath. He weighed 3430 grams. Bettina had a cheat-sheet that had rough estimates for quick conversions revealed he weighed 7 lbs 10 oz. He was 50 cm in length and his head circumference was 35 cm. These were posted to FB while in the delivery room. Julie, from FCBC, had made Parker a sweet handmade cross-stitch. It was ready except for the weight. As soon as she saw the stats added the weight and shipped it, to later find out that the weight was slightly different. When I was put into my room I did an online conversion to find out that he was actually 7 lbs 8 oz. His length was 19.7 inches and head circumference was 13.8 inches. What a neat story he has to tell!


What a story about beautiful little Parker! I cannot believe he will be two. Hopefully I can meet him soon 🙂 On a side note I have a friend here at WCU who is a German exchange student and her name is Bettina too!!
Bettina is my favorite German name! Hope we can introduce you to him in December!
Yay! That will be here before you know it!
I know! I have so much more I want to see before we head back to the states!
Beautiful story! I just love the name Parker Madison- It feels good on the tounge, and is a fantastic grown man name. A dapper gentleman!
Thanks! Obviously we like it a lot! 🙂 (Both the story and the name.)
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