Hi dear friends,

It is amazing how time flies when you have a baby who is changing every day! Ella is now 9 weeks and growing so fast! She is a delight and has been so much fun to have as part of our family. She has been discovering her fingers in earnest this past week - sucking on them whenever she gets the chance. Its very cute! She generally eats and sleeps very well, so we are really blessed, last night she even slept from 9PM till 5:30AM straight through, which was very nice as we got a long uninterrupted sleep!

I am at home during the days looking after Ella and still trying to get some studying done amidst other housework. I am also seeing "clients" who are coming over to get Nutritional advice even while I am just a student - I don’t charge but use it for great practice, and that has been keeping me very busy in the afternoons! The word is spreading and I have been getting more and more people coming to see me. I am loving it as I am already seeing such great results with them that I can’t wait to be fully qualified and be set up with my own practice!  

On a different note, Andy is on crutches at the moment as he hurt his knee a couple weeks ago when he was just getting off his scooter for a meeting at work. It’s the knee that was shattered in his motorcycle accident back in 2000. It’s been really good up untill now, but the doctors say the meniscus has worn down and his knee is swollen and not doing too well at the moment as a result. So he is going to physiotherapy now for the next few weeks and we’ll see how it goes. Hopefully he won’t have an operation, but we’ll see.

In the midst of all that has been going on we are also in the process of building a house up near Zurich!

Andy’s sister Karin and husband Lukas bought some land about 30-45 minutes away from Zurich on a mountain overlooking the valley, mountains and lake. It is a beautiful section on the edge of a tiny village. There is even a paragliding centre just up from the property and Karin and Lukas have been getting lessons so they can become qualified to paraglide! That will be amazing having them flying around overhead!

Anyway, they have divided the land into 4 parts and will be building a house for themselves, a house for his parents, his brother and we will be building a house as well. When Lukas was planning to buy the land he said his dream would be to build log homes on it, and we just happened to have a friend in Germany who works for a company building log homes, called Kanadablockhaus  (www.kanadablockhaus.de). So we put them in touch with each other and Lukas decided to have them build the houses! It’s such a cool connection and so perfect! We have designed the house that we will have built which has been a fun process, the loghouse design will fit so well on that mountain!

So our house will be built sometime later in the year (depending on how fast the other 3 get built) and we are planning on renting it out. It will be a house with a smaller basement apartment that we can use when we go up to visit, so it works out perfectly, and who knows we may just retire there one day!  

When this unique opportunity came up for us to get involved in the project and build a house, we didn’t think it would be possible because of the finances we would need to do it. But we really discussed and prayed about it and knew it was the right decision, so we jumped in! Its also special because it is a family project and Karin and Lukas will be living there as well.

Interest rates for mortgages here in Switzerland are really low - 2.5% for the building loan - so its great, aside from the cost of most properties which just makes it normally very hard to buy.

The cost of building up near Zurich is much cheaper than we would ever be able to buy even an apartment down here in the Geneva region, so it works out really well. We have been able to already put some money down for the deposit, some from ourselves and using the value of the land as guarantee, but we still need to come up with about 50,000 Swiss Francs by the end of the year. We’re looking at borrowing the money from family, but if you have an extra 50,000 and want to invest in something like this, we’d love to hear from you too!

So there is lots going on in the van der Gugten household! If you haven’t heard from us for a while and you even wrote a personal note to us after the birth of Ella please know that we love you all and are trying to get back to you and we are sorry for the delay! I am even trying to master the art of typing with one finger while holding Ella in my other arm, but its a bit tiring so I haven’t gotten very far with getting back to anyone yet.

I am hoping to though as you all mean so much to us and we love staying in touch and hearing from you all. I loved all the comments that you all shared with us before and after the birth of Ella. It was so encouraging and made us feel so loved to have so many friends to share the process and the special moments with!

Big hugs and blessings to you all!
The van der Gugten family!

Rachael, Andy & Ella  


 

Well of all the unexpected things to happen! Yesterday when I was in the kitchen I slipped on some water on the tiles and managed to not fall, but strained all the muscles in my groin really bad as I almost did the splits! 

I thought it would get better pretty quick so went and lay down, but when I went to get up after a little bit I couldn’t walk!!! It was soooo painful, like all my muscles at the top of my legs weren’t working properly cause they felt torn! Needless to say I managed to get to my office chair which has wheels on the bottom and wheel myself around a bit, but walking is out of the question! I ended up calling Andy to come home and help me out cause I couldn’t do anything for myself which was a bummer! We ended up going to the hospital in the evening just to check things out and make sure the baby was ok, but there was nothing they could do for me in that I just have to wait till the pain goes away.

Funnily enough, my mother did something similar when she was 8 months pregnant with my brother - pulled all her muscles in her groin trying to save me from a billy goat that was head butting me on the beach! She grabbed it by the horns and pulled it away from me so I could get up, then she tried to push the goat away while she jumped up onto a rock wall to get away from it...which is when she pulled all the muscles!!! She was pretty much on bed rest for a week...so I am guessing it will take a few days for this to heal as well, which means I am pretty immobile...bummer...now completely contrary to what I was praying before (that the baby would come early) I am now praying that she wouldn’t dare come until my muscles are healed otherwise there is no way I am going through normal labour cause I can’t even move my legs properly, so it would be really painful and pretty impossible!

Its funny how life has a way of throwing curve balls when you least expect them...so I wonder what i can learn from this experience and this time...patience I suppose??...optimal ways of positioning your legs without having to use your muscles??...how to ask my husband for help?? cause now he has to do everything for me again!!  

Oh well...its just another thing to look forward to being done with...at least it takes the focus off me waiting for the baby to come! hehe...always have to see the bright side...there has to be one here somewhere??!! 

Well today we went in to the hospital for the appointment to try and have the baby turned. Unfortunately it wasn’t successful, but we were very blessed throughout the day with a sense of peace and confidence that things will work out, and that we are in God’s hands throughout, so thank you to all of you for your prayers and thoughts!

The procedure was really painful, as the doctor had to really get his hands in deep into my tummy muscles to try and dislodge our little one from the depths of my belly...and move her around...but alas, she just wouldn’t budge at all! He tried a couple of times, glad not more than that! I will put up pictures on our dropshots in the next few days if any bruises show up...would be interesting to see! But anyway, it was good to know at least that we had done what we could to try and get her moving, but unfortunately her legs seem to be up around her body in a way which makes it really hard for her to turn or do anything.

Anyway, needless to say, now that she is still in the head up position, and if she doesn’t turn herself, I’ll be giving birth breech at the Hopital de la Tour rather than at home. Even though its not what we had been hoping for, we are just happy to do whatever will be the safest and best for our baby. Andy still has hope and confidence that it is still possible for her to turn, and I have to say his hope is a wonderful encouragement. The birthpool arrived at our place the other day, so if she does amazingly turn by herself then we can still use it, but otherwise we could always use it as a big jacuzzi for the next few weeks! heheh…

So anyway, we will continue to keep you updated with how things go...thanks again for your support and encouragement!

I just wanted to update you specifically on our latest appointment with the doctor and ask for your prayers.

Today we went in to see my doctor for my 37th week ultrasound to find out what position the she is in...and it turns out that she is head up! (only 3-4% of babies are still in head up position at this point!) This is the breech position, which means if she stays like this, a homebirth is definitely not an option.

Thankfully, my doctor is really great and supports the whole natural method of birth as much as possible and would still support me trying to give birth naturally- breech, as long as her head is not tilted up and she is not too big at the time of labour.

However, we have scheduled an appointment with him at the hospital to try and turn her manually, so that she faces downwards, which would still be much much better. The appointment is for this Friday at 12pm and we would really appreciate your prayers for this. It has about a 50% success rate of turning the baby, but we figured its still 50% more than we have now, as she has been in the exact same position now for the past 6 weeks or so and really has not budged, so its worth a try. I can’t imagine her turning of her own free will anytime soon, (except for a miracle) especially as she is getting bigger and more squished in there. If there are any complications during the turning procedure, they would perform an emergency C-section...so we are just praying that things will go well and that she will get the hint and move when he pushes her!!!

So...if the procedure goes well and she does turn successfully then we will still be on track for being able to give birth at home with the midwife, which would be lovely and a real blessing.

However, if she doesn’t turn, and stays breech, then it means we will have to go to the clinic for the birth, with our doctor present to help, and I will try and give birth breech...and if there are any complications they will just have to do a C-section, but I am trying to avoid that if at all possible.

My doctor would still be willing to let the baby be delivered naturally, even in the breech position, which I am glad about, even though it is often a lot tougher and longer labour, but still carries less risks than a C-section generally. So he said he won’t try and induce her early or anything, which is great, cause I will have a higher chance then of labouring well and effectively if my body is the one guiding the process rather than any external drugs etc.

Anyway...so enough details...but all this to ask if you would please be praying for us over the next few days as we prepare for the turning procedure. And that she would turn and stay turned...and if she doesn’t that God would give me (and Andy) the grace and wisdom and peace to accept and go through whatever other procedures are necessary to bring our little treasure into our family.  

Well as I get bigger and bigger the time draws near....

I am 36 weeks now and heading into the last stretch of the pregnancy...finally! Yay!! We have been working on setting up the baby’s room and getting all the things together that we will need for the homebirth and welcoming our new bundle of joy into our lives. The past few weeks have been fun in that she has been in the same position for quite a while...you can almost always feel her little bumb just above my belly button, and she doesn’t seem to have much room to move around!

We have been preparing for our homebirth and are so excited about it...our midwife is really lovely and we have even managed to get hold of a birthing pool to use as well! So that is exciting cause I have heard a lot of great things about being in water during labour and how much it helps ease the pains etc… so we’ll see how it works for us!

One of the cutest things I think is that she gets hiccups quite often these days and it feels so funny as you have little rhythmic bumps lower in your tummy...feels really interesting when you realize its another little person in there getting them!!!

To be honest I would be really happy if she came a couple weeks early, as it is getting much more uncomfortable and hard to walk around cause my feet get soooo sore cause of all the weight. Also, because we have been given 2 due dates - either the 13th of March or the 17th March, we are realizing that really, the due date is just an estimated guess, as its pretty impossible for the doctors to be completely sure in our case...and over half of all babies do come early...so we’ll see. As long as she doesn’t come before the 20th February then we are fine, and she will be fine and healthy. Anytime after that and she will be considered full term, so we would be happy if she came anytime.

Well...I am in the middle of finishing my assignment for my Nutritional Medicine course that is due in March...I have to get it done early so that if she does arrive early I am not stuck trying to juggle taking care of a newborn and writing an essay on Vitamins and your health!! hehe!!!  

So I’ll make this do for now...hope you are all doing well and enjoying life!