The past few months we experienced a time of lots of firsts and a few lasts, with many more of both to come.
At the end of February was my, Chester’s, last birthday that we celebrated just the 2 of us for a long while. We ended up celebrating partly in the hospital as Pim needed to be there for a checkup but luckily we were also able to go out for dinner to celebrate properly. 27 years down, many more to go!
Not even a week later, on March 6th at 3AM in the morning, I got woken up by Pim who suddenly started feeling cramps in her belly. They kept on coming and right out of the gate her contractions were 10-15 minutes apart where normally, or so I’ve been told, contractions start at 30 minutes apart. After about 10 hours of going through contractions at home we decided to head to the hospital at 1PM. A little side note here, hospital birth is the norm here and is basically required as hospitals are the only ones that can issue the right documents to be able to register your child without too much hassle. After getting checked in we got taken up to the delivery room where we spent the next hour getting settled in as best we could while the contractions kept getting closer and closer together. At around 2PM the doctor came to take a look at Pim’s progress and determined she was about 2.5CM dilated. 4 hours later at around 6PM the doctor came to check again at which point Pim was at 5CM. Things started moving a bit quicker after that because at around 8PM she was at 9CM but since she wasn’t feeling the urge to push yet the doctor went to perform a c-section on another patient. About an hour later she came back and the real battle began. Finally after well over an hour of pushing, Saoirse Gabriella Bak was born at 22:41.
It was my first time seeing, holding, and kissing my daughter. The first time changing her diaper and giving her a bath. The first time of not being able to sleep through the night and being so worried that she wouldn’t make it through the first 2 weeks because of a genetic disorder(Galactosemia) in our family. The first time experiencing the relief of getting back the lab report that states she does not have that disorder. The first time trying to figure out the paperwork, in 2 countries, that comes with trying to apply for a passport for your child. The first time flying with a newborn to go apply for said passport. And many, many more firsts.
We are so incredibly thankful to God that we get to now hold her in our arms and love her even more than we thought possible. We thank Him as well for protecting her from the genetic disorder.
We want to ask you to pray with us over the coming weeks as we are preparing to possibly return to the Netherlands for a little over a month to introduce Saoirse to our extended family, raise support, connect with current supporters, expand our TFT (our team in the Netherlands), and much more. We need prayer specifically for Pim’s Visa as this is turning out to be a bit more difficult than we thought initially.
Would you consider supporting us financially so we can continue to do the work that God has called us to here in Chiang Rai? Would you also consider supporting us for this trip we are wanting to make as air fare has more than doubled since we set our budget 2 years ago? If you do, please follow this link to our Support page where you can find all our giving details!
