I feel that Xander’s birth was possibly my most unique and interesting baby story. First of all, he was born in a foreign country. My husband was in the United States Air Force when we got married and soon after, we were shipped off to Germany. There’s a rumor that there’s something in the water in Germany because it seems like every military wife who ends up there ends up pregnant, and that was certainly true for me. I got pregnant at some point during the first two weeks after my arrival.

At that time, my husband worked twelve-hour shifts, changing from day to night shift and from one side of the week to the other every three months. It felt strange to be in a country where I knew no one, pregnant with our firstborn child, and alone most of the day. I was extremely thankful to have social media so that I could still get much needed support from friends and family back home.

The pregnancy went smoothly, despite morning sickness that lasted twenty-one weeks and was prolonged by a strange smell in the kitchen that would not go away regardless of how long the windows had been left open. I did like the way the German healthcare system worked and the fact that pharmaceuticals were so inexpensive. Especially in comparison to what I was used to, having lived in the United States for the majority of my life.

Xander’s due date was mid-August, so imagine my surprise when, the morning of August 6th, I slid out of bed only to realize there was a small tear in my amniotic sac. I called my husband, who was at work, except he was running an errand so the Airman who answered the phone said he would let my husband know as soon as he got back. I told him not to worry, it was no rush, I wasn’t even in labor yet.

About forty-five minutes later, my husband made it home, collected me and my suitcase, and we were off to the hospital. We made it there by 11:00 AM, and the staff at the front of the hospital asked if I was in labor. I told them that I was not, but that I did have a leak in my amniotic sac, so they told me I couldn’t go home and that they would have to admit me.

Once I was admitted, it would be a long process of trying to induce labor over a period of over 24 hours. I spent a lot of that time talking to my dad over the phone. It would be three weeks until his passing, but we had no way of knowing that at the time. Later, I learned that if I had taken any more time to go into labor, they would have performed a c-section, but around 5:00 PM on August seventh, I went into labor all on my own.

The midwife was talking to my husband at the time, and I was so exhausted from not getting more than 20 minutes of sleep in one go that I didn’t have the energy to tell either of them that the baby was coming out. Luckily, they noticed all on their own (kind of hard to miss, I suspect) but it happened so quickly that the midwife ended up delivering the baby herself without the help of the doctor, who was on a dinner break at the time.

The hours after that were all a blur as they checked my vitals, the baby’s vitals, gave him an APGAR score, settled him with me to nurse for the first time, my husband got some pictures to send back home to our families and to the people he was serving with. It seemed like everything and nothing was happening all at once.

I was at the hospital with Xander for a total of four days. A day longer than expected. Everything was fine with him, except that it was not. By that, I mean he was healthy in all other regards, but I noticed that every time I went to feed him, it took more and more effort to wake him up. By the end of the second day, I was really scared when I could hardly wake him at all, and I finally realized something was wrong and had a midwife come in to help me.

the nurse weighed him, had me feed him in front of her so she could check his latch and make sure he was attaching correctly, then she weighed him again. As it turned out, my milk was not coming in fast enough to support him. She gave me a bottle of formula and told me I would have to supplement until my milk came in fully. This would be a trend with all of my children, and I would end up supplementing all of them for at least their first month.

They ended up keeping me an extra day for monitoring, but when Xander showed that he was thriving again after the supplementation, they discharged the both of us and let us go start our lives together for the first time as a family of three.

That first year was hard, seeing as I was still alone most of the time, far from my family, but I was still able to keep in touch with my support system through social media, and for that, I was eternally grateful.