Nicholas is resting up to take care of Ryan, since being a big brother is such hard work.

I snapped a few photos last night of Ryan w/o hat, so just thought I'd share. Also, check back in the next few days, because we promised Nicholas that we'd take him out to build a snowman this afternoon, so I'll probably try to snap a few of that also.

These photos were taken by the really sweet nurse in the delivery room just moments after Ryan was born. I loved her 'cause she was soooo sweet. Kevin thinks I only loved her so much because she messed up on my painkiller before the anesthesiologist arrived and she stopped my contractions for about 5 minutes before the doctor caught on. So what if I had dry mouth and was getting loopy from the meds, I wasn't complaining!

I just realized all of these pics have him wearing a hat. I'll get some pics tomorrow of him without the hat. He doesn't have nearly as much hair as Nicholas had and it's not nearly as dark. Come to think of it, I don't think he and Nicholas really resemble that much at all at this point. Guess we'll see with time. Here's a picture of Nicholas 'reading' to Ryan. He was a little intimidated and upset while at the hospital, but as you can see below, he's settling into his big brother role pretty well now that we're at home. :)

Well, Ryan finally decided to put in his appearance! He was born Wednesday night, January 24, 2007 at St. Marien's Klinikum in Amberg. Of course as we had expected, he waited until the absolute worst snowstorm of the season to make his arrival. It snowed all day long and we got about 15" of snow. Needless to say, the trip to the hospital which usually takes about 25 minutes, ended up taking closer to an hour. Not fun when dealing with contractions that are 3 minutes apart.

At any rate, we got to the hospital just in time. As soon as I was admitted and the nurse checked me and determined that I was about 3cm, my water broke and contractions started coming on even stronger. I was pleading for an epidural and they ended up calling the on-call anesthesiologist to come back in - thank goodness! She got there about 9:40 and I was hooked up by around 9:50. The dr. noticed that the heart monitor wasn't picking up Ryan's heart rate, and did another check which revealed that I was fully dilated and that Ryan was crowning! Wow, that was fast! It took all of about two pushes to get him out and then he was here. This was 110% easier than Nicholas and I loved the staff of the German hospital because they were so much more understanding than the military drs. from before.

Anyway, I'm uploading a few photos of Ryan that I took this morning. They're not the best because of the lighting in the room, but they're still perfect to us! Enjoy!

Okay, let's see if I can find one last photo. This one was taken sometime this fall. Enjoy!

Okay, here's another photo, this one was taken summer 2006.

Here's another few photos just so that I can say that I've updated it recently. Enjoy!

The first one is a photo of Nicholas playing with toys at Christmas. I'm still looking for other pictures to upload.

I'm going to try to upload my first picture here. Let's see how it goes! Yay! That was so easy! I don't even have to adjust the sizing of the photo! I can assure you all that there will be many more photos coming in the future if it continues to be this easy!

PS> For the record, Nicholas no longer resides at this house, we only have the half naked red power ranger now! :o)

Things I Learned At My Last Doctor's Appointment

#1 - I am still pregnant.
#2 - According to my doctor I will still be pregnant for several more weeks.
#3 - No amount of jumping jacks will change this fact.
#4 - Doctors in Germany still actually prescribe castor oil to induce labor. Have I retreated to the 18th century here?
#5 - Did I mention that I am still pregnant?

Needless to say, I am completely stressed and ready to have Ryan Joseph. I'm tired of being pregnant and I'm ready to welcome our newest member to our family. Hurry up and join us Ryan!