18 Weeks!

18 Weeks!

Last week was Week 18 in my pregnancy.  I am feeling good, but I still get these nagging headaches.  My midwife said they should go away at around 24 weeks- I hope it is sooner than that!  We had our first meeting with our midwife and we like her- she seems to know her stuff!  I hope she and I develop a good relationship after all the time that we spend together.

I am really thankful because it seems I have a made a few new friends here who are young mums (that's what you call a mom here).  I have enjoyed a few morning teas with them, coffee and shopping,  and a Jane Austen movie night.  It has been really nice to have some young woman to talk to about pregnancy, child birth, and life with a new baby!  I'm praying God provides deep, long lasting friendships here during this time of life!

Making new friends definitely makes me miss my friends from my small group at Grand Avenue.  These woman are a blessing in my life and I miss them so much.  I am so thankful for all the Panera coffee dates, craft nights, babies multiplying, deep conversations, laughter, shopping trips, prayer, encouragement, getting dinner ready for our men, babysitting, and really all the time we spent together.  Though no one could replace this group of friends, I hope I find friends like these here in NZ!

Sam, me, Emily, Kim and Becca - amazing friends!

Kim, Becca, Emily, me, Tamra and Sam at the beautiful baby shower they threw for me before I left. Couldn't ask for a more thoughtful and special group of friends.

Greetings from Auckland!

We arrived in Auckland!!

Greetings from Auckland, NZ! We have now been here three weeks! We arrived early in the morning on January 30th. We spent the first week and a half finding a place to live and a car and beginning to find the furnishings that we needed. God has been incredibly gracious to us and has provided so abundantly for our needs. Several people connected with the Navs here donated different items that we needed and many others recommended the right places to go to get the rest of the things we need. There is a website here that is a bit like eBay mixed with Craigslist that we have used to find most of our major items!

We are finally beginning to learn our area a bit and are able to drive (yes, on the left side of the road) around without always needing a GPS! In a city of around 1.5 million people there are lots of streets and areas to learn! Kathryn has posted several pictures of our car and apartment on Facebook, but just for fun, here's a couple of our place:

We live in a one-story four plex just off of the intersection of two major roads in Auckland.

Our lounge.

We are very thankful for our place and look forward to seeing how God is going to use it! We are praying that it will often be full of students!

Getting our bearings

For the past week or so, since we're mainly settled, we've begun meeting some of the key students here (it is Summer vacation right now so many students are working or have left Auckland on holiday). As you may remember there is currently a band of around 12 students involved with the Navigators here that have been studying the Bible together and seeking to reach out to their friends and classmates. We've greatly enjoyed getting to meet them and are organizing a couple of kickoff events to start the year on campus! 

A post-grad student here, Jess, has stepped up to co-lead the team with us for this year while we largely focus on cultural adjustment and starting new initiatives on campus. Our first few times together as a team have been great; we feel sure that God is going to work in big ways in the lives of students this year. Please pray for Jess and the other students as classes start in two weeks.

This next week we are gearing up to go to a Rugby match with the students (the Auckland Blues) and to go paddleboarding with them. Being a coastal city it seems the students love to do things at the beach, and they are eager to take us out on the water!

One of the many beautiful views from the SkyTower in mid-town. Most of the buildings that you can see in this picture are part of Auckland University's downtown campus. 

And just for kicks, here is just a glimpse of our new vocabulary:
Tramping aka hiking
Sweet As aka nice, all good
Gumboot Tea aka ordinary hot tea, black tea
Ruck up aka gather together
Fizzy aka pop, soda
Keen aka just about everything that you are excited about
Chin Wagging aka light conversation during informal occasions

Cheers! 

Introducing... Baby Blogging!

I have wanted to start a baby blog for a while now, mostly so family and friends can follow how I’m doing in the pregnancy, and then of course to see lots of pictures and read stories of our little Kiwi baby!  I am so excited for our little one to arrive, and I know our loved ones are too!  I wish we could all be together when this happens, but I’m thankful for the internet and phones and the many ways that we can stay connected!

Pregnancy for me has had its ups and downs.  During the first trimester I had quite a few difficult days- nausea and headaches mostly.  It definitely wasn't easy at times and I was eager to enter into my second trimester (often called the “Honeymoon Stage” but I deemed it the “Moving to New Zealand Stage").

That’s right, we moved to New Zealand right at the start of my second trimester.  I have been feeling so much better, though there still has been the occasional nausea and headache.  Some of that may be due to the adjustment to a new country. I need to cut my body and mind some slack- I am going through a lot of changes right now! 

17 Weeks in the Auckland Skytower- Feeling good and definitely showing. Isn't that an amazing backdrop!?

We have found a General Practitioner and a midwife- praise God!  This was on the top of my to-do list!  I really hope that I connect with each of them well.  I prayed God would provide a good midwife and I’m trusting that He has!  The midwife that I have found has really positive references and we will meet her for the first time on Thursday!  In New Zealand, everyone uses a midwife and they all speak very highly of the whole process.  If, in labor, there is an emergency and a doctor is needed, an OB/GYN will be close by to help.  Getting acquainted with the medical process has been stressful at times because it is just different than the states, but New Zealand is a great place to have a baby and I’m confident that God has us here and now for a reason!  

It is so interesting to me that when we first submitted our visa application, we were pregnant and we didn't know it!  My physical very specifically said that I wasn't pregnant!  We were discouraged when the visa application came back to us and we had to make changes, but during that time we found out we were pregnant and were able to document the necessary requirements for being pregnant.  Who knows what may have happened if we had come into the country without anyone knowing we were pregnant.  I'm convinced God was protecting us from a lot of potential problems getting health care, etc!

More baby blogging coming soon!  And even sooner we will write about our first few weeks in Auckland, NZ!