Welcome Home, Baby Freyja

Friends and family,

Many apologies for our long delay in posting. It's been an incredible past 12 months for us here in Johannesburg. To recap:
1. We got our permanent residency
2. Kelsey got a permanent position at Wits
3. Kelsey got a promotion to Senior Lecture
4. We moved to a new home so we could start a family
5. Pursuant to #4, Kelsey got pregnant
6. Pursuant to #5, Kelsey gave birth to a beautiful baby girl, named Freyja Mae, on January 25th, 2016 at 8:30pm. She weighed 3.5kg (7lb 12oz).


About the name:
Freyja is a Norse goddess of love and war, who among other things drives a chariot pulled by cats. We chose the name to honor Kelsey's beloved grandmother, who is Norwegian. Freyja also has the desirable property of containing two letters from "Kelsey", two letters from "Jonah", and two letters of her own. Her middle name, Mae, is also in honor of Kelsey's grandmother (with a little twist on the spelling).

Many of you have been clamoring for more pictures, and the purpose of this blog post is appease our gentle readership. Next month, we'll have the results of a more professional photo shoot. In the meantime, we hope these unprofessional IPhone shots will satisfy.

This was one of our first glimpses of the baby, somewhere around 10 weeks.

And this scan is at about 30 weeks

We all know what a great patient Kelsey is. Here she's about 12 hours into labor, bouncing on her giant pregancy ball to try to get the baby into the right position.

Not gonna lie, it was pretty exciting.

But by quarter to eight, I was scrubbed in and ready to go. While this selfie was being taken, I could hear Kelsey yelling at the anaesthetist in the background.

By 8:30, we had our baby!

 

Recovery was a bit tough, but the room was nice...

and the supply of Krispy Kreme donuts helped matters considerably (thanks, Pia!).

After a weighing,

and her first bath, 

we were able to check Freyja and Kelsey out of the hospital.

The many grumpy faces of Freyja.

Check out this old man hair!

 The baby's room came together at the very last second.

Although puzzled, the dogs are very gentle with the baby and extremely protective of her.

This last picture is from the professional shoot. More of these to come in March.