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Em and Cam, a dynamic duo

Last weekend we went camping in the south of the Netherlands together with the other Gorwills.
Cameron met his cousin for the first time and they became very good friends over the weekend.
Actually a weekend was too short, but we had fun! For more pictures please go to the webalbum

To whom is interested in construction: here the latest status of our bathroom. As you will know, everything....really everything has been taken out and Sandra's father and cousin started from scratch.
After three days of hard work this is the result for the moment. Although it is far from finished it already looks 10x better than the previous bathroom when it was finished.

Approximately we have to wait only 63 more days till the arrival of our baby girl! My heart jumped when I saw 63 days....that is nothing!! I am very excited but also positively anxious about it all. But that's more because I don't know what to expect, not just giving birth but also leaving the house together and when everything goes well coming home with an extra person. But I guess you would have heard a lot more complaining from other women if it would be all that bad :-) Luckily everything in the house is baby ready. Nursery is finished, she has more to wear than her parents together, she has a pram, a bath, dipers, toys, books, a crib and a bed, a maxi-cosi, feeding bottles, two loving parents and families....can't think of much more to satisfy the little princess.

Today I have another appoinment in the hospital with the nurse, to check baby's heartbeat, my bloodpressure and my general state. Friday I will see someone that will give me a speed course how to deal with labour . Because I am not the type of person that will sit weekly in a circle with 20 other pregant women and discuss all the little pains etc.....I just do that at work, hahaha.

On October the 25th there is a possibilty for us to do a 'tour' at the maternity ward in the hospital. I can say I have been there already on the day nephew Bart was born, but James was still in the hospital then. So I don't want him to get lost on the big day. haha.

There are four possible blood groups: A, B, AB and O. Everyone belongs to one of these four groups and except in very rare instances, it doesn't matter if you are a different blood group to the father of your baby. What does matter is the rhesus factor - whether or not you are rhesus-positive (RhD-positive) or rhesus-negative (RhD-negative). People who are RhD-positive have a protein on their red blood cells called D antigen, RhD-negative people do not have this. If you are RhD-negative and are carrying a RhD-positive baby, there is a risk that if yours and the baby's blood mix (which could happen during pregnancy or the birth) your immune system will produce antibodies against your baby's blood, which will cause anaemia and other problems in this baby or in future pregnancies.

We inherit the rhesus factor from our parents, and approximately 85% of the Caucasian population has RhD- positive blood, 94% of Africans and 90% of Asians. The reason most people are RhD-positive is due to the fact that we each have two copies of the rhesus gene (one inherited from each parent) and these genes are either positive or negative, with the positive one being dominant and the negative one recessive. This means that if you have one positive gene and one negative, the positive one always wins and you will be RHD-positive. If you have two positive genes you will also be positive. Only if both genes are negative will you have RhD-negative blood.

If both parents are RhD-negative, then there is no chance that any of their babies could be RhD-positive, since neither parent possesses a positive gene to pass on. If both parents have a positive and a negative gene (so they will both be RhD-positive), the chances are that one or both parent will pass on a positive gene to their baby, so the baby will also be rhesus-positive. It is possible for two rhesus-positive parents to produce a RhD-negative baby, so if your parents are both positive and you are wondering how you can possibly be negative, here is the answer! If both your parents carry a positive and a negative gene, they will both be RhD-positive because the positive one is the dominant one. But if both parents pass on the negative gene to the baby, the baby is bound to be RhD-negative as it has not received any RhD-positive genes from either parent.

Blood tests to find out your blood group and rhesus status are offered early in pregnancy because complications arising from the rhesus factor are preventable. Your midwife will give you more information about this. Your partner may not know his blood group and rhesus status unless he is a blood donor or has had this tested for some medical reason in the past. It is not usual to offer partners routine testing to find out this information, though you might consider asking if this could be done.

James his operation will take place Wednesday August 15th and will take about 2 hours. It might sound strange but James is in a way looking forward to it.
After the operation he needs to stay another day in hospital and when everything goes well I can take him home on Thursday or Friday.

Our little baby finally revealed it's secret and we'll be having a baby girl! :-D
And yes....her wardrobe is already full with pink and white...and I have to control myself not to but any more.

Got back yesterday from a great weekend in London.
Claire had her farewell party, since she will be working from London startting today. So after pre-drinks and a good dinner we went to Lucky Voice, private karaoke cabines. We had a great time! Footage can be found on the World Wide Web, but you have to look for it yourself. I am not taking any blame if a nasty beep stays in your ears for a while! Also check out the new Monkey pictures. Hannah Lissenberg, my cousin from Canada sent me some pictures of her apes. So the family is getting bigger and bigger. Cool! Thanks Hannah!

New toilet

In September Sandra already made a start with stripping the tiles in the downstairs bathroom. The only things in there were the sink, the toilet and the floor tiles. Well....since yesterday they have gone too. So we have a new toilet bowl, new sink and discovered a lot of smells that the former owners did leave behind for us. Yuk! Also the bathroom upsatirs is compeletly empty right now, so we will be really busy the next weeks with decorating and other DIY activities. But it's fun and definetly worth it.

It has been only a year since we have met. We don't need to tell you that so much has happened since then.
Sometimes we feel that we have done in one year what 'normal' people do in about 5, or maybe more. 
Strangly enough it all felt naturally. But we must admit that the last 12 months have been pretty hectic and it's not over yet. The house is waiting for us to be rennovated and to become OUR HOME where we will both start a new life in.

We can assure you that after we are done in the house we will relax a bit and enjoy eachother's company without deciding what type of cake to order, what color the wedding cards should be, what design wall paper will come in the living room......we can't wait for that moment.
 So for everybody who wants to ask us when the baby is arriving we have an answer for you in stock: NOT YET! :-)

Zandvoort July 2006

Baby G June 5th 2007

Since the last two weeks were full of bad news I will dedicate this text block to good news only.
As you will know James is in the hospital since May 26th, because of a bad fall from appr. 9 metres/29,5 ft.
After heavy brain surgery, a week of artifical sleep and being on liquid food he is doing very well at this moment.
Although is he still confused now and then he can move all his body parts, he is being cheeky again and he can speak very clearly. But as you can understand he is still in a lot of pain, mainly in his head. I am so proud of him and of the way he is recovering. It is unbelievable that two weeks ago we all feared for his life and now we can take him out for a walk in a wheel chair. I always believed in a stronger power, but personally don't want to call that power God, Allah or something else. But it's clear to me that James received a lot of strenght and energy from many sides during his recovery.
I also would like to thank everbody that has supported us the last two weeks in every way possible, either by phone, post cards, email, txt msg, visits or just by thinking of us. THANK YOU, THANK  YOU, THANK YOU!

During all the consternation around James I lost a ball
of blood which I thought was the baby. But when I went for an ultra sound the next day or beautiful baby was even waving to me. Here is the latest picture.
The bets started already and the stakes on 'a boy'  are much higher than the ones for a girl. We will find out in 7 weeks.

New update: photo's of our Christmas in Westbury and of course Apes on Tour!!

As you know we have trough quite a lot since May 26th and while James was in the hospital the doctors told us that in case of improvement it would take months and maybe years for James to recover...IF he would recover that was. But now only 14 weeks after the accident James will go back to work for 3 half-days a week untill the middle of September and then full time again.

As you can imagine he is very much looking forward going back. And so in 14 weeks time our lives went from normal to terryfying and back to normal again.
Hopefully we can enjoy it for the next 4 months till the baby arrives.

After 70 years it is finally my turn to use the Lissenberg cot. The first user was Gerrit Lissenberg, my fathers oldest brother back in 1937. Both me and my brother and lots of extended family have used this as their first bed ever since. I don't even know how often the fabric has been changed because it wasn't the taste of the new parents. The last 'owner' of the cot was nephew Bart. He had green fabric. We decided to go more classic with white.

We now know what they mean with 'Time flies when you are having fun'....Emily will be already 6 months old on June 24th. Unbelievable! She just doesn't stop growing and every day there is something new! Please note that Emily has a new web album