Ruth Michael, this was written by your Papa soon after you were born:
The birth of our first daughter: Many people have tried to describe to us what it feels like when your own child comes into the world. Even though people gave very vivid descriptions, the feeling is undoubtedly unexplainable.
Ruth Michael entered this world at 10:48 on August 23rd. I realize that most people think their child is the most beautiful, but I happen to think that it's our child. Sarah started having good contractions around 3:00 p.m. in the afternoon. The contractions started somewhat mild and maintained 10 minute intervals from 3:00 to around 8:30 p.m. During these contractions, Sarah, her parents and I were staying in a small guesthouse called the Menonite House. This one room guesthouse made for a very intimate setting for Sarah to labor in. God even gave us a very experienced American OB/GYN a few doors down to consult with; huge blessing.
Around 8:45 p.m. Sarah's contractions became very intense. Her contractions quickly went from 10 minutes to 5 minutes to 3 minutes and many of her contractions lasted over 2 minutes long. At about 9:15 we made the decision to head to the hospital. I had prepared the route from the guesthouse to the hospital on Google maps. Let's just say that Google has not done the best job at updating their Kenyan maps. After a few wrong turns and Sarah moaning loudly in the backseat I whipped into a parking lot and grabbed a taxi. Sarah and Maurine hopped into a taxi and made the trek down some very bumpy roads. I can only imagine the panic the taxi driver was feeling as he rushed Sarah to the hospital as she made such unique sounds in the back seat.
We finally got to the hospital at 9:45 and made our way to labor and delivery. It took Sarah a while to get upstairs because she had to keep stopping for contractions. They put Sarah in an observation room and quickly realized that she should probably head to the delivery room. I urged the nurse to please call Sarah's doctor and in Kenyan fashion she sweetly just said, "well let me just take a look and see if she's ready." To our surprise she said, "Well you are ready to push... we better call the doctor." By 10:15 the doctor had arrived, and 38 minutes later Ruth Michael arrived. We had finally met our American-African, and she was more perfect than we ever imagined!
We loved the hospital, loved our amazing doctor, and were thankful every minute that we went to Nairobi!
