#5 - ISRAEL - Pregnant in Israel

When we arrived in Israel there was a little confusion at first. We were both tall and blond with blue eyes, ergo we were siblings. No other explanation.

So when we explained that we were married (explaining means pointing to our rings, because the word 'married' wasn't in our three-word Hebrew vocabulary), the pregnancy-offensive started.

• Are you pregnant yet? (no)

• How long have you been married? (Just over a month)

• So why aren't you pregnant yet? (See the previous answer)

Fortunately, they figured out this wasn't a subject we were really thinking about yet pretty quickly and they stopped. For about three weeks that is. Then the three very loud, but very sweet old ladies with whom we worked in the kitchen started all over again.

Now, the thing was this: I did want to have a baby, but Ramon wasn't quite there yet. So we agreed that he would let me know when he was ready and then we would see how things would work out. I'm not really known for my patience, so waiting for that moment to come was hard on its own. In my head, it could easily take another 5 years. Being questioned about that subject all the time and not being allowed to walk barefoot because it would make it impossible to get pregnant (?) started to annoy me after a (very) little while.

Lucky for me, Ramon saw the light pretty quickly and he wanted to start expanding our family too. As I've written in a previous blog, we wanted to make life altering decisions like these with God. Of course, 'be fruitful and multiply' is a pretty clear message, but we wanted to do it in God's time too. So we decided to go all Gideon and ask for a sign. That sign became three signs because better safe than sorry right. It went somewhat like this:

1. I would go to an important Jewish spot with some ladies. I had no clue how many ladies, but I was invited. So the night before we prayed: 'God if there's a total of 15 women on the trip, we consider it a sign.' The next morning I counted 15 women, but Rivka was supposed to come to and she wasn't there yet. Then we left, without Rivka. Turns out she called in sick 10 minutes earlier.

2. We thought that the first one was up for discussion because maybe it was God's idea for Rivka to come and it should've been 16 women. 'So', we prayed, 'If Thomas decides to still come to Israel and visit us, without us talking to him about it or trying to convince him, that's a sign too.' I kid you not, two days later Thomas sent us a text asking if the offer was still standing, because he decided he did want to come after all.

3. 'Just one more' we said. To be sure. If the next text we get is baby-related, we're going for it. It didn't take too long. A text from my sister in our family-group with a funny picture. Something with Abraham, Sarah, and a baby. I'm still sad we didn't save the picture.

Then on my birthday, the team gave me a chocolate cake and a baby-blessing: 'With the help of HaShem (=God) you'll be a mom next year.' I remember thinking: wellllll let's assume it's going to take a little longer. It still is a big miracle that isn't to be taken for granted. Little did I know. About a week after I got the stomach-flu, the weeks after I was crazy tired (I figured it was an aftermath of the flu. I slept about 18 hours a day and the other 6 I still was exhausted). I decided to take a test: positive. Holy cow, those ladies in the kitchen have some serious blessing-skills.

In normal circumstances, you'd wait about 12/13 weeks before telling people you're pregnant. But I had been pretty sick and the chef was worried and kept asking about all kinds of medical tests he wanted me to do at the hospital. I decided to tell him, but I regretted that decision within 10 minutes.

I was not allowed to do ANYTHING. Even bringing a bowl of fruit to the large dining-hall now had to be done with a cart, because I could not lift a thing. Walking barefoot was out of the question because that was really bad for the baby and I had to take extra breaks. That might not sound bad, but I'm a Dutch girl working in a country with a much slower pace, so in my book, I wasn't working so hard to begin with.

Fortunately, we could convince them we'd be really careful and after a while, I was allowed to work 'normally'. Soon after that, Thomas came to visit us, which meant 2 weeks of holidays for us. Soon after that, it was time to go back to the Netherlands. Pregnant. This was about to become pretty interesting.