Born Nath (she is now 12 years old)

We are in KamPaengPet. Today will be an exciting day. Yesterday Nim and Sit went to the doctor for a final check of highly pregnant Nim.

She's had a really hard time the last few weeks. Constant pain. Only when you looked at her did you get a smile, but you could tell she was struggling. The doctor had told her that she could go to the hospital today or tomorrow to give birth. Probably by cesarean section. Immediately Nim had chosen today.

I'm up early because I'm afraid I'll oversleep and I don't want them to wait for me. I take a taxi to their house, an hour earlier than agreed. There is no indication that today is the big day or it should be that Sit is ironing, but he is an emancipated man, so that is normal. Later Sit brings me a cup of coffee and two minutes later Nim brings coffee. So anyway. Nan, five years old, tells me enthusiastically that she is having her sister today. Two hours later, half past ten, everyone is nicely dressed. Fortunately, the old pick-up truck catches on. Nim and her mother are in the front. A sister of Nim, Nan and I are in the back of the truck.

We go to the KampaengPet hospital. This is a government company and therefore affordable. The hospital has two wings and the waiting area is in the middle. Mother, sister, Nan and I sit there, while Sit and Nim ask where to go. They come by several times, because they are always sent from one wing to the other. Not completely useless, because they have more and more papers in their hands. Nan whispers in my ear and asks if ice cream is for sale here. Half an hour later, Sit returns alone and tells that Nim is in bed and that the birth will take place at three o'clock this afternoon. There's no point in waiting here, so we're going back home.

Sit stops near my hotel to let Nan and me out. We will kill time in an ice cream parlor. When I ask her whether she wants to go directly to the ice cream parlor or to a bookstore first, she doesn't have to think long. First to the bookstore. We buy books to color, books with stickers and books where you can tear out a doll and clothes and then dress the doll. She can move forward again. In the ice cream parlor, Nan wants chocolate ice cream as always. Later she says she's hungry too, so I order shrimp fried rice, her favorite dish. At least that's what I'm trying to order, but the dumb-looking girl who takes the order refuses to understand me. Fortunately, Nan helps me.

We go home at one o'clock. Nan immediately gets to work on the book with dressing dolls. Later, Sit suggests we go to a shop owned by a friend who has visited before to buy bananas. His shop sells them sliced ​​and fried. At the store it turns out that his friend has returned to our house. So we drive back and at home we hear from Nim's father that the hospital has called and that the whole operation is a bit early. Sit's friend has already taken mother and sister to the hospital. We quickly get back in. It's just two o'clock. In the hospital it takes some effort to find out where the delivery takes place. It is in another building and when we meet mother and sister there, we hear that Nim is now under the knife. Sit knows that it is possible to witness the delivery from an adjoining room. He asks me to accompany him, but I think that's going too far. So he disappears from the scene. Nan thinks it's all exciting and I'm probably the only one who's really nervous.

We are in a corridor and a little further a nurse comes out of a room with a blue creature wrapped in bath towels. It's a quarter past two. Is the Boonma family present here, she asks. That's us. So Nim's sister takes the creature. I desperately wonder if everything is all right. It's so quiet. Thank God it starts to cry. That's one, I think. Now Nim. Sit comes back and admires his second daughter. Nan strokes her lush hair. It's a beautiful child.

We now have to go to another building, where a room has been set up for the young family. Air-conditioned and equipped with some chairs and a sofa bed, because in Thailand the whole family can stay in the hospital. The baby is placed in a crib and it is waiting for Nim. I take the first picture of the new miracle when she is seventeen minutes old. After twenty minutes Nim arrives on a stretcher. She is still semi-conscious. With united forces she is placed on the bed. She moans. It's not a pleasant sight. I hold Nan and tell her that Nim is still sleeping because she is very tired and she is still in some pain. Nan understands this.

Now it is waiting for the complete awakening of Nim. A nurse comes in with the bill. 6.000 Baht (one hundred and fifty Euro) for a caesarean section. You can't sit without that. I like to pay. I can use that against her later. Sit goes down to the cash register to settle the bill. A little later he comes back with soft drinks, milk and a beer for me.

I think it's time to leave and tell Sit that I'm going back to my hotel, but that tomorrow, before I leave for Pattaya, I'll come to the hospital to say goodbye.

So I do and I'll be there at eight o'clock. Sit and Nan slept in the hospital. Nim looks radiant and proudly looks at her daughter. I'm biased, but I really believe she's a beautiful baby. Nan tells me her new sister's name is Nath.