Rea (Ray-a) Lynne Kirkbride born April 8, 2014 in Nelspruit South Africa

At 3kg and 51cm she graced our lives this morning at 10:10. Baby and mom are doing great and relieved beyond belief that she is happy and healthy. Mom can finally have her first pain and worry free sleep in 9 months. Rea came out with a beautiful cry and was quickly whisked away for a check-up and I shortly followed her up to the maternity ward where she was kept in a warming station and was able to touch her, talk to her and let her suck my pinkie for an hour until mom finally returned and Rea was united to her feeding supply for the next year. Such a beautiful and happy reunion with Pranvera's voice and touching immediately calming her. 

But our arrival to the city for delivery that we have visited often and is supposed to take 4.5 hours with the increased delay at the border crossing and extensive road construction was almost not meant to be...

Whether a comedy of errors or a cruel joke, we decided to take a 'short-cut' through Swaziland that would allow us a quicker and calmer border crossing with a slightly longer drive in the mountains but allow us to avoid all the roadside waiting for the construction control points which are 1 way. I must also note that our old Honda CRV was loaded beyond belief with a slowly leaking tire and all our car repair tools having been stolen out of the car at some point in the last 6 months that I only discovered the night before we left. It just had a new radiator installed but was going to have a major check-up and repair work done once (if) we arrived in Nelspruit.

The adventure began well and we arrived at the border in no time but only to find our first miscalculation. The line on this small and always empty border stretched well into the parking lot with at least a 2 hour wait due to the 3 day holiday weekend and the fact the border stations just installed finger printing machines but did not staff up or account for the 4 fold processing time for each person. Needless to say the line was not moving and people were not happy. BUT, we pulled the pregnancy card for the last time and guard walked us to the front of the line and we were processed within 10 minutes and made it across the other side in 45 minutes total. We felt certain the alternative route I chose would pay off. That was until we got lost. The map I printed out was too small to read and we missed a turnoff per the text instructions which essential lead us in a 2 hours circular journey in the mountains only to end up on the main highway far away from the border. So, swallowing my pride we continued on through the capital city and the entire lower highway route to get to South Africa at a lower border crossing.

BUT we saw a final northern highway that would have taken us up to the border crossing we were originally going to cross on the Swazi side. So we mistakenly drove this to take us over 3 mountain ranges finally getting to the last 13km route across the border now 3 hours delayed. And then the last segment of the road turned into dirt... So we slowly drove on to find 1 car a ways down which informed us the border crossing was closed at 4pm (now 4:30) and the only crossing was another 80km north which would put us in South Africa before the final construction crossing that had us wait up to 45 more minutes. Since we had thrown in the towel long ago we stopped to have a diner dinner and arrived at our beautifully rented house to await for today's affair. A mere 11.5 hours from when we left.

Having put this behind us we celebrated the pre-birth with a gourmet final meal at the best restaurant in the city, Chez Vincent.

And the rest tells its own story...