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Sooooooooo…It’s been a while.  So here it goes.

This isn’t going to be a blog about my seemingly ongoing fight with depression and anxiety.  I’ll save that for another day.

Today, it’s about my daughter.  Maya Luise Schmidtke was born on June 11, 2016 at 1110 am weighing 5 lbs and 11 oz.  Pretty tiny but what do you expect when she was 2 & a half weeks early?  Funny story…she was actually born in KW while we were visiting my in-laws to celebrate Herbert’s (aka Herb) retirement.  We had been planning to deliver in Walkerton but Maya (and God) had other plans.

It all stated around 1 am when Oliver (our now eldest child and proudest big brother in the world) was crying.  I, was happily asleep completely unaware of Oliver’s cries.  Once I am out, I am out.  Like a log, except more difficult to wake up.  Anyways, Melinda gets up to go check on Oli and after another 10 minutes of him screaming I awoke extremely frustrated that Melinda was just letting Oliver cry.  When suddenly I hear, “Ryan! Go get Oliver!” I sleepily stumbled out of my bed and retrieved the heir to my kingdom thinking, “She called me Ryan.  She never calls me Ryan.  Something must be up.”  Instead of investigating further, I decided to do what any good father would.  I scooped Oliver, hugged him and put him back to sleep in our bed, because I figured it would be easier for me to lay down in on our bed then trying to squeeze into the pack-n-play that Oliver was sleeping in.  Plus, my in-laws have hardwood floors, so there really isn’t a place to lay down.  I know…first world problems.

After several moments and after I had fallen back asleep, Melinda comes barging in, rudely waking me up.  She then informed me in the most gentle and kindest way possible that her water broke and we should go to the hospital.  My first reaction…was…well…I laughed.  O, I also shrugged my shoulders.  So we made sure Irma (Melinda’s mum) knew what was going on.  She was really excited for us but also stressed because of the big party that was going to be taking place at her home in the next several hours.  So off we went…maneuvering all of the stupid road construction, LRT construction and the drunken university students who were just only “starting” their night.

We made it to the hospital and after some searching (because after all, if all the roads are under construction, the hospital has to be as well) we made it to the maternity ward.  I may not be 100% sure about this next part because everything was a blur but I am pretty sure the nurse asked us if we could make it back to Walkerton to deliver the baby.  I mean it was only an hour & a half drive.  What could possibly happen in that amount of time.  Anyways, the admitted us and started doing some tests.  Now luckily for us, Melinda had tested positive for something (I don’t remember what, I was tired after all, being woken up so rudely and whatnot).  It meant that, as the nurse put it, “You ain’t leaving without a baby.”  You see, Melinda hadn’t started having contractions yet, so they planned to send us home.  But because she had tested positive for whatever it was, the hospital policy is to induce.  So we waited a few more hours in a room to see if Melinda would progress naturally.  She didn’t so she was induced at 710 am and Maya was born 4 hours later without any complications.

After a few hours of taking turns sleeping in the hospital room and having a few family members come and visit, in true Mennonite fashion we decided to go to Herbert’s (aka Herb’s) retirement party because…why not.  I basically walked into the house full of what seemed like 60 people, ate a massive plate of pulled pork and passed out for the night.  I figured with all of the Tante’s and Oma’s being there, Maya (& Melinda) were in good hands.  And I was really tired after all.  I had a tough day.

O…right, the point of this blog: the meaning/significance of Maya’s name.

Well the name Maya is actually common around the world.  Many different cultures and languages have a different meaning or variation of spelling.  We chose to honour the Arabic meaning of the name which means “Princess”.  Luise is the German spelling of  Louise and is also Irma’s (Melinda’s mum) middle name.  It means “Renowned Warrior”.  So there you have it.  Maya Luise is our little “Princess Warrior”…kinda like Xena…but probably has much more kick ass capabilities.