Baby News

Big news for our family - Shelley is pregnant with our second child. She is due in May. And yes, that means she'll be having the baby in Japan. So that's very exciting. Having the baby outside of our comfort zone certainly isn't ideal, but Japan is a first world country. It has the third lowest infant mortality rates in the world...half that of the U.S. even. But I'm sure the biggest struggle will be to find English speaking doctors that we're comfortable with. If you've experienced child birth in Japan, drop us a line, please!

Shelley and I laugh that maybe the biggest downside to having this child born outside of the U.S. is the fact that we may not be able to tell our child in good faith that he or she can become anything they want - even President of the United States. According to Wikipedia, there is a debate as to whether children who are born NOT on U.S. soil to U.S. citizens are natural-born citizens or naturalized citizens. The latter can't become President of the United States. Let's hope they get that resolved.

We've approached Anthon with this news and he seems to take it in stride, though I'm sure he doesn't fully understand the ramifications of the event. He'll point to Shelley's stomach when asked, "Where's the tiny baby?" He even seems to have a preference as to the sex of the child. When asked if he wants a "brother or a sister" he responds "brother." To be sure of his answer, we'll reverse the order and ask again if he wants a "sister or a brother" and he'll consistently answers "brother." So, count Anthon firmly in the "boy" camp. At this point Shelley thinks we're having a boy and I really have no clue one way or the other. If I had to venture a guess I'd say it's a girl simply because this pregnancy has been totally different than when Shelley as pregnant with Anthon. Stay tuned...