Meg and I have really enjoyed our time at the Hilton as part of Ashford Hospitals Baby Bliss program.

Having somewhere in Adelaide to stay with midwife support if we need it and where friends can come and visit us has helped us a lot.

There might be a rude shock exchanging the 5 star Hilton accomodation and going back to our shed in the hills of country Clare, but the three of us will deal with it - we’ll have to!

At least technology has kept pace with our needs and I can use my mobile as a modem to access 3G broadband from our room at a reasonable rate. This allows me to keep in touch with the world and get some some work done in the quiet times.

Thanks to all the visitors that came and spent some time with us!

See the full gallery here.

Things are a bit hectic at the mo, so the photos aren’t jumping on the web as fast as they could.

Here are some photos from the first day at the Hilton Hotel in Adelaide, our pitstop on the way home from Ashford to Clare.

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You can probably tell that we are proud parents!

Here are a few pics of Willow and visitors to the hospital.

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Rob and Meg are proud to welcome our daughter Willow Lily Meri Mader at 9:53pm on 17/4/09 weighing in at 3.31Kg.

The three of us are healthy and happy and are enjoying getting to know each other.

If things go to plan, this will be the last update of pregnant Meg for all to see.

Here she is at 38 weeks, looking healthy and happy.

Maybe it is a little early, but the first baby fashion show was on tonight.

The reluctant model was a little shy, appearing to turn away from the bright flashing lights.

We’ll see in a few weeks time…

Yay, I’ve finally finished work!

So far I’ve had two days off and have managed to catch up on some sleep and get a few things done around the shed – even a little bit of study.

It’s a little scary though because this is the final stage before the baby arrives.  We don’t quite have everything ready yet, including the list of possible names, and there are only about four weeks to go.  I’m hoping the baby comes earlier though because my insanely huge belly is getting hard to cart around!

Well, not so much of an update of mega proportions, but an update about Meg (who some may say has reached mega proportions).

Meg’s Mum was after a photo update so I pulled out the camera and took a couple of shots.

What do you think? Is she beautiful or what?

Looks like the baby is coming soon… We’d better get ready!

There is plenty of work to be done lately, and more and more of it has been actual paying work for the IT services business that we run.

Meg and I were sitting at our computers tonight while I worked on a couple of laptops and the high end workstation and part time server that I’m building.

It looked a little out of proportion to have four laptops and a workstation with 24 inch LCD lined up together, sharing our satellite internet as well as a 3G connection while we ran some maintenance and connected to the new wireless printer in the “foil” lined shed we call home. (Cue the conspiracy theory jokes about tin foil hats extrapolated…)

But there in the middle was a sign of the rewards. A bottle of Bremerton’s 2003 Old Adam Shiraz from the Langhorne Creek region of South Australia – a gift from a client for a job well done to be shared amongst friends.

Work hard, play hard. Life is for the living!

With only about 10 weeks to go it seems like a good time to mention that the permanent population of the Journey will be increasing by one.  While Rob has been busy growing the vegies in the garden, I’ve been working on growing him a little helper.

The little bump in my belly, which initially looked like a beer belly, has been steadily growing in size and now looks like I’ve stuffed a watermelon up my shirt.  Maverick/Willow (as we currently call it - we originally named the embryo Wolfgang/Fernando) is getting more and more active as the weeks have passed making the idea of a Mini-Mader a lot more real.

We decided not to find out if it’s a boy or a girl but decided to have a surprise - and it’s not like there is a room to paint a particular colour as it will only be having a section of the shed which is the lovely unisex shade of silver.

As in most things we are pretty clueless to what we need to do or have prepared but figure we will learn as things progress like in everything else we do.  Through reading books and talking to friends and family who have had babies we have learned to expect the unexpected because no two pregnancies or babies are the same.  So thanks everyone for this support and also for all the new and second hand bits and pieces that have been given to us.