Exciting news from the Harmon’s!

We knew that moving across the world would be an adventure…why not add to it by HAVING A BABY!? We are pregnant! Woohoo!!!

Baby Harmon is due to arrive April 10, 2023 and will be born here in Munich. Meg and Baby are in good health and have only had to navigate manageable symptoms (Meg says the hardest part has been keeping up with the constant changes!). We just entered the 19th week of pregnancy and have been enjoying the start of little kicks this week! We can’t wait to welcome our first child into our family.

Things you might be wondering:

Do you know the sex of the Baby?

One of Meg’s favorite shows, Gilmore Girls, has an episode where one of the characters has a button he wears saying, “I do not want to know the sex of my baby!” Meg shares some of that sentiment. I, on the other hand, wanted to know right away! As we will be spending the holidays in Germany, we decided to give ourselves an extra special present and find out the sex on Christmas morning. We already have names picked out, so that means our baby will also have a name in just a few weeks. Certainly adds a lot of anticipation for Christmas!

What’s it like to have a baby in Germany?

We are curious to see how the German system of childbirth differs from the U.S., we have already been laughing at the subtle differences. There is a MutterPass, a paper “passport” that one must bring to EVERY appointment or else they will not see you. Germany also utilizes midwives not only for births (doctors don’t deliver babies here except in extreme circumstances) but also for after birth (it is standard practice for a midwife to come to your home every day for the first ten days after birth and then once a week for a while after that just to check in on mom and baby– take note America!) We’ve been told that when you find out you are pregnant in Germany, the first phone calls you make are not to your family to tell them the good news but to several midwives to inquire if they have any openings! It has been a bit stressful navigating the cultural differences, but we are checking the boxes off one by one.

Baby Harmon will be born a U.S. citizen and while they will have a cool “born abroad” birth certificate, will not share dual citizenship (it’s all so complicated).

Overall, if we're gonna have a baby abroad– Germany is a good place to be!

What will life look like?

Baby Bump is making its appearance!

We honestly have a pretty ideal setup to have a young one. We have space in our apartment and

plenty of walking areas nearby–we are looking forward to family time at the lake next summer. We are also grateful that a few other ex-pat couples at our church are also due around the same time as we are.

Meg has the green light to volunteer and work for the school! She sent in her application to be a substitute teacher! Exciting, but it will be interesting to see how much she can do before the baby arrives (it’s also standard here for pregnant women to stop working 8 weeks before the due date–that one just makes us laugh). We appreciate prayer over our preparations for this transition to parenthood, for wisdom in how to balance life and ministry (which are so intricately connected).

We have been meeting with different after-school programs now and seeing how we can partner. So things are moving, finally! Please pray over our first high school meeting of the year set for next Tuesday, November 22nd. We are “blind inviting” some students over and we hope 1) they show up and 2) it can be the start of something!

Thank you for partnering with us! We love and miss our amazing community!