Kindergarten

Much earlier than expected we received a letter that Pontus will get a place in the kindergarten of our choice from beginning of December. We had applied very early because we thought that there was no way we would get a place right in time for his first birthday (which is the required minimum age to attend Kindergarten here), but they did the impossible. My husband had wanted to stay home with Pontus in December and January so we will have to discuss what we are going to do now: take the place but maybe only have him there for a little while every day or ask to be assigned another place later on.

I own a what?

If I wrote a post every time I find something in our household that I did not know we had or rediscover something that we haven't used for years in some dark corner, this blog would be one of the most updated worldwide. I seriously can't believe what kind of and especially how many things we have bought over the years. Whatever their original purpose was, their only function now is collecting dust.

There is, for example, the lint remover (noppborttagare) I discovered in a box in our walk-in closet. Why ever do we have a lint remover? For the many wool sweaters we don't own?



Another great example for a machine that is just too useful to ever actually be used is our hot dog maker. Yes, we own a hot dog maker. And it was me who bought it, when I was still living in Germany. For some reason the idea of buying a machine that would heat the sausages and the hot dog buns at the same time made perfect sense, even though I never liked hot dogs. The hot dog maker now is my husband's favourite. Not to make hot dogs, no - just to laugh about it and the fact that it was ME who bought the thing.


I could continue with this list for a very long time, but I must go now. I have to remove some lint and eat a hot dog or two. Why? Because I can!

Flavour combinations

I cooked potatoe soup today, but when it was time to eat the mere thought of it (especially in combination with the word "chunky") made me sick to my stomach, so the whole big bowl is now standing in our fridge. Instead I got the idea that I wanted to eat cucumber sallad with dill, like my grandmother used to make it. And Kellogg's Smacks. Unfortunately my husband had never heard of Kellogg's Smacks and some research on the internet showed that they are not sold in Sweden. Obviously, without the Kellogg's Smacks I didn't want the cucumber sallad anymore either. I mean, who would eat cucumber sallad without Kellogg's Smacks on the side? Seriously.
One less nightly trip to the supermarket for my husband...

Hungrilla & Hormonster

Hungrilla and Hormonster are the two predominant of my many personalities at the moment. They are my pregnancy personalities if you will.

Hungrilla is the indecisive one. She is hungrig (hungry) and illamående (nauseous) at the same time and never really knows which feeling to give in to. Hungrilla is a rather passive personality, but likes to complain about the dilemma she is in.

Hormonster on the other side is very hot-blooded. You do not want to breathe the wrong way, let alone say something stupid, in the presence of this hormonal monster. Hormonster's reactions can range from a look of pure contempt to a full-blown temper tantrum - the only thing that is sure is that nothing goes unpunished.

Anyone feel like hanging out with me? No?

Pink music

I feel like I really need the new Apple iPod Nano 16GB. Not as much in reality as in my head maybe, but who can blame me when it is just so damn pink?

The MP3 player I am using right now is a Creative Zen Stone Plus 2GB. It is of course also pink and, above all, super small, but I think I am ready to take my pink music to the next level.

Blame it on the baby

I was wondering what would happen if we decided to take Pontus with us to the wedding after all and asked my husband if he had told the groom that we might bring a baby. Yes, he had and his cousin had told him that if Pontus started to scream or be noisy in the church, he should either make him be quiet or leave the church.
Now, I think everyone should have enough decency and common sense to understand that letting a child disturb any ceremony is not acceptable. But I think it is kind of harsh to basically be told to "make the baby shut up or get him out right away". The bride and groom to not have children (yet), so maybe they are not aware of the fact that babies do not have a snooze button. And they probably also don't understand how problematic it is to be standing around outside for a longer time with a small child in temperatures barely exceeding 10° C. I think they will have an insight or two once they have children themselves...

I suggested to my husband that we simply skip the ceremony, come to the church 5 minutes before it ends and then pretend that Pontus screamed so much that we never dared to go inside. Or say that he screamed so much at home that we simply couldn't leave when we should have.
It's not like I could not live without sitting through yet another wedding. And we could really use some extra time to get ready and into town. Right now we have a pretty tight schedule for the day - not going means another badly needed hour for us.
But my husband, a bad liar and thus always the honest one, does not want to do that. I say: if you need an excuse, just blame it on the baby! It is one of the perks of parenthood and I don't feel the least guilty about doing it. If I could just get my husband to understand that...

Emergency babysitting

A couple of months ago my husband and I got invited to his cousin's wedding. Unfortunately we lost the invitation pretty much right away, so we were not 100% sure on which day the wedding was. I thought I remembered that it was at the end of October and for some reason we accepted that as a fact without checking again. Guess how shocked we were to discover that the wedding was actually THIS SATURDAY. Not only had we not put together clothes, we also did not have a babysitter for Pontus, which was a real disaster. He is so active right now, there's no way we could take him with us. But who should we ask? All of my husband's family will be at the wedding, Muddiz and her family are celebrating Milton's birthday that day and all of my friends are out of town. Of course I could have put Pontus on a plane to Berlin with a little note around his neck (like Paddington bear) and then have my friend Sarah look after him, but I have a hunch that Child Protective Services would not have liked that.

In the end we asked Muddiz and her husband and they agreed to help out. I can not tell you how relieved and grateful I am. With the party and packing for their trip to Turkey they really have better things to do than look after our little monster.
The two Raffaello we have left - they are theirs! And as soon as I get an opportunity there will be more Raffaello coming their way!

It's alright, baby's coming back

The baby's back. Or more precisely: it was never gone. There was no miscarriage - I was pregnant all the time!

Now, let me make this very clear right away: the doctors last week had no doubt about their diagnosis. There was no "maybe" or "possibly". I certainly wouldn't have told people that I had a miscarriage if there had been any chance that everything would turn out okay. They said: "You had a miscarriage. The child probably had a genetic defect or another sickness that meant it wasn't viable. There is not much left of the pregnancy, your body will take care of it itself. You will probably have a somewhat stronger menstruation and that's it. Sorry, but these things happen and there's no telling why.". And I accepted that. If a trained medical professional sits there, looks you straight in the face and says that you miscarried, no doubt whatsoever, you believe them.

But when I got home and started to read up on the topic things did not seem all that clear anymore. I primarily wanted to know what would happen at the next hospital appointment when I began my search. And I found several people who had been through the same as me: light bleedings and no visible embryo during the ultrasound at around week 6 or 7. It's just that almost all of those people had been told that it was common that no baby was visible on an ultrasound this early on in the pregnancy. They were told to come back for another ultrasound 1 or 2 weeks later and by then most of them could see a baby. Not all, some had miscarried, but a lot of them. The more I read, the more I wondered why my doctors had been so dead-sure that I had miscarried. Could it not have been to early to see a baby? Could I maybe still be pregnant? The bleedings had stopped almost right away and for over a week I had been feeling fine. Pregnant, not like I was going to bleed out at any moment. That had to count for something, right?
I so wanted to hope that everything would turn out well, that I would be one of the lucky ones, but I didn't dare. What were the odds that the doctors had been that horribly wrong? Still the "what if" was on my mind all the time. Those were some of the longest days of my life.

When I returned to the hospital for my follow-up today I took up my concerns with the doctor. It was not the same doctor as last time and he seemed to agree with me that it was worth doing another check up. Some seconds after starting the ultrasound he turned the screen towards me and said: "There's the baby. There's the beating heart.". He kept pointing at things. Everything was there! Everything!
I am in week 8 now (7+2), which is exactly what I had calculated myself. The baby has the right size and is developing just fine. The doctor even thinks he found what caused the bleeding and according to him there is nothing to worry about.

I want the week back that they stole from me.

Miscarriage

After another tiny bleeding yesterday morning my husband and I drove to the hospital where it was discovered that I had lost the baby. I basically have a normally developed amniotic sack and my body still believes that I am pregnant (with all the usual symptoms), but there is no baby (anymore). What exactly went wrong couldn't be determined and I can honestly say that it would not make a difference for me to know. When the pregnancy ends so early on it is most likely that the baby had a genetic defect or was not viable in another way. Nothing I could have done or not done would have made a difference.

I was, and still am, sad. But I am also grateful for knowing the truth and lucky because I went to a doctor and the miscarriage was discovered so early on. I "lost" 7 weeks of pregnancy, but a lot of people do not find out about those kinds of miscarriages until the routine ultrasound in week 17. Imagine that!

I will have to go back to the hospital next week to see how everything has developed and if I need further medical help. And then I guess we take it from there.

But there won't be a May baby...

Sunday, bloody Sunday

The last thing you want when you are pregnant is to start bleeding from all the wrong places, but unfortunately that is exactly what happened when I woke up today. I do understand that not all bleedings during a pregnancy immediately indicate a miscarriage and it was a very light bleeding, but as I haven't had this problem before it came as a shock. It seems that the only thing I could do was to basically spend the day on the couch, moving as little as possible and trying to relax. The bleeding went over after a little while, but I am still worried. So tomorrow I face the impossible task of getting an appointment for an ultrasound - and fast.
Watch out for low-flying pigs!