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It’s the 24 th of December, Christmas Eve! And not any Christmas Eve but Simons first one! Ok, I guess he won’t really get yet that this is a special day, but he’ll learn
At the moment we are on our way up to Värmland where we’ll have the big Swedish Christmas dinner in just a couple of hours! It will also be the first time for Simon to meet his aunt, uncle and two cousins. We’ll see how everything goes. Two weeks ago we were at Julies big Christmas party with 16 adults and 7 kids. Simon didn’t take that noise level too well and was pretty cranky and grumpy. The day after we hosted a big bruch; again with 14 grown ups and 8 kids. That one he took a bit better as he was well slept out and there were not so many noisy toys for the three year olds around. The brunch went great, even though a bit stressful for us, everybody had a good time.
The last 2 weeks were pretty uneventful. First we had a combo of frost and melting weather which made the roads very icy. The smartest move we thought would be to cancel all activities and make ourselves cosy and comfortable at home. We set up the christmas tree, lit candels and made fires. During the last days J had been home sick. Uunfortunately he is still not well but soon I hope. Simon, who had been great at sleeping through the night is waking up 3-4 times again , which I hope is just a phase;-) we are also eagerly anticipating his next big milestone: the first spoon of mashed potatoe next week! OMG, our baby will already start solids! What’/ next? Moped, first date?
- merry Christmas to you and your loved ones!

While I am in the middle of some hardcore sleep training for lunch naps, I will try to write down some bits and pieces of the exciting last week. On Wednesday we tried out the baby swimming lesson that I had anticipated so much because Simon is such a “waterrat” at home in his bathtub. We had practiced a bit on getting water in the face, which was going home fine as well. But once we hit the “big” pool where all the other babies were splashing around and Simon got exposed to so many new sounds he got scared! Poor little guy started shaking when we were supposed to put him in a belly down position. Our little trial ended with us standing mostly by the side watching and trying to calm Simon down a bit. We decided to wait until february next year with starting a class. Another souvenir was a pretty nasty cold for Mommy. Simon gets so scared when I sneeze or cough and sleep training doesn’t become any easier either.

On Thursday uncle David and uncle Chris came to visit from England. J picked them up from the airport and I prepared a cheese platter and some glögg, cookies and gingerbread. It was so great to see them as it had been almost 1,5 years since we last had met. A lot has happened since then.

On Friday the boys went downtown after breakfast and J and I joined them for a stroll a bit later in the afternoon. It’s always nice to see the city lit up for Christmas. The plan for Saturday was a trip to the beach in Varberg as the weather forecast predicted sunshine. Instead we ended up in traffic jam for three hours though. We were actually quite lucky; had we been 30 seconds earlier we could have been in one of the accidents that were caused by salt spray from the roads and sharp sunlight that made people unable to see what was going on on the road in front of them. Or should they have invested into more washing liquid for the windshield? However, Simon basically slept through the whole three hours, there must be something way calming about car seats. When the road was finally opened again, darkness set in and we decided to turn around and drive back home where we had a nice dinner with porcini risotto and Davids Moms Christmas pudding for dessert.

On Sunday we got huge amounts of new snow, but we still decided to take that little trip to Varberg, have a stroll at the promenade and then warm up with a hot chocolate and waffle at a café. Unfortunately we weren’t able to see much as everything was just grey in grey.

After a short pit stop at home we proceeded to Liseberg which was even more beautiful than usually with all the lights and fresh snow. We walked around a bit, bought some Christmas things and visited the Ice bar which is made completely of ice and even the drinks are served in glasses made of ice. I had to leave pretty soon though  since Simon didn’t like it one bit!

After the aperitif we proceeded to the big Liseberg Christmas buffet were we all stuffed ourselves to the point of almost bursting! Simon was super nice and didn’t cry a bit

And because he had been such a good boy, he got to sit on Santa’s lap Well maybe in two years from now he will be more excited about that

Oh well, on Monday it was already time for them to leave and I think Simon really missed them. He was looking around in the room as if he was searching for someone. Since I came down with a cold the two of us are taking it pretty easy now and I’m using the slow days for some sleep training. Usually I only got Simon to nap if I took a walk with him in his pram. But now I try to put him in his cot while he still is awake and as for now it seems to work! He’s already asleep since one hour. Well in the moment I typed this he was of course waking up, but with the help of a little nursing he is back to sleep now. One can’t expect any wonders so fast! Our little man is the absolute king of all droolers at the moment and somehow has some problems while nursing. He seems to be hungry but still stops eating all the time and cries. Could that be the first symptoms of teething? Would be way early though! Hopefully my cold will be gone tomorrow because we have planned to attend the Christmas dinner at work. On Saturday we are invited to Julie’s Christmas party and on Sunday we are hosting our Lucia brunch. 14 adults and 8 kids – that will be interesting!

Ok sleep training gets a little more intense now – Bye bye toodles!

Now the appointment I had feared so much is finally done and over with; Simon had his first two vaccination shots. My little trooper did so well! For good and bad, since the nurse said that his pain threshold was pretty high, which means that my baby must have experienced quite some pain already But as I mentioned in my last post; there is a huge improvement when it comes to his colic. I have had salmon with mustard sauce at the Ikea Christmas buffet and a Big Tasty which were both totally problem free! I mean come on: Mc Donalds food with tomatoes, onion, milk and lots of glutamate: even one of those ingredients would have caused a major attack just 2 weeks ago, but now NOTHING! Just a smiling and cuddly boy babbling away! I am still in total awe about this being possible! His newest favourite activity is training on sitting up with mommy pulling his upper body from lying into sitting position. Always a guaranteed cheer up :-) And you should have seen how proud our three-month old was, when he was carried facing forward in his Baby Björn for the first time! Priceless! (Unfortunately the camara is never handy during these moments).

Another situation when I missed the camera was when Simon and Simon (the other Simon is also a German-Swedish boy who is 1 week younger than our Simon) were lying next to each other on the blanket today. They were  holding hands at first and then our Simon started to chew on the other Simons hand. It was too funny! 

Simons Mom Berit comes from Southern Germany and I think we should definitely keep in touch a bit more and eventually get together a play group for our bilingual kids! It was very nice having her over for coffee munching away on the Swedish lussekatter she had made and the German Christmas cookies I had baked.

On Saturday we had the most fantastic winter weather again: snow, bright sunshine and -7 degrees. What better can you do than packing up the baby really warm and go for a long, beautiful winter walk?

 

On Sunday we got even more snow and spent a cozy day in decorating the house for Christmas, baking cookies and making homemade glögg! OMG have I told you yet how much I love, love, LOVE our happy and colic free baby? It is so awesome! On Wednesday we are going to try out the baby swimming before we’ll sign up Simon for a class. But I’m quite positive that he will like it. He loves his bath and doesn’t mind at all when Mommy is splashing a cup of water on his head

On Thursday David and Chris are arriving from England to visit over the weekend. A day in the lit up city, Liseberg with a classical Swedish Christmas buffet and a visit to the ice bar as well as a walk along the coast in Varberg are planned! We are really looking forward to the boys meeting Simon and having a nice  and frosty Advent weekend.

…and that since almost 3 months! 3 months??? Time has been flying by so fast! This wonderful, overwhelming, amazing time! Simon has been changing so much already that I need to look at the pictures from when he was newborn to remember how everything was back then. The pace of life has definitely changed during these last three months. To not forget too much about it, I really want to get back into the swing of blogging, but that is easier said than done.

Since I had to have a planned c-section the actual birth was kind of a downer. I never felt this anticipation and was scared like hell. Finally on that surgery table I was shaking, just shaking and frightened. J held my hands and after about 20 minutes I could hold our son in my arms!

Sadly they only let me have him for what felt to me like a very short time. My memory of this moment is very blurry since I was under the influence of all these medications. Way too soon I was rolled away into a post surgery ward where I was to spend the next 5 hours until I could move my legs again. In the meantime Simon was with his daddy sound asleep! Thanks to the advances of technology J took cellphone pics that he MMS ed to me so that I could somewhat take part in these first hours of Simons life! After 5 hours I was finally dismissed and transferred to our room where I could hold our baby again! It was wonderful! Unfortunately also very stressful as nursing wasn’t easy at all. Especially not when your hands are connected to lots of hoses etc.  Simon was crying and wiggling so much that he couldn’t latch on. Since I never was in labour my milk came in 2 days later than normally and it just felt cruel to not be able to feed my baby. This trying and trying and trying became so hurtful in the end that I was about to give up. On day 2 Simon had lost more than 10 % of his birth weight and had to be given formula. I was supposed to start pumping to get things going. Ouch! But after a while things started flowing and I was able to relax a bit. Most of the midwives and nurses where super helpful and supportive, but one night nurse stressed me up so much that I just burst into tears. Unfortunately this one in 10 or so is the one that has burned her image into my brain and I will always connect my birth experience with her. Sad but true. Luckily J was allowed to stay for the whole duration of my stay there as I don’t know what I would have done without him.

But it wasn’t only a stressful and tough experience, it was also an amazing time of wonder. Looking at OUR son and starting to get to know him!

After four days that seemed like a surreal eternity we were dismissed and could take our little bundle of joy home! Let the sleepless nights begin! Due to the nursing problems the first 3 weeks at home were spent pumping and bottle feeding. At first we were supposed to use a cup or spoon but since feeding even the tiniest amounts of 30 ml took 2 hours and half of it got spilled we were told to use a bottle. Things became a lot easier but still going through the pumping, feeding and settling little man down every 3 hours didn’t leave much time for us to sleep. But there were of course also lots of really good moments like these:

During the first 2 weeks J was at home and could do the feeding while I was pumping but after that time it became stressful for real. We practiced latching on every day and all of sudden, merely from one day to the next Simon learned it! From that time on life became a lot easier! Even me having to have my arm in a cast for 10 days because I strained the joint was ok at that point. We didn’t have to get up several times at night anymore to bottlefeed him which in turn made settling him down again after the feed a lot easier as well. He basically eats for 15 minutes and then goes back to sleep. At the moment he also wakes up only once every night so that we finally get enough sleep again as well. In october my Mom and Dad visited from Germany for 2 weeks, weeks that passed by way too fast! It’s hard to realize that they are so far away and can’t really take part in Simons life! But we definitely enjoyed the time we had.

Unfortunately Simon got colic when he was about 4 weeks old which sometimes meant screaming for hours on end. I cut out so many things of my diet that I basically only ate stuff that’s in baby food in the end. Potatoes, carrots, bananas, rice, oatmilk. But even this phase seems to be over by now. Simon is such a joy to be with, smiling, laughing and babbling away

Now we are passing our time with baby massage classes, meeting other Moms for coffee, long walks and soon also baby swimming! I try to do one activity a day and with that the days and weeks are just flying by.

I’m devastated. We are devastated. Yesterday we went to the hospital to have our munchkin manually externally turned. I was connected to the CTG to observe the baby’s heart rate and my contractions and when everything looked fine I was given a medicine that was relaxing the uterus muscles. Then the doctor tried to give the baby a push that would turn it around. It was so painful (for once I had the possibility to make use of my profylax breathing exercises). Unfortunately the turning attempt was very late and the baby a bit big, at the same time as the position of my placenta prohibited to push in a place where the doctor would have needed to push. So therefore he stopped the attempt and we got a time for a planned c-section. So sad!

But it was to become worse. Today we received the information brochures from the hospital and in them it says that the baby and me will be separated during at least four hours when I have to lie in the wake up unit, even though I will have been awake during the surgery. It’s the same for all patients (and the same I’ve been in during my eye surgeries!) and therefore there are no babies allowed. My midwife had told me that they wouldn’t do that!

Jörgen will be able to be with the baby at least, but I’m horrified by the thought to be separated! I think they will allow me to breastfeed before they take the baby away but under which stressful circumstances is that going to happen??? I was already concerned about this because I know so many people who had problems with it – some just in the beginning, others the whole time – but now it feels like we’re heading for an extra tough start!

There is another clinic in Gothenburg where they don’t separate you if there are no complications, but since our c-section had to be planned on such short notice I won’t be able to go there.

Now I really have to stop reading about all the problems with bonding, breast-feeding, post partum depressions and problems to get pregnant again – otherwise I will be stressing up the baby totally! I just can’t stop crying!

I so wish munchkin could decide to turn again, but if he couldn’t with the doctor’s help, I guess he can’t. Having a natural birth with this positioning of the baby is apparently more risky but not impossible. But I just don’t want to take this extra risk for the baby plus that both doctors and midwives here don’t actually see it as a valid option!

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Oh boy, as I can see it’s been a while again since I last posted something here. Blame it on the soccer fever during the beginning of July and my being utterly tired every evening when I get back from work lately. I’m just barely able to eat and sometimes also fix dinner before I hit the couch and doze off.

Today we are exactly 4 weeks away from D-Day. We have basically completed all the preparations: pram and car seat are waiting to be taken into operation, we bought a little Moses basket for the baby to sleep in in our bedroom during the first months, the changing table is ready. We stocked up on Pampers, all the onesies, blankets, towels et.c are washed and stored away. I also did a big sorting out of the wardrobe in the soon to become nursery so that everything is all set for the baby. (And yes Susi, I also cleaned out the fridge by now ) The only thing we want to wait with till we know if our muchkin will be a boy or girl is the actual decoration of the nursery. But that shouldn’t be a problem as the baby is gonna sleep in our bedroom during the first time anyway.

Luckily my back pain has not become much worse lately which might be because I’m doing a lot less walking than I used to. I feel flexible like a fridge or something and at night I have some trouble finding a comfortable position to sleep in. Thank goodness I’m already a side sleeper so that I didn’t have to change my sleeping position that much. One of the most uncomfortable things is though that I have been retaining a lot of water lately and that my feet and fingers are really swollen in the evenings and my joints hurt when I wake up in the morning. Other than that everything is ok: blood pressure, blood values, no protein etc. The babies heart beats like it should and it already took in the head down birth position weeks ago. It’s also fixed now, so I hope it won’t turn around again. Sometimes it feels like my rib is pressing into the babies butt, but hopefully it has a good buffer so it won’t hurt. The braxton hicks contractions a getting more and more intense now, but I certainly hope the baby will not come out yet for another 2 weeks at least. I decided to keep on working two more weeks now and stay at home the 10 days before the estimated arrival of our little muchkin. Next week we’ll have our first birthprep class, the other one will be the during the week after that. Since we already did a profylax breathing course in May I feel kind of prepared for birth…well, as much as I can. This weekend I will also get to packing the hospital bag! Now the only one missing is our little muchkin!

Apart from baby preparations we didn’t do so much lately. We went out for dinner with friends a couple of times and celebrated Alvin’s first birthday with a great BBQ. 2 weeks ago my old college friend Katharina and her boyfriend stayed with us for a couple of days during their camping vacation in Sweden. We went out for dinner and some drinks one night and BBQ ed the other. On Saturday we went to our small Outlet mall where everyone but me was at least a little successful and then went over to one of the islands in Gothenburg’s beautiful archipelago. We were lucky with the weather too, because on Sunday it started raining like crazy. We were just hanging out around the house for a bit before Katharina and her boyfriend hit the road Northbound again!
Last weekend we visited J’s parents. Usually we are driving up already on Friday after work and stay till Sunday but our guest bed there is so hard that I really can’t take it at the moment. So we had a 6 hour drive that day but it was still nice to see them again before our munchkin arrives. J’s brother and wife are already expecting their second baby in September as well , which means that the cousins will be about three weeks apart.
We (J) also finished the renovation of our living room. He painted the ceilings, papered the walls in white and we got a new couch, loudspeakers, coffee table and curtains. It’s basically completely remade now

That was in short what we were up to during the last weeks and I will hopefully find the energy to write about our vacation soon, too.

we just returned from a four-week vacation/family visit in Germany and Austria and enjoy summer to the fullest!

During the last months I really just enjoyed my pregnancy. The early symptoms of morning sickness had subsided and after our Easter trip to Germany I felt very relaxed, calm and stronger! The only problem was that I can’t walk long distances due to the softening of ligaments and sometimes quite severe back pain. After Easter we had our week 20 ultrasound and everything looked fine! In Sweden they won’t tell you the sex of the baby and we decided to just leave it like this and look forward to a surprise! From week 26 you can buy an extra ultrasound just for that purpose but I don’t want to have extra scans without a medical need for it. In april we also finally started shopping around for lot’s of baby things like a car seat, pram, neutral coloured clothes, changing table etc. Everything is almost complete now except for the cot that we are going to buy from friends of ours and the nursery that still has to be painted.

In May we also took a profylax breathing class where they teach you the right breathing technique that is supposed to help with pain relief during labour. We had to take the class fairly early because there won’t be any during the summer months. As I hadn’t read so much about the process of giving birth yet, let alone realized that there REALLY is living a new little person in my belly, it all of a sudden became very real during this class!

Other than that we took everything pretty easy, spent time with friends that just had their babies during the last year, took lots of shorter walks as long as the weather permitted and started the last projects on the house and garden. Unfortunately a lot of plants that we had planted last fall didn’t survive the severe winter so that we have to redo a lot. We finally decided on a new couch for the living room. We sold the old one on the equivalent of Craig’s list and are using the couchless time to renovate that part of the room. Later on we want to renew our kitchen and take away the wall between the kitchen and dining room to get a more open space. We have to see when we take up that project as we don’t really know yet how much our life will change soon!

Now our summer vacation is over and while everyone else is going on vacation we will start work again on Monday. There is no Maternity leave before giving birth in Sweden so I’m intending to work as long as possible and take some more vacation in case my back pain gets worse. Luckily work should be pretty calm during the summer so that I can finish all my projects properly and pass everything on to my replacement in a way I myself would like to get projects passed on. It was great to come back a little early this time so that we could celebrate a rainless Midsummer with our friends and have a whole weekend free to do all the washing and organizing necessary after having been away for four weeks!

Our vacation is worth one or more separate posts, so more about that later!