Last Sunday in Montreal!

Oh my god! It's my last Sunday in Montreal for a long time. Do I feel prepared to leave my family for a month - NO WAY! Do I feel prepared for my dissertation - SHOULDN'T THINK SO! Do I feel really emotional and a bit hysteric - YES!!! I've been crying a lot this weekend, mostly because I can't believe I'm really leaving Lovisa. I sat by her bed the other night, watching her fall asleep with tears just poring down my cheeks and snot running down my nose. Poor H doesn't know what do to. It's not that I don't think he can take care of her, it's just that she's still so small and she really needs me! And of course, I need her... 

I also all of a sudden feel so pregnant! The stomach is starting to be in the way, I can't find a really comfortable position to sit in. I can only sleep on my left side. I feel really hungry all the time but when I eat I feel sick. I have terrible attacks with heartburn and I feel like a hormonal bitch most of the time... Oh, and on top of this I also think I have a bit of hemorrhoids. It's really great, wonderful and amazing being pregnant! 

Next week is going to be all about preparing the last things, trying to do some studying and all of the packing! Now, the packing is a bit of a hassle... Right now it's cold winter, in a few weeks it's probably spring. Right now I'm really pregnant and have a big belly, in about a month I'm not... How the hell am I going to pack for this trip? Just one of the problems is which jacket to bring. Should I bring the big, warm "tent" that I use now, or the smaller spring jacket? I can't really bring both... I know, I know, it's small problems when you look at the big picture... 

Here is something funny to compensate you for all my whining; this is apparently what we sound like when we're on the phone (according to Lovisa):

Lovisa is sleeping good right now without knowing her career-oriented mother is about to abandon her in a few days... Oh well, H is right now picking up the "cavalry" at the airport, my mother-in-law with boyfriend are coming to stay for a whole month. I better pick up a bit in the kitchen and living room before they arrive. That is if I can bend down...

My growing stomach

I realise it were a few weeks since I showed my belly. Yes, it's growing but people still tell me it's "tiny", "small", "petite". Well, I don't agree anymore, I think it's rather big (at least it feels big). I gained around 8 kg so fare. Here we are, the belly and I in week 34:

 6 more weeks to go...

 45 days left...

Yesterday at the doctors a women stared at me and said "you're definitely having a boy". If she's clairvoyant that means 3 ultrasounds showed the wrong gender. Well, stranger things has happened...

Have a lovely weekend!

Bye, bye Dr L!

Today I had my last appointment with Dr L. Lovisa had her 18-month check-up at the same time, since Dr L is also Lovisas doctor. It was a bit sentimental to say goodbye knowing next time we'll see each other I'll have a little baby and Lovisa is a big sister! Lovisa found a funny plastic doll in the waiting room that had a helmet you could pull down over it's eyes. That was apparently really entertaining and each time she pulled the helmet down over the dolls face she said "bye, bye!". So during my examination Lovisa sat on the floor saying "bye, bye!" for about 50 times...
Anyway, everything was good with the big baby and with the little baby inside me to. I didn't gain any weight for 2 weeks according to Dr L:s scale but there's something fishy about her scale I think. Considering yesterdays supper her scale most be way of! My Irish friend (who also is pregnant! Baby-boom!) made us a very nice supper; she spoiled us with good food and a delicious desert I never had before. It's called bread and butter pudding, sounds pretty grouse but tastes like i little bit of heaven.

 Bread and butter pudding - a british invention here made by an Irish 

My little unborn also got her first clothes, a gift from my friend - so adorable! Look at the tiny shoes... 

Now it's only 1 week until I take of for Sweden and 2 weeks until I'm sweating at my dissertation, that is, if I don't go into labor before... Dr L called me "courageous" when we talked about the next few weeks...

Doubt

I just booked the train ticket from Stockholm to Degerfors after I landed in Sweden the 5th of March. All of a sudden it all seems very close. It really scares me. I don't feel ready at all to do my dissertation. To defend my thesis. Stand on a stage with my big belly, in a dress that I'm not to comfortable in (who the hell is comfortable in ANYTHING in week 36?). Being questioned by a real professional in my area. I know I'll probably start sweating and in the middle of everything I probably will have an urgent need to pee. So instead of creating positive pictures in my hormonal, slow functional brain I create these horror scenarios. That's really smart! NOT! When I really need to focus and study I just think of these "what if" scenarios. THINK POSITIVE for god's sake, how hard can it be!

Now I'm going to try to ease my heartburn from hell with a couple of "tums" (one of my dearest friends right now) and get my pregnant butt to bed. Goodnight!

Lovisa's new bed

That we bought at IKEA seems like a real hit! H assembled it on saturday and she played a bit in it. Around 8 pm she fell asleep and slept until 7:30 am! That hasn't happened in weeks! Lately she's had the very bad habit of waking up between 5-6 am, all awake, playful and happy! Well, of course it could be that she's so exhausted from her cold so she sleeps more right now but I really want to believe that she sleeps better in her new bigger bed. And it's actually really nice to hear her little steps in the morning when she's coming in to see us and to give us hugs and a kisses! Oh, I'll probably regret writing that when she starts coming in during the night, he, he... Anyway, the first night we were a bit worried that she would fall of the bed, she looks so small in it! It was kind of nice knowing she couldn't get out of her crib if she woke up... Oh, well, another step towards independence - to be able to get out and in of your own bed!

Here it is! I folded a blanket against the wall and on the other side she has her toto (teddy bear) so it doesn't feel to naked and big...

The bed is in the same style as her little table and chair that she got for christmas... I'm trying to make it a bit more cozy in her room so she wants play there more on her own. We're slowly getting there. She still thinks it's just as fun to play in our bedroom though, emptying the dirty laundry basket or our drawers or closets... 

It's easy to go a bit crazy in the kids department at IKEA, this tent somehow ended up in our shopping cart. 

Elephants on a string. Not IKEA but still swedish - Indiska! A gift from moster Hanna. Unbelievable they're still in one piece... 

This week I have to focus on my studies a bit and start preparing for the big TRIP over there... To Sweden... I slowly feel the panic attack building up - less than 2 weeks left... 

Have a nice week!

Prenatal yoga...

Yesterday I did my last session of prenatal yoga before going to Sweden. 12 sessions of stretching and bending with other pregnant women. It's been really good for my stiff body, more challenging than I thought but then I'm not famous to be very agile... I can't help it but I had a little bit of a hard time taking the instructors mental advise with sincere credibility. Next last session she talked about orgasmic deliveries and made little orgasmic sounds while stretching... I just have a hard time seeing me pushing out the baby while having an orgasm... I mean, for me a delivery is not a enjoyable event, but something incredible, amazing and painful that results in a beautiful little life for you to love for the rest your life! I don't really understand women that say they went trough delivery without any medical pain relief and claim they didn't feel any pain... Before my first delivery I was skeptic toward epidural but in the end it was the pain relief I needed and made the whole experience of giving birth to a very positive memory. This time around I want to have all the pain relief I need, you don't get a price for pain endurance after... Anyway, prenatal yoga is great and if it can help me a little bit during the delivery thats awesome. My best preparation advise is to try be open for different scenarios and that the pain relief you thought were going to be "the one" just might not be the right one...

Tomorrow I'm looking forward to go to IKEA to buy Lovisa a new, bigger bed and to bye me some "kaviar"...  By the way Lovisa is much better, no fever today but I kept her home with me since she still has a snotty nose and a cough. Here she is, "drinking" pancakes for lunch! And yes, it actually works...

Have a great weekend!

Sick and pitiful

 Poor Lovisa. Yesterday evening i gave her sour milk (bad, bad mummy) and on top of that she got sick! She has a fever and a really sore throat. Now, what do you give the little ones with sore throats? I mean, when I have a sore throat I stuff myself with throat pills and big cups of tea with honey, neither alternatives are very healthy for a 1,5 year old.. Of course I give her a lot of water and she got some icecream to ease the pain. It's terrible to see her in agony, she cries every time she coughs...
The positive thing is that Lovisa and me cuddled all day, doing cozy things and slept a lot! Here are some of the stuff you can do when your sick:

Draw!

Laze out in front of the TV. The favorite is "In the night garden" ("I drömmarnas trädgård") and is apparently really fascinating even if we saw it a hundred times... 

 Cry and whine, it's not fun being sick...

 Cuddle and sleep

Now, I better go to bed and get some sleep while she sleeps. I have I feeling I'm in for a long night...

YES!!!

Just got back from the ultrasound - I can have a natural birth! The placenta had the courtesy to move up so it's not in the way for the baby to come out. The little babygirl (yes, we all saw the vagina, it's most definitely a girl!) was holding both her feet with her hands. She turned already and has her head down. That's why I'm being kicked in my ribs and lungs all the time. She weighs around 2 kg and is tall! She's adorable! Oh, I'm so relieved.

Here she is in week 17

Here she is today, 32 full weeks

Judgement day

I'm sitting here, feeling extremely exhausted and paralyzed. Can't stop thinking about tomorrow when I'm going to do the ultrasound that will tell us if I have to do a caesarean or not... My placenta is low and if it hasn't moved since the latest ultrasound we can forget a natural birth. I really want to push this baby out myself... It's such a beautiful experience...
I cant help it but it feels like judgement day. Please keep your fingers crossed!

I want to do this again! Lovisa, about 30 minutes old, with the happiest mother ever!

Robbed!

Finally H and me were going to have a whole afternoon and night by our selfs! Yesterday we dropped Lovisa of at her lovely godparents and took off for an afternoon in Downtown Montreal. After a cozy lunch at an Italian resto we visited the food market Atwater and bought some nice cheese and coffee. I payed for the coffee and after that my wallet was gone. I discovered it much later unfortunately, when I was suppose to pay for the movie tickets... It's gone, missing, vanished. Somebody stole it, I don't know when or how. I could have forgotten it at the coffee place or somebody could have snatched it from my purse, I don't know! Bloody irritating! I had my VISA and drivers license in there, but even more unfortunate is that I had Lovisa's medical card and her Canadian citizenship card.

Despite this we decided that we were going to have a nice, romantic and great evening. We saw the movie "Barney's version" and that really made me forget about the wallet incident. Well, maybe not forget it but at least made me realize that it's not the end of the world to loose a wallet... I give the movie 4 out of 5 - see it if you can! When we got home, around 9 PM (insanely late, I know!) we were both extremely tired. How is it going to be when we have two rascals instead of one? 

Today we picked up a happy Lovisa that had a marvelous time, they took her to the zoo and she was totally amazed by all the animals! So we all had a break from our usual weekend routines and I think we all needed that... H just gave me a big hug and said that we have to do this more often... I wonder... Last time we went to the movies together was over 1,5 years ago and I have a feeling that it will be at least that to our next movie night. But the great thing is when it's that rare you really appreciate it!

The scary thing is that I really missed Lovisa! I know, it sounds really ridiculous and a bit pathetic, but how on earth am I going to make it a whole month without her??????

The stomach!

Entering week 32 and I'm starting to feel REALLY pregnant! This week has been all about the little baby living in my womb... Monday I had a doctors appointment. Here in Canada you see a doctor and not a midwife when your pregnant. My Dr L is a cool woman, not to fond of vitamins and substitutes as my Swedish midwife... My midwife advised me to start taking iron supplements in week 16 when I was in Sweden! When I got back to Canada Dr L suggested that I should eat some more meat and skip the pills. Fine by me! Iron is definitely not my stomachs favorite diet... So I've been eating more meat; steaks, porc, sausages - you name it! And to think that it wasn't to long ago I didn't eat meat at all! Despite this I was totally convinced that my hemoglobin (hb) was totally in the bottom after my 2 weeks with stomachflu. Well, the meat diet works, my Hb was 121 this monday! Unbelievable! With Lovisa I had to start eating iron supplement in week 20 and I was in better shape, not having breastfed for 10 months before I got pregnant with her...

Everything else were good, baby's heart rate around 150 beats/min (she had a hard time finding it at first, the baby moved all the time and also had the hickups), my blood pressure 100/65 mmHg, the so called SF (symfys fundus, the size of the stomach basically) 31 cm (this is suppose to be the same as the amount of weeks your pregnant +-2). I gained around 7 kg so far which is a little bit less than with Lovisa, considering I've been more sick I think it's OK.

Week 32, feeling pregnant and pretty good!

Front picture...

Yesterday I had my vaccination. Because my blood type is Rh negative and the baby I'm carrying is Rh positive there is a chance that I will start to reject the baby, creating antibodies against the poor thing. Since we don't want that I had to go to St Mary's hospital to take the vaccine. They already blood typed me in Sweden and in Canada but they wanted to blood type me again at the hospital. Two different technicians took two separate tests just to make sure I'm really Rh negative and that I haven't got any antibodies in my blood. One of the samples were lost and it took them 3 hours to find it. So, for the modest amount of around 150 CAD (that is about 900 SEK), I had my vaccine but it took 4 hours to get it. Good thing I'm such a patient and calm woman right now... Arggghhhhh!!!

The baby is really having a great time in my belly! She's kicking, tumbling around, waking me up in the middle of the night, kicks on my bladder so I have to run to the toilet just to squeeze out a few drops... She's a wild one! Just like her sister; yesterdays toy was a tray that she found in one of the kitchen cabinets:

It's very practical, you can sit on it AND have your toto (teddybear) AND the phone on it AT THE SAME TIME!

And of course you can examine it for the LONGEST TIME!

My little rascal!

So, I now you guys are in here reading, I see it on the statistics - leave a comment!

Mormor!

We received a early Valentines card today. It was from mamma/mormor in Sweden. Lovisa was really thrilled about the card, laughing and wanted to play with it. Usually she refers to my PC as "mormor" since we are skyping regularly with her and Lovisa is always very excited about that. Today I tried to explain to her that mormor sent us the postcard. So... Now she's referring to the postcard as "mormor"...

Thank you for the lovely postcard mormor!

Since it's 2:30 AM in Sweden I want to wish you a very happy birthday mamma/mormor! If you don't get our gift today it's on the way over the Atlantic! Hope you have a great day! Love you and see you soon! Hurra! Hurra! Hurra! Hurra!

Farts and yoghurt boxes...

We have a lot of fun thanks to Lovisa. She is a real entertainer and she has the most lovely laughter. Her latest "talent" is somewhat embarrassing though and we really should try not to encourage this. But it's hard... She farts loud and laughs until she's out of breath. I mean, OK at home, but what are they going to think at daycare? I'm pretty sure it's only a matter of time before she does it there to.

This video is recorded from yesterdays dinner. Farts and yoghurt boxes are a terrible hilarious combination! I started to film just after somebody (no names mentioned) farted out loud.

Now I'm going to charge my batteries for another eventful week - goodnight!

After storm comes sunshine...

Wednesdays storm only lasted a day and what a beautiful day we had yesterday. Montreal-Ouest in a fairytale winter landscape. I took a little walk after lunch and was amazed by all the icicles hanging from the houses...

And I have to admit, Montreal sure knows how to handle snow removal. The sidewalks were almost in perfect shape, only hours after the storm.

Today it's already Friday and this week disappeared way to fast as usual. I really need to get my as moving and work on my presentation for the dissertation. It's to easy to find excuses like e-mailing, cleaning, do the laundry, do some groceries, write a blog... I could go on but I think you get the picture. It's like all the air left me after finishing the thesis and now I just want to be pregnant and fix things around the house... So today I don't have any excuses, I'M DOING MY PRESENTATION!!!

Oh, if you feel tired and down in the morning you're welcome to join us for breakfast, we have entertainment. Lovisa is, strangely enough, always in a very good mood in the morning. I have no idea who she got that from, it sure wasn't me!

Have a nice weekend!

Blizzard!

Oh my god! What a blizzard we got today! And of course I had to go out in it... To mail a little something to a very special person, but what don't you do for your loved ones? So, warm, windproof clothes and warm, waterproof boats on and out I went!

Outside our house.

The walkway to the bus takes about 10 minutes. After 5 minutes I couldn't see a thing and I was completely covered in snow!

Our street...

Of course I just missed the bus, saw the back of it as I was crossing the street. The traffic wasn't to bad though. I guess people are sane enough to stay inside today, or use the metro...

Snow chaos on Rue Sherbrooke.

When I finally got to the post office it turns out that they don't take VISA and I didn't have any cash. There I was covered in snow, feeling very pregnant, on the edge of crying and the poor boy behind the counter said "we'll make an exception, only for this time". Wow, I didn't know they could make exceptions, I thought that ether their machine took VISA or it didn't.

Did a bit of groceries and took the bus back, got a free ride since the cash machine on the bus was broken.

Struggled myself back in almost knee high snow with only a few contractions on the way.

My reward when I got home - soup in a cup and "fläskpannkaka", that is pancake with diced pork (a Swedish specialty, sound pretty disgusting but it's delicious!).

It's suppose to come 30 cm of snow today. Now, I need a good nap. Over and out.