Showing all posts in Pregnancy

April 28, 2021

Yup, another not super awesome phone picture, but I wanted a last family-of-three pic before baby:)

1 day til due. Very few babies are born on their due date though, George, my friends baby is the only one I know. Everyone I know here in America have had early babies but everyone else have had late ones. There really is no way to tell when you will have a baby, the baby is in charge. I read a study somewhere that the baby will release a tiny amount of substance to let mothers hormones know it’s time for labor, baby and body both has to be ready. However, here in America you can’t go too long after before they induce you which is sad and quite stressful for the baby. So hubby and I are of course hoping that the process will start on its own. But we’ll see.

I am still doing stuff around the apartment and on my computer, some stuff to keep myself busy, but I am also taking time to just do absolutely nothing. Some moments of the day I just sit and stare out the window… simply because I can:) I feel extremely calm. It almost feels like I’m faking it for myself, it doesn’t feel real to be this calm before a life changing thing like this haha. 

My hospital bag has been ready for weeks. I actually started to pack it in January when I packed for our babymoon and then from time to time I go check so that I haven’t forgot anything important. But the hospital apparently has pretty much everything you need so even if I were to forget something they’ll probably have it. I’m bringing a carry-on luggage, J has his backpack and then of course the car seat, that’s it. The backpack has basically nothing in it other than the big camera in it’s bag and my luggage is only 2/3 filled if even that. People seem to bring so much stuff to the hospital but I really don’t feel that I need that much, especially not now during a pandemic. If no complications then I’ll be in and out of there, all we need is going home outfits for us two and the baby, everything else will be provided. I have some travel toiletries, snacks for Jim, camera and phone gear, a robe, a pj, a swaddle, baby outfits in size newborn and 0-3 plus clothes to go home in. I packed clothes, a baby book for foot and hand prints and the big camera in J’s bag. It’s just standing there in the bedroom waiting to go. It’s kinda in the way so I can’t wait to come home from the hospital and be able to store the bags somewhere out of my sight haha. 

Looks kinda full here but everything is loosely packed. That camera bag to the left is going into the backpack. The pacifiers have been washed since the photo but not sterilized, not even sure I’m gonna bring them cause A) I’m hoping to never use one and B) the hospital has them I think. Oh, and we are also bringing a plastic bag with chocolate and tea for the nurses and doctors. We don’t know what is allowed to bring them now during corona days so we just picked out treats that is in single packages inside. 

I don’t have a lot to tell you these days. Going to the doctor this afternoon for a regular checkup, it’s Thor’s birthday on Saturday and that’s all there is in my calendar. Other than that, I am just a ticking bomb waiting to go off 😀

On Friday once J finished work we drove to Mianus Park and went on a little hike. It was absolutely lovely. Only walked for 30 minutes but that was enough to get my steps for the day.
On Saturday after our breakfast, we drove to Cove Island for a walk. A bit chilly wind but the sun was nice and warm, a real spring day. J’s job is to take Thor and me for a walk at least once a day and these days I ask him to take a picture every time in case it’s the last bump picture, even when I’m in weird outfits like this haha (it’s all about comfort these days)
Snuggles with my first baby is important. I’m trying to look at him to see if he can give me any signs that we are close to baby’s birthday but Thor is not like other dogs I guess haha:)I’m gonna miss this coffee table and the kicks that comes with it. Sometimes the kicks are so big that whatever I have on the bump flies out. Another family photo:)

April 26, 2021

Happy Name Day to me and my mom. In Sweden, each day of the year (or most of them) have one or two names in the calendar and we call it Name Day. On April 26 it’s Therése day which is a name that me, my mom, my grandmother and my great grandmother all carry. If “lilliput” is a girl she will carry this name as well of course:)

To something else…

24 weeks and 1 day

For the past few months, people I know and strangers have been asking me if I am nervous, anxious or even scared of giving birth. My answer is always “No, not even a little, it never crossed my mind”. And I really mean it. 

Social media, articles, baby apps and you name it wants to highlight the real stories of birth and parenthood which I of course appreciate and support. We should not sugarcoat any of it. But in my opinion, the problem is that it is a bit over hyped these days which can cause fear rather than excitement. You read or hear everywhere how painful birth is and how tired you’ll be when the baby is born and how hard life is during pregnancy and postpartum. That might all be true (for some), but that’s very negative and no wonder people are scared and worried. I am not at all ignoring the facts, I don’t believe it will be a piece of fluffy cake, but I have always chosen to see it from a positive point of view.

If I walk around thinking of pain then I will be afraid of giving birth, most likely hyperventilate through it all and wont enjoy my experience. So when someone mentions words like nervous, anxious, scared, worried, pain, sleep deprived, breastfeeding is hard, postpartum depression etc etc, I hear what they are saying but I’m also not really listening, cause I don’t need that kind of negativity preparing myself for it all. Women were meant to do this. Not every woman can for many different reasons, I might not be able to have the birth I imagine either, but I am not going to focus on that. I am also going to be at an awesome hospital surrounded by awesome doctors and nurses so if something were to happen then I have a team around me that will do their best to help me and the baby. So to be honest, I feel calm, excited, confident and I absolutely trust that my body knows what to do. And we’ll see how it goes:)

24 weeks 3 days

Every week I open the baby apps and read articles about baby’s development, what size of fruit or toy the baby is and what can be expected in the pregnancy. Once again, it has all been quite negative week after week which I think is a problem and they should look into making some changes. The first sentence should not be negative, it should be uplifting and exciting. And it should not be written as what they talk about will definitely happen to you, cause I have had minimal symptoms of what they describe every week and don’t feel like I can relate at all. For example, somewhere between 50-80% of all women (depending on what studies you read) experience morning sickness in their first trimester. But there are women, like myself, who never have to deal with this, yet, every single week in both 1st and part of second trimester you read about how bad your morning sickness is and that you have to suffer just a little bit longer. And you also read every week that you might have a miscarriage, that’s not very exciting at all. In third trimester (and part of second) you keep reading about that you’ll definitely will have Braxton Hicks contractions, heartburn, stretchmarks and about how hard it is to sleep and so on. I have had none or minimal of those symptoms. No, I have not been symptom free, I too have things going on in my body, like I have this weird tightening in my throat at night sometimes that makes it more difficult to fall asleep and after the bump dropped in week 37 I got my first stretchmarks (all in the front around my belly button cause the baby seems to think that’s the way out). But I don’t need to read that first thing when I open an app to read of what can happen this specific week. I want to start with something positive like “congratulations, you made it to this week and we should celebrate whatever whatever..” and then read about the symptoms that can happen. 

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And now to something else again…

As I’m approaching due date, hubby and I will not respond to questions about if the baby is about to arrive, is here yet etc. If someone is messaging and we don’t answer the question, it does not mean that we are at the hospital, it simply means that we don’t want to answer:) We know that everyone are curious and excited for us, so are we, but we don’t need that kind of stress or pressure right now. The baby will arrive whenever she/he is ready and we will let everyone know then. Ok, bye:)

April 22, 2021 

There were so many pictures to chose from, I didn’t know which ones to share with you, so you get to look at a lot of them 😀 I did a mistake though. I decided to take the photos together with Jimmy with my phone cause that’s the quickest setup and I didn’t want to stay in the park for too long (lots of dogs and their owners and we had no masks). They turned out kinda blah which I’m a bit sad about, we have no maternity pictures together. But oh well. He’s usually not super excited to be in the pictures anyway haha. But the ones he took of me turned out great, I’m happy with them:)

This one is cute, but ya, the quality is crap. Next time I’ll just set the good camera up. Lesson learned.

April 19, 2021

Since we live in an apartment that we will move out of within 3 months (no, we don’t know where to move yet but we’ll figure it out then) and we don’t want the baby to be by her-/himself upstairs, we have an in-bedroom-nursery. Babies needs to sleep in your bedroom for the first 6 months anyway, so to have a separate nursery ready right when baby is born isn’t exactly necessary for anyone. 

After a lot of thoughts and research, we decided to get a crib only. Right when we got pregnant someone recommended the Snoo bassinet, but to pay $1500 for a bassinet that you only use for 6 months sounded a bit crazy (you can rent them as well but that didn’t sound too safe or clean to me). I was looking at bassinets cause it takes less space, but a lot of them are plastic and looks like spaceships. A lot of them didn’t seem too safe either and some that I looked at where even recalled. I found tons of cute moses baskets as well, but again, I wasn’t sure how safe it really is. So, a 4-in-1 crib sounded like the best option for us. I love the one we picked out, the walnut detail in the bottom makes it very stylish I think. 

I found a cute crib mobile on Etsy, contacted the woman in Russia who makes them and made a custom order to get a good mix of colors (it was all blue before). It turned out perfect! It’s so cute, I can’t stop looking at it. It took a few weeks for it to arrive but I think it was worth it!

I cleaned out two drawers in our dressers for diapers, cloths and some clothes. In the walk-in-closet there are some more clothes on hangers up to 6 months. What I’m not showing in pictures is also tons of clothes for older ages, a nursing pillow, baby bottles, more diapers, crib sheets, two baby nests, breast pump and a bunch of other stuff that we have received. Also, since I took these pictures of the nursery and the drawers, we have received more toys, books, clothes, burp cloths, pjs and you name it, so it does look a little bit different now.

We also have a super cute playmat in the living room, a baby bouncer and a baby gym, but we haven’t put that out yet cause we don’t need it until baby is actually here and we don’t need Thor to sniff it every day til then:) So I will show you that at a different time.

In one of the bath drawers I’ve made a postpartum “station”, meaning, there are postpartum cooling pads, adult diapers and a perineal spray for recovery. In the bathroom we also have a baby bath and a little basket with super soft bamboo wash cloths and baby wash products.

In the living room we have the stroller and the car seat just standing there waiting for baby’s arrival.

I think we are pretty prepared. We ended up with so much more stuff than I had imagined. In my mind we wouldn’t have like any toys and barely any clothes cause baby’s don’t really need it, I wanted a more minimalistic approach. I wanted to buy stuff along the way when I notice that we would need it, but I was asked to put a registry together and people have been incredibly generous, we feel so spoiled!! Very grateful for all the love and support!

The blanket is only there for now, once the baby sleeps there it will be gone.
Please remember that nothing other than a fitted sheet and the baby is allowed in a crib or bassinet. In Europe they are all about the cute bumpers, canopy etc. but that’s actually not even sold here for the risk of SIDS
Jim bought an air purifier so that we can get rid of the weed smells from the neighbors I don’t understand the whole side diaper changing thing, so we made sure there is enough space on the right side there to stand in front of it to change
We were gifted both a Hatch light and sound machine and a Baby Sense monitor
Those little bear booties that my friend gave us are so cute some of baby’s clothes, 0-3 and 3-6 monthsWe have both a wrap and a carrier, lots of swaddles, and then binkies and baby safety stuff
I made space and put all this in the kitchen yesterday. Our friend gifted us with this bottle warmer/sterilizer, I have yet to try it. I’m also excited about this grass drying rack:)