The infernal heat of Spain

Ok, I know I shouldn’t complain about too much sunshine after whining about our pathetic, cold Finnish summer. After all, I come from a country that some people think inhabits penguins and polar bears among us so some Mediterranean heat should be just what I need. WRONG. +40C  (104F) is just too much, especially when it’s accompanied with continuous burning sun without any clouds nor rain.

When we arrived to the airport our landlord was there to pick us with her car. Despite the language barrier we got along well and she took us to the apartment. Only that it was NOT the apartment I had seen in the pictures on the website, but since it was in good condition and seemed to have all the things promised we didn’t complain. And of course we are Finnish and can’t complain about anything because we are taught that is rude, so we tend to suffer in silence. It also turned out that the “air conditioning” consisted of one electric fan. One fan. In the whole apartment.

Our Andalucian home

The town, Jerez de la Frontera, was very beautiful, old and not too touristic, with about 190 000 inhabitants. That also meant that English wasn’t spoken in most of the places and even if the people understood it they answered in Spanish. But we got along thanks to the dictionary and sign language The Spanish people were like the total opposites of Finns; loud, social and spontaneous. And southern European traffic is a chapter to itself…

Fountain near our apartment (there were fountains everywhere)

Sceneries of the town

Since we had rented an apartment we did a lot of cooking by ourselves and only ate out a couple of times. The local cuisine consists mostly of fish and seafood since the town is located near the coastline, but we did some fish dishes also by ourselves. The food in the supermarkets was much cheaper than in Finland.

My huge pizza with shrimps (this one I had in Sevilla)

DH cooking

..And the final outcome, very yammy although the fries burned a little in the oven

The weather didn’t cool off even during the nights. You could easily walk at night with the same summer clothes on you had during the day. I had to sleep with the fan turned to maximum and still was sweating like a pig. Also all the shops were closed during siesta at 2PM to 18PM because it was just too hot to be out at the afternoon hours, so we usually spent that time napping. You couldn’t really watch the telly because everything was in Spanish, even the American tv-shows. I can’t understand the European countries who dub all programs; people will never hear the real voices of the actors. But it’s kinda funny to watch Simpsons or Buffy the vampire slayer talking in Spanish

We visited the local zoo, which was great. I saw a lot of animals I’ve never seen live before, Helsinki zoo sucks and we don’t have any exciting animals here. Like the hippos!

Despite their gentle looks these guys kill a lot of people in Africa every year

One evening we went to see a flamenco show at a restuarant and planned to have dinner before that. The food was awful and we had maybe the laziest waiter ever and there was a huge cockroach running around the tables but the show was awesome. There were only 3 American tourists with us as the audience but the dancers gave us a very intensive performance.

The performers on stage

Flamenco dancer

Alley in the evening

We also visited Cadiz which was a small town in the coast an hour’s train trip away. It is said to be one of Europe’s oldest towns. We went to the beach there, but it was again so hot we could only stay for an hour (in the shadow). The sand was so burning hot you couldn’t stand on it without shoes on. But we got to swim in the Atlantic

A local cathedral and market place

Me in the local street

The beach in Cadiz

We also visited Sevilla one day and it was filled with tourists. And it was also burning hot there so we only stayed a few hours before returning back with the blissful, airconditioned bus. The last days we spent mainly on shopping for things to bring to our relatives and ourselves. I bought a very pretty dress for only 10 euros and a few shirts from the sales I hope to wear even later during this pregnancy. Jeans would have been really cheap too but since I’m now starting to develop something you could maybe call a belly I thought it wasn’t a good idea to buy them. There would have been also a lot of baby clothes shops, but since the spaniards seem to prefer dressing their children in ruffles in either blue or pink we didn’t buy anything since we don’t know the sex and are not going to find out before birth.

Spain didn’t fall into my top 5 countries I’ve visited but it was mainly because of the heat. You couldn’t really enjoy yourself when you were constantly sweating. I think spring or autumn would be much nicer times to visit the country, but since the tickets we won had to be used in July we didn’t really have any other option.

When we arrived home (to the heavenly rain and coldness!) there were two letters waiting for me. Another had some really shitty news in it;  I’m not entitled to any unemployement benefits during the time I have done any freelancer work. That sucks so much. I have no money at the moment and had very little work during the spring. I’ve already applied for some work places but who’s gonna hirea a preggo woman? Another had better news in it; it was about the blood test they did with the NT-scan and the results came back with a very minor risk for the trisomy.

Nausea has vanished almost entirely. My face looks still like a pizza but not as bad as a couple of weeks ago. My boobs have grown bigger, I think that’s the symptom DH is loving the most… I get terrible heart burn attacks that almost paralyze me and my belly swells after eating anything. And I’m still shit scared every other second that is the baby still alive or not. I’m 13w2days today.

Midsummer pics

We celebrated midsummer in Finland last weekend. It was freaking cold of course. But the cottage at the island by the sea was awesome. Me and DH stayed in a small sauna cabin just 10 meters from the sea and could hear the waves inside. Very relaxing, as was the whole weekend. Just going to sauna, swimming (the water was ice-cold), eating and chilling. I loved every second of it, even though the weather was cold and windy. There were 2 other preggo ladies (DH’s friend’s wife and DH’s friend’s sister) with me so if I hadn’t been pregnant myself the weekend would have been horrible, continuous stabs in the heart. Even still I really can’t identify myself within the “pregnant” group. And if I share my news with a friend who doesn’t know about our struggles I feel I need to tell them I’ve had if-treatments. I just can’t pretend to have been knocked up “normally”.

But here are some pics from the weekend:

Me in the boat

Boys barbequing

View to the sea

In front of the sauna cabin

Me and the sea

Watching the bonfire

The bonfire closer

After last weekend the weather changed totally. Now it’s real summer! This week has been great; for once I’ve been able to do all summerish stuff I’ve always wanted to. First I spent Tuesday with my friend M at the flea market selling our old stuff, me gaining 100 euros. On wednesday me, M and two other friends went to Suomenlinna which is an old fortress in an island just outside Helsinki (very popular with the tourists) and had a picnic (that lasted 4 hours). Today I’m going swimming to an outside pool with a friend and in the afternoon I’ll drive to my parents as tomorrow me and sis will be selling jewelry at a small rock festival near them. This is how summers should always be. I’ve been even able to wear my cute summer dresses

On Monday I had the first visit at the maternity counseling. They took my blood pressure (which was surprisingly ok, usually I have high figures), Hemoglobin (great 140!) and some pee tests. I was also weighed and so far I’ve only gained one kilo. My nurse was a bit goofy and didn’t understand anything about if-treatments. I also got all kinds of brochures about pregnancy and the list of foods I’m not allowed to eat now like blue cheese, roe and liver.

We had the NT-scan yesterday and everything seemed to be in order. The baby was so stubborn though that he/she didn’t want to have his profile picture taken and turn into right position  so the nurse had hard time measuring the nuchal translucency but somehow succeeded, it was 1.0mm which is fine. He/she measured now 4,7cm and again I was a few days ahead the previous schedule, so now my due date would be 10th January which is actually the due date I should have had originally compared to my treatment schedule.

My face still looks like a disgusting pizza and pretty much all acne medication is a big no-no when you are preggo. The morning sickness is more of evening sickness these days. And my belly gets ridiculously swollen after eating anything; yesterday after having salad I looked 5 months pregnant. I even had to buy myself new capri-pants from the flea market as the ones I had before don’t fit anymore. Today I’m either 11 weeks 2 days or 11 weeks 5 days, depending on which schedule I’m looking.

Next Tuesday we’ll leave for Spain! I reserved an apartment for us so we’ll be living in a real Andalusian house! The only problem is that the proprietor doesn’t really speak English and we don’t speak Spanish. Well, I hope we’ll manage somehow. After the trip I think I’ll come out of the closet and tell all my friends about the baby.

Have a great, sunny weekend everyone

10 weeks!

I’m already ten weeks today I still can’t believe it. I’m nauseous most of the time but haven’t puked after the one time, I have to eat all the time, my face is still covered in acne, I’m a bit moody and my boobs are a little sore. I don’t have a real belly yet, but after eating it get’s really swollen.

I was supposed to have my first maternity counseling appointment on Monday, or at least I thought so. After waiting for 40 minutes I stopped a nurse and asked if it’s common that the appointments are running late. Turned out that the person I was supposed to see was on holiday and my appointment is only at next Monday. GREAT. And nobody cared to tell me when I registered at the reception. Thanks assholes.

I wanted to get my first appointment earlier because we are leaving for Spain soon and I’m anxious about hospital’s timetables for the 11-12 weeks u/s. When I told this to the nurse she dared to say that “you don’t necessarely have to go to the u/s, it’s not compulsory. Or you can do it at a private clinic if there’s a problem with the timetables”. Seriously?! Who would miss the u/s where they measure the swelling of the neck and other important things? Or how would I find magically 200 euros to pay for it at a private clinic since we have no money at the moment after spending everything on making this baby? I knew moving to public healthcare would bring problems and I was right.

We visited my granny at the nursing home last Sunday and I told her that we are having a baby on January. Even though she doesn’t really talk anything anymore she did recognize me and obviously got excited about my news. I was so happy I could share this with her.

Midsummer is next weekend and the weather forecast promises us 13C with thunder and rain. Fuck this Finnish pathetic excuse for a summer, I’m so glad we get to go to Spain so I’ll see at least a little sunshine. We are going to spend the Midsummer at DH’s friend’s cottage at the archipelago by the sea, so nice weather would have been a great bonus but we’ll enjoy barbequing and sauna anyway, no matter the weather.

Recipe for the mushroom/bacon pie (great for hangover or preggo women)

I promised to post the recipe for the pie I baked a while ago. So here it goes, I hope I got the conversions right…

Ground:

100 grams (0.4 cups) margarine/butter

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

3 dl (1.3 cups) wheat flour

0.5 dl (0.2 cups) cold water

Mix flour, salt and baking powder together with soft margarine. Add water and mix until the dough is smooth and tap onto a pie mold.

Filling:

3 eggs

2oo grams (0.4 pounds) grated cheese

3 large champignons or other mushrooms

1 small onion

7o grams (0.2 pounds) bacon

2oo grams (0.4 pounds) pineapple chunks

2oo grams (0.4 pounds) sour cream

1 tsp ground pepper

Fry the bacon, onion and mushrooms on a pan, let cool off for a few minutes. Mix all ingredients together and put on top of the dough. Bake in the oven at 225C (437F) for about 25-30 minutes. Let cool off for 15 minutes before eating. Enjoy

Unfortunately there’s no picture of the pie because this pregnant eating machine ate it so fast.

9w2d (with u/s picture)

We had the u/s on Wednesday and to my relief everything was in order The baby measured now 2,3cm so it was one day ahead compared to my calculations. Now my due date is 13th January 2010. I like the sound of that, number 13 feels lucky to me. Of course I know that most babies aren’t born on the exact due date but I think that would be a cool birthdate. Only that sis and her hubby will be in Vietnam at that time, which sucks. We heard the heartbeat too, it was amazing. It suddenly made this much more concrete.

Now he/she actually looks almost like a real baby (though DH said he looks like a teddy bear )! Next u/s will be in a couple of weeks but no more at the infertility clinic. We can move now to the normal pregnancy control!

Yesterday we had our Belgian guests at Helsinki. They are maybe the nicest couple on earth. Though it had been 2 years since we last saw each other, it didn’t matter. We visited the market hall and some shops, went to a nice cafe I found a couple of weeks ago and had lunch at a Mexican restaurant. They have just gotten married and were on a cruise at the Baltic Sea for their honeymoon, continuing to Stockholm the same evening. I wish we can go to see them in Belgium after the baby is born. I would post pictures but I can’t because I look like a swollen pig in all of them and my face is covered in terrible acne.

This evening a friend of mine is having her graduation party. I haven’t told her about the baby yet, but I think I’ll have to do it tonight since I will anyway look suspicious without a drink in my hand. Tomorrow we’ll head to my parents for some barbeque and sauna and on Sunday we’ll visit my grandmother with whom I want to share our news with. The only problem is she’s not doing so great at the moment, and I can’t be sure if she’ll even recognize me. I still want to tell her.

My cousin gave me some baby magazines and we’ve been browsing them with DH. It’s still really hard to relate to the stuff they are writing about, like a comparison of strollers. And I don’t like the attitude of holy super motherhood that is shining through the text. I’m pretty certain I won’t be a supermom who will feed her children only organic food, take them to all kinds of activating hobbies at the age of 3 months, talk endlessly about breastfeeding and baby poop. I’m certain I will be quite a mess of a mother but still confident that we can raise a decent human being.

Now I’m going to be a good little housewife and do the dishes and clean some of this mess up. And then watch the L-word on telly

Pregnancy milestone

I puked for the first time this morning while brushing my teeth! Yes, I know you were all just dying to hear this enchanting detail Overall the nausea is almost 24/7 but still manageable if I remember to eat enough. Last Friday as I drove 2 hours to my sister I had a box of grapes and salt crackers on the passenger seat and munched them constantly.

Tomorrow is the next u/s. Although the symptoms are strong I’m still very anxious. All kinds of morbid, bad scenarios have been rolling in my head. I think it’s partly because it is still so difficult to believe that this could actually work for us. DH tries to sneak from his work to the clinic too. I hope this will be our final visit to that expensive place, everything will be fine and we can move on to the public healthcare (that doesn’t cost a penny!).

Last weekend’s visit at the market place wasn’t too profitable, since the average age of people there was around 60. And it was freezing cold. The joy of Finnish summers; +7C in June and I was wearing my autumn jacket and gloves. I hope the weather will change soon, as our Belgian guests are coming on Thursday and I would like them to enjoy sunny Helsinki.

Some pics from the market:

our beautiful market table

close-up on the earrings

me, sis and a random old lady on the background

We bought a new sofa as the old one dated back to 1960’s and belonged first to my grandparents, then to my parents, then to sis and finally to me. All these years and people had worn it down so it was time to get a new one. We love it, and so do the cats.

The afternoon kitten nap club

I just went to the supermarket to get some bacon. I know, I’m a disgusting person. But I craved some hangover-food, so I used it to bake a pie together with mushrooms, onion, pineapple and cheese. And a lot of butter. To my defense I have to say I haven’t still gained any weight, the little vampire I carry just sucks everything that I eat to her/himself.

7w6days

I’m almost 8 weeks already! That is, if I’m counting correctly. Because of the low initial beta the length of my pregnancy is still a mystery, hopefully one that will be revealed on next week’s u/s. Which of course already makes me anxious, I hope everything will be ok, baby will have grown enough, has a strong heartbeat and we can stop worrying.

I feel nauseous most of the time but I’ve managed to avoid puking yet. I’m craving all fresh stuff like watermelon, grapes and fruit juices, and strangely coffee and chocolate (usually my biggest favorites) don’t sound too tempting at the moment. And I eat all the time but still gain no weight. In the evenings my belly looks bigger but that’s just probably because I’ve stuffed myself with food all day. Overall I have a strange zombie-like feeling, a little tired, headachy, dizzy and nauseous, like all energy would have been sucked out of me. I’m still cramping every now and then but not too bad. Apparently due to endo and lap my insides are quite scarred and the growing uterus makes those scars hurt.

We had some really warm sunny days but now it’s gray again. We are going with sis to sell jewelry on an outside market on Saturday, and the forecast promises rain and cold for the next weekend. They are also holding a sing-along happening on the market place at the same time. Awesome.

Next week we’ll get visitors from Belgium as a friend couple from there is coming for a cruise on Baltic Sea for their honeymoon. Can’t wait to see them, it’s been 2 years from last time already! I got to know them when I was studying in Maastricht and they’ve already visited Finland once after that.

Not much happening here, took the entrance exam for the Master’s programme last week and it was quite challenging. There was an article (in English) about usability and then some difficult questions based on the information. We’ll know in July how it went… Don’t have much work at the moment and the unemployement office hasn’t paid me anything yet either.

I’m still having difficulties to believe I’m actually preggo. Ok, I feel pregnant now but the the thought of us becoming parents for real after all is still too amazing to think too much about. I guess I’m holding my guard up just in case, after the disappointments I’m overly cautious about everything. I don’t want to share the news with everyone yet (and I know from my stats that I have basically 0 hits from Finland so no one I know is reading this), although quite many friends already know.

Our neighbour guessed right away at our 90’s party because I wasn’t drinking the usual way. Apparantely my non-alcoholic ciders weren’t convincing enough to fool him. In Finland it’s basically impossible to keep your pregnancy a secret if you are going to a party/bar/restaurant. Everyone expects you to drink if you have done so before and if you are having only water/coke/coffee it immediately raises questions. Saying “I just don’t feel like drinking today” is no excuse. Because everyone feels like drinking, especially now it’s summer and the terrace bars are open. Even at my cousin’s daughter’s graduation party last weekend I’m sure people wondered why I took my glass from the children’s tray for toasting. Luckily DH followed my example so that might have distracted my nosy relatives because nobody asked anything.

My cousin gave me this amazing present. It’s a silver bola-necklace originally traditionally worn in Bali by pregnant women. There’s a little bell inside the ball that makes a pretty sound when you move and when the baby starts to hear it’ll hear the sound too and recognize it when he/she is born. I know our baby is still too small to hear anything but I wear it anyway since it’s so pretty

A bola-necklace

Constant hangover

That’s how I feel these days. Nausea (no throwing up yet), dizziness, constant hunger and headache accompany me throughout the days but I’m not complaining, having symptoms make me feel more trusty that there is someone actually on board. I’m about 6w5days and I’m going to call our local midwife today to make my first appointment for the maternity counseling. I told my sister on the phone last weekend and to my big surprise mom hadn’t blurted the news out to her yet. Sis started to cry but I hope it was happy tears, at least it felt like it and she told me how amazing this is and that she’s really really happy.

Still I know that if this pregnancy continues normally (and I surely hope it will!) and I get to have that big belly in the end I will surely cause bad feelings for someone. Because I felt so devastated seeing  those bellies around me during this struggle and thinking that they must have gotten knocked up at their first try. And I know there are a lot of us out there who struggle to get pregnant, face the disappointments month by month, swallow our tears and bite our lip watching others build their families. I still can’t understand totally that I’m pregnant after all the desperation I felt this spring. And I’m still really scared that something bad can happen.

Tomorrow is the entrance exam for the Master’s programme I applied to. I have no idea how the test is going to be like so I can’t really stress about it in advance. Also tomorrow evening I’m picking up our good friend H from the airport, she is coming back to Finland after spending over a year around Africa, can’t wait to see her!

Summer is here, everything is green and it’s +20C! I hope this summer we’ll have LOTS of sunshine and only a few gray, rainy days. But knowing the capriciousness of Finnish summer, we’ll surely get bucketloads of water.

They are fixing the plumbing of our building for a few days and we have to go to bathroom outside, like the bathrooms you have in rockfestivals. AWESOME. And can’t use water either.

Btw non-alcoholic red wine tastes like shit. Don’t bother. Non alcoholic cider on the other hand was good, almost like the real stuff.

Never-ending rollercoaster ride

I had terrible, terrible continous cramps from Wednesday afternoon all the way to the following night. Felt really like AF showing up any minute and had to even leave my Russian class in advance because I was so devastated about how I was feeling and couldn’t concentrate on anything. Symptoms have disappeared completely and I don’t feel preggo at all + I had some light brownish discharge and I know these put together isn’t very promising.

I just couldn’t bear the anxiety anymore and phoned the clinic this morning (yesterday was a public holiday) and requested an u/s. My own RE was super busy so they arranged me to see another doctor. My heart rate was maybe a million when she inserted the dildocam.

There was the gestational sac. The tiny fetus.
And the tiniest flickering heartbeat.

I can’t describe the relief I felt. I was so SURE that it was all over since the pain had been so intense and the symptoms had vanished.

Now I’m going to ban any googling/ttc boards from myself during the rest of my pregnancy. I’m not gonna think about the odds, I’m not going to compare how my fetus measures to others, I’m not gonna stress about my low beta levels or the lack of symptoms.

The fact is I AM pregnant right now whether I feel it or not. And for fuck’s sake I think I’ve earned the right to be happy about it even for a second and put the stressing aside. I am 6 weeks (+ maybe some days) pregnant today and I’m gonna enjoy now every second of this.

Anxiety

I’m really really scared that we are going to lose this baby. Since Monday I’ve been cramping a lot and my symptoms have been gradually vanishing to zero. I know neither of those is a good sign. I don’t feel preggo at all at this moment, I only feel pretty much like before AF.

I almost called RE for a new u/s for Friday but in the end, what good would it do. There’s no way they could prevent an early miscarriage if it’s about to happen. I just hope it won’t.

I always thought that if I’d ever would get pregnant that would be it, no more worries and we would end up with a healthy baby. Now I know that the true anxiety only begins with the BFP; the nervousness waiting for beta numbers, u/s visuals and watching your symptoms come and go. And nothing is for sure.

Please, baby stay with us.
I so want this to work.