We Are Family!

We are so happy about the birth of Linus! This is little three-day-old him.

The little mouse was born this sunday morning, nearly strangled by his umbilical cord and had to be delivered by vacuum extraction. It was all very scary as I didn´t know at first if he had made it. We are so happy he is alive and healthy! The sweetest child ever! He and I came home from the hospital yesterday afternoon and when I was standing before our front door I noticed for the first time how exhausted I feel. So we are still keeping visitors at bay and just try to relax. So no long posting for now...

Raspberry and Cream

Yesterday, I finished the variation of Hanna´s scarf that I had startet months ago... As I didn´t have enough of the raspberry yarn, I decided to add a cream colored border. I like how it emphasizes the ruffles.

I suffer from mood swings these days, which I hate. One moment, I´m the happiest person, then again I feel overwhelmed - not ready yet for the baby. When I went to my midwife today, I burst into tears when she asked me how I was... I didn´t even know why. Oh, boy! But we talked awhile and now I feel better.
I´m still not sure what exactly caused me to cry, if it´s just all of these hormones, or if it´s something more fundamental. It´s probably a mixture of many things... hormones, the heat, fear of all the change that´s ahead of me, feeling guilty about not feeling quite ready for the baby yet... And this is strange, because I really want to have this baby. I´m looking forward to holding him in my arms. But still I want a little more time. Not much. Only a little.
I didn´t expect these feelings. Most of my friends who already have babies told me that they were so tired of being pregnant in the last weeks before their due date... Well, I´m not - yet. Maybe now that my sciatic nerve doesn´t bother me any more, I simply feel too good *lol*.

Week 40 Already!!!

I can´t believe my pregnancy is almost over! I´m already in waiting position, relaxing a lot. Everything that needed to be done before my little one´s birth is done. And finally I have some time again for creative projects. So now I´m working on finishing all the unfinished projects.
And yes! The blanket is finished! I´m glad all the borders fall flat after blocking the thing. Now, my little one has a soft cosy blanky to welcome him! Although I doubt that I will be using this one at first, as it´s very hot here at the time. Too hot for a 100% Merino blanket...

Baby Blanket

The Baby Blanket is nearly finished! I already knitted the little duck bills, but before I can sew them on, I´ll need to sew in all the loose ends on the backside... a task I don´t like at all (so I keep putting it off). Well, I hope to finish the blanket before the big day! I also hope that the problem of the border turning over will be gone after blocking the thing.
I still have problems with that stupid sciatic nerve. Sometimes I can hardly walk or get up from wherever I´ve been sitting. I´m just so glad that most of my nest-building activities are already done! My midwife showed me some moves that may help baby to find a different position. So far it hasn´t helped. But I´ll keep on trying to motivate my little one to move down a bit more! Wish me luck!

36 Weeks

My husband took a few photos of me in the park this sunday to have some memories of my growing belly. It´s still one of the smallest bellies in the "Belly Club" as I like to call my childbirth class. Unfortunately, I had to limp over to the park, because my sciatic nerve is causing me trouble. I hope my midwife, who I see today, has some idea of how to relieve the pain a little. Maybe acupuncture or something will help.

Other than that, the weekend has been a great one. Saturday started off with my childbirth class, where this time all the future daddies came along. The class started with some relaxation exercises, where both the moms and the dads put their hands on the baby bump... My midwife told us to concentrate on the child and find out if our child started to calm down when we placed our hands on the belly or if it started to kick, "as some kids were more communicative..." - just as she said this, our little one started to kick Jans hands, as if to say: " Yes, I´m that type!", hee, hee. I wonder where he got that from *grin*.

When the class was over, we went to the hospital, where I want to give birth, in order to pre-register. Then we had to hurry a little bit, because we had a busy afternoon ahead of us. Grocery shopping, a visit to Ikea, preparing food for a birthday party that we were invited to in the evening... The party was a lot of fun and we came back late in the night.

Sunday, we had friends over for coffee and strawberry cake. Their nine-months old son had just started to crawl and we all had a lot of fun playing with him and making him laugh. He´s still so easy to entertain ;-) Trying to bite into Jans toes seemed to be the greatest pleasure for him, hee, hee. It was so much fun - now we are even more looking forward to having our own baby here in our arms. If it weren´t for giving birth first...

Baby Bed

We haven´t started changing my old studyroom/studio into a nursery yet. We want to take our time, as baby will be sleeping in our bedroom for the first few month anyway, and I don´t want to risk being in the middle of a remodel when baby is due (only about a month to go!). So, I´m glad, I found this cute co-sleeping bed from Roba on the internet! You can hook it up the parents bed, so baby can sleep safely next to mom or dad. That way we won´t always have to get up in order to feed or console our little one. In the daytime, you can just put up the fourth side of the bed and push the bed over to the living room, or wherever you want to. The bed comes with rockers, so you can also make into a cradle, if you´d like. When baby grows too big and gets too mobile, the bed is no longer safe, but it can still be used as a bench in the nursery.
It´s hard to believe that in no time at all, a real baby- our real baby- will be sleeping in this bed. Right now, our test-baby a.k.a. Urs the teddybear is taking his naps there ;-)

Birdy Swap

I can finally show you my part of the swap! You can see a larger version of it by clicking on the picture.

And this is what I got from Holli. Isn´t it fun? I love it so much! You can see a better picture of it on her blog.

What I´ve been up to...

I can´t believe it´s already a month since I last posted!

So, what have I been up to lately? We are still busy preparing our home for the arrival of our baby. Despite my growing belly, I´m still pretty fit and filled with energy. The only thing that doesn´t work so well anymore is bending over, hee, hee. Plus, I have to take it easier than before, because otherwise my belly starts getting contractions.

We were pretty busy these last weeks reorganizing our home, buying furniture, a fridge, and a dryer, and finding new places for our stuff. One of these places is the trash can *lol*.
But we also got a lot of new stuff to fill the corners of our home. Most of these things are for baby, but some are from my grandmother´s apartment that had to be cleared. I was very lucky to "inherit" a lot of beautiful baby clothes from a good friend of mine, when I visited her a little while ago. She also gave me a large banana-shaped cushion for supporting the baby while nursing. It´s also great for sleeping better lying on the side or putting my legs up, when they get heavy from the heat we are having.

So now, I have everything I need for the baby to arrive. There are only a few things left lying around on the floor to be put away into our new living room shelves and then - hopefully - I can finally start to relax and get back to more creative stuff. I crave to do that!

Overwhelmed

I felt a little overwhelmed these days with all that still needs to be done before our little one arrives. The biggest problem we are facing is lack of storage space. So I started throwing out a lot of useless stuff last week. But there still is a lot to do. I felt quite depressed yesterday and spent most of my day on the couch - something I haven´t done in a while. Just when I was preparing myself to go to bed, it clicked... I was putting too much pressure on myself to have everything perfectly organized before baby arrives. No wonder I was feeling so low. So, I started asking myself what really mattered and realized that many things that need to be done can wait for the time being. I can still do this and that when baby is here. I feel better already. All I´m going to do is making lists of what needs to be done and then prioritizing. I really don´t need too much stress right now.
So today, I tried to relax a little more. I sat down to study some baby catalogues and later went out shopping for the little guy. So much fun! I feel better already. Just need to find a place to store everything now...