Pregnancy Report

I'm sure there are plenty of other things I could talk about, like how adorable the furry new bear babies in Bern are (now that the weather is nicer and they've come out of their cave to frolic clumsily and fall down hills and attack each other in an incompetently adorable way), or how nice it is now that it's not completely freezing every day (even though everything still looks pretty grey and grim and dead). But I'm not going to.

Every time I want to open a tin (that doesn't have a ring pull thing on it, which is most of the tins in my life) I have to get Reto to do it for me. Our tin opener is in a Swiss army knife (an actual one that the Swiss army gave to Reto, funnily enough) and apparently my vampire baby has leached me of sufficient fingernail strength that I would now starve if I was forced to exist on a diet of nothing but tinned corn and chickpeas. Or if I didn't have Reto to open tins for me. Or if I didn't have the means to go and buy a tin opener that I can use.

I almost fainted the other weekend. Sitting down outside in the fresh air made me feel better again, but unfortunately, a few days later at an antenatal class where we were a much larger group than normal, being given a talk by a gynaecologist and an anaesthetist, I started to feel similarly weak and fainty. I went outside and felt better again after a few minutes on the balcony, but then the second time it happened that evening everyone paid a bit more attention to me coming and going, and all of a sudden I had a midwife and the gynaecologist fussing over me in a riot of different languages (which was kind of confusing). They made me come and have my blood pressure checked after the talk was over, found it to be surprisingly high and had a bit of a panic. They insisted I go and see my doctor the next day and have everything checked, so I did, and I was fine. Avoiding poorly ventilated, overly heated rooms seems to be the solution, which should be easy but the Swiss seem to like nothing more that heating their rooms too much and never opening the windows.

People stare at me a lot. It seems to be a common complaint of non-Swiss people living here that the Swiss have an enthusiasm for staring for no apparent reason, something I've never really noticed apart from during the last few weeks. My tummy is really not that big by pregnancy standards (it's far more annoying how often people goggle sceptically at me when I tell them I only have a few weeks to go, as though they think I am lying or deluded or have a pillow shoved down my top and am not pregnant at all, or they start grilling me on my eating habits and whether Reto is a midget or something), but in the last few weeks I have been openly stared and pointed at by squillions of passers-by. One person even stopped as we were passing him and turned to gawk at my stomach. I would wonder if I was being paranoid and if people were just looking in my general direction, but the pointing is really pretty unmistakeable.

Antenatal Classes

Things I discovered at my first antenatal class last night:

Everything should be fine in french. I already suspected this, but it's nice to have some confirmation.
Everyone else's tummy is waaaay bigger than mine. Most notably (obviously) the woman who has started classes even further along in her pregnancy than us and is due in about a month, but even the women who are 2 months behind me.
The midwife that I had an appointment with at the hospital a few weeks ago (so she could get all my medical details and talk to me about my pregnancy/birth/baby-worries) may have thought I was lying when I said I'm not particularly worried about anything. I'm actually not and my pregnancy continues to breeze along without causing me much trouble at all, but all the other women in the class seemed to have terrible stories about how hard it is on them physically and how they're not sleeping, exhausted, having a bad time at work or with their doctor, blahblahblah. I had nothing to add to that part of the conversation.
The six classes are going to drag on forever. We were there for 2 and a half hours last night!

Suburban Mystery

Something funny is going on with our letter box. When we moved in we made a little sign with our names on it and stuck it on the letterbox, along with a "no junk mail" sign. I don't really remember what happened with the first name tag, but it fell off after about a year and a half and we made another one to replace it. About a month after we put it up, someone peeled off the second name tag (all these signs are paper stuck on with sticky tape) and re-stuck it onto the top left corner of the letter box. The sticky tape clearly didn't appreciate being made to unstick and restick, but it clung pathetically there for some number of months and we didn't give it much thought. At the same time as the second tag was moved, our "no junk mail" sign (which was in german) was taken away and replaced with a french one, as were most of the other non-matching junk mail stickers on our neighbours' letterboxes.

The other week we got no mail. Eventually we realised that this was because the name tag had fallen off the letter box (and there are no apartment numbers here - if your name isn't on the letter box you don't get any mail) so we made another tag and stuck it on. Two days later we saw that someone had unstuck the third name tag and restuck it in the top left corner again. There are 6 letter boxes for our building, and of those 5 have their name tags in the top left corner, and 4 have matching "no junk mail" stickers (another one has an unmatching one and the last has none). No one has ever said anything to us about the importance of name tag placement.

Who is moving our stickers? And why? I am extremely sceptical that it would be our landlords, because they're not really concerned with anything much (I'm sure that if the appearance of the letter boxes was at the forefront of their daily thoughts, they wouldn't have painted them hideous lime green nor let us make crappy paper-and-sticky-tape name tags instead of buying those matching metal name plates that seem to be the norm here. Plus maybe they'd be more concerned about fixing our crumbling walls and they might have made us pay a bond when we moved in. I really like their lack of concern). Is it the people from the post office? Does the misalignment of our name tag cause them so much difficulty in their work? Is it so hard (in this bilingual canton) to read "no junk mail" in german as well as in french? And why didn't whoever moved our name tag move the one remaining misaligned name tag on our building's collection of letter boxes as well?

Strange.

No Choice

It never really occurred to me that perhaps partners don't attend births these days. I've never really talked about it with anyone of my own age (or with anyone at all), so who knows if I'm living in some sort of strange fairytale land or not, but I've always assumed that Reto will be there when our unborn baby is born. And so he will be, there's no question about that. People keep asking him, though, and I've noticed that his response is becoming ever more hesitant.

"You are going to be there with me in hospital when the baby is born, you know" I said to him one day upon noticing his apparent unenthusiasm.
"Yeah, I know"
"So what's with all the hesitation? You don't want to come?"
"Erm .. well.."
"I don't care. I don't really want to be there either, but if I have to you have to too, so there"
"My opinion on it all is that it doesn't really matter what I want, I'm just going to do what you want me to do"

So that's that all clarified then, and in the best way possible I suspect.

Slobs

Reto went crazy at a book sale the other day and came home with a huge collection of crappy books that no one else wanted to give a home to. I'm reading one of them at the moment, Microtrends, about small but significant behaviour patterns (in the USA) that one might be surprised at. One of these is the prevalence of people who describe themselves as slobs (and "America has always fancied itself a country that values neatness", apparently) which is something like 10% of the population. According to their statistics,

"Fewer than 1 in 4 make their beds as part of a daily routine. More than 1 in 3 will leave their dishes in the sink more than a day. About 15% will even leave dirty dishes in their den, living room, or bedroom longer than a day. When they get undressed at night, almost 4 in 10 drop their clothes on the floor. One in 3 lets kitchen countertop clutter go uncleaned for more
than a week, if not indefinitely."

Hmm. So I guess that puts Reto and I, as well as practically everyone I know, firmly in Slobville. The big difference being that I don't actually consider myself a slob.

Woof

While I've spent most of this week flailing about and being sick as a dog (well, I've had a cold), the dogs we saw last weekend were adorable and not showing any outward signs of illness.

(not sick)

We went to a cold mountainy town (Kandersteg) and watched some dog sled races, and it was really surprisingly fun. I don't know anything about dogs, but they all seemed to be having a nice time and were going COMPLETELY MENTAL jumping around and straining at their harnesses and making a racket while awaiting their turn to go hooning off around the track.(some dogs were hooning less than others. Admittedly this was uphill, and it was freezing in the shade, and teams of less than about 6 dogs really seemed a lot more knackered by the end, but yes, that is the sled person running along behind, and yes, that dog on the right looks like he might be wondering about a shortcut)

Particular marks for adorableness go to the samoyeds (for being so furry),

(not samoyeds, because I figured they were already overrepresented in the photos below)

to the dogs in boots, to all the dogs that turned all cute and puppyish while gawky spectators gave them a pat (some of these dogs looked like they'd prefer to bite their own legs off than submit to the indignity of being patted, but I didn't see one that maintained its steely-eyed glareyness in the face of actual affection), and, most of all, to this dog in goggles, who seemed to be the favourite of all the spectators.Special mention also goes to the person who got so keen about taking photos that he kinda went onto the track and then got run into by one of the teams of dogs. Stoopid.

(not this person. It wasn't Reto either, by the way. Or me)

Enjoying The Dread

The other day we sprayed our squeaky bathroom door hinges (and front door hinges, although they were much less squeaky than the bathroom ones) with some WD-40 and now they are silent. My quality of life has improved enormously. The squeak had been getting worse for the last few months, and reached a frenzy of Psycho-ish, high-pitched, fingernail-down-a-blackboardyness last week that finally drove us to action.

Nowadays, when I am about to open the bathroom door I am usually swept up by a sense of dread ("nooo, not the noise!"), and the subsequent happiness I feel at not hearing the squeal is out of all proportion. It really makes my day, which is especially nice since trips to the toilet are becoming ever more frequent.

Bad Cheese

Having been reasonably diligent for the last 6 and a half months at avoiding booze and rare meat and oysters and all the other yummy things they tell you to avoid when you're pregnant, today as I was eating a piece of emmental cheese I happened to look at the packet and notice it was made from raw milk (which is another thing on the list of foods to avoid). "Oops", I thought, then cut myself a piece of gruyère. And as I was eating it, I noticed it is also made from raw milk. Hmm. I would say I've eaten these two cheeses (as in these particular brands of them) on average every single day that I've been pregnant (clearly that's an exaggeration, but only because I spent some time out of the country).

That being said, Reto's just done a bit of research and found that apparently hard cheeses are fine even if they are made from raw milk.

Guessing Game

Reto stopped at a bakery and bought some bread on the way home last night. He also brought me a present.

Me: Ooh, is it from the bakery?
Him: Yes
Is it bread?
No
Is it cake?
No
Is it a biscuit?
No
Is it a pastry?
No
Is it fruity?
No
Is it custardy?
No
Is it chocolatey?
No
Is it savoury?
No
Is it really from the bakery?
Yes
Is it ...

[hours later]
Is it an incomprehensibly Swiss occasion-specific specialty that I will never ever guess?
Um .. no
Did you really get me a present from the bakery?
Yes

And eventually I gave up. Apparently the correct guess would have been "is it something like a madeleine but in the shape of a bear?". Which I would say actually counts as a cake.

Who?

I'm often concerned that I won't recognise Reto when I have arranged to meet him somewhere crowded, and instead of looking for his face I look for the clothes he's wearing or for the bag he has carried pretty much every day for the last 7 years. Clearly this is ridiculous and obviously I am pretty familiar with what he looks like, but I remember being worried the first time he came to Australia that I wouldn't recognise him at the airport (I hadn't seen him for 6 months or so) and my concern doesn't seem to have abated much since then.

*

Yesterday we went out and bought Reto a new bag for Christmas. I had bought him a different new bag for Christmas, after he had spent forever going on about how his old bag was on its last legs and he needed a new one. He decided he didn't like the bag I gave him (fair enough; it was deceptively small and not super terrific) but it wasn't a complete loss because it provided the impetus to end the complaining and actually go and buy a new one. And so we did, and although the new bag is the same make and brand as the old bag (Freitag. Apparently I'm not Swiss enough to understand why everyone here loves them so much) it's a different colour and he looks completely different carrying it than he looked with the old one.

*

I can't button up my normal winter coat any more. This problem was clearly getting closer and closer before our Christmassy sojourn in Australia, and now that we've got back and it's so freezing all the time I've been forced to retire the old green one (which I've been wearing constantly for the last 2 and a half winters) and embrace a less charming but more spacious brown one that I found in the cupboard. Yesterday as we were walking through a crowded train station, Reto and I were slightly separated (by no more than a metre) by people walking in the other direction. The crowd thinned and I was moving back over towards Reto when I noticed him looking distractedly out past me into the crowd. Had he seen someone he knew? No, he was looking for me. He didn't recognise me because I wasn't wearing my green coat. This (I hope) also explains why I saw him making a move to hold the hand of a stranger the other day during a similar crowd-separation situation.

Pregnancy - A Bit Dull

I would write an exciting pregnancy update post, but it's just not that exciting. Apart from having made christmas a bit sad (what with all the booze and oysters and things on offer that I mostly valiantly said no to) and made my legs swell up like elephant legs on the flights to and from Australia (really, you should have seen my knees! I might have anticipated swollen ankles and feet, but my knees! My calves! My thighs! Fortunately everything was back to normal after a nice night of lying down) there hasn't been that much going on. I have put on 11kg or so, which seems like more than I should have gained at this stage (28 weeks), but last night I was told by a gaggle of semi-strangers that I'm looking "tiny" (which I don't think I've ever been called before in any context. And one of them may have implied that she didn't really believe that I am pregnant, or possibly that I am as pregnant as I am), and most of the time I am still wearing my normal non-pregnant clothes (although I have retired my tighter jeans and tshirts).

All the necessary shopping is also starting to loom a bit dauntingly. I'm not a big fan of shopping at the best of times, and the fact that this baby shopping requires me to do research into what I need (and where I can buy it) is incredibly off-putting. As is the fact that it's too cold to rustle up much enthusiasm for going outside to do things I don't want to do. I had planned to do some baby-stuff research in Australia, where it would be easy to pump shop assistants for information, but my unenthusiasm meant I didn't get around to anything more than buying a baby sling and a few adorably cute clothes (as well as being given some other adorably cute clothes by my mother). Nappies are my main torment at the moment.

On the less complainy side, though, the idea of having a little person is pretty exciting, and feeling her rolling about and doing whatever it is she's doing in there is really lovely, and we bought her a completely excellent toy wombat a while ago. And a mobile with whales on it. And not having spent the last 6 months vomiting or being exhausted or having haemorrhoids or any of that stuff is probably a fairly good thing.

So Furry

Adorably cute kangaroos, as seen from my parents' garden.

Getting Things Done

Jet lag makes us efficient.

Which isn't actually true at all, but it does mean that we had woken up, lounged around in bed, had a leisurely breakfast, called my parents, been indecisive about what to do today, done some googling and made a decision, organised ourselves, left the house and caught a bus by 8am (that was after waking up at 4am, so really it took us ages). We went to a thermal pool in Charmey, a nearby-ish town, and it was great. We arrived in time to have a coffee and a croissant (normally I loathe croissants and only eat them if I'm starving but this one was actually ... edible. If not slightly enjoyable) before the pool even opened and still be practically the first ones there. Unusually, the entry price (which was relatively cheap) included all the novelty pools (by which I mean saunas in various styles and temperatures, and a coldcoldcold pool and a foot bath too, I think, none of which I used because apparently these things are verboten during pregnancy. Well, not the foot bath but the rest of it). The main pools (one indoor, one outdoor) had a few of the bubbly/jetty things that are always fun at a thermal pool place, but not so many that the whole thing would be a magnet for little kids who like to frolic mindlessly and kick you as they don't watch where they're going. There were pretty mountains around to look at. The walls and floors were all covered in really nice green mosaic-y tiles. On the down side, we caught a very inconvenient bus to get home again and spent an hour and a half following some tortuous route through the smaller towns of canton Fribourg, but I guess you can't win them all.

And then we had a fondue as a very early dinner, and now I'm wondering how early I can possibly go to bed. I suppose I should try to stay awake and get rid of the jet lag, but bed seems very enticing.

Flying

Yesterday I was worrying about getting sunburnt at the beach and the dilemma of having to potentially pack wet swimmers in my suitcase for the flight back to Switzerland (you'll all be pleased to know they dried in about 2 seconds after I hung them on the line), today I struggled not to fall over in the snow slush on the way home from the train station with my giganto suitcase and in my summery shoes. Sigh.

In other news, when we were going through the metal detectors in Dubai, one of the staff asked me "are you pregnant?". I said yes, and she directed me around the side of the machines and over to some woman who took me into a cubicle and frisked me (in lieu of being metal detected). I think most options are better than being frisked (including those nudie scanners that are causing such controversy lately), but this was the first I've heard of avoiding metal detectors during pregnancy. Which is possibly not ideal, since I've gone through at least 4 of them in the last few weeks.

Parenthood - Sort Of Imminent

For me, being frequently nudged in the tummy by Unborn Baby is the biggest spur to realising that parenthood is coming. For Reto, ikea-ing together the crib we bought the other day (and then lugged home on the train, which was not as inconvenient as it could have been but still, grr) was his kick in the stomach.

Sicko

Reto might have swine flu. That's a home diagnosis, but he's kind of flu-ey, quite feverish (although it's hard to tell how much because our thermometer seems to be pathetic, but he's reliably about 2.5 degrees warmer than me) and spends all his time loafing around in bed, overdressed and complaining about being cold. Fortunately my doctor went a bit hysterical about how he thought it was a good idea for me to have the vaccination (unlike the previous time I asked him about it, which was 6 weeks or so before, when he suggested it was a bit of a waste of time. I take the fact that he changed his mind as a good thing) and so I did have it a few weeks ago. I'd better not get sick.

Update: he seems to be much better today. His temperature is now the same as mine and his conversation is much better than it has been for days.

Big Scary Spiders, Swiss-Style

We found a big spider on the wall the other night. Reto panicked a bit (but not so much that he was incapable of taking a photo of it).

(with my hand for comparative purposes. Note also that the spider is completely non-threatening looking and could easily be nothing worse than the world's biggest daddy long legs)

As I always do, I took the humane option and caught the spidey in a container. The only convenient outdoor place to get rid of it was on the dead-ish basil plants on our windowsill, but since that window is opened pretty much every day, it didn't seem like the best option. So, possibly less humanely, I chucked the spider out the window.

If you were walking along the street 3 floors below our house the other night and a spider landed on you, I'm sorry.

Attacked By A Bear

Last Saturday we spent a pleasant afternoon in Bern, going to a museum, dawdling around and seeing the recently-opened bear park, the much less offensive replacement for the horrible bear pit. If we'd gone this week instead, it may have been kinda less pleasant.

Some lunatic climbed over the bear park's fence this afternoon and got into the enclosure of one of the bears. Unsurprisingly, he was attacked by the bear. A policeman shot the bear. The bear and the man are both alive but understandably injured.

Idiot.

Announcement

I've lost so much enthusiasm for this blog that I can't even rustle up the ability to announce this in an interesting way, so, to put it simply...

I'm pregnant! Quite a lot, actually (almost 5 months) but even if you saw me every day you probably still wouldn't know unless I'd told you (or if you came over to our house and saw the assorted books about pregnancy and ultrasound pictures lying around). I don't look pregnant, I didn't spend my days vomiting sadly into the toilet, and apart from the multivitamins and VAST numbers of iron tablets I'm taking every day (actually only 2, but there's a lot of iron in them), everything's pretty much business as usual. Except that I have a tiny baby girl living in my insides. Due in April. So that's nice.

Laundry (Again)

Annoying: someone leaving their half-done load of laundry in the only machine in our building for a day and a half (and counting). I tried to take it out today so I could do my washing, which was how I discovered that the load was only half done - water poured out all over me and the floor when I opened the door. Not that it's all that important that I get my laundry done (I have plenty of clean clothes), it's just annoying. As Swiss laundry always seems to be.