Second Birth

When I wrote my last post and thought I might be going in to labor, I actually already was in labor. I arrived in the hospital a little later and I was checked by a midwife. Contractions started at 8:30 a.m. and at 12 at noon I was at 4 cm. That is pretty damn good. Cervix goes from 0 to 10 cm before the baby can be pushed out and the speed increases in time. The first centimeters can take weeks and the last centimeters can even take mere minutes in some cases. Last time it must have taken about 30 hours for my cervix to get to 4 cm so on Friday I felt like I had already skipped a lot of labor time and it really can't take very long to get to the big finish.

Erkki arrived to the hospital half an hour later because he waited for the babysitter to arrive. We arranged for Siiri to spend the day with the babysitter and the weekend with Erkki's parents. I have repeatedly warned Siiri that this will happen in the near future so I really think she won't be too shocked to spend a few days without seeing her parents. Siiri will be okay and she'll see us when we come home from the hospital with her little sister.

Unfortunately, I sure did choose a bad day to give birth because it was nearly a full house. I was expecting a birth room with all the comforts that I remembered from last time - from bathtub to a large rubber ball but all I got was some small room with a bed, a small bathroom with shower and a wall covered with a practical cupboard for midwife tools. "We're out of bigger rooms. There are so many women giving birth today." I immediately asked about about the family room for after birth, so that Erkki could stay the night, and the midwife said she can't make any promises. This was just a friendly nurse who happened to be there. My hired midwife arrived soon after and immediately got to work. She got me the rubber ball that I asked for and got me in line for one of the better birth rooms with a tub. One woman had already given birth and I just had to wait for the two hours after birth to pass and for janitors to clean the room. My midwife was really bad-ass when it comes to organizing such stuff. Soon after we talked, she excused herself to the hallway and I heard her tell someone, "She wants a ball..." and I could swear her vocal tone added, "...and you're gonna find one for her RIGHT NOW." .

Anyway, I spent a couple of hours in that small room and I was using all the old tricks for relieving contractions. I paced around the room rubbing my back and my stomach, I swung from side to side on the ball and I waddled my hips to distract myself from the increasingly painful cramping. Erkki timed my contractions and you know what, they were REALLY irregular. 2 minutes, 3 minutes, 4 minutes, 2 minutes, 6 minutes. Whenever there was a pattern, it soon disappeared. Eventually it was around 3 minutes for a while and the contractions were hard to ignore. Me and Erkki calculated when we'll see the baby. Taking into account the last known dilation of the cervix and the statistics that in repeat pregnancies it opens 2 cm in an hour, I should be fully dilated by 3 o'clock and we'll see the baby at 5 or 6 at the latest.

At 3 o'clock I was moved to the bigger birth room and the midwife inspected me. "I have to tell you, it isn't going fast at all. It's at 5 or 6 cm and the amniotic sack is completely tight and won't let the baby's head pressure the cervix to open any wider. We might end up having to puncture it so it doesn't stop the birth process.". So much for being completely dilated at 3 o'clock. We agreed that I'll spend some time in the tub and if that doesn't help then we'll decide how to proceed. The bath took a long time to be filled and finally at 3:45 I got in.

I had a serious talk with the midwife. It turns out I had quite missed the entire point of labor pains. I had kept reading and reading how it's the only "meaningful" pain that exists. It helps the woman in labor understand what she has to do to make labor safer and better. By doing "what feels right", the woman can make labor much more effective and less painful. Actually, what feels right is to do anything that reduces the pain. And since the pain is caused by the head of the baby pressing down on the cervix, it feels very right to tighten up everything below that area and making sure the head can't press down very strongly. That's what I did - I didn't realize it myself but I tightened up to reduce the pain. The bathtub helps because it relaxes the body and promotes labor. So from the moment I got into that bathtub, I tried my best to just go limp whenever I felt a contraction. And I mean totally limp. If it was a yoga position, it would be called, "play dead".

So there I was, lying in the huge bathtub inside a floatation aid and looking absolutely miserably fed up. I tried different positions and I tried to stick with the ones that hurt most but it was so damn uncomfortable. Initially Erkki could read me some daily news to keep my mind occupied but pretty soon I wasn't into it anymore. By the time I was completely lethargic, the midwife walked in and told us that I'll soon come out of the tub and then... "What do you mean out?" , I asked, being surprised and confused. So my midwife explained that it's policy that I can only be in the bathtub for one and a half hours and then I have to be out for one and a half hours before I can get back in. It felt quite uncomfortable to think that I would have to start supporting my own weight again. My midwife gave me another half an hour (which would actually exceed the policy time by fifteen minutes) and started to walk out again but I wanted some more feedback about positions and pain management so she stayed a little longer when I suddenly had some really weird jolts in my abdomen.

WHAT WAS THAT?! And then I felt it again. Like some sort of spasms. "I think I feel like pressing! Somethings wrong! I can't possibly be fully dilated yet! What's happening?!" The midwife started rambling something about "don't be afraid. Go with it!" and I was trying to hold back and to get her to tell me if I might be dilated. I even proposed that she should check just to make sure the urge to press isn't premature. I had read that when that happens, the woman might press too early and the cervix might tear. I sure did not want that to happen. Midwife kept telling me not to be afraid and I kept pressing her for information until she finally told me that being in water might indeed have been such a birth enhancer for me that it's totally realistic that I'm ready to push the baby out. So that's what I tried to do.

At first I tried to "breathe the baby out" like I had read was possible but it felt so uncomfortable to hold myself back so I tried very slowly to let the body push it out without much active pushing. Then I just really wanted to help along and suddenly blop - the water broke. And then the baby started moving as well and 3 minutes later I pushed and screamed (yeah, just like in the movies) and the baby was born. The entire pushing phase only took 12 minutes and it was all so confusingly sudden. I didn't even have the time or the will to get out of the tub so it was a water birth. Everything was really confusing for a while with getting out of the bath and all the procedures but there she was - a small girl with straight black hair. That's an interesting phenotype from Erkki's side of the family. Siiri also had that and now her hair is strawberry blond and curly. And it was quite deja vu because she looks really similar to Siiri. The same nose, similar eyes, same lips.

All in all, it was a very successful birth. Despite the fast ending I didn't need any stitches. Baby's apgar score was 9 and she even cried a little. Weight 3656 g and length 51 cm. A totally adorable bundle of joy. Less than two hours later I sat on the side of the bed and ate. In the evening I was already walking around, unlike the last time when I was only able to eat, sleep and feed for days.

We decided to name her Liisa Nele. I really thought she would be a joyfully energetic contrast to the contemplative and decisive Siiri but I swear Liisa looks even more serious and adult-like. Only time will tell how she'll turn out.

Oh, and we did get the family room so that me and Erkki could spend 3 nights in the hospital getting to know Liisa and to give her some quiet time to memorize our faces.

PS! Sorry for the typos and the lack of emoticons. I wrote it on iPad and this doesn't even have a Ctrl button for easy copying or arrows to move around in the text.

PPS! *post edited later*

Maybe Something

I've been having something like contractions for over three hours already. Already made arrangements with the babysitter and the midwife and I'm going to the hospital to make sure whether it is "something" or "nothing". I mean it's very regular and it was around five minutes before I started packing and making arrangements and I have no idea how frequent it is now because I already packed my phone (Lap Timer app is great). The "problem" is that it's like casual cramping that barely shows in my face. I'm not screaming in pain like in all those silly teenage movies where they are trying to make a point that giving birth is really serious and truly painful. I should be in pain but I'm not. Maybe being induced really does make a difference in how childbirth feels.

Anyway, I'm going to the hospital with my bag to have a checkup. If I'm giving birth then they'll probably notice, I hope. I was going to walk to the hospital, but now some of the maybe contractions seem to be only a couple of minutes apart so I'm taking a taxi just to be sure that I don't give birth somewhere on the sidewalk.

I'll let you know.

Time Is Ticking Away

What does a 2-year-old with a growth spurt demand at 3 a.m. in the middle of bed time? The correct answer is, "Lets go to the kitchen right now and eat ALL food!". And that's after a solid lunch, plenty of snacks, a nice dinner and some more fruits and bread. Lately Siiri gets so hungry all the time that she can hardly stay asleep without demanding food. When she wakes up and talks half in her sleep, she says things like, "Both cookies! I want to eat both cookies! Give them to me!" or "Porridge... Porridge... Now make me porridge." Fortunately there's no shortage of food and her increased appetite is mostly just interesting and funny. It isn't good for her sleep, but I'm on maternity leave and Erkki has a vacation so it's still easy to get a lot of rest.

As you might have notices, I used full sentences to describe what Siiri says. That's no mistake. She speaks really well. Sure she simplifies things and occasionally invents new grammar, but she's quite creative with that. She has trouble with letters v and r and she substitutes those with whatever sounds almost correct. There are a couple of things though - first, she still can't tell who's "me" or who's "you". If she says "I'll sit on the floor", she wants me to sit there and if she says "You want to drink water too" then she is asking for water. I try to correct her but it's so easy to get used to it and to stop noticing the mistake. The second thing is that she still repeats word endings. In stead of saying "Emmega" (emme-ga = with mommy), she sometimes says "Emmegagagagaga". One 3-year-old in the play-field kinda commented that chickens make that sound. It wasn't easy to completely ignore it but I decided that reacting to it in any way would make it seem like a big deal when it's just something that will probably pass in a few months. I've never been to kindergarten so I have no idea what's the "cool" reaction to such a comment and what Siiri should do when she's on her own.

My pregnancy is really... uhm... how to best describe it... HEAVY! It's like carrying one of those military backpacks with me all the time. I can't really take the weight off for a little while so it feels like living with one of those military backpacks on me at all times. I'm just really glad Siiri can walk up and down the stairs. I'm less satisfied that I can't teach the 10kg baby stroller to walk up and down the stairs. "Pull your own damn weight you dumb stroller". But nooooo... I still have to carry it up to the fourth floor with all the extra weight that I already am carrying. Bringing the stroller is still a good idea when I go on a longer walk with Siiri, because then I don't have to worry about carrying Siiri home when she does get too tired. She has amazing endurance and she can walk 3 km on her own feet on a good day but I wouldn't want to force her to do it when she's not up to it.

Yesterday I had my final ultrasound. It's two weeks to deadline and her current weight seems to be 3400g. That's as much as Siiri was when she was born. The scary thing is that babies grow 200g each week in this stage. So if I go two weeks overdue she could be 4200g. The weight calculation from ultrasound can be 500g wrong to either side. I could be positive and say that she's only around 3 kg now and ends up being 3400 when she's born on due date. Or I could be grim and think that she's already 3900g and will be ENORMOUS 4 weeks from now.

So only two weeks left. I really can't decide if I'm ready to start all the fun ways of naturally inducing birth or if I'm terrified of the birth starting at any moment. Trying to trigger birth seems very tempting because it would give me control over the situation and the entire thing would feel less random. On the other hand, if I do manage to trigger it, I'm gonna have to give birth sooner and am I really sure I want that? But then again, do I want it to end up being enormous once it's born? With all those thoughts circling in my head I'm starting to feel panicky every time I feel the baby's head nudge downward. At least she seems to feel quite okay, despite running out of room lately. Fortunately she's much less aggressive than Siiri was. She stretches in directions where she finds it most roomy while Siiri got really excited with games like, "I bet I can push those ribs out of my way if I try hard enough.".

I find it amazing how widespread herbal medicine is in Estonia. It all traces back to natural paganistic beliefs in my opinion. While people in the USA believe in the Pill, spending lots of money on all sorts of pills from real medicine to cheap vitamin pills, people in Estonia go to the pharmacy to select which herbs cure their ailments. It's commonly known in Estonian birth forums that Wild Thyme (Latin: Thymus serpyllum; Estonian: nõmm-liivatee) eases childbirth by relaxing smooth muscle tissue. It's also the reason why it's an excellent cough medicine and usually used for that. In foreign websites wild thyme is among the herbs to avoid during pregnancy because "it might cause contractions" but Estonians are pretty much convinced that it does the opposite and makes contractions less intense while still speeding up delivery. It kind of makes sense. Being relaxed in childbirth makes the entire experience less painful and the process much more efficient. And it's not like I'd be taking some untested medicine, right? It's just some plant...

It's not only the freaky natural-birth-promoting pregnant ladies who promote the use of wild thyme during labor. It's also certified pharmacists and childbirth consultants. I walked into a pharmacy and I had forgot the name of the herb so I vaguely described "some tea that women drink during labor." Two pharmacists immidiately knew what I'm talking about, took me to the right shelf and told me it's perfectly safe for pregnant women and for maximum benefit it's good to start drinking it a couple of weeks before due date. This labor-promoting effect isn't even written on the package. They just knew it. Wild thyme was sold next to a wide selection of herbs and herb mixes labeled, "Reduces insomnia", "Lowers fever", "Relaxes", etc. It's as if herbs are a completely valid method for self-medication. I do believe the best herbs are more helpful than homeopathy which is just water in a bottle and certainly less creepy than Chinese medicine with it's insect powder for female sexuality and dried male urine powder for men before Viagra was invented.

I've already packed the hospital bag and I sorted all the baby clothing but there is still so many little things I want to get done before the baby arrives. I feel somewhat nervous as if I'm preparing for some huge event that ends an era - something like a huge exam that finishes the course. Or perhaps more like high school exams because after university exams there would be time for relaxing on your summer break but the end of high school is the time to grow up and be more responsible with your life. Childbirth, just as high school graduation, ends and era and begins another one. We'll see if it's a positive change or not but it will definitely be progress.

PS! If I do suddenly start giving birth, I'll try to post something about it because I really doubt it will happen very fast. In any case, if you suddenly hear that I'm in the hospital and you're wondering whether you should visit me, I'll make it simple: the answer is probably "no" . There are a couple of close relatives who are welcome to call us and then visit us, but from earlier experience, I'll probably be really exhausted, using every moment to sleep, and every waking moment to try to feed the baby and to eat something. Plus there's the risk of infection for both me and the baby. I usually have excellent constitution but I certainly didn't feel very healthy after last time. And no point in bringing us any flowers because they will probably be placed to the general TV area in the hospital. Erkki is allergic to most pollen and I wouldn't want any flowers near a newborn. I'll have my phone with me, probably on silent mode most of the time so I can just respond to calls when it's convenient for me. Okay, that's all.

Parenting Tips That Work

After spending two weeks at home I was really enjoying all of it. Siiri is suddenly the perfect kid - She doesn't fuss over little things, she responds well to any suggestions, she offers her opinion about things and she's just super cute most of the time. She really is amazingly reasonable for her age so I decided to analyze what parenting advice and tips have worked for us. Of course this is all with the disclaimer that her excellent behavior might just be temporary and might end as soon as she has to share her parents with another sibling. Also, maybe her "horrible threes" will be much worse than "horrible twos". But right now things are much better than I could have anticipated.

Before we had any kids, me and Erkki said that life would be much better if we could completely skip the first three years of the child's life. I no longer agree with that. I think it's okay to just skip the first two years. Some children are perfectly capable of compromise long before they're three and it's truly adorable to see them learn to talk. Siiri said about 150 words a month before she turned 2-years old and didn't combine any of them into phrases. Now nearly 5 months later she talks in long sentences which might not always be grammatically correct but they're very easy to understand. Her grammar is WAAAAAY better than what I'd expect from anyone her age - she ignores word order in sentences (not so important in Estonian language) but really tries to add proper word endings (very important in Estonian language). Most of what she says is also understandable to strangers because her pronunciation is good. Her speaking skills are probably a major reason why she's so easy to compromise with.

Things that work:
1 - Basic needs are satisfied. A kid will always make your life hell if they're starving, exhausted or feeling very uncomfortable. If your kid wakes up hungry and tired then assume that you can't expect anything good of their behavior until they get some food and properly wake up. No point in making any ultimatums or punishing them for "bad behavior". The bad behavior will pass once the problem is solved. That means it's more important to give them what they need in stead of what they think they want. And sometimes what they need is a cookie until food is done so it's good to be ready for exceptions. Keep in mind that I said "starving" not "hungry" and "exhausted" not "tired". There is no reason for a kid to be fussy and whiny whenever it's bed time or whenever they kinda feel like having a snack and such attitude shouldn't be encouraged in any way.

2 - Never break a promise and treat all casual deals as promises. "I'll give you a candy for dessert" is a promise. "I'll make you rice tomorrow" is a promise. Anything you say must be treated as severely as if you had just promised it on someone's grave. And you know why that's so important? Because if you go to a store with the kid and they REALLY want something and you tell them "I will give it to you after we've paid for it." then the kid will trust you. There will be no reason to argue because they know it's only a matter of time until they get what they asked for. Siiri really will hand over the cookies without any fuss so I can put them in the cart and she won't mention them until we've paid for the cookies and she tells me, "now cookie" and I give her the cookie as soon as I possibly can. If she forgets my promise, I will tell her, "here's the cookie. Now we've paid for it and I told you you can have it after we've paid for it". I will do my best not to cheat her out of it. If we both forget, I will give her the cookie as soon as I remember and I remind her why I'm giving it to her and I apologize for forgetting it earlier. Siiri knows she can trust her parent with any claim.

A couple of days ago early in the morning (7 a.m.) Siiri came to our room asking for food. I told her I'll make her porridge like every morning and she added, "and then candy". "Siiri, I'm not sure if we have any candy right now". She thought for a moment and repeated in a calm tone, "porridge, then candy". "okay Siiri, we might have some weird licorice candy. I can give you one candy after porridge.". But I was so tired I completely forgot. I remembered the promise late in the evening and also mentioned it to Erkki. The next day I got up when Erkki had already made her porridge and just gone to work. I took one licorice candy and gave it to Siiri with the full explanation of forgetting it and how she was supposed to have it "yesterday after porridge". Siiri looked at me very oddly. She accepted the candy looking really confused and ate it very slowly, almost like she was feeling guilty for eating something she wasn't supposed to have. I assumed she had completely forgot about the promise and was simply confused. I found out later that Erkki had already given her a candy after porridge, a candy that she had received very happily with no confusion or guilt.

3 - Be willing to compromise. For me, a simple "no" is still negotiable. If I say, "No, don't jump there.", Siiri sometimes replies, "Jump a little bit". I agree, "Okay, only jump a little bit". She jumps a few more times and says, "now is enough" and stops jumping. We had a deal and she was just as eager to do like we agreed. That's a 2-year-old making a deal and staying true to it. Sometimes she continues to argue for a better deal but she won't demand that I let her continue to jump after we have already reached a compromise. Exceptions are possible if she's exhausted or feeling starving.

4 - Have a non-negotiable way of saying "NO!". Sometimes a no means no. That's the best way you can get the child to take you seriously. The kid can't assume that you're always willing to be flexible. We usually use the word "last" as an absolute. She can't watch any videos after the "last video" and she can't have any cookies after the "last cookie". It's simply not negotiable and won't even try to negotiate. Also, "no, it's dangerous" is a non-negotiable way of saying "no!".

5 - Differentiate between "must" and "not good" and "not polite". Kids live within hundreds of rules and people keep telling them what to do and what not to do. That's normal. Kids need rules. Just never treat suggesions as rules. It isn't nice to tell the kid, "Now you must say thank you." and a bit later, "you must not run across the street". Those two can't possibly be told as equally severe rules. The child will soon find that she can ignore most of the "must"-rules and might try ignoring some that really do matter. I always try to rank the rules and also give a reason for the rule whenever possible. "It's polite to say thank you", "you must never run across the street, otherwise you might get hit by a car", "You shouldn't/It's not good to climb here, it's too easy to fall in here.", "I really wouldn't recommend...", "Be very careful with...", "Please don't yell, it might bother other people" etc. Don't just tell the child to blindly follow hundreds or equally strict rules because when you think about it, some "rules" are really only suggestions. As a result of ranking rules, when I tell Siiri that something is dangerous, she will stop immediately and she's becoming more and more open to any suggestions that might make her "more polite".

6 - No physical punishment. I still think that physical punishment becomes "necessary" only when the parent is doing a horrible job with parenting and such a parent is usually just lashing out their own disappointment with their own failure. The kid breaks rules because of not understanding why it was important not to do that (parents didn't explain well enough) or thought he/she could get away with it (parents did something wrong). Sometimes a kid will deliberately break a rule for attention or for simply being Damien-incarnation. Then the parent should consider a child psychiatrist to find out what went wrong with parenting and what can be improved. If the parents are too poor and too uneducated for any other solution than imminent physical punishment, then okay - I do accept that there are different families and situations. Simply, the parents shouldn't think it was either unavoidable or a valid parenting method.

7 - Treat your child as a human. Her ideas, thoughts and feelings matter. That being said, parenting is basically just extended human experiments. Pavlov is sometime seen as a jerk for teaching dogs to drool when he rings a bell but most of parenting is pretty similar. Parents teach children to get tired when they lie down in bed, have appetite when they sit at the table to eat, think of a toilet when they need to pee. It's all about habits and it's all taught with repetition.

8 - Actions have a consequences. Give the kid opportunity to make her own mistakes and let her deal with the consequences. Warn her about the possible dangers and stop her if consequences would be too severe but everyday life is full of opportunities to let her make decisions that have clear outcome. The kid doesn't want to finish her meal? Fine. It's up to her. She'll be hungry until the next meal but that's her choice. I might give something really boring (e.g. bread) as an alternative. Or if she's disrespectful with electronics, I will put it out of her reach.

9 - Let the kid decide some details. "Rice or potatoes?", "Doll or Legos?", "Blue dress or red dress?" - it's just details. Kids seem much more agreeable if they're the one who decided in the first place. By letting the kid decide some things you can make your life easier and also let the child practice making her own decisions. It will help her be less of a tag-along later in life as well. Besides, Siiri has a natural talent with making decisions and sticking with it. Some might call this personality trait stubbornness but I really love it about her. A colleague of mine joked that Siiri is more decicive at the age of two than she herself will ever be. Siiri knows what she wants but she's still willing to compromise with most things. It's perfect.

10 - Respect the child's "no". Try not to force her when it's not truly necessary. Respect her wishes too! Some parents tickle their child for a long time after the child clearly has told them to stop. That's just being a jerk towards the child. When Siiri says "no", then we stop and then she takes a breath and often says, "now tickle more". . When we need to give her medicine and she says, "no" then that falls under non-negotiable and then we explain why it's necessary. Parents still have the final say.

Hope you got some ideas and thoughts. Siiri's just so wonderful. I hope the next kid turns out just as awesome.

Doctors Are The Worst

I had the craziest revelation. I'm not really afraid of giving birth anymore, except for the usual fear of complications. I've done so much reading that I have a very solid and detailed plan for the entire event. But this does not reduce my fear of labor. Now I'm just afraid of the midwife, nurses and doctors who will probably treat me like some hormone-driven maniac in pain, incapable of any reasonable thinking. They'll tell me what to do, in stead of suggesting, they'll give me limited information to manipulate me to do what they want me to do. They'll tell me what I absolutely have to do so the baby won't die except they are simply getting me to do what they find most convenient. That's what happened last time. Hard to name all the lies I was told during labor, but the most serious one is that baby's vital signs can't be monitored during pushing phase and if I don't push the baby out ASAP, it will probably suffer from oxygen deprivation. Oh how I'd like to meet that midwife now and give her a piece of my mind. I'd probably be able to do it in a way that she'll feel insecure about her profession for years, and she'd deserve it. Lying to patients is simply monumentally unethical.

But I have found an individual midwife, wrote a new birth plan and I have told Erkki my preferences (poor guy! ) so he can help me fight off manipulating and lying hospital staff who are likely to treat him with much more respect than a woman giving birth. Come to think of it, no one would stereo-typically take that seriously. That's like the ultimate two-in-one: woman and giving birth. A drunk guy would be taken more seriously.

Anyway, I finished Twilight. The fourth book is CRAZY!!! I kept reading and gasping in horror, trying to imagine anyone making a movie out of it and serving it to 13-year old girls. Good luck with that! And then I saw the trailer! They actually did it. The trailer makes it look like a sequel to a soap opera or something. The fourth movie really seems so cute and sparkly, especially compared to the blood and gore in the book. Or maybe I just imagined it worse than it was written. If you've read it (which I doubt, considering the people who read this blog), you understand why it was shocking for me.

The first three movies of Twilight were okay. Initially I really hated the casting, because I imagined Edward to be handsome and the actor's version of Edward looks quite pathetic. The actor is trying to portray a tough guy who is having a hard time with his craving for blood but it looks somehow weak and insecure - not holding eye contact, having wobbly body language in some critical scenes, and so on. The entire Cullen family looks all wrong. There isn't even one whom I'd consider sexy, but they were all supposed to look inhumanly alluring. The female main character Bella keeps pouting and bitching and looking so unsure of everything. At first I couldn't see any beauty behind all that teenager complex ("no one understands me, I'm so different") but she actually gets more pretty with every movie. In the last one she could become a model. Overall, the Twilight movies were well written and horribly directed. The script is good, and the actors seem to fit their roles well, but somehow it still ends up looking like a low-budget B-movie or even a school play.

Siiri's been ill for a few days. Fever has gone near or above 39.0 Celsius for four days in a row already. At first I thought it means Siiri's immune system isn't nearly as good as I had imagined, but then I read up on what she has - adenovirus (diagnosed by the doctor) - and found out most kids have it much worse. The list of possible symptoms is really long but Siiri only has fever so far. It seems the illness is already subsiding and I get the feeling she's just really enjoying having me around for several full days in a row.

I've gone to maternity leave now, starting with Siiri's illness, and I'm already starting to feel the different life rhythm. Today I made bread for the first time. It wasn't sour bread with rye (very popular in Estonia). It was whole wheat "healthy bread" with yeast which tasted somewhat too healthy for my preference. It was surprisingly good for bread with no butter, oil or milk in the dough, but next time I'll make it sweeter and perhaps also add some butter to the recipe. The home life really is different though. Today I started thinking about washing the curtains. It's a rental apartment for crying out loud. I wouldn't be thinking about it if I wasn't so eager to do something useful. I wish I could just work on my computer but that really isn't possible lately. My head is just filled with pink fog and I keep having very pregnant thoughts - like how big my belly is and I'm hungry again.

The baby is moving around a lot. Mostly stretching and making me feel even more round. I have no idea how I can be this pregnant with over a month of pregnancy ahead of me. I wish the weight gain had gone to areas other than my stomach because it really is at it's limit. I keep thinking the belly will just pop and burst open and the baby will feel really triumphant, thinking "Freedom!". I can't even tell how much of the weigh gain is justified by the pregnancy. I guess I'll find out later. I have a feeling it won't be good news but I really don't feel like going on a diet right now. Damn I've gone much more lazy compared to my last pregnancy, which I started on a low-carb diet. If I get fat it will be all my fault. I know it and I'm still thinking about food full of carbohydrates. Hopefully I'll feel more determined after the baby is born.

Maybe I'm feeling less afraid of child birth because it beats the Aliens version of birth and lately the direct route to baby's freedom seems all too possible.

Sauna 24/7

Being pregnant comes easy to me. I'm quite a bit more drowsy, but this is a good thing - I'm far less edgy than usually. Otherwise my mind can get somewhat intense and it can increase my stress level but now I just feel so mellow and chill. Combined with the decreased coordination from the changes in body shape, I almost feel like I'm a bit drunk. There is one bad side-effect though - I constantly feel a bit warmer than usual. It wasn't a problem until the outdoors temperature rose above 30 degrees Celsius and now I constantly feel too warm to think or move. Usually I like high temperature but now I mostly feel like drinking cold kvass (almost like root beer) all day long and putting my feet up.

I still go to work. I'm mostly just giving all my projects to other people so I can stop working in two weeks time. I'm sure something unexpected will interfere with that plan but so far so good. I did spend two weeks at home with Siiri and it was a nice reminder of what it feels like to be a stay-at-home mother. It mostly just made me much lazier than I'm used to, but also, suddenly I started having all these ideas of what food I'd like to cook or how I would like to re-arrange furniture in Siiri's room. It's like I finally had room in my head for things I didn't even think about while I was also working in the lab. I'm sure I would have also baked a few pies, except I mostly just want to eat fresh fruit in this heat. Five fruits a day suddenly isn't a problem at all, except if I try to count an 8-kg watermelon as one fruit. When we get a good watermelon, I manage half of such a watermelon in one evening, or even 3/4, but I might just explode if I try to reach anywhere near 5 fruits during that day.

I've been reading a 4-book series, I've already finished two and started on the third. The story is quite odd to say the least - it's about a schoolgirl being obsessed with her personal stalker. The guy constantly sneaks into her room when she's asleep, monitors all her conversations with her friends, follows her everywhere and annoyingly treats her like a little kid who can do nothing without his supervision (lies and even temporarily wrecks her car to get her to cooperate) and even tells her who she's allowed to hang out with. I mean, the guy is so controlling that he tells her that she's never allowed to meet her best friend again because he doesn't like him. I'd understand if the best friend was a romantic rival but it's not exactly like that. It's really freaky to read that the girl really doesn't notice any of it. She's so blindly obsessed with him that she only wants to spend all her time with him for ever and ever and ever til the end of time... It's quite a compelling glimpse into an obsessive highshool romance and it even has vampires and werewolves in it. You might wanna try reading it - the first book is called "Twilight" by Stephenie Meyer and it's pretty famous. They even made movies about it!

I still haven't gotten over my craving for sushi. I eat a lot of it and then two weeks later I start thinking about it again. At first I just feel like having some sushi but as days go by I become obsessed with the idea of having a pile of sushi for dinner and it won't pass until I eat like 20 maki and manage another two weeks. I think this time it's been 3 weeks because I ate freshly salted raw Atlantic salmon last week. I want to eat sushi so often that Erkki doesn't find it at all appealing anymore. Now I simply wait for moments when he has plans for the evening and I order a lot and eat all of it by myself. Yumm! Ah the simple pleasures in life.

I made an appointment with an individual midwife and I'm hiring her to be my personal midwife for when I give birth. I'm sure it's a much better choice than not hiring her but she's not really the sort of person I'd enjoy spending time with. Her professional views are exactly what I'm looking for: no intervention unless it's unavoidable, promotes breathing the baby out, birthing baths, moving around during birth, not cutting the cord too early, etc. She seemed really open to anything that could help me give birth in the most pleasant way possible, but she said some things that started haunting in my head. For example, she likes it when the husband also participates in the birth, because "if the woman isn't cooperating, the husband can help communicate with her and make her understand what needs to be done.". That makes perfect sense if it's something really stupid, like the woman turning purple from forgetting to breathe enough, but otherwise it sounds like she's planning to get Erkki to turn against me so they can all bully me when I'm at my weakest to do things that feel wrong. Why else would I not be cooperating? Maybe I'd have a good reason to tell her "I won't do that!".

Also, she said that when the woman is unable to breathe/push the baby out, they tell someone to bring the vacuum (used for pulling the bay out by force) in to the room and this always scares the woman to have more energy for pushing and usually the baby has a regular birth because of this extra effort. I really don't want anyone to try any manipulating scare tactics on me. I'd just get really stressed and anxious if that happened during my birth. I told her this but she didn't seem to be the sort of person who would understand anyone else's views after just one conversation. I still think I'm going to hire her because she really seemed to believe that birth is something that happens the easiest when the woman gets to do whatever feel right. That really is what I'm aiming for, so I'm sure it will be okay. Quite sure... Uhm, almost sure. At least I have a fair amount of hope and a lot of self-delusion: The second birth will be much more pleasant than the first one. Really.

Now I'm gonna go back to my psycho obsessive high-school romance and I'm going to get a bottle of kvass and put my feet up. I'm really hoping for heavy rain tomorrow.

Pride and Prejudice

This time the title of the post isn't some wordplay or a hint at something. It really is about Pride and Prejudice. Ever since I got a new phone - HTC Desire that used to be Erkki's - I have been spending a surprising amount of time reading from my phone. With iPod of iPad, which can also be used as an eBook reader, it wasn't that simple since we allow Siiri to play with those and there was always the risk of her demanding that it was her turn to play. Saying "a risk" is a gross understatement. I barely finished a few pages on iPod when it was no longer reasonably easy to tell her it STILL wasn't her turn to play with the toy.

Recently I started reading Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen and it wasn't long until I found myself enjoying the odd vocabulary and the peculiar grammar. I googled it and found out it was published in 1813 - that's nearly two hundred years ago. Amazing that something so old can still be so captivating. The dialogue was really enjoyable and the characters so vivid. I finished the book and went on to download and watch two versions of it on screen. First being the movie "Pride and Prejudice" from 2005, with Keira Knightley and Matthew Macfadyen and the second a 6-episode mini-series, called, lo and behold, "Pride and Prejudice" with Colin Firth and Jennifer Ehle, which was made in 1995 by BBC. This blog post is more like a movie review than anything I've written before.

First of all, I'll say what this book is about. The Bennet family is a family of five young women who barely qualify to belong to the high society. Their father has a manor but since there's no male heir, the manor will be inherited by someone else and the girls are destined to receive only a small dowry. This makes their prospects of a good marriage quite grim. A couple of really rich young bachelors join the neighborhood (Yay! ) , one of them the most pleasant gentleman and his best best friend Mr Darcy who manages to make everyone hate him by not being neither sociable nor polite . Appearances can be deceiving and people start falling in love and so on. All the courting is done properly as it was customary for high society around 1813. No kissing before marriage and even spending any time alone with a partner was something to be very cautious about. Sex before marriage was a far worse fate than death. Although there are more than one marriage formed by the end of the book, it's really a story about Mr Darcy and Elizabeth Bennet, the second daughter of the Bennet family, who is very opinionated for a woman of that time but uses all her skill and wit to express her views in a polite and positive way.

In the movie Elizabeth, played by Keira Knightley, is a hysterical giggling outspoken farm girl. Well, no wonder, the entire family is a bunch of hillbillies living in a big house. They don't mind pigs running around in their kitchen or chickens occupying a the area just by the garden door. They don't care about decent fashionable clothing or proper hats. The younger daughters desperately throw handkerchiefs to low-ranking soldiers when in the book they were spending their time with officers at private events. The mother has reddened complexion like the kind you'd expect from a homeless person with alcohol problems and the father is about as gentle-manlike as a rich farmer. I'm sure even regular merchants looked more decent back then. Such a shame really. Keira Knightley was exactly who I pictured as Elizabeth when I was reading the book but the gap between what I imagined and what I saw was too great to forgive. I expected her to deliver her opinions like an unexpected sting that you might not even notice if you're not paying attention. However, she was just impolite and outspoken with no witty subtlety.

Mr Darcy, played by Matthew Macfadyen looks very similar to what I imagined, although I have to agree with something I read in an IMDB user review of the movie - he looks more constipated than proud. Perhaps it's even more accurate to describe him as suffering from Asperger syndrome. He just looks so awkward but redeems himself so many times throughout the movie that I grew to like his version of Mr Darcy quite a bit. Colin Firth in the 1995 BBC series is seen as the perfect Darcy by so many Jane Austen fans that Matthew Macfadyen never got a fair chance with the fans. I did find Colin Firth very believable and he's seemed both proud and introverted like in the book, but he simply looks nothing like I imagined him. He did a really great job though.

Also, I never did get used to Jennifer Ehle as Elizabeth. She was supposed to be quick-witted and opinionated, not a younger version of Mary Poppins. She was so pleasant and friendly like she had just come from Sunday School. Something just wasn't right. Indeed she was a very positive person like in the book but I expected some mischievous smiles and a very young and fresh spirit. She delivered her lines much better than Keira Knightley. In the movie the dialogue from the book seemed so foreign that it felt like I was watching Shakespeare or some school play. In the series the same lines were delivered so believably and fluently that I can't help but think that Jennifer Ehle and Colin Firth must be much better actors than Keira Knightley and Matthew Macfadyen.

The family life of Bennets was much nicer in the series, though. Just like in the book, they constantly do their best to seem like they rightfully belong to the high society. The girls are expected to be tidy and conventionally dressed at all times and when there are unexpected visitors the girls have no reason to start running around CLEANING the house like in the movie. They have maids for that!

Amazingly, the most beloved and memorable scenes from both the movie and the series were the kind that never happened in the book. In the movie, Elizabeth and Mr Darcy meet at dawn while they have gone for a walk in their undergarments. This would never have happened in those times and they would have been mortified if anyone saw them like that. In the series Mr Darcy goes for a spontaneous swim in the lake outside his manor and later runs into Elizabeth while soaking wet. That also never happened in the book but is is actually mentioned how improper Mr Darcy looked so it's forgiven. Worst extra scene of all was from the movie - in the middle of the night when everyone's asleep and Elizabeth is sleeplessly in her nightgown, Mr Darcy enters her bedroom without knocking, leaves her a letter without saying a word and rides off into the night. If they had got caught with something as outrageous as that, they would have probably been forced to marry.

It would be fair to say I enjoyed both the movie and the series and was happy with neither. The movie had excellent casting, the best I've ever seen. Most of the people looked EXACTLY like they were supposed to look but it was so accurate that it was bordering on being a caricature of the roles. Mr and Mrs Bennet were the only people who were much better cast in the mini-series. The series was occasionally boring to watch and it had some extra dialogue that could have been left out. The movie, on the other hand, skipped some very nice dialogue because it didn't have time for it.

Over-all I wouldn't really recommend the movie or the mini-series because both had their faults. I wouldn't recommend the book either, only because I don't want to be one of those tedious people who say, "Oh the movie was nothing. You MUST read the book in stead." That is like sooo conceited. But if you happen to see the movie, be sure to remember that the Bennets didn't really live on a farm, okay?