Witch

Really shaken here, been crying even.

Just got an email from a friend with whom I play LARP. His wife was pregnant, estimated date being May 21. She gave birth this morning, at 28 weeks instead of 40, to a little girl named Kaat, barely 1.100 kilo. Mother is kept under narcosis (pregnancy poisoning, bad case) till tomorrow but seems stable, little one is doing ok, as far as that is possible. Next few days will be crucial for her. I hope, oh god I hope that both will be allright. The baby might not survive, or have severe shortcomings when growing up.
He even included a picture of the baby, and my heart bled. It’s so tiny, so helpless, so… incomplete !

Still shocked here, and feeling very sympathetic. Makes me want to take Wolf out of his crib and hold him tightly…

Bart just added some video to the Wolf site. Of course we’re talking Dutch, but still… My dad resorted to Latin too, and I love it 🙂

Still so easily tired these days, but I presume that’s normal, as I only gave birth a couple of days ago. The only things I did today was feed the baby, give him a fresh diaper, give him a bath, take a bath myself, and sleep. Feeding takes up a lot of energy, that’s true, but it’s fulfilling too. Finally those damned balloons have a purpose :-p

Bart seemed to have lost a couple of pics I took. Hope he can find them, they’re from my gran (aged 92) with the little one. Can you imagine ? She offered me help if I needed any, she would gladly drive up to my house to cook me soup, she said. I laughingly declined, saying that my mom and Bart’s mom would give me any help I need, along with some good friends, that I didn’t need my 92 year old gran to help… She’s truly amazing 🙂

Wolf’s sleeping quietly now, as usual. He’s such a sweet kid: cries every four hours when he wants to be fed, and once in between when he has soiled his pampers. When he’s awake, he’s just looking around with those big blue eyes of his, playing with his fingers…

Bart just left, and neither him or me liked it 🙁 Alas, his brother and my eldest brother, who are the godfathers, are so proud that they’re giving a drink tonight in Wolf’s honour, and Bart of course had to be there. Koen promised to bring him home by midnight though. Bart would much rather have stayed home with us. It’s our first night home again, and I missed my husband. Will feel so good to be sleeping in my own bed again, in the arms of my sweet, with my darling in a little bed next to me. Hope he doesn’t wake us too often.

I’ll tell more of the birth and the past days tomorrow or so. Gonna eat something first, not really hungry, but I owe it to the kid. See ? Had such good habits in the hospital, but already neglecting them here. I need to drink tons, and eat well and take lots of vitamins, and I did none so far (it’s 9.30 pm). Bad mother. If I don’t, I won’t produce enough valid milk to feed the sprog, and right now he’s the one purpose in my life.

Just returned from the gynaecologist, and the baby is healthy as can be. Still kicking pretty much, and somewhere between 3.5 and 4 kilo by now, with a head of 10 cm. Not a wee boy there :-p

The doc gave me a start though, my heart rate must have gone up by the dozens ! He asked me if I had my bag in the trunk. I said :’God no, why should I ?’ ‘Cos you might go in right now and have the baby by tomorrow’. Eeks ! Not ready for that !
Turned out he was just teasing me, grrr ! Yet there was some earnest in his words: I’m still a bit oedemic, but the iron level in my blood is dangerously low, in spite of all the extra iron pills I have been taking, and I’m anemic too. I’m on the brink of getting a blood transfusion, he said. So now I’m taking double doses of extra iron, and if the baby isn’t early, I have to go in on Wednesday night, to deliver the baby on Thursday. I’m at the end of my reserves, apparently, and it might get worse when I start to breastfeed.

Oh well… Within three days I’ll be a mom ! Sheez !

Went to see the otorhinolaryngologist for my nose and ear problems, which have continued now for over 5 months. Although all seemed pretty normal, he listened to my having troubles with underpressure in my ears, and he punctured both my ear drums. Was completely painless, yet I fainted, as I had warned him for and predicted. I hate this Nervus Vagus !!!! Every sudden change of pressure in my body causes me to faint, like drawing blood, getting an injection, even scratching myself or bumping into sth that causes me to have a black spot. Yet when there’s adrenalin involved, it’s no problem, like when I played rugby. Weird…

Then I went grocery shopping, and went looking for little phosphorescent stars for the baby room (which is finished, btw, just need to clean). No luck there, so guys, if any of you (Belgians) finds these little glow-in-the-dark-stars, lemme know !

Gonna heat me some food now (promised Bart I’d eat, it’s a little late though) and crash on the couch with the paper. Tonight my brothers are coming with their gfs for crepes 🙂 After that we’re gonna watch slides from when we were really little, should make a good laugh !

Indeed been a while since I last updated. Many things happened, and yet nothing happened.
We went on that weekend in Durbuy (Belgium’s smallest city in a valley surrounded with woods) with my parents-in-law and Koen, Bart’s brother. A good time was had: we stayed in this nice house with a big garden (too bad it was damn cold), much to the delight of our dog. We payed for the lodging, Bart’s parents payed for the food, which was extremely good. Strolled around in the city, took a walk along some menhirs and a dolmen, generally had a good time and lots of fresh air.

The rest of my days are filled with sleep, which I need a lot of, working on the baby room, gathering more stuff, doing the books, playing Asheron, washing the borrowed baby stuff, all kinds of little nothings. Reading the paper is a pretty important thing too :-p

On Sunday we had a formal dinner at Bart’s parents again, with lousy company (his dull far-away-family) but excellent food. Tuesday a week ago I spent on cleaning the house, together with the cleaning lady, since Bart’s mom came in the evening. She only comes like once a year, but always finds things that need to be done/cleaned/fixed/cleared away… She’s a lovely person, but man… This time, apparently, it was the garden that struck her, so Bart’s dad came over yesterday to clean up the pathways and the borders and such. She also took a bunch of shirts that needed ironing, for which I’m very grateful. She’s a very considerate person, but sometimes a little too… interfering.

Last Friday I went for dinner with kimmekepunk and Nathalie, two of my oldest friends, since I’ve known them since secondary school. We don’t meet often, and we really should more, since a most lovely evening was had. I hope I didn’t bore Kim too much with the baby stories, since Nathalie already has two kids and could relate to what I’m going through.
The weekend was nice and easy and very peaceful.

On Monday, I went to see the gynaecologist again. Hmm. The boy is big, already 3.6 kilo (and he should be in there for another 4 weeks), and doing just fine. The bad news is that I’m slowly poisoning myself a little. I gained 2 kilo in a week, all of it fluids. This means I’m developing oedema, and that is not very positive. Blood test and urine test came out well though, so it’s nothing too aggravating yet, but it won’t last long anymore now. I have to go back to the doc on monday, and he’ll probably induce the birth on Thursday or so, since he won’t take the risk that the boy gets too big and won’t pass through the birth canal anymore. And I definitely don’t feel like having a caesarian.

I also developed a terrible itching. Doc says it’s a pregnancy allergy, but completely harmless. Harmless my ass !!! Yesterday morning I woke cos of the itching on the soles of my feet. Can you imagine ? I spent an hour trying to control myself not to rip off my skin. Feels like I’ve been stung by at least 20 mosquitoes, all over my body ! Luckily it got better during the day, so I went to buy sugar beans and little pots (Belgium custom) and went to see my mom. At night though it got worse again. Bart even suggested to get me a pair of mittens, so I couldn’t scratch anymore. This morning it was bearable. I sure hope it won’t get worse again tonight, but I fear the worst. Harmless, yeah right !

Already put the sugar beans in the pots, ready to take them with me to the hospital. Won’t be long now… I asked Bart to post the website of the little guy on my LJ, when he’s born. You’ll know :-p

In the little secluded part of the garden next to my office, I hung a little bird food ball in a tree. I love to watch a robin come and sneak in, but usually there’s this big blackbird guarding it.
Yesterday, Bart watched the bird enjoy the food, and remarked: ‘I think that must be the spirit of our first baby we lost…’ (If we had had a daughter, we would have called her Merel, the Dutch word for blackbird.)

For a moment I didn’t know what to say.

I’m making invoices here for Netlash for the new year, while the fireplace is burning, me sitting in my nightgown, a pancake in front of me, the New Year’s Concert playing on telly, and I’m having a good time…

Call me weird…

Quite a different one than the ones before: we had a dinner party at our home for 5 years in a row, and if no one had the decency to invite us back (not even the people who were here 3 times in a row), we decided to stay by ourselves, and have a good evening. And a good evening was had indeed !!!

We both worked on the company stuff till like 7 (lol yep, workaholics), then I prepared some food and set the table in the living room, not with the very fancy cutlery and stuff (cos that can’t go into the dishwasher), but with nice enough stuff and lots of candles 🙂 We had rented a movie, Pirates of the Caribbean, thoughtless entertainment but fun nonetheless, so we started out with foie gras and toasted raisin bread in front of the telly. Next course took less than 5 minutes to prepare: pan fried scampi, flambéd with pastis and put out with cream, with bread (also gobbled up in front of the telly), and then we had fondue at the table, which was very nice indeed too. Very cosy also. For dessert I had made a lytchee cream, 10 mins work, but delicious :-p

By that time I felt more like a whale than ever before :-ppp, since we were back on the couch for dessert, wearing pyamas and nightgowns, under a duvet…

But I must say: I hope next year will be as pleasant as last year, and I have three wishes for myself (apart from the obvious no sickness, no deaths, no disasters)
– having a great son
– having a lot of business for Netlash
– finally getting appointed at school

May you all be as lucky and happy in life as I have been so far, the world might be a better place…

Felicem annum novum tibi dico !!

Gudrun

On a last note: we might not have had a white Christmas, but man, do we have a white New Year !!!!

Nothing much has happened here. However…

Went to my favourite LARP last weekend. Yep, being 7 months pregnant and all. They all took very good care of me, and I enjoyed myself beyound belief. Stayed indoors most of the time, but also wandered around outside around the lake (promised not to go into the woods by night) from one inn to the other, helping people, stitching their bodies back together, healing, repairing their leather clothes, doing general shaman stuff. My barbarian tribe was really considerate too, and the magic is back 🙂 Yep, had a very good and relaxing weekend 🙂

Finished the base coat painting in the baby room, gonna start on the drawings today, and have to do the books for Netlash too. Yay.

On Christmas Eve Bart and I went to my parents, just the four of us, we had pancakes and played Trivial Pursuit. Was fun. Nothing more, nothing less. Got a nice pen I asked for from my mom. We’re not much of the gift giving kind, it’s the only present I got.

Yesterday we went to this formal annual lunch at Bart’s aunt, where sometimes with 15 grown ups in the room it gets silent, even though there is no food being served at that moment. We left as soon as we could, around 5 in the afternoon, and went to my mom’s family, a gathering of 35 people at my uncle’s. Was nice, even though we didn’t feel the urge to eat anymore. Everyone was there, including my granma and granpa, and it was good to talk to everyone. Oh, right, I did get another present: my cousin’s wife, who has two small daughters and to whom I can talk very well about being pregnant and everything, got me this little book to write every significant moment of the baby in, and a baby bonnet. Cute !!!

Bart didn’t get anything, apart from a big plant for me for his office, which he had been wanting a long time.

All in all, we survived the first part of the holidays pretty well.

So, in case you didn’t know yet: merry Christmas to everyone :-p