Wednesday, July 07, 2010

33 Wks

The big eye-catcher of the nursery – I decided – should be a mural. And not just a Winnie-the-Pooh-mural (though the bear is adorable), but something drawn by hand and New York-themed. And since I’m a sketching disaster myself (always have been – apparently the artistic gene skips a generation), I asked my friend Janine to make one for me.

Making the sketch itself took her days of doodling – painting it on my wall took about a day, with Janine en Martje painting, and me looking after Noah.


And this is the end result!

Tuesday, July 06, 2010

32 wks

Manifesto by the Alliance of Mothers Supporting Truthful Pregnancy Stories

Concerning women about to get pregnant

Hi there! You are planning to embark on an adventure that is probably one of the greatest ones you’ll ever experience. Congratulations! The next nine months will prepare you for that adventure. In 2010, the Alliance of Mothers Supporting Truthful Pregnancy Stories was founded, which mission is to truthfully inform women on what to expect while the Miracle of Life unfolds.

If you’re not one of those women who appreciate bluntness, stop reading this manifesto!

First the most important news, which also happens to be very good: having a baby is an amazing experience. There’s nothing like it. You’ll find that you’re able to love someone you never even met; you can talk to sheer movement, and you will worry about someone else’s well-being more than you ever worried about your own. You will be a key witness to a person coming into existence, into your existence, in every sense of the word.

While this probably is one of the best things to ever happen to you, a lot of side effects will keep you pretty busy. Contrary to custom until now, we feel you have a right to know about them. Attached is a – non-comprehensive - list of things to expect:

· You will feel sick for a period ranging from about a week to a maximum of 42 weeks. You may be forced to eat dry cereal, sit on the floor of a supermarket, and eat when your body tells you not to.

· You will feel sleepier than you ever felt before. Enjoy sleeping for the first 13 weeks; after that, you might not sleep an entire night for a long, long time.

· Your boobs will double in size. Some of you will like it; some of you won’t. It’s a double-edged sword anyway.

· Many people will tell you to watch out for stress. Their constant reminders of this are huge stress factors. What ís stress, anyway?

· You will start crying at the oddest moments for the oddest reasons. Within nano seconds after your breakdown, however, you will be able to be elated, furious or totally numb.

· Expect a bloody nose every now and then.

· You will not be able to eat the things you used to love, and crave stuff you used to hate. You will be forced to go into the supermarket to let your instincts lead you to the right foods for you at that precise moments. You will buy stuff you won’t be able to eat anymore the day after. You will get food obsessions. You will force friends to prepare you dinner.

· You will forget the simplest things. You will not be able to conduct a decent discussions, because you won’t remember your perspective.

· You will gain weight. You will not be able to fit into your own clothes and you will be forced to get a new wardrobe of maternity clothes. You will learn that the maternity industry caters only for a select group of women, thereby accomplishing what you spent your whole life to avoid: blending in with a very specific, very girly, flowery, pink-colored group.

· You will be faced with something they absurdly call ‘minor ailments’, such as restless legs, stomach acid, hemorrhoids, varicose veins, and Braxton-Hicks contractions.

· In the middle of your pregnancy, people will smile at you when they see you walking on the street. Enjoy these moments. By the end of your pregnancy, they will be shocked instead.

· Your world will become smaller and smaller; the things you used to find important will start to matter less and less. This might seem frightening to you right now, but it’s actually quite a nice sensation.

· You will feel overwhelmed, not up for it at times, exhausted, panicked, and daunted.

· After all of it is over, a very smart and helpful hormone will make you forget about all of the above and make you not tell anyone else.

Monday, July 05, 2010

31 wks


31 Wks

And then, finally, D-day! I find a house full of friends who come to paint the nursery. The only thing I have to do, is get the paint and prepare lunch. J