I've still got it. Jessica fell asleep on the sofa, so I carried her to the bedroom. OK, it wasn't like picking up a newspaper or carrying a pillow, but I could still carry her, no problem. I can't pick her up without waking her up, so there's no real reason for me to carry her besides showing myself that I can still do it.
Mission accomplished.
I like it. I like the idea of me carrying Jessica and Hilda in their sleep. That I have the power to move them without them knowing, that I may guard them, that I can watch over them and make sure they feel good. Without them knowing that I do it.
Aunt Jenny is here! Jessica's older sister, that is. She is also Hilda's godmother-to-be (as soon as the baby's born and we can find a church that will have us -- The Church of the Internet, maybe?) and world's-greatest-aunt-in-waiting.
She's sitting on our red sofa in the living room, together with Jessica, admiring all the baby clothes we have bought. The clothes are in a big pile between the Sisters and Jessica pulls up one garment for Jenny to see and touch and feel and pretend there is a baby ín it.
I sit in the kitchen and listen to the Sisters chat, talk, interact, swap stories, swap words even. One Sister finishes the sentence for the other and I can hear Jessica laugh every now and then. I am pretty sure Jessica will pull up her T-shirt, any second now, so that Jenny can see and touch her belly as well. After all, Jenny is 3 months from graduating from the med school.
"Open up, Hilda, so that Auntie Jenny can see your throat".
Now, if the church won't have her as a godmother, the church is just dumb and wrong. We'll have her.
Jessica had read somewhere about a study that had been done at the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm, Sweden. According to that study, the only thing that had some correlation between the sex of the baby and the mother was ... not the shape of the belly (and we have already seen our share of bellyfeelers), not how a ring hovers over the belly (like I read in some book when I was a kid) and not the frequency of the baby's kicking (naturally, girls can and do kick a lot as well).
Accordng to the study, the only thing that seemed to predict the sex was morning sickness. The women who got bad cases of nausea in the mornings, were more likely to have a girl and the ones that felt OK, seemed to have more boys than "normally."
And since Jessica has been in great shape all along, we have to pull out the list of boys' names. This is what it looks like right now (in no particular order):
Emil
Hannes
Oliver
Risto Jr (not!)
Lukas
I need to think about this a bit more. And I need to pay attention to how Jessica feels tomorrow morning.
I wonder what it would take for a Finnish man to give his seat to Jessica on a bus or a tram. OK, yes, I have only been on a tram with Jessica a couple of times, but I have never see anybody say, "Why don't you sit here, miss, being pregant and all." Then again, this is Finland and public transportation is not the time or the place to start interacting with other people.
And it makes me just a little bit sad.
Then again, how could that man on the tram know that I woke up to the sound of Jessica talking in her sleep, half crying, in the middle of a terrible nightmare that involved a newborn baby, blood, poking fingers through a belly and just panic. Well, I know that and I want the world to cut Jessica some slack.
So if you see a pregnant woman somewhere today, why don't you just open the door for her, or make sure the bus waits for her.
Jessica's mom used to say, "Isn't it a good day to be called Jessica today?" whenever little Jessica was a little cranky. Well, today is definitely not a good day to be called Jessica.
1) It's cold outside.
2) Because it's fall. And you can feel it.
3) All the pervos have found the same swimming pool that Jessica goes to.
4) Bad hair day.
5) Belly just too damn big.
6) Risto not listening to her.
7) Just writing stupid blog.
What a perfect Saturday. Got up at 10, had breakfast, read the paper, watched a movie and then took a nice walk into downtown Helsinki. Through the Töölö park, past Finlandia Hall and to the flea market at the VR magazines. Check out some crazy Russian things, not buy anything and continue the walk past Kiasma and to Sokos. Do some shopping, shop for ... baby clothes.
Yup. Baby clothes. Oh baby, here we go.
Got some nice shirts (not sure if they're called shirts) and pants (that look like shorts).
Frankly, I think the baby clothes look pret-ty comfortable. Especially the ones for the newborns. You know, (European) sizes 62 and under. That must refer to people under 62 cm. Yes, the little overalls and suits look very nice and I wouldn't mind having one for those winter nights when we just hang around the house, watch old episodes of Seinfeld or Columbo on tape and eat loads of popcorn.
Now, you may say that once the baby's born those nights will be just a memory, but I beg to differ. If I grew up with Thunderbirds and episodes of Columbo, so will Hilda.
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
How could I forget to tell you!? I almost held Hilda in my arms yesterday.
After we had listened to her heartbeat and measured Jessica's belly (how bizarre but I guess it's quite normal in that business), our nurse asked me if I wanted to feel the baby's head as well.
"Sure." (Yeah, I am going to press my girlfriend's belly so hard that I can feel my baby's soft head inside).
"Come here, put your hands here," she said.
And I did. And I pressed Jessi's belly. And I felt something. A harder spot.
"Mhm," I said.
"That's her head," the nurse said. "And here's her back and here are her feet."
Jessica and I looked at each other and laughed. Jessica pointed to a spot on her upper stomach and we said together. "Then this is really her butt like we thought."
Here yesterday, gone today. Or, something like that. Jessica's doing a little better. It's perfectly natural for the hips to start hurting when you're 7 months pregnant, the nurse said this morning. In fact, she didn't say "7 months pregnant", because the real pros only refer to the pregnancy in weeks, but I thought I'd save you from that.
We are best buddies with the nurse. Maarit is her name. We're best buddies, although we've only met her, like, 6 times. How could we not be close to somebody who keeps telling us what a perfect little baby we're going to have, and how perfectly Jessica is pregnant. I mean, if that ain't what friends are for, who needs friends? So, by definition, she is our friend. ;)
Maarit is the perfect midwife. She's nice, supportive, calm, professional, she speaks Swedish and she even looks the part. I can see her holding a baby by his foot and slapping him on the back. And then a second later putting the baby gently on his mother's breast. And then getting ready for the next one, making sure his parents will feel that their baby is the most important baby in the world. Like it is.
It came yesterday. Not with a bang, more like the way the sunlight finds its way into the bedroom on a Sunday morning. You know it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it. And, yes, it is a reminder of something that is good. But still.
The pain. It's here. Not enough to make Jessica scream, but enough to make her feel bad enough to make me feel worried and protective.
Why does it have to hurt to have a baby? Since it is the most natural thing in the world, why couldn't Mom Nat make it a little easier and -- less painful. And now I ain't even talking about the pain you get with teenagers...
Two months to go. If I could, and if it didn't hurt the baby, I would just rip that belly off of Jessi and give her some space. Space to sleep on her stomach, to sleep on her back. Space from all the people looking, all the people talking, space from all the people touching her stomach. So that she could run. Jump. Wear her favorite jeans.
Did I tell you that Devin's wife, Augusta, is going to become a doula? A support person for a pregnant woman, that is. Somebody who will be there for you when you're giving birth.
She had her first delivery on the day we arrived in Boston. And she was exhausted for about two days. Just drained. Just so you know why I won't be writing this blog in December. ;)
I read somewhere that giving birth is like running a marathon -- and that you should train for one. Maybe I could ride my bike next to Jessica, when she jogs.
I wonder if Hilda has jetlag now... I seem to suffer from one. Judging by these random thoughts.
The point of this blog was originally to find a good name for our baby. And we still throw some new names out in the arena, although - let's face it - we're 99.5 percent set on Hilda. Unless he's a boy.
And since today is Sep 11, I thought we could consider yet another Finnish girl's name. The name means something that all of us here on planet Earth want, but actually very few of us have.
Portland, Maine is a cool mid-sized city. (And by "mid-sized", I mean a mid-sized Finnish city...). It looks like English cities, only in a better shape.
And a lot hotter.
I am sweating my head off here. There are drops of sweat on Devin's Powerbook as I wrote this. vfgbhn Well, not anymore.
Anyway, since Devin and Augusta don't have air conditioning here, there was only one thing left for us to do: shopping. All the stores have air conditioning, so that's where we were:
Hilda got a shirt.
Her first little toy.
Jessica got shorts and new sweat pants.
And a couple of books.
Risto got new running shoes.
And pants.
We're now a couple of hundred bucks cooler. Literally.
Although, I know I'll be sweating when opening the Visa bill.
We missed our connecting flight in Frankfurt. So, Germany became the first country Hilda has visited... if staying at an airport hotel for 11 hours can be considered as "visiting" a country.
But boy, you should have seen us running through the Frankfurt airport. (A technical problem delayed our plane so we had, like, 20 minutes to make our connection). We pushed ground staff, we hopped around businessmen, over tables and chairs, and up some stairs. (sorry about that, Hilda).
And once at the gate:
"From Helsinki to Boston?" she said
"Yes!!" we yelled.
"I'm sorry, you missed your flight"
"What the fuck, why couldn't somebody fucking tell us before our fucking plane landed?" Risto said, politely.
"I'm sorry, didn't they tell you?"
Jessi collapsed at a nearby chair. Risto was a walking fountain of sweat. In Frankfurt.
Hilda's about to take off on her first-ever overseas trip. (Since she will have dual citizenship, it will technically also be her first trip abroad as our July trip to Sweden was a trip from one home country to another for her. Technically). Naturally, Jessica's going with her. Me, too.
We're off to Boston. We've never been there so it's all exciting. Like, we all hope that they won't show Moulin Rouge on the plane (seen it!). We have packed our game of Yatzy, a deck of cards, lots of books and magazines, MD player, frozen water and Jessica's looking forward to the meals. She actually likes plane food. Yes, I did spell that right. P-l-a-n-e food.
Now, if you think the airplane seats are a little uncomfortable and that there is no leg room, imagine what it's like with two people sharing a seat. Even if one of them hasn't been born yet. I almost feel bad for not having a huge belly myself.
Sometimes I think that I think too much. Obviously, then, I have to stop thinking immediately to put a stop to the vicious circle. Heh. What I mean is that whenever I have dwelled on something long enough, I run out of patience and just do something. The good thing is that I hardly ever regret the decisions I make. It's more important for me to make a decision than to make the right decision.
Jessica, on the other hand, loves lists. She makes grocery lists, to-do lists, to-not-do lists, risto-to-do lists etc. We have all our video tapes numbered and listed. She arranged our books in an alphabetical order the other week.
And I love it. I love having order. I just can't bring myself to ever creating it.
Which brings us to the slight problem we have had with choosing the last name. How could we ever make that decision by using some rational arguments? What could possibly be such an argument that would make one name better than the other?
Jessica came up with a system:
If it's a boy, he'll get last name z, and a girl will get last name y. Fine. But which way? Boy gets Dad's last name and girl Mom's? Or the other way around?
I can already hear a list of the pros and cons being drafted in the living room.
I love my birth date almost as much as my name. What I mean is that as often as I see "risto" inside other words or cheer for all Ristos in all sporting events, I see my birth date all over the place.
I was born on December 8 which means that whenever I wake up at 08:12 in the morning, I feel like it's going to be a great day. I see cars with ***-812 license plates everywhere. 8+12=20 so 20 has also become something of a lucky number.
Jean Sibelius was born on December 08. Gotta love his music. Jim Morrison was born on December 8. "I'm the lizard king, I can do anything." John Lennon was murdered on December 08. Imagine that.
Hilda was originally due November 30, which is my father's birthday. December 06 is Finland's independence day.
