Since Saturday we started a routine of “going for a walk” around the neighborhood. I even figured out what street / direction is to be taken, according to what time it is, in order for the Sun to not shine directly on her face in the stroller 😀

We don’t have a prom stroller, we didn’t consider it necessary, because the sport seat from our stroller can be reclined almost completely at horizontal and it has also safety belts so the baby stays perfectly secured. Besides, it’s the same brand and compatible with the car seat, that we also used for a couple of times, when she seemed too small for the stroller seat. Her arms and legs have grown visibly, now is not a torture anymore to guide her arms through the sleeves 😀

So, yeah… Because the temperature has been increasing gradually every day, now at noon is 26° C, each morning we tried to start our walk a bit earlier, to not get it too hot inside the stroller.

Today when she woke up at 6 for feed and nappy, I felt a rush of adrenaline that I have to do/start something very meaningful. I was browsing through my ACCA curriculum.. Should I resume my study for F7 Financial Reporting? I need to buy the course books again, I even forgot from where I bought them the first time.. Anyway..

After breakfast I still felt I have to do something different today. So we decided to go to the mall!! I called Leo and asked him what is his opinion and he gave us green light and told me at which time the bus leaves. I had to run a bit to catch it, but it was downhill, for 2 min.. The asphalt was very smooth so the baby didn’t feel a bit. We caught the bus at 09:03 🙂 And, from where it dropped us, we walked a bit more until we arrived at Fryda Shopping Center.

The baby was pleasantly napping during all this time, I first entered in a shop with toys, I found a stand with cute wallets with Czech names, I was thinking to save in it what she received from grandma and grandpa, when they came over. It was one with her name also, but then I noticed the zipper was broken 😦 And then I found so many cute toys that I want to buy for her. I got so excited about playing with them 😀

Then we went to DM, I saw yesterday on their site that they have Water Wipes also! But they were only selling them in pack of 1 which was 99 czk.. On amazon.de I can buy pack of 4 with 11.5 eur, which is cheaper, even considering the exchange fees.

After this, we browsed the onesies in Pepco and I bought her two of them, I would’ve bought more but she started to fuss and cry. I wanted to visit also the baby section from H&M.. but..yeah.. baby rules.

So we went straight to the mother&baby restroom area, for feed and nappy. And I noticed something weird regarding logistics. How do you suppose to go to pee also, as a mommy alone with a baby in the stroller? The stroller was obviously not fitting in the cabin.. And the two rooms specially designed for disabled where locked.. You had to ask for the key to the mall management. So stupid! I’m considering to write them a feedback. And there was no hand soap in the dispenser in the mother&baby room. Lucky I had sanitizer packed.

So yeah… Because I was under… somewhat… pressure, I decided to return home.. I barely bought myself a chicken wrap that I ate in the way to the bus station.

Funny thing, there is this main bus station in front of the Polyclinic, there are like 15 different bus lines stopping there.. Very sunny and very crowded, only one sitting bench, I couldn’t even reach the board to see when my bus comes… So I decided to walk until the next one, 5-6 min walk, around the corner. Lovely shadow, 3 empty benches and nobody waiting. I had to wait for 20 min. Baby was sleeping again. Such a pleasure with such a small baby that sleeps 16h/day 😀

And the bus came and it was almost noon when we arrived home. Baby was hungry again.. Then, I made myself a corn and tuna salad and now I’m procrastinating my afternoon nap… 😀

So I started to sleep long and calm enough in order to have dreams and also be able to remember them.. Baby is sleeping all night from 8ish to 7ish, with 2 short intermissions for diaper change (Leo’s task) and breastfeeding (my task) at around midnight and 4ish so we wake up rested also. Now she naps in my lap 😀

I was trapped again in that never-ending series of dreams, where I am back in school repeating Secondary (5th to 8th grade) or High-school (9th to 12th) classes, because we have to do our final exams again, as the ones we did are not valid anymore, because of the reform in the Romanian School System.. Yeah.. About that..

… So.. after receiving a pop quiz in the Romanian Literature class, that made me sad, because there were 4 very specific questions from a Novel I didn’t read, so I had no idea what to write, I was announced that, surprisingly, over-all, I’m in top 15% of my class, as per my achievements so far.

And this was qualifying me to participate in the competition to become a teacher… which was not much appealing to me, but anyway.. I was told that first I have to fill in a 2 pages personality test of 49 questions with some weird neologisms..

The test was redacted by him… He was now sitting in the classroom bench behind me. I was shocked when I saw his name in the header of the printed pages, so I asked abruptly to remove his name first and reprint, as I’m not filling anything or signing anything with his name on it…

There were more pieces of dreams, but these are the ones that stayed with me the most.

I have a sadness that I cannot speak Romanian with my own child.. because it feels weird.. because she is not Romanian… it doesn’t feel right. I’m speaking with her a combination of Czech and English… Maybe I should start to read her stories in Romanian.. I have to remember the name of that Novel that was in my pop quiz.

You know, from all the objects and teachers I had in school the ones that stress me the most in my dreams are the Romanian teacher in Secondary and the Maths teacher in High-school, although Maths was empowering in the end, as I managed to catch the flow and get on top, Romanian on the other hand was always surprising me negatively. I was never putting enough “i” in the words and enough “,” (coma). I mean, it was also a different performance scale, an 8 (out of 10) in Secondary was tragedy, while an 8 in Maths in High-school was the party of the month.

Secondary was the most traumatic school time experience for me.. way too many objects, I was feeling extremely anxious, I was bullied, ignored, rejected… and I truly wonder how I managed to finish it with final average grade over 9, considering I was barely studying anything at home… I was spending all my free time watching telenovelas or doing creative projects..

Barely from High-school I was taking studying and homework seriously, as I needed my recesses for.. well.. other things :D.. Like going to mom’s laboratory and disturbing her..

So I know how much work I had to put in that, especially in my final 2 years.. I find it an extremely great injustice to have to repeat that.. Hence my nightmares..

PS. They removed the spelling check from this WordPress editor, so please forgive me if I have (too obvious) spelling mistakes that I didn’t spot to correct.

Later edit.. While reading this again (and correcting 3 spelling mistakes), I had a revelation. The thing with repeating the classes.. I think my subconscious is trying to tell me that I can re-write those traumatic memories by using knowledge and resources from people I met long after that. And by resources I mean positive energy. And even if, now, I have to miss the majority of those classes – because, well, even in my dreams I live and work in a different country – somehow I’m still able to patch the holes. Enough that it brought me to the top 15%. Interesting. I have to find that test asap. :))

And by chest, I actually mean boob.

This is how I fell in-love with her. In the evening of day 4, still in maternity, she started having very bad tummy aches. I tried everything I knew, swinging, burping, singing, walking, swaddling.. The nurse discovered she calms down also if I give her my pinkie to suck on it… But it was a last-resort and temporary solution, until my milk came in proper amount..

As I wanted to sleep also and it was very uncomfortable to have my arms stretched to her crib, into her mouth, I put her over me and we covered both with the blanket. She finally fell asleep barely at 5 in the morning, after breastfeeding in tummy position, over me. When she knew she is done she lifted her head, dropped the boob and sat again with the cheek over it. If she were able to smile at that age, that was definitely a laugh of satisfaction. I had no idea that 4 days old babies can even do this.

I love to let her sleep like this, over me. Now I literally cannot feel 3 of my left arm’s fingers, because I’m supporting her head. It’s calming her down and I know she makes happiness hormones like this.

Time is passing so fast! She won’t sleep like this until she leaves for college, right? So I’m just taking advantage <3.

Sooooo, yeah! We are two now. I mean 3. 4 if you count also Bonnie.

We have a May baby girl, born with 3460 grams. Honestly, the labor and delivery went smoother than I was prepared for emotionally, even if I had no chance for any official preparation classes.

So maybe I was lucky here… The breastfeeding, on the other hand, it’s a whole new different challenge, that makes me reconsider a bit the whole thing.. 😦 at least we are taken care well here and there are options..plus she developed some jaundice which kinda made it urgent.

Some details about the birth (too-much-info warning):

It took us 5h since the moment we were admitted in the delivery room, until the baby was born, but I was having very crampy regular contractions at 2.5min interval that started at home, about 4h before we were admitted. At first I took a Paracetamol, then a hot shower, and they were not stopping, so we packed up and off we went. Ok, the bags were already packed in the trunk for 3 weeks already and the car seat installed for 2 weeks.

The best thing was that my partner was there with me all the time and I was allowed to walk around the room, literally until the moment of expulsion. I was actually asked to, because I was at dilation 10 cm about 2h before the big moment, but the baby’s head was still too high.

I was monitored by the midwife from time to time and we had only a very dim light in the room, which helped with relaxing. My doctor came only in the last moment and then also the baby’s doctor. I was breathing through and concentrating at each contraction, consciously relaxing and focusing my energy on helping my pelvis to open. And because the dilation went fast and I was handling it, they said there is no need at all to mess the natural process with an epidural. They only made me one analgesic directly in the vein, which worked by reducing the pain from a 9 to a 8. 😀

I was allowed to eat and drink all the time, but I was only in the mood for few nuts and raisins and when I felt I’m falling asleep between some contractions or losing my energy, I took a big cup of tea with sugar. I didn’t cry or scream at all, as I didn’t see the point, nor I wanted to scare the coming baby 🙂 When everything looked right, I was helped to get on the table and in 3 or 4 contractions she was all out!

I cannot speak in the name of other women, it was indeed a level of pain as I never experienced before, but I felt it the same as very-very strong period cramps, as I was having in my first years of period, but it was conscious and predictable, which helped to always be on top of “the game”. The impression right after and the impression also after few days is that it was an amazing birth. I will never forget the feeling I was having during pushing. It was pain, but with a purpose, which made it almost divine. Anyway, I cannot describe it in words, you have to live it for yourself.

When they put her over my chest I laughed and I said: it wasn’t that bad, so when can we have the next one?! They laughed also. (Leo, doctor, midwife and neo-natologist). And I think I got the most caring midwife and doctor that exist in all the hospital. The doctor knew me, as I had most of my regular checks with her.

I didn’t bath her yet, but I filmed her 2nd bath to show her when she will be 18 😀 I forgot to do this at the 1st bath, we were too tired anyway. Later edit: I gave her the 3rd bath, she was feeling like at SPA.. such an epic face.

Will keep you posted. If you want to read more! 🙂

PS: Even if I don’t speak Czech properly, I found an amazing support from the personnel in this maternity hospital, they helped me a lot with breastfeeding, because my milk had a slow start and, due to the jaundice, the baby was too sleepy to suck enough to trigger it, so additionally I had to pump few times to start lactation, while the baby had few dozes of formula also.

So.. I’m still pregnant. By calendar, today we have exactly 9 months. 😀

Yesterday I had a productive day: two loads of laundry, dried them outside, ironed some newly bought baby stuff (another pair of sheets for the Next2Me and the play-mat sheep) and the latest crocheted dress, changed all pillow covers in our bedroom (we have 6 :D).. I even took Bonnie for a small walk, until the recycling bins, we had a huge bag of plastics that was pending to throw, as Leo took car to work for the past 2 weeks, he couldn’t drop them as usual in his way to bus-station . Which makes me realize we are using too much plastic and we don’t even buy bottled water, except sporadically, when we are very thirsty while doing shopping. But everything comes wrapped in plastic, in a way or another. And for today we have 2 huge bags of cartons, from all the amazon packages I received lately…

But what I need to brag about: in the past days I managed to shave my legs, do my toenails (I would shame even a yoga master with the positions I had to employ), fix my eyebrows AND die my hair with a no-ammonia formula and trim the edges. All by myself at home. I’m so proud of myself. I don’t feel comfortable in saloons, at mani-pedi I “see” only germs everywhere and for hair, whenever I’ve been, they have always tortured me at brushing, I have a very sensitive scalp.. Plus the fortune that I have to pay. Last time it costed me 800 crowns just for edges trimming… Plus the smells.. not much pregnancy friendly 😦

I have started to tell to the baby that there is more room outside, if she wants to stretch that much. I mean, you know those YouTube videos where you see the shape of baby’s foot standing out through the abdomen? Not quite like that, but very close! And sometimes it really hurts. I will so miss this. :humid eyes emoji: At the latest check I saw one of her feet at the scan, the one that is always kicking in my right ribs, with those cute 5 fat toes, I cannot wait to eat them 😀

Now I feel ashamed that I asked from work to start the prenatal leave 8 weeks before the due date.. But maybe this is why I lasted that long, my stress level has significantly dropped, even if I was not realizing it then.

At the moment I don’t have much mood to do anything.. and I have some dishes to do.. And maybe cook some vegetarian lasagna for Leo. Otherwise, I don’t want to cook more for this Easter, because we don’t know when the baby will come and I don’t want to cook food that will die in the fridge by the time we are back. I’m counting on mom that she will bring us some Easter traditional Romanian dishes when they fly over, after the baby is born (drob, pasca etc).

The chicks from the neighborhood are singing. This means they laid new eggs. I’m always asking Leo to let me have 2-3 chicks also, the eggs will be the BIO-st possible. But since he doesn’t eat eggs, he doesn’t want… He says he might consider a goat, though, in the future, it will save him the trouble of mowing the lawn in the garden. If he is willing to milk her (and also make the cheese), I have no issues 😀

I was so stressed about bringing the baby to full-term that I didn’t even think having some nice pregnancy pictures. But maybe now, with my refreshed look, I might take some, at home, with my selfie stick. I wonder if any of my old dresses or blouses will fit this belly, which doesn’t seem as big as other full-term bellies I’ve seen out there… And it seems the baby hasn’t even dropped. Maybe because I’m taller than the average. Fun fact, my Leo mentioned in a joke, few days ago, that I’m taller that usual. So I measured myself: turns out I grew 2 cm since last time I checked, about 15 years ago, when I assumed I reached my peak.. I’m now 1.75 m. Should I update my passport or I will shrink back after the baby is born?!

So.. tomorrow at 11 AM, my time zone, the Sun will enter Taurus. Considering I only had 2 contractions today, very slim chances she will come until then. Wait, I’m having the 3rd now. Gotta stand up and walk a bit, it helps a lot with the pain, by using gravity in my favor. 😀

Last night I had a very bad nightmare. I first must say that I discovered a new series on Netflix: Touch. It kept me entertained for the past 3 days, totally my type. Yesterday I didn’t even “touch” the crochet hook.

So, about the nightmare. I was in the house, MY mind’s house, most probably, where I usually find myself in my dreams, with many rooms that I know. But this time I discovered a room that was not there before.

It was more like a junk storage room, all sort of old useless tools. I looked around and in the end I left. The door was very big with several locks on it, that I carefully closed, because I had the intuition that something very bad lives in that room. Maybe some very dark part of me.

There was a girl in my dream, in her late teens. She showed me something that I instantly recognized as being taken from that room. Very worried, I asked her if she was there and if she locked the room back properly. She hadn’t.

And then the monster got out. There was a headless woman’s body, that I was struggling so hard to kill. In the end I was smashing her against a mirror, the mirror was cracking and breaking into small pieces but somehow “she” was immune to my force. I killed a lot of monsters in my dreams. Some were harder, some were easier to kill. But this one I couldn’t, so I woke up all sweated and irritated. I desperately need to find that room and clean it.

I know, there was full-moon in my 12th House last night. Maybe that’s why.

Yesterday I discovered I already got my first payment for the maternity allowance, for the days from March. I celebrated it. For about 1h, in my mind.

And I was also very happy to find out that, by their final calculation, it resulted with 18 crowns per day more than by my last calculation. Which makes it, in total for the 196 days, an extra of ~3500 crowns 🙂 I tried to guess their way of calculation (is not that easy to calculate it, but at least they have the excel form online) and I think they included also the meal-vouchers and the Flexi-points benefit in the total brutto, for the respective period. I didn’t know that, I thought they go by what it says on the payslip as total brutto.

My mom and my Leo asked me (intrigued) why am I doing these calculations in advance, is there a way that I can change the outcome? No. So why do it?

Well… Because I love to calculate money and I want to be very well-informed. Because I am on foreign territory. Because I want to be prepared in case something goes wrong, to have all my data clear, in case I have to argue something. I’m sorry but I definitely hate the saying “ignorance is bliss”. Or “believe and don’t investigate”. Or “expect to be surprised”. In this case I was positively surprised, but it could’ve been the other way also. It’s not about the volume really, is about the accuracy. I was burned few times in my life and I prefer to be prepared.

Besides, I never expected that I will have to spend 17 days in medical leave in January, which had a negative impact on my total income, much higher than this extra 3500, especially because the first 3 days of medical leave here are paid 0(zero). So yeah. I have the right to be happy. 🙂

Now, regarding the title, as the Sun entered now in transit in my 6th House, looks like her Sun will  fall in my 6th House after all, as it was the original estimated term of delivery. I was flirting a while with the idea of having her Sun in my 5th House, but I guess 6th House is not that bad 😀 It’s just focused on different things. Hoping her Sun will have positive aspects from the rest of her planets, depending on the day she will get out.

And I’m also hoping she will come as Aries, although, her health (as full-term baby) and her decision (destiny) count more than my hope. Just because I find it easier to manage a Aries girl doesn’t mean I will not want the challenge of a Taurus girl. I am willing to handle everything I will stumble upon. They are both great, just “a bit” different.

And what exactly would mean for me that her Sun falls in my 6th House… Yeah, this is what I’m reading about now. 🙂

And I have to mention something, as I cannot take it out of my mind. Last Sunday we decided to give a chance again to that new Indian restaurant in our city. Last time I had chicken with cashew and curry sauce and I found it too sweet, especially because I had also Kofola. And it also seemed a bit too expensive. This time I ordered chicken in tomato and butter sauce, with garlic naan (something like pita bread) and plain water.

Believe me, the combination of the taste was orgasmic. And we paid 500 crowns, including 10% tip, while Leo had also soup, which is pretty much the same as we would pay at Tom’s, besides, they have a much larger variety of vegetarian food, for Leo. I left so happy, that I decided this Sunday we will go again and I will invite also my family when they come over. 🙂 I hope the baby will like the breast-milk produced from Indian food (not spicy).

Regarding breast-milk.. Or.. You know what, leave it for now. Next time 🙂

So.. We made it to term!! 🙂 37 weeks today! She is very restless today, moving almost continuously since 5 AM.

Yesterday at the check she was estimated at 2750 g and my cervix was 50% effaced and 1 cm dilated, which is normal for this stage. Thank you, for all your Prayers! 🙂

We stopped the progesterone and the magnesium.. And… I can hardly wait to meet her.

Tomorrow, after 7 PM my time, Jupiter will go Retrograde in Sagittarius. We survived Mercury Retrograde, so now I will have to document myself about Jupiter Retrograde in natal chart, to start knowing my baby. (I find it improbable to deliver by tomorrow 7 PM, as I have no signs of labor yet.)

From now on I will not write about the progress anymore, because I want to keep a minimum of privacy regarding her birth-date and hour. I will write, maybe, something about the birth, in case there will be something exceptional to write, although, I’m trying not to think about it and keep Zen for as long as possible.

In case you are curious, I found an interesting article about Jupiter Retrograde in Sagittarius

Why I’m stressing so much about it.. Well, because I am a Sagittarius and my natal Sun is conjunct with Jupiter, which makes it even more Sagittarius, also, right now, the transiting Jupiter is conjunct to them, in my 2nd House, which makes it quite a big deal for me. 🙂 (Please, pardon my narcissism)

So yeah.. Btw, my family is kinda stressing me to start offering my crocheted things online, to be bought. As much as I like the idea of people wanting to buy them, I hate the idea of doing them for money. Just like I do astrology readings when someone asks me… there are some things in life that cannot be measured in money. I have an official job for money, for my hobbies I want to be paid in positive energy 🙂

I mean, I’m not saying that my crocheting skills are out of this world (that would be really hilarious), I’m saying that I started doing them just to make time pass easier while I’m in bed rest, not for the purpose of having the crocheted object itself.

And slowly I learned more and more complex patterns, only by watching YouTube videos. And I might have inherited some talent: my grandma and my aunt are very skilled at this, you should have seen them how they were making summer shoes and sandals, when I was a child and spending my summers there. They were awesome!

And my grandpa was putting the bottom to them. My grandpa was very skillful, by life, not by choice: he had a handicap in one knee after one accident in the mine (at least this is what I was told) and, for all I remember him, he was dependent on a walking stick and couldn’t bend that knee properly, so he had to find a way of making a living for his family, from home: he became a Shoemaker. He was making awesome Scarpeti, for the whole village 🙂 He had so many awesome tools… we were driving him crazy when we were playing with them and forgetting them in the garden.

He died 18 years ago, about this time of year… I was in 11th grade… the first and only person I ever saw dead. I’m still having nightmares about it sometimes, as I was the one that answered the phone in that early Saturday morning when we were called and I passed the news to my family… I can still remember the voice from the other side of the land-line. I hope my grandma will stay strong enough to meet my daughter, as I also met my great-grandma and I remember her quite well.

So… crocheting for money.. (it would definitely be just a hobby outside of my real job)… I don’t know, maybe if I could do them outside, from the swing in the garden (that we haven’t bought yet), while I’m watching my child play with Bonnie (or his future offspring). Anyway, I would prefer to spend my time to teach how to do them than doing them for someone else. 🙂 And I hope more people believe in crocheting than the ones that believe in astrology.