In three words...It was amazing. From start to finish, we literally had a by-the-book perfect vacation. It wasnt exactly relaxing, but what is with a nearly 2 1/2 year old, but we had some super-fun family-time all within the beauty and perfection of mid-summer in Sweden (22-hours of daylight and perfect 70 degree weather). Izzy was a rock-star during the travel itself, including the 11-hour+ fight from Paris to SFO yesterday. AND since we were all going to bed late, we all slept in until at least 10am most days - heaven, I tell you, heaven!
We stayed with W's cousin's family for most of the time, which included 4 kids (ages 1 to 11 years old) and Izzy was in pure rapture. She was completed obsessed with the oldest (and luckily the feeling was mutual) so the five of them spent the days (and some nights) playing footbol in the yard, going on walks to the local "water" parks and scootering around the nearby lake. From the minute she woke up ("Is O up yet?") to the minute, usually around 10pm, that she dozed off, Izzy was chasing them around or otherwise being entertained. The concept of more kids = more chaos is not necessarily the case, when the older ones look after the little ones. It sort of felt like we had full-time childcare, where ever we went! We walked around old town, visited the miniature Stockholm and petting zoo (first time petting an elk!) and even spent a night out of town on a beautiful lake with W's entire extended family. It was just the kind of vacation that makes you feel like living aboard would be totally-TOTALLY doable...
In less decisive news, W appears to still be pregnant, but of course, we have no way to confirm that. We found an RE out in the Bay Area who will do a blood draw (on Friday) and *hopefully* a needed follow-up ultrasound next Wednesday (on what will be 7 weeks!). Still no definitive nausea but *very* sore nipples and some general shmutzi-ness is making us feel somewhat hopeful. I guess this is how the rest of the world does it, waiting until 7 or 8 weeks to meet with an OB?
Happy fireworks!
We stayed with W's cousin's family for most of the time, which included 4 kids (ages 1 to 11 years old) and Izzy was in pure rapture. She was completed obsessed with the oldest (and luckily the feeling was mutual) so the five of them spent the days (and some nights) playing footbol in the yard, going on walks to the local "water" parks and scootering around the nearby lake. From the minute she woke up ("Is O up yet?") to the minute, usually around 10pm, that she dozed off, Izzy was chasing them around or otherwise being entertained. The concept of more kids = more chaos is not necessarily the case, when the older ones look after the little ones. It sort of felt like we had full-time childcare, where ever we went! We walked around old town, visited the miniature Stockholm and petting zoo (first time petting an elk!) and even spent a night out of town on a beautiful lake with W's entire extended family. It was just the kind of vacation that makes you feel like living aboard would be totally-TOTALLY doable...
In less decisive news, W appears to still be pregnant, but of course, we have no way to confirm that. We found an RE out in the Bay Area who will do a blood draw (on Friday) and *hopefully* a needed follow-up ultrasound next Wednesday (on what will be 7 weeks!). Still no definitive nausea but *very* sore nipples and some general shmutzi-ness is making us feel somewhat hopeful. I guess this is how the rest of the world does it, waiting until 7 or 8 weeks to meet with an OB?
Happy fireworks!
Welcome back to the states! Sounds like Sweden was fantastic and smooth regarding sleep transitions. Hope everything went well at the blood draw today and enjoy SF!
ReplyDeleteI'm glad to hear you had such a great time! (Although I will admit to being a bit jealous of older cousins who actually help with the younger children, instead of running around like ill-mannered hooligans. Yes, I'm apparently 90 years old, but I feel like that's the best word for them. Or at least a moderately polite word for them.)
ReplyDeleteThis time around, we didn't see anyone until 7 weeks, as I, uh, still haven't told the RE I got knocked up. (I never "graduated", I just dropped out. At this point I figure that assuming all goes well, I'll just send a birth announcement and a thank you note, and call it good.) After all the blood tests and ultrasounds with Blanket that were ultimately useless in predicting outcome, it was kind of nice to wait. It was hard, of course, because we wanted more information (I still want more information, honestly; I want to know for sure that this will be okay, and all I can know is a strong probability that it will), but good too. Things looking good at 7 weeks is a good sign, and more useful as a predictor than some of the earlier tests. So, there's that.
I hope all goes well, and that you continue to have a wonderful summer!