The ups and downs of life with a baby

Greetings from the other side.

Time passes very quickly these days. When our daughter was first born, and for the first few days thereafter, it seemed like every day was a week long and I lost track of time more times than I care to count. After that, however, time appears to have sped up again. Now it is just flying by, almost to the point where you can sort of say - if comparing to how it felt when she had first arrived - that every week is about a day long. That is a bit of an exaggeration, of course, but it does point to the fact that time seems to go by so quickly now. She is already 3-months-and-a-bit old, yet I have no idea where that time went!

She is healthy, and growing, which warms my fatherly heart to see. When she first arrived, she lost weight for a while, and we had to stay at the hospital where she was born a few days extra until they saw that she was putting on weight again. She is the first child for both my wife and for myself. While my wife had done the smart thing and read up on a lot of stuff beforehand - though in retrospect, all babies are different, and so not all that information has been as useful as we would have liked all the time - I never really did that. Then suddenly one day I had a newborn baby to take care of. Luckily the people at the hospital were very kind to show me the ropes on how to change diapers, etc.

As I have written about before, my wife had a difficult birthing experience, and she lost a lot of blood and had to be taken to surgery for stitches. She got to hold our daughter for a little while after she was born, but after that we didn't see her again for roughly 6 hours. Something which was very traumatic for her. After giving birth she has also suffered from postpartum depression, which, coupled with her past history of twice suffering from stress-related burnouts (utmattningssyndrom in Swedish), which she is also having symptoms of again, and being a highly sensitive person (HSP) has meant that she has not been able to enjoy motherhood as much as she would like.

At this point, I will point out that my wife has given me her full blessing to write about this, as she herself isn't trying to keep it a secret and has been very open about it.

I should also point out that she does love the baby and has bonded with her well, and she does do her best to look after her. She harbors fears that she isn't a good mother, or won't be able to take care of her daughter like she wants to if she falls deeper into the depression and exhaustion. Which, of course, is a vicious circle. She doesn't have the energy levels she should have, nor the resilience to sounds when the baby screams - which makes her stress-levels shoot through the roof. She has better days, and worse days, of course, regarding her energy levels and her depression issues. She always does her best though, and I am always doing my best to help as much as I can.

As a husband, it hurts seeing the woman you love go through these issues. You want to help, but you also know that there isn't much you can do other than to try to alleviate the stress by helping out as much as you can, and being there for her. I, myself, suffered from depression and anxiety issues for 13 years before crawling my way out of that particular issue, so I know a bit about what she is going through, even though I think each experience is unique in some ways. I wish she could get more help with her problems. It took a little over 2 months after our baby girl was born before she got to see a psychologist. She has another meeting with the psychologist planned. Though I admit she doesn't feel that it gives her much help, and she would prefer to get help in the form of cognitive therapy.

Luckily, our daughter has been good about sleeping at night - only waking up a couple of times and then sleeping 3-5 hours in-between waking up. This is especially good since my wife is a very light sleeper, and usually takes a long time falling asleep.

We've been blessed, and fortunate, to have her parents living close to us. They've been really good at helping out, which has been a real help for us. It has helped my alleviate some of the stress and burden from my wife, which has been invaluable. We can not thank them enough for all they do, even if it is just allowing our daughter to sleep in her stroller/pram at their house so my wife can rest for a bit.

Yesterday, we got our first snow of the winter here. There is now a thin blanket of snow on the ground - at least in large patches, as some of it has melted away already.

I am, as I said, doing my best to support my wife and take care of the baby, while also looking for a new job. Though part of me thinks that it might be a blessing in disguise that I haven't found a new job yet as it has allowed me to be home and help my wife now that she is going through these things. To be honest there is no place I would rather be at this point in time. I get to support my wife when she needs me the most, and I get to spend time with my daughter on a daily basis, and watch her grow and learn new things.

I think that will be enough from me for now. I hope you are all doing well out there, and remember to take care of each other! :)

See you all on the other side!

Welcome to the new year!

Greetings from the other side.

And thus I return from the holiday season, bringing wishes of well-being and happiness for you all. I hope you have all had a wonderful Christmas and New Years together with family, friends, loved ones, etc. I also hope that the new year will be a good one, for everyone on this blue marble in space that we live our lives upon. May this new year at least see the beginnings of an end to wars, abuse, poverty, loneliness, and all the other things that ails the world. At least that is what I hope for, and pray for.

The night before yesterday I sat up until 4 or 5 am playing a tabletop roleplaying game over the internet with my friends. It was so much fun, and I have missed it dearly. I don't get to do that too often these days. Then I ended up getting about 4 hours of sleep, before I got up because I had to be at work the next day. Granted, I didn't need to be there until 1 pm, but I had some other stuff to do before-hand as well. It is safe to say that I was pretty knackered by the end of the day. So early night for me last night and then I slept for about 10 hours. I guess my body needed it. It's good that the weekend is here now.

So, my last post was on December 20, which you can find here. Since then I have had my first Christmas here in Finland, and it was a fun and enjoyable time together with my fiancee and her family. Next year we will be celebrating Christmas with my family in Sweden, and then probably do an every-other-year kind of thing. Anyway, focus on this year, and this was the first time I had ever celebrated Christmas away from my family, so it was a bit of a strange feeling. In the end though, it was an enjoyable time surrounded by good people and a warm atmosphere. It is definitely something I am looking forward to do again another year! :)

Even the family dog, Bamse, got excited about Santa's visit and all the presents. Sadly I don't have a picture of him at that moment, but here's another picture of him taken on the same day at least:

He's a big Newfoundland boy, and at 10 years of age he is currently older than the average life-expectancy of dogs of his breed.

There were a few new food-items among the Christmas food that I hadn't tried before. I honestly don't know what to call most of them in English,so I won't attempt to. I will say however that I enjoyed everything that I tried.

Oh, and I also worked during Christmas service on Christmas Eve, as well as during mass on New Years Day.

Christmas Day was spent taking it easy and having lunch with my fiancee's parents. On Boxing Day (Annandag Jul in Swedish) we went to visit my fiancee's sister and her family.

In the days before New Years both my fiancee and her mother got ill. We had intended to celebrate New Years with my fiancee's parents, but in the end we went over for dinner and then went home again. My fiancee went to bed early and I stayed up chatting with friends online for a while. Luckily they are both feeling better now. Though her mother had to go to the hospital and was diagnosed with pneumonia, something which she has since then been going to the health clinic 3 times a day and gotten regular doses of antibiotics intravenously. My father-in-law and myself have luckily managed to stay healthy so far.

All in all it has been a good time, and I can look back to it with fond memories. Now we have a new year in front of us. Let's do the best we can out of it! :)

I wish you all a happy new year. May the new year bring happiness, peace and love to all.

Until next time.

See you all on the other side!

Halloween, and other things

Greetings from the other side.

So, as 'some' of you might have noticed if you were paying attention, yesterday was Halloween, a day which in this household wasn't really celebrated in any particular fashion. Neither my fiancee nor I grew up with it and since we don't have any kids that might want to dress up, or any neighborhood kids that might come knocking on the door to trick-or-treat us, we just had a calm, normal, day instead. Which was fine with us. I did stay up late and watch my friends play a tabletop rpg (role playing game) online called 'Slasher Flick' though. It is a game that is based off of so called 'slasher movies', things like Friday 13th, A nightmare on Elm Street, Halloween, etc. It was quite fun watching them and I really wish I could have been able to play as well. Sadly I never got around to making my two characters for it, nor did I really have the energy to focus on playing, but listening in and watching them play was fine. I would highly recommend it to people to try out on another Halloween some time. I know I will definitely take the chance next time we decide to try it out for a one-shot game. Then again, only try it if you enjoy the idea of playing a tabletop role playing game in that genre, of course. It was a good, fun and creative way to spend a few hours in the company of good friends, and that's never a bad thing really. :)

My knee is slowly getting better. Hopefully it is well enough now that I won't have any issues with it going forward. There's always that slight insecurity when it comes to physical issues such as my knee problems. Even though it feels alright it doesn't mean you shouldn't have rested it a day or two more, and there is always the risk that the issues might return if I am not careful. The chiropractor did give me a couple of exercises to do to help strengthen the supporting muscles around my knee though. There's one of them that I haven't had the chance to try properly yet as it requires me to sit down on the floor and with my knee in the shape it has been that wasn't much of an option. Getting down was painful, but getting up was even worse. I am going to try it out soon though, as my knee is feeling better and, crucially, it seems to recover much faster after it has been under strain, which is good.

My fiancee will give my knee another reflexology treatment later today. Hopefully that will be the thing that pushes it over the line and makes my knee completely well again. Keeping my fingers crossed at least! :)

See you all on the other side!

The last couple of days - An update

Greetings from the other side.

Yesterday was the final work-day for me this week. At least going on my regular 60% schedule. I also have some extra work on Saturday. Which is good, because every little bit helps, really. :) I have gotten a lot of work done this week however, so it should be ok even if I don't work today or tomorrow.

I visited a naprapath ('naprapat' in Swedish. I translated it via Google. Though it seems about the same as a chiropractor.) today about my knee. I figured that since I have already seen a doctor about it and it hasn't gotten well yet I might as well try other options as well. I really don't have anything to loose. Hopefully the treatment he gave me will help, though I have been ordered a few days rest for the knee to allow the swelling to go down so I won't really know until after a few days. He also gave me some light exercises to help strengthen the muscles around my knee. Wish me luck!

I was thinking of not working Saturday to allow my knee to heal up better, but my father-in-law has promised to help me out, and it isn't as physically demanding as my regular job can be, so I should be fine as long as I take it easy and remember to rest when I can. I am lucky, and thankful, that he is able to come help me out though.

This evening my girlfriend and I are going, together with her parents, to go practicing with a temporary choir, that has been put together for one performance in church on All Saint's Day (Alla helgons dag), also known as All Hallow's Day according to Wikipedia. Luckily for my knee we will be sitting down the entire time, or most of the time at least. :)

Yesterday I spent some time practicing my map-making again. I am quite enjoying it. :) I have not had the time to do so today yet, but I might do it again this evening. It feels good to be back working on it again, as I have been feeling it is something I need to do for my continued world-building exercises.

Time for me to go get ready for this evening's choir practice.

See you all on the other side!

A short update

Greetings from the other side.

This will have to be a shorter post unfortunatelly.

Yesterday was a good day. We had friends and family over for coffee to celebrate my girlfriend and I getting engaged. A good time was had by all in my humble opinion. Sadly my family or friends from Sweden were unable to attend, but as I think I mentioned in my previous post, we will celebrate with them as and when they are able to come over for a visit. We already have my parents coming here at the end of this month, which we are excited about.

In less exciting news my knee is still not well, so I have been to see a doctor about it and I am now officially on sick-leave until Sunday. I am under instruction to take it easy and rest my knee as much as possible. I hope it will be better by Sunday, so I can go back to work again. Feels strange sitting home when I know there are things that need to get done. I am trying not to to think about it though, and not to let it get to me. There is no point in me stressing over it, as I can't really do much about it anyway.

I can't wait until my knee is well again. Not just because of work, but also just simple things like being able to help out in every day life. Things you normally take for granted that you are able to do suddenly aren't so simple anymore. Luckily it is something that can get better again.

That's it for me for today, I think.

See you all on the other side!

A slow day

Greetings from the other side.

This is going to have to be a short blog post unfortunately.

My new phone is finally "assembled" and in functioning order. Didn't really take that long. Longest bit was probably all of the updates and re-starts it wanted to do. Didn't get around to it yesterday, but now it is sorted. Feels good. :) I have also been sorting and putting all of my papers into a folder today. The papers I have aquired here in Finland that is. Things like my job contract, the contract for my new phone, etc. It's good to have it all sorted and in one place so they are easy to find when I need them. It has also helped me reduce some of the piles of papers that are currently adorning my desk, freeing up some much needed space there.

My knee is still stiff and sore, but getting better. It is a slow process though, so I can't really give a time frame for when it might be well again. I am hoping it will be well before Monday though, so I can get back to working normally again. My girlfriend gave me a reflexology treatment for my knee today. Some of the points she put pressure on hurt like *beeep*, but hey if it helps it was well worth it. She's good at what she does, so I know I am in good hands.

Thinking of moving my weights indoors again so I can do some lifting again. Though it will probably have to wait until my knee is better. I don't much look forward to draging them over here with my knee the way it is. Nor should I really be training while the knee is like this either, as it is a bit less stable than normal.

Weighed myself again this morning, and I am still loosing weight, even though I have been hobbling around all week and not been nearly as mobile as I have been previously. I am glad that I am still loosing weight, and I can't wait to reach my target some day.

Sun is shining outside and the sky is blue. Seems to be a bit windy looking out, but not too bad.

Right. That's it for today. I seem to be lacking a bit of blogging inspiration today. Hopefully it will be better by tomorrow.

See you all on the other side!

Tales of a mixed weekend

Greetings from the other side.

The weekend went by in a flash, or at least it felt like it did. On Saturday my girlfriend and I went together with her mother to a music café. It was really enjoyable with good music, nice people, and a pizza buffé. The only downside to the evening was that I somehow managed to hurt my knee. Again. Same one that has been hurt before. I didn't really do anything to cause it either, as far as I have been able to work out. As I got out of the car when we arrived there, my knee suddenly started feeling stiff and sore. It is still sore, stiff, and feels swollen even though it doesn't look it. From what we have been able to work out it seems to be some kind of inflammation or similar thing in the places where the muscles attach to the knee. It's a bit difficult for me to explain in english, but hopefully that made enough sense.

Luckily though, it has been slightly better today than it was yesterday and on Saturday, so I am hoping it will keep getting better from now on. It does restrict me a bit in my work, which sucks, but at least I am able to work, just not at a very fast pace and I need to be careful so I don't put too much (or any really) unnecessary strain on my knee while I do it.

When you have an 'injury' like this you quickly realize how much it affects you in your job and in your everyday life. I can't wait until my knee is better again.

Yesterday was spent resting and taking it easy. The knee meant I wasn't going to be very mobile anyway. My girlfriend and I got our engagement photos taken by a friend of hers, and later I got some work done on the world-building, as well as on some game mechanics for the tabletop RPG stuff.

We also got the bookcase assembled and put up yesterday, and it currently has about 3½ shelves filled with binders and my tabletop RPG books and boxes.

We had our first 'proper' frost night last night. By that I mean, we might have had other cold nights with degrees dropping well below zero degrees Celcius before, but this is the first night I can remember where the temperature was still below zero when I woke up this morning. Only -1 but still. Second morning so far (though not in a row) where I have had to scrape the windows free of ice on my car before I drove off to work.

See you all on the other side!

Energy levels & Thoughts

Greetings from the other side.

I finally seem to have my energy back again. It has been very strange how my energy-levels have been coming and going in the last couple of weeks. Hopefully it is back to stay now, as it has been affecting me quite a lot. I have soldiered on as best I have been able to, but admittedly some times I have been working at half-speed because of it. :-/ I have been able to do my job and do the tasks I am required to do, but I would have much rather been doing it with my normal energy rather than feeling like I'd rather go lie down and rest. Keeping my fingers crossed that my energy-levels have stabilized now.

Going through a period of time like that makes you realize how important it is to be able to feel like you have the energy to do things. Not tired like you haven't been sleeping even though you have been making sure that you get the required amount of sleep. It's a weird thing because no matter how much you sleep you still feel like you haven't been sleeping much at all. I wasn't showing any other symptoms either, like fever or anything like that which might have helped explain the sudden lack of energy.

Besides that though, I have been doing alright. Things are going well at work and I am still feeling like I am growing with the job. I have had a chance to meet a lot of wonderful people, and it is always a pleasure talking to them. Today I was helping out at a meet-up for people above the age of 60, and I really enjoyed it. They were really friendly and it was a joy helping out.

Only cloud on my work-related 'sky' is that, starting on Monday, my job goes down from 100% to 60%. I will probably be able to fill out the rest by working extra in other places, etc, however. So my girlfriend and I should be able to manage.

I am hoping that my energy-levels will remain at their normal level from now on.

See you all on the other side!

Another 'Moving' Story

Greetings from the other side.

Today has been a busy day here at the house. We have been moving floors to live in the downstairs 'apartment' instead of just upstairs. We are not done with the moving yet, but most of the big stuff has been carried to where it needs to go at least. There's still work to be done getting everything in order though, so still some time before we are done. It feels good to finally be able to see the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel though. We will still be utilizing the upstairs apartment however, and it will also serve as a place for guests to stay when I have people visiting from Sweden. :)

Been very tired after this past work-week, and my body has been aching a bit in the last couple of days. Especially my back has felt a bit sore. So I was a bit hesitant about carrying all the heavy furniture today. It went by without a hitch though, but tomorrow will definitely be a day or rest for me. We had some glutenfree pizza for dinner, together with my girlfriend's parents, after we were done to celebrate. I can assure you all it was delicious! :)

My weight keeps going down, which is good. So far I have lost about a kilo every week, and two kilos this past week. I am also noticing that I feel lighter, which is good. :) I am putting it down to my girlfriend's healthy cooking, and the physical nature of my work which has me working outside all day.

This will have to conclude my post for today, as I am very tired.

See you all on the other side!

A Sunday out of the ordinary

Greetings from the other side.

So far this has been a day of new meetings and experiences. I had the honor of being "kyrkvärd" today at the morning service at church. I have tried translating "kyrkvärd" into english, but found two different terms - "churchwarden" and "sidesman". I have not been able to ascertain which one would be the most appropriate term to use however, so I will leave it at that. Being my first time doing this, I was happy to have my girlfriend's dad with me who has a lot of experience with that kind of work.

After we were done at the church, we went off to buy some salmon and met a relative to my girlfriend's family there. He was probably one of the happiest, and most cheerful people I have ever met. It's the kind of happiness that just beams off of him, and infects everyone around him. It was also the first time I have ever walked into a store and gotten a hug from someone working there. :) lol I guess I am part of the family now.

Yesterday's fog has lifted from the land, but the cloud-cover still remains. From what I am told the sun will come back again tomorrow, which will be welcome.

I seem to have gotten my energy back now, which is welcome after a long week of feeling heavy in both body and mind. Not sure what was up with that. It was like I hadn't been sleeping even though I tried to sleep more than normally to counter it. Hopefully my new-found energy will stay with me going forward. :)

I was able to do a bit more world-building yesterday evening, which felt nice having not been able to do any work on it in the past week. :) I was unable to do any more work on maps however, but I am sure I will get to doing that soon as well.

See you all on the other side!

One day at a time

Greetings from the other side.

In my last post I mentioned that I wasn't feeling too well. That is still the case, unfortunatelly. I hope that some rest will do me good this weekend, even though I work this Sunday.

It isn't really affecting my work that much yet. Only discernable issue is that everything I do seem to take a longer time than it normally would, and I get tired a lot quicker. It isn't ideal, but at least it isn't keeping me from doing my job. I've only been working there about 4 weeks, so I don't really want to come down with a fever, or something, now that would keep me home.

Outside of my work, the thing that annoys me the most about this tiredness is that it is also having an effect on my creativity, which has been almost zero this week. After I get home from work my mind is just too tired to be creative, or at least that is what it feels like. I might try and do a bit of writing today, just to see how it goes, but judging by the way I feel I don't have high hopes for it.

Even coming up with things to write about on the blogs is difficult right now, but I am trying to push through it. Might have to be a few shorter posts until I feel better, we shall see.

It is kind of strange, ever since I moved here from Sweden I seem to have been suffering from one thing or another. First it was my knee, then I got an eye infection, then my current issues. I will persevere though. Hopefully I will be all better soon. :)

Now to try and write something for my other blog.

See you all on the other side!