I'm almost afraid to try to write this again because the last 3 times I've tried, the electricity has cut out and didn't come back for hours.
Fingers crossed I can FINALLY finish this without any annoying interruptions! I better make this fast just in case.
First of all:
Nothing new is happening with the baby, pregnancy or life in general. I don't think I updated everyone after my last doctor's appointment in Mytilini though. Baby brain again! Of course everything was totally fine, or else I wouldn't have forgotten to update you. We just did a quick ultrasound to see if the baby is in the right position for birth...which she is....and they hooked me up to a machine to monitor her heart beat for 20 minutes to make sure she's not under any stress as well as to check for any rhythm abnormalities...and that was perfect too.
Right now my doctor thinks she's about 2.4 kilos, which is about 5 1/2lbs, and her heart beat was on average 140 beats per minute. Both her weight and her heart beat are more than fine, he said they're perfect actually. And as of yesterday we have exactly 1 month until my due date so ladies and gentlemen....the waiting game has commenced!
Everyone keeps asking if I'm ready for the baby to get here. My answer: HELL YES! Oh my god, I'm so uncomfortable with this heat, I can't sleep hardly at all (not that that's going to change much once she gets here but I just figure it will feel more worth it then...right now it's just because I'm too damn hot and can't find a comfortable position for more than 3 seconds at a time. Oh yeah and the constant waking up to pee)...and really, I just want her to be here. Of course I don't want her to come too soon, 5 1/2 lbs isn't much so she needs to pack on a bit more fat and do whatever final developmental stuff she needs to do in the next little while. But once she's ready, I really hope she decides that she's had enough of my uterus and wants to come out and join the rest of us as soon as possible.
On the other hand, her room is totally not done yet, we don't have the dresser/change table being built yet and I haven't been able to order any of the other stuff we need before she gets here. Oh yeah, and my hospital bag isn't packed yet. But all of this is out of my hands at the moment so there's no sense in worrying about it. It'll all come together soon enough.
Why is this stuff not done? And why can't I do anything about it?
Well first, the painting of the room will happen next week. They said they can come over on Monday but Monday I have another check up with the doctor so we have to call and find out if Tuesday is ok. No big deal. We have some problems with moisture getting into the walls (as do all Greek houses unfortunately) so we needed someone really good that could fix the walls first and then paint, and when you want the best usually they aren't going to be available right away. Antonis is guessing that the baby is coming next week though, so if he's right then I don't know what will happen with the painting.....but sincerely doubt my dear husband is winning the baby pool. Next week? No. I don't think so. I think he's a bit excited....so cute!
So anyway, the painting will happen soon it just hasn't happened yet but that's not a big deal. The other thing on my list that I would really like to have finished before the baby arrives is the dresser/change table we're getting our friend Vasilis to build. First I need that stupid washing machine and closet moved off the main wall so I can make the measurements he needs to build it. I've talked about this a bunch of times before but just to remind you, if the washing machine isn't going to fit into the 2nd bathroom then I'll have to leave it in that room and I won't be able to fit normal sized crib and dresser/change table in her room....so that has to be figured out first before we go ahead and just make 'normal' sized anything. Antonis can't move these things on his own either, he definitely needs at least one other person who is capable of lifting anything heavy....that's been the the problem. There's no one to help! He can't get his brother because there always has to be at least one of them in the restaurant at all times. His Dad can't help because he can't lift anything heavy anymore. His friends are all working.......it sounds stupid but really, everyone is slaving away every single day for a minimum of 12 hours during one of the hottest summers we've ever had. It's not easy to find someone that's willing to take an extra hour or 2 out of their day to move heavy furniture around when they're already exhausted from their own jobs and have their own houses and families to take care of at the end of the day. So hopefully when the painters come they can help us since we'll have to move everything away from the walls so they can paint anyway....I hope...we'll see.
Finally, I haven't been able to order the baby stuff yet AND I haven't finished packing my bag. Well this is mostly thanks to the lovely power outages we've been having over the last 3 days...(finally we're getting to that...why do I always say I'm going to just write something quick and then I end up writing a ton of stuff?? oh well...)
So my mom has put some money into my bank account so I can go on a little shopping spree for baby and get myself ready for delivery day. THANK YOU MOMMY! She's the best ever!
But the first problem....I still have the old type of bank card, not the fancy new chip card thingy. So my bank switched over to the chip card completely and cancelled all the old cards. Thank you very much Coastal Community Credit Union, the bank that I spent 5 years working at and have had an account at since the day I was born!! Lovely of you to inform me of this switch over!! Do you hear the sarcasm?? Yeah, they didn't tell me about this so now I have to wait 2 weeks - 1 month for my new chip card to arrive so I can take the money out of my account. GREAT! Ok, no big deal. I can just move money over to my credit card and use my credit card to get everything I need. Most of the stuff I have to get for the baby I have to order it online anyway so I would have been using my credit card anyway. Except.....
The electricity keeps cutting out!!! GRRRRRRRRR UGHHHHHHHHHHHHH *pulling my hair out* RAAAAARRRRRRR!! WHYMEWHYMEWHYMEWHYME?!?!?!?!?!?!?!??!
Ahhhhh, that felt good. Everything zen. Aaaand we're normal again, ok continuing on.....
So first we blew a fuse which left us without power for half a day on Monday. But it took everyone half a day figure out that we should check the fuse. Maybe I'm just a little cranky, but I would think that this would be one of the first things you do when it's just your house that doesn't have power. Am I crazy? Don't answer that, it doesn't matter anymore anyway, Antonis changed the fuse and by Monday afternoon I had power again. But it was too late to contact the baby stores, they were already closed (you have to order over the phone during business hours, not online...yeah it's pooey). So baby shopping couldn't happen and I gave up on the blog because I had a massive post almost finished when the power cut and erased everything...I was not sitting down again that night to write everything out for a second time. So everything can wait until tomorrow (Tuesday)
Tuesday: I call the baby store. The lady that speaks English isn't in. She'll be in this evening. Ok. I'll call back this evening. I call back in the evening. She's not in. She'll be in tomorrow, would you like to call back tomorrow? I'd love to call back tomorrow, thank you very much to your team for understanding the urgency in which I need to buy things from you. You're awesome! You and Coastal Community Credit Union are awesome! You know what else is awesome? Trying to write your blog for the second time that week when the power goes out again right in the middle of it. That's really awesome. But this time it was everywhere. It was a complete black out over the entire island. Here's something else I think is awesome: Earthquakes! I don't know if this is why the power went out or not but anyway we had an earthquake about an hour before the power went out. Here's a little side story about the excitement from last night:
So at about 9:45pm I'm sitting at my computer...trying to write my blog....when the whole house shakes for about 4 seconds. It wasn't much, but it was enough to really rattle the door and a few other things in the house. At the time I thought it was my mother in law knocking on the door. But she wasn't there (of course she wasn't, she never knocks on the door, she knocks on the window while peering inside...but that's another story). Then I wondered if it was an earthquake. Nahhhhh. Doubt it. So I got back to the blog. About a half hour later I checked facebook and read that sure enough, it was an earthquake. It was just 3.5 but anyway, it was still an earthquake. Crazy! So I get back to my blog. I'm just about finished it, waiting for some pictures to upload and I decide to go take a shower. I get out of the shower and suddenly I'm in complete and utter darkness. I can't see my hand in front of my face. Even the street lamps are out and I can see that people are lighting candles in their houses. I should probably light some candles too. But I'm only wearing a towel. I don't know why that was a big deal but suddenly I just felt extra vulnerable in the pitch black. So instead of finding a flashlight or some candles I go straight to my underwear drawer. So somehow I manage to dress myself and then I go looking for a flashlight. I finally found my cell phone and I called Antonis. He just came and picked me up because there was no point in hanging around the house by myself doing nothing. I probably would start thinking there was ghosts are something so it was best just to get out of here. So I'm at the restaurant and it's so nice. We're looking at the stars and it's peaceful. Something about having the lights out makes everyone talk in a whisper which just makes the whole atmosphere relaxed. It was really a nice night. But then they tell me that we can't leave until the electricity comes back on. Because half of our restaurant is kind of half out doors. That's confusing. Ok. So, the main part of the sitting area in our restaurant has a roof and 3 walls. The fourth wall is clear plastic that we can roll up in the summer so you feel like you're outside, and we can roll it down and lock it into the ground in the winter to keep the heat in like a normal wall would do. At night we always roll the plastic down because we have a big tv in this area and we don't want anyone to steal it. Anyway, the thick clear plastic wall is rolled up and down using a motor, which means we need electricity to run it. And since the electricity cut out at 11pm, the restaurant was still open and so was the plastic. When we called the company to find out when the electricity would come back on they told us it would probably be tomorrow morning because "there is a really big problem we are trying to fix"......GREAT!!
At 4:45am, finally the power came back. YAY!!!!! Finally we can close the restaurant and we can all go home to sleep! Tomorrow's a new day and I'm going to order the baby stuff, I'm going to feel productive and it's going to be a good day!
Wednesday (today): 12:00 noon....the electricity goes out.
Fingers crossed I can FINALLY finish this without any annoying interruptions! I better make this fast just in case.
First of all:
NO I HAVE NOT GONE INTO EARLY LABOUR.
Holy man, I don't write for a while and I have about 50 messages to return all saying those 8 words above. I realize that's going to be everyone's first thought when I've somehow disappeared for so many days in a row but don't worry, when I do go into the labour it will be announced somehow. I won't make everyone play detective. It has been really nice though to see how many people are thinking about it and waiting along with me for the big day to arrive!
Unfortunately the reason I've been MIA has been because of the electricity, so nothing as exciting as Eleni getting here but I'll get to the electricity story in a minute anyway.
Nothing new is happening with the baby, pregnancy or life in general. I don't think I updated everyone after my last doctor's appointment in Mytilini though. Baby brain again! Of course everything was totally fine, or else I wouldn't have forgotten to update you. We just did a quick ultrasound to see if the baby is in the right position for birth...which she is....and they hooked me up to a machine to monitor her heart beat for 20 minutes to make sure she's not under any stress as well as to check for any rhythm abnormalities...and that was perfect too.
Right now my doctor thinks she's about 2.4 kilos, which is about 5 1/2lbs, and her heart beat was on average 140 beats per minute. Both her weight and her heart beat are more than fine, he said they're perfect actually. And as of yesterday we have exactly 1 month until my due date so ladies and gentlemen....the waiting game has commenced!
Everyone keeps asking if I'm ready for the baby to get here. My answer: HELL YES! Oh my god, I'm so uncomfortable with this heat, I can't sleep hardly at all (not that that's going to change much once she gets here but I just figure it will feel more worth it then...right now it's just because I'm too damn hot and can't find a comfortable position for more than 3 seconds at a time. Oh yeah and the constant waking up to pee)...and really, I just want her to be here. Of course I don't want her to come too soon, 5 1/2 lbs isn't much so she needs to pack on a bit more fat and do whatever final developmental stuff she needs to do in the next little while. But once she's ready, I really hope she decides that she's had enough of my uterus and wants to come out and join the rest of us as soon as possible.
On the other hand, her room is totally not done yet, we don't have the dresser/change table being built yet and I haven't been able to order any of the other stuff we need before she gets here. Oh yeah, and my hospital bag isn't packed yet. But all of this is out of my hands at the moment so there's no sense in worrying about it. It'll all come together soon enough.
Why is this stuff not done? And why can't I do anything about it?
Well first, the painting of the room will happen next week. They said they can come over on Monday but Monday I have another check up with the doctor so we have to call and find out if Tuesday is ok. No big deal. We have some problems with moisture getting into the walls (as do all Greek houses unfortunately) so we needed someone really good that could fix the walls first and then paint, and when you want the best usually they aren't going to be available right away. Antonis is guessing that the baby is coming next week though, so if he's right then I don't know what will happen with the painting.....but sincerely doubt my dear husband is winning the baby pool. Next week? No. I don't think so. I think he's a bit excited....so cute!
So anyway, the painting will happen soon it just hasn't happened yet but that's not a big deal. The other thing on my list that I would really like to have finished before the baby arrives is the dresser/change table we're getting our friend Vasilis to build. First I need that stupid washing machine and closet moved off the main wall so I can make the measurements he needs to build it. I've talked about this a bunch of times before but just to remind you, if the washing machine isn't going to fit into the 2nd bathroom then I'll have to leave it in that room and I won't be able to fit normal sized crib and dresser/change table in her room....so that has to be figured out first before we go ahead and just make 'normal' sized anything. Antonis can't move these things on his own either, he definitely needs at least one other person who is capable of lifting anything heavy....that's been the the problem. There's no one to help! He can't get his brother because there always has to be at least one of them in the restaurant at all times. His Dad can't help because he can't lift anything heavy anymore. His friends are all working.......it sounds stupid but really, everyone is slaving away every single day for a minimum of 12 hours during one of the hottest summers we've ever had. It's not easy to find someone that's willing to take an extra hour or 2 out of their day to move heavy furniture around when they're already exhausted from their own jobs and have their own houses and families to take care of at the end of the day. So hopefully when the painters come they can help us since we'll have to move everything away from the walls so they can paint anyway....I hope...we'll see.
Finally, I haven't been able to order the baby stuff yet AND I haven't finished packing my bag. Well this is mostly thanks to the lovely power outages we've been having over the last 3 days...(finally we're getting to that...why do I always say I'm going to just write something quick and then I end up writing a ton of stuff?? oh well...)
So my mom has put some money into my bank account so I can go on a little shopping spree for baby and get myself ready for delivery day. THANK YOU MOMMY! She's the best ever!
But the first problem....I still have the old type of bank card, not the fancy new chip card thingy. So my bank switched over to the chip card completely and cancelled all the old cards. Thank you very much Coastal Community Credit Union, the bank that I spent 5 years working at and have had an account at since the day I was born!! Lovely of you to inform me of this switch over!! Do you hear the sarcasm?? Yeah, they didn't tell me about this so now I have to wait 2 weeks - 1 month for my new chip card to arrive so I can take the money out of my account. GREAT! Ok, no big deal. I can just move money over to my credit card and use my credit card to get everything I need. Most of the stuff I have to get for the baby I have to order it online anyway so I would have been using my credit card anyway. Except.....
The electricity keeps cutting out!!! GRRRRRRRRR UGHHHHHHHHHHHHH *pulling my hair out* RAAAAARRRRRRR!! WHYMEWHYMEWHYMEWHYME?!?!?!?!?!?!?!??!
Ahhhhh, that felt good. Everything zen. Aaaand we're normal again, ok continuing on.....
So first we blew a fuse which left us without power for half a day on Monday. But it took everyone half a day figure out that we should check the fuse. Maybe I'm just a little cranky, but I would think that this would be one of the first things you do when it's just your house that doesn't have power. Am I crazy? Don't answer that, it doesn't matter anymore anyway, Antonis changed the fuse and by Monday afternoon I had power again. But it was too late to contact the baby stores, they were already closed (you have to order over the phone during business hours, not online...yeah it's pooey). So baby shopping couldn't happen and I gave up on the blog because I had a massive post almost finished when the power cut and erased everything...I was not sitting down again that night to write everything out for a second time. So everything can wait until tomorrow (Tuesday)
Tuesday: I call the baby store. The lady that speaks English isn't in. She'll be in this evening. Ok. I'll call back this evening. I call back in the evening. She's not in. She'll be in tomorrow, would you like to call back tomorrow? I'd love to call back tomorrow, thank you very much to your team for understanding the urgency in which I need to buy things from you. You're awesome! You and Coastal Community Credit Union are awesome! You know what else is awesome? Trying to write your blog for the second time that week when the power goes out again right in the middle of it. That's really awesome. But this time it was everywhere. It was a complete black out over the entire island. Here's something else I think is awesome: Earthquakes! I don't know if this is why the power went out or not but anyway we had an earthquake about an hour before the power went out. Here's a little side story about the excitement from last night:
So at about 9:45pm I'm sitting at my computer...trying to write my blog....when the whole house shakes for about 4 seconds. It wasn't much, but it was enough to really rattle the door and a few other things in the house. At the time I thought it was my mother in law knocking on the door. But she wasn't there (of course she wasn't, she never knocks on the door, she knocks on the window while peering inside...but that's another story). Then I wondered if it was an earthquake. Nahhhhh. Doubt it. So I got back to the blog. About a half hour later I checked facebook and read that sure enough, it was an earthquake. It was just 3.5 but anyway, it was still an earthquake. Crazy! So I get back to my blog. I'm just about finished it, waiting for some pictures to upload and I decide to go take a shower. I get out of the shower and suddenly I'm in complete and utter darkness. I can't see my hand in front of my face. Even the street lamps are out and I can see that people are lighting candles in their houses. I should probably light some candles too. But I'm only wearing a towel. I don't know why that was a big deal but suddenly I just felt extra vulnerable in the pitch black. So instead of finding a flashlight or some candles I go straight to my underwear drawer. So somehow I manage to dress myself and then I go looking for a flashlight. I finally found my cell phone and I called Antonis. He just came and picked me up because there was no point in hanging around the house by myself doing nothing. I probably would start thinking there was ghosts are something so it was best just to get out of here. So I'm at the restaurant and it's so nice. We're looking at the stars and it's peaceful. Something about having the lights out makes everyone talk in a whisper which just makes the whole atmosphere relaxed. It was really a nice night. But then they tell me that we can't leave until the electricity comes back on. Because half of our restaurant is kind of half out doors. That's confusing. Ok. So, the main part of the sitting area in our restaurant has a roof and 3 walls. The fourth wall is clear plastic that we can roll up in the summer so you feel like you're outside, and we can roll it down and lock it into the ground in the winter to keep the heat in like a normal wall would do. At night we always roll the plastic down because we have a big tv in this area and we don't want anyone to steal it. Anyway, the thick clear plastic wall is rolled up and down using a motor, which means we need electricity to run it. And since the electricity cut out at 11pm, the restaurant was still open and so was the plastic. When we called the company to find out when the electricity would come back on they told us it would probably be tomorrow morning because "there is a really big problem we are trying to fix"......GREAT!!
At 4:45am, finally the power came back. YAY!!!!! Finally we can close the restaurant and we can all go home to sleep! Tomorrow's a new day and I'm going to order the baby stuff, I'm going to feel productive and it's going to be a good day!
Wednesday (today): 12:00 noon....the electricity goes out.
$*&(#@&*(*@#&)_~)#()@*#&(@Q*^(*&%)&%^)$#!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Must.control.homicidal.thoughts.
Seriously! Can things just work properly for frickin' 5 minutes!!??!?! This is so ridiculous!
Anyway, the power is back on now obviously so I finally have a chance to update my blog. I would be calling the baby stores right now but this is Greece and they take an afternoon siesta, so everything shuts down from 2pm until about 5 or 6 in the evening. So I thought I'd take this time to update the blog and then hopefully tonight I can order the baby stuff. FINALLY! At least I hope I can. At this point I'm kind of just waiting for the next thing to come in and kibosh the whole plan.
And here's the other thing: I have to order the baby stuff first so I know which things I can pay for immediately with my credit card and wait for them to be shipped, and which things will be available in Mytilini for me to pick up...the stuff that can be picked up right away I have to deal with in cash because businesses hardly ever deal with credit cards here. So once I know what I'm picking up in Mytilini I'll know how much cash I need to take out on my credit card AND THEN I can take out a bit extra so I can go to the pharmacy and the super market to pick up the final stuff I need to pack my hospital bag...because I'm taking foreign currency out on a credit card which means I get charged for the cash advance of the credit card as well as a charge for the foreign currency. So obviously I only want to do this one time or else I'm going to get hosed with bank fees.
Are you still with me? I don't know if I am, this is all making me kind of dizzy.
Anyhoo so that's what's happening over here and why I haven't been online in a long time.
I don't dare upload any picture now because something tells me the power's going to cut out while I'm waiting for them, so I'm just going to post this now. Hopefully everything makes sense and there aren't too many spelling and grammatical errors but I know you guys will forgive me anyway so no big deal.....some of you might correct them which is fine (you know who you are) but at least I'll have finally managed to get something accomplished while the electricity is fully functioning. Yay me!
Have a great day guys! Watch out for earthquakes!
JEBUS...what an adventure. Happy to hear from you, was missing your blogs...seriously, like every day when there was no email I was like WTF? Love you, miss you and send me your address....I'd like to send Eleni something soon. Wait, do you guys get mail over there? :p
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