V.I.P.

Finally, I can share news of a Very Important Project: my Very Important Little Person, still in progress. Baby no. 2. First a Bean and then... a Bug? We will have to think of another nickname. Ladybird, maybe, seeing as the Bean is absolutely convinced it's a girl. 

So, all being well, we will say hello to said VIP in the Spring. It's felt so odd, keeping this big news to myself for what feels like a very long time. It's just a blink of the eye, really, but as with my first pregnancy I've suffered from Hyperemesis Gravidarum (HG) and when every day has to be survived hour by hour, three months is loooooooong. I swore after last time that I wouldn't keep this strange 12-week vow of silence, not about the sickness and the way it completely blindsides any joy you might feel. Nor about any miscarriage, should it have turned out I'd spoken too soon. Why would I be silent about things that people should feel they can talk openly about?

But as it happened I couldn't stay upright at my computer for long enough to write about it. I will though, in another post. We do, really, need to talk about these things. 

First the good news, and I'm pleased to say I'm starting to feel like me again. Me, with added football roundness (it shows so quickly, the second time around!). 

I'm going through my lovely stash of soft yarns and organic fabrics. I'm thinking about tiny crocheted cardigans, itty-bitty knitted beanie hats and dinky leggings with matching bibs. I want to make ALL the baby things, once I'm able to stay awake beyond 7:30 PM. I'm eyeing up pretty muslins, in case we've produced another VVB: Very Vomity Baby. I'm wondering where on earth this ladybug will sleep in our one-bedroom flat. The Bean has decided on bunk beds (him on the top one, obviously), with that infallible confidence in immediacy and limitless potential that only almost-4-year-olds have. After three months of doing almost no work, I have a to-do list so long I can't actually decide where to start. I might just stick with the tiny cardigans. 

One thing is for sure though: having a baby in Sweden is already turning out to be quite a different experience from having a baby in Italy (where the Bean was born). There, I was constantly prodded and pricked, cajoled onto scales and into eating less (yes, less!). I was very much treated as a patient, a female patient with a medical condition, and the mostly male doctors knew best. Which didn't necessarily feel like a dreadful thing at the time, this hand-holding, what with a first pregnancy being such an overwhelming unknown. This time around though, I admit I'm pleased with the Swedish approach: you are not sick, you are growing a baby. We're here if you need us but otherwise, go and get on with it. 

I shall. 

I'm linking up with Chantelle for My Expat Family.