Krees goes Dutch Kiwi!

Photos: My son the gangsta'

I've added a new photo album. "Gang Signs" chronicles the rise of the new mafia in Drenthe. Click on a thumbnail to view the larger photo.

This post and photo album were added while listening to the rain on the roof of the sunroom.

Brag: My prodigiously healthy man-child

Hoo-wah! Day 6 and Aldus has already gained back his birth weight! That's my boy!

And no, it's not all in his cheeks.

This post was originally written this afternoon while pondering who might have posted the brilliant Luca Brasi comment. And then I accidentally signed out of TypePad before saving and posting the darn thing. Grrrr!

p.s. regarding personality traits

A friend has asked if we've started recognizing personality traits yet. We think maybe Aldus has started to run with a bad crowd in Diever.

I may try to put together a little photo album of all the apparent gang signs he's flashed us in the past four days. I think I might have watched The Godfather a few too many times during my pregnancy.

Never once did you ask me to your house for coffee...

It's Friday, I'm in love!

I know it's actually Monday now. I would apologize for not updating the blog sooner, but I think you'll all understand.

Aldus arrived last Friday at 3:45am weighing 3.895 kilograms (8 lbs 9 oz). He has a full head of dark brown, almost black hair and blue eyes (for now). He definitely looks like his dad and his grandpa Yun, but I think he has my eyelids, ears and fingers.

HE IS AMAZING. I'm so in love with this kid. (Charles is, too. You should see the way he looks at him and dotes on him.) The last 24 hours have been a little difficult with a couple uncontrollable screaming jags, but otherwise he's been such a good baby! He's been nursing like a champ every few hours from the very beginning, sleeps or quietly lazes about between feedings, lets us get some sleep during the nights, has already started regaining weight and was already lifting his head up yesterday. I'm completely gob-smacked.

Labor and delivery? That was okay, too. It started with some contractions early Thursday morning (1am-ish?) and ended with a pain-med free delivery a little over 24 hours later. They sent us home from the hospital about 1pm Friday. If I get a chance I'll write up the entire birth story, but I can't make any promises.

I'll also try to post updates as often as I can here, but I readily admit that sometimes just sitting and staring at this guy is a heck of a lot more enjoyable than blogging.

This post was written with my new son making smacking noises in his crib next to me. I can't believe he's here!

Great Baby Standoff: And 4...

My mother is probably going to want to kill me for this. Heck, even Charles' mom will probably think it was a bad idea. But we realized Tuesday night that we had maybe two weeks' worth of rice in the house. For just the two of us.

Charles' parents arrive in a little over a week, and the household rice (and other Korean grocery) cooking and consumption will (I hope!) skyrocket. Egads! What will we eat?!?

So we made an executive decision. Even though I'd rather stick pretty close to home or to the hospital, Charles took most of the day off work yesterday and we drove to Amsterdam to the Korean grocer's. We got rice, kimchi, kogi (sliced short ribs), real soy sauce (not the crappy, cheap kind we picked up on the last trip), miyuk (seaweed) and canned oysters for miyuk-guk (seaweed soup - gotta be good for strong, breastfed babies, right?), mandu (dumplings), soju (Korean alcohol so that Charles and his dad can drink to the new baby), plus lunch of kimbap, a California roll and some kimchi mandu. It was good. And now the Korean cupboard is stocked. We're ready for the baby and for Charles' parents to arrive!

Also, I've started to promise Charles when he goes to the office or walks the dog that I won't have the baby while he's gone.

This post was written while pondering the Dutch highway system.

Even Greater Baby Standoff: Day 2 and then some...

We had another doctor's appointment today. Judging by the amount of fluid surrounding the baby, the doctor doesn't think I'll be delivering this week. He thinks the baby is just too comfortable in there to come out. So we wait at least another week, at which point they'll hook me up to a fetal heart monitor and we'll figure out what to do from there.

Again, I'm really feeling good. I still LOVE being pregnant. And I want the baby to be as comfortable as possible and to take as much time as it needs to grow "BIG AND STRONG!!!" (as Charles likes to shout at my belly). But I admit that I would really prefer something to happen this week. I want this all to start naturally. I don't want them to have to induce labor. I want to bond with the baby and start to learn to breastfeed for at least a few days before my in-laws arrive. (Although it would be special to have them here for the birth, too.)

Anyway, if I stop posting these (almost) daily updates, please don't think I must have gone to the hospital and had the baby. Truly, in this case, no news will mean no news. We'll be sure to keep everyone posted if anything happens.

This post was written while drinking homemade chai. If I don't have to be as concerned about dehydration in labor at this point, then I'm having a little caffeine, dammit!

Great Baby Standoff: And 2...

No baby yet! My feet really hurt, and I'm wearing running socks because the extra support feels sooooo good. But no baby.

Maybe the doctor will have something interesting to say at our appointment today, but I suspect he'll tell us the same thing as last week. If the baby hasn't come by our appointment next week (at which point I'll be nine days past my due date), then they'll do an ultrasound to see what's happening and make a determination of whether to induce or not. I don't mind the baby taking its time, but I definitely want it to come on its OWN and not have to be induced.

This post was written while eating a slice of homemade cranberry coffee cake. Yum!

Great Baby Standoff: And 1...

No baby yet! No nesting, no contractions, no bloody show.

I'm feeling good, but boy did I get cranky at the grocery store today! I may expound later on my love/hate perspective on the lack of child supervision here. I've already blogged about how fed up I get having to bag my own groceries at the store and how it doesn't allow for an efficient flow of traffic at the cash register. Let's just say that these things, plus the elderly couple behind me in line joking about how difficult it must be to bend over my belly to empty my grocery cart, put me in a fine mood. But I digress...

Otherwise I'm still feeling fine and even went for a leisurely bike ride with Charles and Maui yesterday.

This post was written while listening to Miss Chicky Bawk-Bawk cluck and squawk ceaselessly for no apparent reason.

Great Baby Standoff: 0 day

Today's my due date! Estimated due date, anyway, and no sign of the baby yet. Not even a shred of obsessive-compulsive nesting. I did change the bed and am running a load of laundry, but that's pretty typical for a Sunday around here. I don't think it counts.

A coworker said something interesting the other day. Once the baby comes, if I do have to stay overnight at the hospital, they will still kick Charles out at 11pm. I guess I assumed that since they recognize the importance of the comforts of home for birth and recovery, that they would also allow spouses to stay overnight. After all, we're going to be a brand new little family unit; it won't be the same if he's not there. But I guess they have a hospital to run, too.

Anyway, many of you have expressed an interest in seeing photos of me nine months pregnant. So here you go. This was taken this morning -- for posterity!

This post was written while contemplating cranberry bread and where to go with the baby over the holidays.

Keukenhof photo album added

When we first moved here, our parents all started making plans to come in the spring when the tulips and other spring flowers would be in bloom. One of the places we planned to go was Keukenhof.

But with news of the baby coming in May, we changed plans so that they could all visit after the baby's arrival. They didn't get to see Keukenhof this year, but maybe they (and you!) can enjoy a virtual visit via the new photo album I published.

Click on the "Keukenhof 2007" link in the Photo Albums on the left, or go directly by clicking here. Thanks for looking!

Great Baby Standoff: 3 Days...

Apparently today's a holiday. Who knew?!? Actually, I think I knew something was coming up, because a couple months ago they sent around a holiday notice at work, and I remember putting something on Charles' calendar. But it had slipped my mind. And he didn't realize it until someone mentioned that the office would be closed Thursday, and that so few people would show up for work on Friday that the canteen and reception would be closed.

Today is Hemelvaartsdag, or Ascension Day. We tried to go to Hoogeveen to buy a pre-paid phone for our parents to use when they come visit, but none of the stores on the Hoofdstraat were open. The grocery store was also closed. All the restaurants were closed.

We considered stopping in Dwingeloo to try to find some lunch. (There was a big ceramics market going on, and I figured they must be selling food there.) But the crowds were too big, the parking lots were full and I didn't feel like dealing with the Dutch today.

Anyway, nothing's happening with the baby, but I couldn't help but wonder if the hospital gets short-staffed on holidays like today?

This post was written while contemplating where to take the baby for the Christmas holiday.

C'est fini!

Le chapeau de l'aggravation! Voila!

Mignon, n'est-ce pas?

This is the "Umbilical Cord Hat" from Debbie Stoller's Stitch 'N' Bitch, knit with a single strand of Koigu Premium Painter's Palette on US3 (3mm) needles.

I knit it a little larger than the pattern because 1) baby will be born in May and won't need a hat right away, and 2) baby's a Yun will likely have a large head.

Already I foresee unstoppable rolling of the brim, but we'll see.

This post was written while Charles was making a flourless chocolate torte!

p.s. What (not) to say...

I should also mention that I was pretty lucky that I didn't have to suffer from too many of these comments when I told people about our struggles. So, dear friends and family, please don't feel as though you need to recall conversations we've had and worry about whether you may or may not have offended me. It's just that I still know too many women dealing with this, and I hear some of the things said to them and I want to make it better.

I'm just trying to do a little educating. We've probably all dealt with difficulties and have had people respond in less than stellar ways (including not responding at all). A cancer diagnosis, the unexpected loss of a parent, child or spouse, depression, alcoholism, struggles with weight loss, the loss of a job... It's hard to understand what it's like to go through these things or how to react unless you've gone through them yourself.

So let me also say that I hope when I say something inappropriate that you will educate me, too.

This post was written while indulging in homemade chai.

What (not) to say to someone struggling with infertility

Shame on me. I should have posted this before Mother's Day. In fact, I should have posted something on this blog LONG before Mother's Day, but I never felt eloquent enough to do the topic justice. But not posting because of a lack of eloquence is rather cowardly.

And Mother's Day would have been a perfect opportunity, because in spite of attempts to celebrate with their extended families and to celebrate their own mothers, many many women who are unable to have children dread the day as yet one more painful reminder of what they don't have. They'll put on a brave, smiling face on the outside but are often really hurting inside. So I'm posting this here now because I know there are a lot of people following this blog to keep up with our lives in the Netherlands and anxiously awaiting with us for the birth of our child. And it's important to me that I don't enter motherhood leaving behind this topic that in many ways has been at the forefront of my life for the past four years.

Anyway, the truth of the matter is that there's a lot of ignorance out there about how to react when a woman (or a man or a couple) tells you she's dealing with infertility. And the comments, almost always meant to be supportive or helpful, often have the opposite effect. And too often when these things are said to us (and I say "us" because even though I'm no longer in the trenches, I still consider myself among the ranks), we infertiles or subfertiles don't know how to react or what to say in response. Too often we don't say anything because we don't want to offend the offender. All too often we know that the person will become defensive and won't hear what we're trying to say. And so the person never even learns that they've hurt our feelings or made things worse.

The fact that I seem to have overcome my infertility doesn't mean that I no longer think about this. On the contrary, I'm now afraid that people will hold up Charles and I as an example -- poster children for overcoming infertility -- and have us in mind when they say some of these unintentionally insensitive things to other women or couples who are struggling.

And so I offer you:

What not to say to someone dealing with infertility:

1. "You just need to relax," or "Take a vacation."
This is probably the most frequent "advice" given to a friend, daughter or sister who says she's having trouble getting pregnant, but it's a falsehood. Infertility, even unexplained infertility, is a medical condition. Just like a lump in the breast, it will not go away on its own by trying to ignore it. A romantic getaway to Hawaii will not improve a husband's sperm count. A relaxing massage will not heal endometrial scar tissue in a uterus or fallopian tubes. Trying not to think about getting pregnant will not miraculously restore a hormone imbalance. By learning about how her body is supposed to work, charting cycles and/or seeing an OB/GYN or reproductive endocrinologist, a woman can diagnose the cause of the infertility and get treatment for it. This is much more useful in overcoming infertility than attempting to ignore it.

(Also, please don't ever say that someone just needs to move to the Netherlands! I know some people may believe that this change in our lives is the reason we were able to get pregnant. That focusing on something other than trying to conceive was able to relax us enough to make a difference. The fact of the matter is that moving here was one of the most stressful things we've ever done! Quitting our jobs (I'd only had mine for a couple months); trying to sell our house in a month without taking too big a loss; saying goodbye to friends and family; sorting through our belongings to decide what to ship, store or sell; figuring out how to relocate Maui; trying to learn Dutch; trying to find a place to live here; and all of this without even knowing whether our residency or work permits would be approved... And those were just the things that stressed us out before we got to the Netherlands! We conceived BabYun about a month after we arrived, and I can guarantee you that the "fresh Dutch air" could not have worked its magic in that amount of time!)

2. "Don't worry. It'll happen."
This is almost the same as #1, but with the added bonus of trying to reassure the woman that she will achieve pregnancy someday. But can you predict the future? The sad truth is that it might not happen. There's no such promise or guarantee, and the infertile woman already knows that.

3. "Have you considered adopting?" (May or may not be coupled with "There are a lot of children out there who need good homes.")
If a woman confides in you that she is struggling with infertility, trust me that she has already considered all options available, including adoption. If she doesn't say explicitly that she's considering it, then she has probably already ruled it out as an option for her personally - at least for now. She doesn't need you to point out all the options available to her.

As for suggesting she adopt because there are lots of kids out there who need good homes, consider for a moment whether or not you yourself have considered adoption or whether you prefer to have children of your own. Infertile women resent the suggestion that because they may not have the option of having biological children, that the responsibility for finding homes for orphans should fall on them.

4. "As soon as [insert couple's names here] adopted, they got pregnant."
First, consider how many adoptive parents out there haven't gotten pregnant on their own. Again there's no guarantee that anything will give a couple the biological child they so desperately want.

Second, what you are suggesting is that adoption should be used as a means to achieve the end of having one's own biological children. How fair is that to the adopted child?

5. "God has another plan for you."
This is a really tough one, because you're likely trying to be reassuring. But first consider that the woman you're trying to help may not believe in God or may not have the same beliefs that you do. (And religious beliefs are a conversation to be had completely separate from the one this woman wants to have with you about her infertility.) In that case she's likely to dismiss this suggestion, which makes it not a very helpful suggestion, so don't bother.

Second, a woman who is confiding in you because she is struggling with infertility obviously really wants to have a child of her own. She doesn't want to hear that her desire isn't a valid one or she somehow doesn't deserve to have her desires and dreams fulfilled. That's not very reassuring, so what's the point of saying it?

6. "This is God's way of saying you're not supposed to be a parent."
Congratulations, asshat, you've just insulted the friend or daughter who's come to you for help. (Yes, people who think they're trying to be helpful really say this with shocking frequency.) Do not EVER say this to a woman who's confiding in you about her infertility, or be prepared to defend yourself against a punch in the nose.

7. "Maybe you should lose some weight."
First, what the infertile woman hears is, "It's your own fault" or "You're broken and you're fat."

Second, she's probably already aware of the fact that her weight may be a factor in her infertility. (It might not!) Regardless, she has probably already discussed this with her doctor, so she doesn't need you to point it out. In fact, she may even be battling with a doctor who thinks that weight loss will be a magic bullet for her and will refuse to look at other causes that may be contributing to the infertility.

What SHOULD you say to a woman struggling with infertility?

1. "I'm so sorry you're going through this."
This is the best and most important response you can give!

2. "I'm here for you whenever you need to talk about it. Let me know if you want me to bring it up, or if you would rather bring it up yourself."
Your friend wants to know that she can turn to you when she needs to talk, but there will be bad days when you might catch her off-guard if you bring it up. (Her period might have just shown up, she might have gotten a negative result on a pregnancy test that morning, or perhaps she's gotten discouraging results on diagnostic tests, etc.)  These are the days when she probably really won't want to talk about it. It's better to let her bring up the subject in her own time and on her own terms; let her know that you're there to listen when she wants to talk.

4. "What can I do for you?"
Your friend might just want to know whether or not she can talk to you when she's feeling frustrated or when she learns anything new about her condition. She may even need your help to drive her to or from appointments.

I didn't want this post to come off as a preachy lecture. But I've heard of some truly insulting and insensitive things said to infertile women and hope that this will help prevent even a few occasions of that happening.

Thanks for reading!!!

This post was written while listening to Michigan Radio streamed online. I love Morning Edition!

Great Baby Standoff: 5 Days...

Had another weekly doctor's appointment today. They're so frequent now that we're almost forgetting to go to them! Anyway, it was another five-minute turbo appointment.

• Weight? Check (No, I'm not telling you.)
• Blood pressure? 120/65
• Still pregnant? Yes
• Any signs of labor? No
• Still feeling the baby move? Yes
• "Let's have a look." Doctor pokes at my belly to see how much amniotic fluid there seems to be and to make sure the baby's still head-down, then checks the heartbeat.

Interpretation and comments? There's still plenty of amniotic fluid, which means the placenta is still working just fine to support the baby, so the baby doesn't have any need to come out yet. (Just as I suspected! Perfectly comfy!)

When will they start to consider the baby overdue? Probably around May 30. So if I don't go into labor in the meantime, we'll have a repeat of this appointment next week and then another on May 29. If the baby's still hanging out at that point they'll do an ultrasound to check development and position and determine whether or not we induce labor.

And how did I sleep last night? Much better - thanks for asking! But I had funny half-dreams all night about how I needed to feel happy and safe and comfortable so that my body would naturally produce oxytocin and they wouldn't have to give it to me artificially (pitocin) to progress labor. Maybe that's why I slept better -- all those happy, safe, comfy thoughts. Or maybe it's because I didn't take a nap and went to bed at a normal time.

This post was written after struggling through Dutch homework.