Anna’s flirting with starting to practice handball with a few of her classmates. And no, this is not the spineless ‘American handball‘ but the sometimes insane-crazy ‘Team handball‘, which is a somewhat bizarre high-speed indoor amalgamation of basketball and football (soccer). Here’s a How To Play video, here’s an insight into the goalie position, here areRead more
I read in the paper this morning that one of the Icelandic women I got to know in California, Hekla Sigmundsdóttir, passed away last week. I knew that she had been sick for a long time, but little did I know that she’d been fighting cancer for 20 years. She was a private person, andRead more
This was yet another rather busy Monday. After the epic swelling on Friday and annoyingly-high blood-pressure measurements last night, I went to see the midwife today, mostly to pee in a cup. There was no trace of protein, and everything else looked the same as last time, which is good. And yes, according to theRead more
(Yes, even more fun stuff about swelling… sorry! My life is just that boring right now!) I realized somewhat sheepishly yesterday that I’d spent a lot of time on the sofa with a pillow or two under my knees, and not under my ankles – thereby not ‘elevating’ much of anything usefully. So I spentRead more
Warning: This posts continues discussing the downsides of late-stage pregnancy, aka my aches, pains, and swelling. Also has a couple of pictures of my swollen foot.
My left hip-joint is apparently not getting better. The left leg can still mostly bear my weight if I stand still, but moving about is getting more challenging. I also cannot lift my left leg up if I’m sitting.
I did manage to (slowly and limpingly) accompany Bjarki to his gymnastics session this morning, and swam 600 m (500 m freestyle, 100 m backstroke) while he was busy practicing his moves. (Finnur was off shuttling Anna about.) But the swimming didn’t seem to help my hip, and only minutely lessened the foot-swelling.
Around lunchtime, Finnur took the kids to his parents’ place, while I conked out on the sofa for a couple of hours. He returned with his grandfather’s old walking cane, and two crutches! 🙂
The kids modeling the walking cane and crutches. They’ve been walking around like old people ever since, with Anna also having a mysterious foot pain…
So, yay, I can move about a little more easily now (and with less pain), but I think I’m going to see if I can’t make an appointment with ‘somebody’ on Monday. Today the week counter is up to 35, so there’s still a way to go if things stay otherwise calm.
It’s not all bad though. I can still lie flat on my back (without feeling uncomfortable, which I think means I’m not squashing some big important blood vessel) and my right hip seems happy as a clam. So there’s that. 🙂
Just for kicks (and to remind me that this is almost certainly my last pregnancy because I’m getting ooooold), I took a couple of ‘swollen foot’ pictures. They’re pretty gross, so I’m hiding them ‘below the fold’ and behind this link:
We’re officially ‘nesting’. I washed the first load of baby clothes today. And yesterday we went to the Ikea sale to buy a tiny cheap crib (cheaper than in the US, and I think we got the last one!), because the American one we have is HUUUUGE (it’s mostly crazy tall) and it won’t fit intoRead more
The Journal of Hrefna’s Bodily Aches continues: It has become painfully obvious that I am not a ‘graceful’ pregnant woman. I do not glide about serenely, and bestow peace and tidiness on my surroundings. No, I hobble about with an unhappy left hip, and do my best to ignore the piles and piles of stuffRead more
Today was a fairly busy day, but with two clear highlights. The first was us going in for a quick ‘growth’ ultrasound, to see if my high blood pressure had put a damper on the baby’s growth. The short and sweet answer was ‘no’, the bambino measures above average in size for its age, withRead more
Today we held the third and last celebration of Anna turning 9 years old – this time for her female classmates, and a couple of school friends. Just like ‘last year‘, we invited them all to enjoy ice-skating for a couple of hours at the Ice Rink in Laugardalur. The event was mostly a success, except for one bad accident… ahemm.
Apparently one of the girls, ironically the only one to actually practice ice-skating and thus not wearing a helmet, fell over while goofing off with one of the metallic skating-aids. Neither Finnur nor I saw the accident or the injured girl because we were in the wrong place, but thankfully one of the other parents dropping off a kid phoned her parents that had just dropped her off, so they arrived quickly.
I remained utterly clueless until I happened to wander down to the rink-entrance area, where I spoke briefly to the family before they whisked her off to the hospital. There she was apparently diagnosed with a mild concussion from thumping her head on the ice, and a potentially broken nose from the metallic skate-aid. 🙁
Still, the party went on, and a seemingly good time was had by most if not all that remained. Some photos!
Winter Wonderland had appeared overnight, after spring-like conditions this previous week. The snow-cover probably meant there were fewer people at the ice-rink, which was fine by us!
Anna (red pants) and a gaggle of girls.
As of today, I’m feeling suddenly quite pregnant. My hip area is generally uncomfortable (left side particularly so), my feet swell if I stay in a sitting position for too long, breathing is getting trickier, and I move sloooowly. Three more weeks to go before ‘full term’ though (34w today), so I’m guessing it’s onlyRead more