And the mum became granny

We were terribly lucky. Daniel grasped quickly what the best things in life are. He ate nicely, he napped long hours, and as long as he did those, most of the time he seemed just happy. The grandmas in the other hand... those ladies are high maintenance.

The baby needs to feed every three hours, and the grandmas too need to feed somebody every three hours. To that end, they request a kitchen equipped with the exact same items they have on their own kitchen. That is, finding fresh perejil in Prague, knedliky in Nuremberg, and shame on you! How can you even live without a coffee machine? Why did you have to buy this complicated induction thingy? I just want to heat up water. Water heater? uhmmm.. (read it with a disapproving look)

They also have a number of other additional urges, like complaining about the location, distribution and decoration choices of your flat. Not because it is bad, it is a beautiful place, hon, buuuut instead of a second floor it could be a first one, one street further is less noisy and good massive wood furniture last forever. Although, if we shall listen to grandma number 2 we should go to live somewhere cheaper and greener and she has an old sofa we could use. Daniel's requirements so far are at least possible to fulfill. He just wants Mummy's arms. Any sofa it's ok as long as it can take a bit of vomit.

There are things in which grandma 1 and grandma 2 absolutely agree: The worst think that can happen to Daniel is to have the ears exposed to the air... in April... with 25 degrees outside. Other than that, we should put four blankets around him or letting him naked, bath him every day or once per week, give him tea or not give him breast every time he asks.

Additionally, grandmas bring with them a fair amount of drama. Because you took your grandchild far from them, because you ignore their wise outdated advises, and a few other unknown reasons. Hormones, I suppose.

And I wonder, what happened to the mum that was happy just calling me once every 15 days. Why once she became granny she has to bother every hour? And through all the drama, what Daniel does? He sleeps

Yes, I read the books. All of them

There is a shelf in my flat filled with books about pregnancy and babies. “Comer Amar Mamar”, “The Pregnancy Bible”, “The Baby Book”, “Baby Owner’s Manual” and “101 things to do before you are five”, to name a few. I read them all, or at least most of them. That's how you do things, don’t you? If you want to learn to program HTML5 you buy a book, or a couple of them, you read them, you put into practice what is written there and voilà! There you are. You are a programmer now.

Only, you get to discover later that for using babies there are just a few commonly accepted instructions. These are the things they teach you at the hospital, and they can be learned in one day, with a few words (I understood few words, since the nurses spoke Czech to me).

-The baby needs to eat often and you are supposed to offer your breast - this is how
-The baby shits as often as he eats and he needs diaper changing - this is how
-You should once in a while put the baby in warm water - this is how
-For a number of other random issues the breast works just fine

And for every other doubt you might have, from "will my baby be disadvantaged if I don’t play Mozart to him?" to "will he hate me later if I don’t use recyclable diapers?" to the very common "what the heck is wrong with him?" you should know that different writers have different views, which translates to "they don't have a clue", and "you are on your own". There you are! You are a parent now!

Congratulations

Get the nest ready!

Whenever you decide is time to trade the sweetness of your hedonistic but gratifying DINK (Double Income No Kids) life for the sweetness of a baby smile, or to put it another way, when you decide it is about time to start growing your pension plan, all the clever pinky books say you should get the nest ready.

It is not a good idea, apparently, to move flat or change job. It is probably not a great idea to change partner either, even if the book doesn't say so. Your hormones should give you an uncontrollable urge to mop the floor and organize your DVDs alphabetically, so having to get your living room out of cardboard boxes could turn the fussy pregnant lady into the psycho pregnant lady.

Well, in the last months we did change flat... twice, and we did change jobs, and country, and language, and we didn't change partners, but we will need to marry because of taxes so I will lose my boyfriend and be given a husband. Luckily, I do not have to change surname, although everybody here insists on calling me Frau Knyr... and then laugh.

In the period that goes from eight months of pregnancy to two months of baby we changed everything we could possibly change and hey! It turned out ok! I mean, I don't feel the urge to shoot strangers, keep them in the fridge and make meatballs out of their brains (although the family would save a lot of money, given the prices of stuff in Germany, I can tell you that).

The baby seems ok as well. He travelled three countries before he was able to acknowledge the existence of his own hands and he is still all happy and cute and unaware. I guess we will only know when he is about five and he finally talks and his first words are "Mutti, grandma was right. I really don't know in which language to address you people, you are the Spanish one?"

Daniel Knyr Rodriguez

And finally Daniel is born.

I will spare the ugly details. The thirty eight hours with contractions and the cesarean. If you are expecting I say now that everything was worth it the moment I looked at my newborn child, think again. I did not forget the hell of pain and I would run to buy a family package of condoms if I intended to have sex at any point in the future.

I am now more convinced than ever that drugs are a gift of god and I don't have any moral problems to use them. Anybody that ever tried recreational drugs cannot possible have a reason to refuse an epidural. Besides masochism.

Daniel is really cute, and this is not just mother's talk. Newborns are generally ugly, wrinkled and sometimes furry, but this baby has very big open blue eyes that seems to tell you "please, don't kill me, I'm your genetical material". I may have made many mistakes in life, but I knew Martin was a decent genetic pool.

paperwork

After working "extra officially" during the last two weeks, moving house and getting to know every baby shop in town, it is actually really nice to enjoy one day lying in our new Ikea couch, doing nothing, and praying that Daniel holds on a few more days inside so mummy can recover her energy.

There is only one little thing we still need to fix and that is paperwork. “Paperwork?” My mum asked, “it is easy”. The father gets a couple of days off and goes register the baby.

Well, not so easy in this case. We are not married and I'm Spanish, which means a bunch of extra paperwork and official translations in instances that ranges from the Spanish embassy in Prague to the registry in my home town and several governmental offices. And of course everything needs to be done in the proper order and in the proper place.

If you are thinking this is all happening because we waited till the last moment, you should know we actually started all this in December, but the complexity of bureaucracy in these matters is a well deserved tribute to Kafka.

To make things easy, first of all we tried unsuccessfully to get me a permanent residence. Only then you obtain a special number (rovne cislo) that is required by receptionists of hospitals and offices all over the country. Otherwise you are forced to explain every time that your passport doesn’t have a visa because of something called EU, and after a brief fight, surrender and promise with a smile that you will get a visa if she is so kind to proceed with the registration or paperwork.

The permanent residence idea failed because three different versions of our renting contract didn’t satisfy the kind employees of the foreign police office… and they take each time about a month to let you know. To make things easier, they don’t speak English and they insist on me taking personally the papers there. Any random person sending them by post is ok too. But this person cannot take them by hand to the office. That is not acceptable.

In other front, the multilingual copy of my birth certificate that was shipped from Spain didn't satisfy the Czech authorities, because Czech was not one of the eight languages of the translation, so we had to pay 80 Euros to get the translation translated to Czech. They charge per word, so, for example, the line that reads nom/name/nombre... etc, does not count as a single word. All of it needs to be translated to Czech.

We needed to get a paper from the Spanish embassy that "presumes I am single and alive" and that the lady in the Czech registry examined with not much confidence claiming we needed a second paper "coming directly from Spain". Because, for sure, in Spain can presume much more accurately that I'm alive.

Having two surnames added to the name of the baby is another fight on its own. We need to get a birth certificate with only one surname, and then present this in the Spanish embassy so the baby can be recognized as Spanish, to finally go back to the Czech authorities and modify the first birth certificate, claiming tradition as the reason. Of course, once the baby is a proud Spanish citizen has acquired a whole new set of traditions and can have two surnames.

There is an additional paper to be filled if you don't want an "ova" to be added to your daughter surname. We are not having a daughter, but since we were in the mood of filling papers anyway, we did it, just in case.

And by the way, finally we are decided about the name Daniel. This is maybe not too original, but at least is convenient. It is written exactly the same in Czech and Spanish and that means that the lady that approves the names in Czech Republic will not have problems to recognize it. Otherwise you may need to prove, copy of the bible in hand, that the name exists. Not kidding. I know a Spanish couple here that had to introduce Saint Jordi to the local authorities so they would bless their choice of first name.

Pregnancy symptoms: I'm a huge balloon and I cannot walk one metro stop without stopping and holding my belly. So I got myself a metro pass.

Mother instinct: Worries escalating as I read contradictory baby books. But I am not really sure we are talking mother instinct here

To bribe or not to bribe

I met today my new gynecologist. This is the one from the hospital where we are supposed to deliver the baby. And I have to say, it was love at first sight. He speaks English, he was friendly, and looked as professional as you can look in a short visit, which is a lot taking into account that my usual gynecologist once "forgot" I was pregnant.

The hospital itself looks quite reassuring as well. It is like a big baby factory, where even the check-ups are done in a chain basis. Sounds good to me. They only do babies, so they probably do it right. They also have some private rooms, so if you are lucky to have one available, daddy can share the joy of sleepless nights from day one.

Now the catch, of course. Turns out that if the hospital is too busy that day, even if you have a reservation (we do) you may be sent to some unfriendly post-communist spot in the outskirts of Prague where the doctors have to google before giving you the epidural. And the way to avoid it is to bribe some doctor or midwife in the baby factory.

I have no problems with bribing in this case. There is no much of a difference between this system and just going to a private clinic in Spain, but Martin seems to have some moral issues and is delaying the friendly talk with the doctor. Needless to say, I got all pregnant over it and said I don’t care what needs to be done, but if I am sent to a hospital without toilet paper I will just refuse to deliver, plus I will never forgive him and I will get the baby and run to Spain in the first chance. I think he got the point.

Pregnancy symptoms: Home-Center trip pre-pregnancy, 20 min, Home-Center trip now, 40 minutes.
Mother instinct: Nope. Just scared.

Not ready yet

Another interesting piece of knowledge from our hippy prenatal lessons is that apparently if the woman is not mentally ready to deliver, she won't.

Now, this is really important for us, since we still don't have a new flat, we didn't inform the Czech government about whom the father of the baby is and we didn't drop by the Spanish embassy to enquire about how to get a beautiful passport with two surnames for our child. With all this, I'm not mentally ready to deliver this child yet. More worrying, I think if all paperwork and logistics were solved, I still wouldn't be mentally ready to deliver this child.

Come on! Twelve hours of pain followed by two months of not sleeping. Who can be mentally ready for that? I rather have the alien kicking my belly bottom and messing with my stomach a little bit longer.

Well, surprisingly, everybody else is so much looking forward to me pushing this creature out. Even my dear Martin said that he would like to have the baby in his arms already. "Seriously?" I asked. "Yes" he said. "Seriously?" I insisted. "Yes" he insisted as well. I didn't know whether to kiss him or kick his ass.

Pregnancy symptoms: Cellulites. My sister says I shouldn't eat oranges, but not giving the baby enough C Vitamin would really make me feel like a bitch. I choose cellulites.

Mother instinct: 3. I don't want the baby to go out, but I am fine with him being inside.

Oxitocine

Apparently it is the hormone of love. You get it when you hug and when you kiss and it will make us fall in love with the baby, even more than we are now. These are not my words, of course, it is what we learned in the prenatal lessons.

So, I got scared. Should I be in love with the baby already? Sorry, nope. We are just getting to know each other. He can be annoying when he kicks my bladder and he can be cute and creepy at the same time when his little foot moves from one side of my belly to the other and you can see it from the other side of the dinner table. But that's pretty much it. For now. I am of course expecting the magic oxitocine will perform miracles on my mother instinct.

And what about the father instinct? Since daddy's hormones are not playing the little chemist games in his body, when is he supposed to get high with love for the little alien? should I hug him often, so he gets some more oxitocine?

I was getting worried about all this until I browse through the booklet that we got in the prenatal lessons. Homeopathy, acupuncture, Bach's flowers... ey, why not fairies and little green men? Father's instinct may exist or not, but I'm afraid we are not going to get the answer in this course.

Pregnancy symptoms: I cannot run anymore. It hurts.
Mother instinct: 2 Apparently, still running low in Oxitocine

Happy Hormones

Martin pointed out that I am particularly happy since I'm pregnant. That is a nice way to say I didn't performed for a while my psycho girlfriend routine. And that is weird. Martin expected pregnancy would turn me into a crazy bitch. I expected that as well. The hormones overdoses and, the overweight, the overwhelming responsibility and the life changing feeling should be enough to make anybody nuts. Now top that with a coat of pregnancy sugar "the miracle of a life growing inside you" and you get a perfectly nice young lady that suddenly turns into a mad mum.

But so far I'm ok. Too much ok. I am quite happy indeed, enough to make me suspicious. This doesn't feel natural. I doubt very much that the miracle of a life growing inside me is changing my mood, or that I subconsciously give a shit about the perspective of "fulfilling myself as a woman".

So the only plausible explanation is of course, hormones. Happy hormones. Some chemical aid is keeping me high and cool and that's why I am not totally freaking out. And what is going to happen when I expel the little alien and the happy hormones disappear? It is very worrying indeed.

Pregnancy symptoms: The belly is starting to be heavy and Martin refuses to get me a pregnancy pillow because we have perfectly good normal pillows at home.

Mother instinct: 2. I am sad about leaving work. And not so excited about the perspective of changing diapers

Pregnancy lessons at home

We are modest people. When we first moved into our 30 square meters flat we slept without mattress for almost a week. The first furniture we bought was a hammock and a wine storage. We survived without a table for over six months because Martin refused to buy a soulless one from IKEA. We ate over a tray stuck on top of our wine storage.

Over the years we started piling up stuff. We did buy a table from IKEA, and another one to hold our flat screen and our Wii. We replaced the plastic chairs with real ones, we even adopted a non functional dishwasher and a broken washing machine, and we found a corner to pile our snowboards, skates, and golf clubs.

We didn’t count with a baby, though. So when we knew about him we started looking for a bigger place. In the center, so mummy and daddy can still go to the cinema, but with a garden, so the baby can eat worms. We amazingly found something quite acceptable (God bless divorcees in a hurry to sell).

But we still don’t have the keys. We still didn’t paint and we don’t have a table. So the baby cannot come yet, and neither the lady that is supposed to give us prenatal lessons in English. I don’t want her to see our lovely-but-not-children-friendly student nest. I don’t want her to teach me how to breathe while she peeks at the pile of suitcases and sports equipment in one corner of the leaving room and the basket full of cables in the other. Really, I don’t think we can even fir three adults and my belly in our leaving room slash dormitory slash kitchen.

So I’m going to ask somebody to lend us his place for the prenatal lessons. Is this being a good parent? I don’t know. But it sure feels like the first of a series of stupid acts performed when you have a child.

Pregnancy symptoms: My mum says that if I eat too much the baby will be too big and I will have problems to deliver it. I say chocolate is as necessary as folic acid during pregnancy. Makes mum happy and caffeine free.

Mother instinct: From time to time I have the feeling Martin and I got into a beautiful mess. Then, the happy hormones kick in and I find baby toys adorable. I do have hormones after all!

To fly or not to fly

I have two weeks left to fly. I don't mean enjoying childless life, but more literally being allowed in a plane.

That means, if I am still in Czech Republic after two weeks I will have to deliver in Czech Republic, which is according to plan, but scary nonetheless. The hospital we reserved looks professional and nice, but if a bunch of babies decide to get out on the same date as yours no reservation will prevent the hospital to direct you to another place, even somewhere out of Prague.

Now, there are two things that contribute to me freaking out. First: There is a doctors' strike in Czech Republic. Looks like a good deal of them resigned the last day of the year, when the government decided to cut their salaries. They are supposed to leave their jobs the last day of February. I hope that the government will manage to close a deal with them, because although most of Czech girls are thrilled by the perspective of giving birth home, as God intended it, I'm not.

Second: We got a list with items that you should pack for the hospital. Toilet paper is in the list. Toilet paper! I know that Czechs don't leave home without toilet paper, a knife and a muesli bar, but I will say it again. Toilet paper? Maybe we need the knife too, to cut the umbilical cord. Maybe the muesli bar will come in handy if they don't provide food. Maybe we should consider buying some drugs and syringes, and carry a bucket of soapy water to disinfect the equipment. Maybe Martin should have some cash with him just in case we need to bribe the nurses to get sheets in the bed. Or maybe I should just fly to Spain.

Two weeks to decide it...

Pregnancy symptoms: The belly is starting to be heavy and annoying. I'm having problems to get into public toilets. And still is not getting me a free place in the bus.

Mother instinct: 3 I don't want the baby to go out. But not sure if this is mother instinct or self preservation instinct

Do babies need toothbrushes?

New parents coming into a baby shop. It's like tuna babies walking into a sushi restaurant. We couldn't be more naive. We started with an open question. What do we need to have home for the baby? This kind of opening should have made any bonus driven shop assistant chill with pleasure. Czech shops assistants though, are generally not bonus driven, and therefore they don't chill with pleasure. This concrete shop assistant shrugged her shoulders, made a vague gesture with her hands pointing at the shop behind her and left us on our own. Of course we didn't get further as to buy a set of baby pajamas.

Then we moved on to another shop and after a bit of insistence a lady agreed to help us. Then yes, it was more or less as I expected. We threw into the bag and pay without questioning everything the lady suggested we may need. No thinking process involved. No wonder why a baby would need a toothbrush or why we needed a set of especially tiny clothes (is it bad for the baby if the pajama is a bit longer than it should?) We spent a lot of money, we probably bought a lot of stuff we will never use and we were so happy when we left the shop we could kiss the shop assistant. Yes, new parents are a bit stupid.

Pregnancy symptoms. Soon it is my last visit in the gynecologist and first in the hospital. I guess it is the moment to start panicking about giving birth.

Mother instinct. 2 I Still do not like crying babies. Specially crying babies in restaurants. Actually, I am not sure why I'm supposed to suddenly like crying babies. What is the hormone I am missing?

Are you a bad parent if you buy a cot from IKEA?

Martin has this colleague at work that is two weeks more pregnant than us. They both were responsible to turn their departments lunch breaks into a discussion about the best brand of stretch mark creams.

His colleague seems also way more responsible than we are. First of all, he did marry (doesn't that sound responsible?) and he leaves in a place that could eventually host a baby. If our baby decides to get out now, we will have to install the cot between the bathtub and the washing machine. Also, his colleague has started with the shopping, so he has a cot to install somewhere.

The good thing is that they engaged into some kind of male competition to see who the best provider is. A bit troglodyte if you ask me, but it really made Martin not only be willing to go to the baby store, but actually suggest to go to the baby store. Remarkable.

Now, in the baby store, we became a little more familiar with price ranges and features. Winnie de Pooh, for example, is responsible for about a 30% increase in the price without offering any visible upgrade in functionality. You can get a solid and fashionable Winnie de Pooh cot for about 700 euros and be sure you will be able to use it during the next five years... or you can buy a cot in Ikea for 100 euros. You can buy a cheaper version of the solid cot with an unknown bear in the front for about 400 euros... or you can go for the tempting, tempting Ikea 100 euros cot.

I'm an Ikea fan, but let's face it. We had to replace the chairs in the kitchen more than once, and some of the items we destroyed even during installation. More importantly, Martin's colleague is not going to buy an Ikea cot, no sir! So we will probably pretend we are responsible parents even if it costs us a few more hundred. Sigh!


Pregnancy symptoms: I fear business trips will be over when I cannot put my shoes on without help.

Mother instinct: 4. I came to realize baby items are cute. Winnie the Pooh is not cute, though. I hate the freaking bear

Silver card

I passed the 10 kilos benchmark (extra weight one should put over the pregnancy) in mid November. Now, with a very significant waist size, I'm what can be only defined as "a very pregnant lady". The baby kicks like he is high on sugar, and he probably IS high on sugar, given that I cannot stop nibbling.

I thought at this stage one becomes a rounded cute respectable lady that should be taken care of, given priority access and spots in buses, get carried around her luggage in trains and given priority treatment in other number of ways. Well. No.

I'm lucky or unlucky enough to own a sixties style bell shaped coat that hides my belly so properly I had to give my place in the bus to a nice old lady when she stood up staring half a meter from me. In the office, besides the eventual hint to the fact that I plan to come back to work soon and that is stealing my child the right of having his mummy home, I don't get any special treatment, having to deliver my reports on time and travel to Bratislava every week. People are extra nice, sure, but no special treats.

So, things like this, in the airport I was fearing for the worse, holding close the pregnancy papers that prove I should be allowed to fly and expecting that I would have to squat ridiculously to take off my shoes. Sure enough, I had to squat ridiculously to take off my shoes, but I was also given all kind of special treats and preferences. Pregnancy? No dear, ownership of a silver card that from time to time sends me directly to business class paradise. Ah, this materialistic world…


Pregnancy symptoms: Inability to bend over without spreading my legs like an inflated frog

Mother instinct: I have to admit, it is nice when the little alien kicks and moves inside. Nice and freaking weird too