Today I found out that my contract will not be renewed. It ends on December 1st, during my pregnancy leave. It doesn’t really come as a surprize to me though I do feel a little overwhelmed. Mostly because my supervisor is ready and willing to rehire me when my leave ends or whenever I feel up to working again, but he is not allowed to do so because of regulations untill three months after my contract has ended, which would be the 1st of March.

This is one of those times when I feel weird about blogging here. I haven’t had the chance to tell anyone this news yet, except now my online journal. I’m curious how my inner circle will react, but at the same time, I’m a little nervous about their reactions.

Less than three months to go. There is no possibility of backing out now, even if I wanted to. But every now and than I wonder if I am truely ready for this great responsibility.
The nursery is completed, we have almost all the supplies we need in terms of clothes, toys and etc. We’re financially capable and my mother is more than willing to babysit two days a week so I can go to work after my maternity leave is up. But am I emotionally ready?

I feel better than I have in a long time, even considering pregnancy hormones. And I think I’m succeeding quite well in hiding those. M. is bound to notice something, but thankfully he wasn’t there when I was struggling to hold my tears back when I saw a program on tv about babies last night. Somehow he, like many men, doesn’t understand that girls ocassionally cry for reasons that can’t be explained, whether they’re expecting a baby or not. Not too long ago I heard somewhere that women cry once a week on avarage. I’m nowhere near that average.
There was a time when I was convinced that one day I would be an adult, I would know how to handle every situation and I would lose my insecurities. That would be the time I would be ready to start a family of my own. But I have given up on that illusion a long time ago. I am who I have always been and I’m sure I will still be me by the time I’m eighty, if I live to be that age.

I honestly don’t know if I’m ready to be a mom. I will try my best, that’s for sure. And I’m convinced I will learn a lot along the way. My own parents set a great example, they have always been patient, understanding and loving towards me, but other than that, I have little reference. I don’t even know any babies. Neither M. nor I have ever held one.
Since I was about 23, babies started to appeal to me, like puppies and other young animals have always done. Before that I was sure I would never have children. I considered having children as extremely selfish. Why bring another one in the world while there are so many out there already? Unloved ones, ones that are starving? I didn’t understand why people wanted a mini-me so desperatly. And to be true, I still don’t. I don’t think there is a way to explain it.

I never thought I would ever be with someone who would want to have children with me. I had given up on ever having a stable relationship, I didn’t even want to be in a relationship, because they only ever brought me sadness and insecurity. Before being with M. I had never experienced this feeling of being at home with someone who wasn’t of my own family. I had no idea that a relationship could be this way. I mean to say that I have never had a reason to think about having children before, since I could not provide them with a solid base, something I think is essential.
But then M. came into my life and I ended up pregnant so quickly. Yes, we had discussed having children, but neither of us had expected it to happen so quickly! I had been reckless with birthcontrol before without consequences and my menstrual cycle had always been a mess. Naieve as I was, I was convinced that it would take a lot of effort to get me pregnant, if I could get pregnant at all.
For a lot of people it is a process, they decide to have children and they have the time to get used to the idea of becoming a parent, because pregnancy doesn’t happen right away. Even before they conceive, they start reading up on parenting, giving birth, babies. But I feel like I’ve been taken on a rollercoaster ride and I know that I have no one to blame or thank for that but myself. And I’m excited and a little scared at the same time.

Yesterday we had another visit to the midwife, at exactly 27 weeks. Everything is still going fine and dandy. The baby was positioned head down in a curve with his feet on my left side. He was kicking all the way through the examination. I had a different midwife then on my previous appointments, this time it was a lady. She seems a little more oldfashioned than the man I met with. She was very friendly, more informative and more specific on my diet. Personally, I prefer the man, who’s a little more distant. There are five midwives at the clinic here and the idea is to see them all at least once so that I won’t get a stranger to help me through labor. I wonder if it really matters. There will be so much going on, I doubt I’ll even notice.
My next appointment is scheduled in three weeks. I’ll have to remember to go to the hospital in about two weeks to have some bloodwork done, so they will have the results in by then. Oh, and I gained another 3,4 kg since my last visit! I think I can stop worrying about gaining enough now!

I almost forgot to mention: I gave in! The baby will have M.’s lastname. I had made my mind up a while ago, he’s so good to me and I realised it really means a lot to him, so I figured he deserved it. Last week we officially acknowledged paternity.

Craftwise I’ve been quite productive lately and this is a post dedicated to the fruits of my labors of the last month or so. The first finished object is, once again, a scarf. It’s a pattern I tried before, but I never found a yarn/needle-size combination that seemed to please me. I had some Patons SWS in Natural Plum in my stash for ages but it was bespoken to the Danica. But I only recently acquired a pair of 8mm needles. It wasn’t untill I finally gave up on ever completing a half decent Danica that I combined the SWS with these perfectly sized needles. It only took me two skeins (and two days!) to complete My So Called Scarf!

I knit the second project, Sheldon once before, but ended up giving him away. It struck me however that this green turtle would fit perfectly in our nursery which has a green theme. I still had enough anonymous green cotton left after completing the older brother, Stoffel to make a second turtle who is now called Schildje. He’s named after a real life turtle M. once owned. Schildje has a pointier head than Stoffel though, I don’t really know how that came to be. Oh and Schildje has eyes, Stoffel didn’t when I last saw him. Schildje is very lucky to have eyes actually; I almost gave up on them and the whole project after I had place them on his behind by accident and couldn’t get them off. Thankfully doctor M. was willing to lend me a hand there.

Last is this cute Cupcake I completed this morning. A sweet little time killer! I wanted to make more but sewing on the “sprinkles” (actually they’re tiny buttons) took more time than I had hoped, so there’s only one for now.

June 24
Instead of the RER train and metro, we took the car into Paris today, because we discovered it was considerably cheaper to park the car in a carpark all day than to get two round trips to the Parisian center. As it turned out, M. blends in perfectly among the average Parisian drivers; he’s just as reckless and frustrated when driving a car.
We planned to visit the Louvre this day so we parked the car near Centre Georges Pompidou and made our way through Les Halles towards the museum. Unfortunatly, when we arrived we were informed that it was closed for the day. We decided to go back the next day and instead headed towards Galeries Lafayette. On the way we had lunch at a bistro where the waiter royally messed up our order. After visiting the store we took the metro to the Eiffel Tower, where we chilled at the park for a couple of hours. I’ve visited the Eiffel Tower quite a few times now, but never actually went up. The lines are always outrageous and I just don’t really see the appeal. In the evening we had a pizza before returning to the hotel, exhausted!

June 23
We left Dieppe behind us quite early, considering that when at home on a day off we don’t get up untill 2.00PM. We did very well on this trip altogether, eventhough we were extremely tired most of the time, we never slept in.
One our way we once again avoided the main roads (thank goodness for the navigation device) and it took us about half a day to get to the Paris area. In Roissy-en-France we checked into the Ibis Hotel and we headed towards Paris by public transportation.

We had our hearts set on seeing the Sacre Coeur that day, so we got off the train at Gare du Nord and started walking. M. had assured me it wasn’t too far. Now whether it is a long walk or not, I’m still not sure, but I do know that it took us several hours to get there: we got terribly lost and walked in circles. Sometimes we saw a glimps of the white cathedral, only to lose sight of it a second later. Once we finally did reach the Sacre Coeur we were both so worn out that all we did was sit on its steps and be grumpy. Neither of us was in the mood to take pictures. After about thirty minutes of sitting and grumping, we got up and took a drink near Place du Tertre. We were fully aware how stupid this was since those touristic areas are always so expensive, so we were not surprized when the bill came and we had to pay 18 Euros for one Iced Tea and a Coke. It was money well spent because our moods really improved after that. We made our way back to Gare du Nord by Metro and travelled back to the hotel from there. In the evening we had dinner at the restaurant near the hotel: Steak Hachee and Fries. No one ever said this was going to be a healthy trip!

What’s a girl to do when her knitting project has gone wrong and instead of falling asleep peacefully, she’s just getting more and more worked up over it? That’s right, a girl spends money. I just got myself a Pro Flickr account. It’s not like I really have money to spare, but I haven’t had my priorities straight this month anyway, so a little more waste won’t do that much more harm.
Don’t look at me that way! It’s my summer break, remember? I think I’m allowed to be a little reckless.

What’s next is my report on the first day of my trip to France!

June 22
We left home earlier than expected, rushed through Belgium and crossed the border with France at around 1.00PM. We left the main road and took smaller, touristic roads in the direction of Paris. The night we spent at Dieppe, at the Hotel L’Europe. Dieppe is a lovely town with a lot of history to it and no doubt a lot of pretty sights to see. I wouldn’t mind going back there some day to explore for a day or two. We, however were tired of driving and had our hearts set to Paris, so in the evening we took a stroll along the pebbled beach and had dinner in the harbor. As a starter we both had the Salmon Salad which both blew us away, unfortunatly, the main course consisting of Steak and Fries were a lot less impressive. After dinner we went to bed almost right away. The next morning we left the town behind us, imidiatly after breakfast, heading towards Paris. More of our adventures in France coming soon! Do visit my set on Flickr dedicated to this trip for more pictures.

We came home late Wednesday evening and we’re still recovering! There’s another week of vacation left which we’ll spend working on the nursery and chilling. I’ll be filling you in about everything that happened on our trip soon. There is a lot for me to blog about and I’ve completed a handfull of items on my 101 in 1001 as well, so that needs some updating as well. For now I’ll just leave you with a picture of me at the Louvre. There’s a ton of pictures to come, so stay tuned!