Pregnant in Ukraine

Before we get started, a disclaimer: I've never gone through a whole pregnancy in America. So, while I intend to share ways in which it seems to me that my pregnancy here is different from what I'd expect in the States, I could be totally wrong. Please, correct me if I am. Also, the following post is best not read by highly modest folks.

First, births in Ukraine take place in a roddom -- literally a birthing home. Roddoms are not part of hospital complexes. We plan to have the baby (which, by the way, is kicking hard enough that I feel it every day now) at a fancy birthing home called Isida.

Isida is lovely and professional -- and about two hours away from our house by public transportation. And the doctors like to see their patients frequently. At week 17, my doctor started asking me to come in every two weeks. In addition to meeting with the prenatal doctor, so far I've gone in for:

1) an EKG
2) a meeting with a general doctor
3) an ultrasound of my stomach, kidneys and thyroid. (The ultrasound tech asked me if anyone had ever told me about the growth on my thyroid. I had to tell him no one had ever looked at my thyroid before.)
4) multiple blood tests. Nine tubes at one time!

Plus, the day before every prenatal visit, I have to get to the clinic before 11 a.m. to hand over a, um, (insert throat-clearing sound) sample. The sample must be collected at home, so, as my sample and I are getting pushed around on the metro, I appreciate the protective nature of Ziploc bags. And this sample is not just tested for protein; these tests are far more extensive. My white blood cells have never had so much attention shown them, and they're starting to get a bit big-headed about it.


At my second visit, the swine flu was sweeping Ukraine, so my doctor suggested I not take public transportation or go to the grocery store. Right, like that's possible. So, instead, I wear a mask on the metro. At the beginning of flu season, I fit right in. Now I'm the dork with the mask on.

At this point, you might be thinking, well, clearly they insist on all this testing and the frequent visits to make extra money. Which may be true, but we've already paid for all our prenatal care AND the birth, and the combined total is about 75 percent less than Dietrich's birth and three months of prenatal care in the States. And we didn't even use a coupon!

When you buy the birthing package at Isida, you sign a contract about which we had a few hesitations due to statements like the following:

The PATIENT is obliged to fulfill planned visits to the doctor in charge, to fulfill diligently all his assignments and recommendations.

If the PATIENT consults some other specialists she is to follow their recommendations only after the confirmation and approval of the doctor in charge of the HOSPITAL.

Basically, do everything we say and don't get a second opinion.

On the plus side, the birthing package includes six ultrasounds! At this point (week 19), we've done three. This made the last ultrasound, in which our modest baby refused to show us his/her boy/girl parts, much less disappointing, as we will have another chance in three weeks.

Benni who?

My favorite car in our neighborhood: The Chana ... Benni.

Ewww

Normally, I'm not one to bemoan living in an apartment. But today I spent 20 uncomfortable minutes crouched over the tub, scraping dog poop out of the ridges of Dietrich's extremely nonslip fall boots with a toothpick. And then I bleached the life out of the bathtub. Oh my, what I would have given for a backyard and a hose during that very disgusting 40 minutes of my day.

My hands

If you were to look at my hands right now (or at any time during a Kyiv fall/winter), you might think I played a starring role in "Fight Club." The combination of Kyiv water plus cold weather leads to hands so dry that my knuckles crack open and bleed when I bend my fingers. It's uncomfortable. And gross. Lotion helps -- for a minute or two. At night, I sleep with my hands coated in petroleum jelly and encased with gloves. That keeps the open-wound count down around five.

The other day, Dietrich wanted to cuddle at naptime, but my ever-expanding belly felt extra awkward when I tried to get all smooshed up next to him. So, I suggested we hold hands. He grabbed my hand, exclaimed, "It's crunchy!" -- and refused to touch me again.

Sigh. I guess I'll go put some lotion on.

Thankful

Due May 25, 2010.

Whew, glad THAT secret's out!

Quarantined

We’re in Week 3 of Swine Flu quarantine here. All schools and universities are closed, and public gatherings of more than 30 are supposedly banned.

Since Dietrich’s not in school and Eric wasn’t scheduled to teach during the cancelled seminary session, we Oldenburgs haven’t been much affected. In fact, Dietrich likes the quarantine — it means his nanya’s charming 7-year-old daughter comes with her mama to play with him.

The seminary remains open to faculty and staff, so we still can work. However, the construction workers have used this opportunity to shut off the electricity all day today, so I’m working (secretly) from home. (Don’t tell Dietrich; I’m hiding out in our bedroom.)

Since I’m at home, I have access to the tangle of cords needed for various tasks, such as downloading pictures. Here, then, is what we did during quarantine (and a few days before).


Trying to stay warm in front of our “fireplace” before the government turned the heat on. We’re comfy cozy now.



Off to watch the Angels play the Yankees at a friend’s house. The friend’s connection speed far surpasses ours. We can only listen to the games. That was fine, until they moved Rex Hudler to the radio.


When Dietrich got invited to the local Christian school’s Harvest Festival at the last minute, we threw together the world’s quickest costume. He loved it. Wish I could have spiked his hair, but it was cold and he wore a beanie.


Perfect chilly morning breakfast: Oatmeal with bananas and maple syrup, black tea with sugar and milk.


Where’s Waldo?



Bye, Daddy! Have fun in Belarus!



Dietrich built this track. We had no idea he could do that! The thought actually crossed our minds that perhaps someone snuck in and helped him. Somehow that was less freaky than the thought of him suddenly acquiring track-building abilities.


Oksana and Zhenya had us over for their birthdays, and she made this charming cake. As the cake was being cut, I made the mistake of saying, “Oh, poor turtle.” Now Dietrich asks me every day what was wrong with the turtle at Oksana’s party.

Perhaps we ought to focus on pronunciation

Songs play a crucial role in Dietrich's bedtime routine, and recently he's started asking Eric to sing in Russian. (Linguistic progress! Hooray!) Tonight, he kept requesting the song with "the shoes, the shoes!" We were stumped for a moment, for we know no hymns about shoes. We finally figured it out: He wanted the song about Иисус (ee-soos) -- also known as Jesus!

Scavenged

How could I not put these sticks on display, when they were gathered so carefully by such a sweet little collector?

In Ukraine ...

... little boys wear tights. Dietrich and I went on a stocking hunt yesterday. Here three new pairs drying on the hot-water pipe in our bathtub.

Guessing game

Today I was handed an advertisement for McFoxy! -- a new fast-food joint in town. What kind of food would you guess a McFoxy! patron would find on the menu?

Isn't it romantic?

I hope clever men throughout our building are getting romantic credit for this anonymous note left on the driveway Saturday night.



You are my world.
You are my everything.
I love you.

The birthday blog

Warning: This one is really for the grandparents. It contains more photos of Dietrich turning 3 than anyone really needs to see. Unless, of course, "anyone" is Baba Jane or Grandma Cindy. For the non-related, consider this: If you come visit us, you can have this exact same fun day (minus the presents). I'd even make cupcakes for you.

The day started with Dietrich waking up very, very early because he was just too excited about his presents. As a result, I've decided not to tell him about Christmas. He had to eat his breakfast before he could open said presents. It was the quickest he's ever eaten a meal.



The only present Dietrich asked for was an umbrella. Of course, we had to oblige.


Our friends Zhenya, Oksana and Baby Nikita (not so much a baby anymore, but you know how these names stick) came to the zoo with us. Nikita makes an awesome hedgehog face.


We went to the petting zoo, where we fed the sheep, goats, and pigs cabbage and carrots in ice-cream cones.


Sometimes I am reminded of how thankful I am that we learned Russian before we had Dietrich. The moment when the petting zoo minder told us that we could feed all the animals by hand EXCEPT THE PIGS was one of those moments.


We saw this bird fly right out of his pen and soar over the zoo.


And this bear was so personable.


Dietrich wasn't so interested in walking, but he did love swinging on all the bars around the animal cages. Exhibit A: Dietrich and an elephant.


Toward the end of the excursion, we paused for cupcakes.


My favorite photo from the day.


A highlight for Dietrich was riding the Ferris wheel. The wheel moved slowly, but didn't stop to let people on and off. That keeps the line moving, but you'd better be sure-footed. No lap belts. No walls on the sides. Dietrich LOVED it. The whole way up, he kept saying (in a delighted manner), "This isn't safe! This isn't safe!" (Eric and Dietrich are in the orange and yellow car; you can just see their wee heads poking out.)


Home for a nap, and then on to McDonald's for dinner.


Then back home to Skype with the grandparents. We saved a couple of presents so that he could open them while Baba and Papa and Grandma and Grandpa watched.


Playtime (our friends gave him THE hit present -- a little car put together with screws, and a drill to take it all apart). Then bedtime. Whew. Next year, let's all just take a long nap for Dietrich's birthday.

Can this be comfortable?

Toward the end of a long nap.

I'm pretty sure this isn't what you'd call progress

Dietrich has been hearing Russian regularly for three weeks now, and while he doesn't say much, he doesn't regularly complain about not understanding the people around him.

However, at church this morning, every time someone spoke Russian to him, he responded by meowing. Like a cat. Evidently "feline" is the universal language.

My birfday

Recently, Dietrich has been bringing me little treasures and saying, "This is for your birfday." When we first got back to Ukraine, he got his hands on a Spiderman lunchbox that someone sent Eric, and spent hours zipping little things into it and delivering them to us. One day, he even gave me his prized horn for my birfday -- though he took it back 10 minutes later. Still, he seemed a bit confused yesterday when he handed me two smooshed leaves for my birfday, and I replied, "Hey, today IS my birfday!" I guess he thought every day was mama's special day.

Alas, the day before I turned 33, I was stricken by a high fever, so we kept the celebrations fairly mellow. Next week, when my sense of taste returns, we get to celebrate again with dinner at our favorite restaurant.

But yesterday ...


Eric brought home pretty flowers for my windowsill.


We enjoyed tasty chocolate-almond scones from Mona Lois during Snack and Storytime.


Dietrich delivered presents, and pretty much unwrapped them, too.


We shared our excitement over a Ukrainian recipe book from the Dzubas. I was excited because I like to cook. Dietrich was excited because it stands up on a little base and forms a triangle. Yay, triangles!


We instantly put my new glass-bowl-with-lid to work. And, my gift to you, check out other people's fridges here.

New tradition

Well, there's a lot of nostalgia surrounding leaving Ukraine with a little toddler Dietrich and returning with a Big Boy Dietrich. Indeed, I am often overwhelmed by emotional floods these days.

But Big Boy Dietrich is capable of such grown-up things as walking to the market, picking out an ice cream and walking home. And that, my friends, is our new Saturday night tradition.


He ate the whole thing!


Sharing with Daddy. Do they have the exact same face or what?


Momma got a Vanillachino from a machine (notice tiny cup in my hand). Sadly, it disappointed. Next week, a Maxibon for me!

So grown up

Dietrich, who is on the verge of turning 3, upon seeing raspberries on his dinner plate:
"When I was little, I didn't like rabbidies. I like rabbidies now."

In the midst

As Eric has been getting back into the swing of things at the seminary, I've been trying to restore order to our apartment. Another family lived here while we were gone, and we'd packed up a lot of our personal belongings so that they'd have room in the wardrobes and on the shelves.

I love unpacking -- such a good opportunity to purge things that strike you as particularly unattractive or no longer useful once you pull them out of the box they've been sitting in for 10 months. Also the perfect chance to try out a new system, like storing your spices in one central location rather than scattering them throughout your kitchen.


Herbs and spices generally come in packets here. Can you tell which herbs these are?



I've hoarded empty bottles as people have sent spices from the States over the past five years.


Oh, how I love Sharpies!


The finished product. Kinda. I've already had to make some adjustments, like putting the baking soda and baking powder into wider containers for less-messy leveling.

We're back ...

... in Ukraine. And happy to be here. Though typing under the influence of jetlag is rather challenging.

The trip over was really quite smooth, once we got rid of our six suitcases and one cardboard box of theology books in San Francisco. A good 50 percent of the pre-trip stress was over whether any of our bags were overweight ... but they were all fine, and a few were even a few pounds under (guess I could have bought those flour tortillas after all). As an added bonus, all six suitcases and all those books made it to Lvov, where we're at our team's annual conference. Every plane was on time or early; we even had ample time to grab caffeinated beverages during our layovers.

Dietrich held up very well, especially considering that he lost out on about eight hours of sleep. Still, like any almost-3-year-old, he would rather be stuck like this:



than stuck on a plane for eight hours. Thankfully, it should be a couple of years before we attempt such a lengthy journey again.

Mix up at storytime

To encourage Dietrich to enjoy books, we've started a daily popcorn-and-story time. It's totally working; he wakes up from his afternoon nap, then calmly chomps on popcorn and listens to stories for at least 30 minutes (i.e. about 27 minutes longer than he does anything else).

Another benefit: He has started making up his own stories. Most of them involve things (like balls or goats) jumping off of buildings and crashing into cars. Or houses. Or trees.

But last night, at dinner, he started telling Eric a different tale. It started, "One time, Jesus had a tractor ... "

Things you never hear in Ukraine

"Take On Me" and "Every Rose Has Its Thorn," back-to-back on the radio. Yes, that was me you heard, singing along at the top of my lungs.

Two more zoos

We Oldenburgs love the zoo. Any time we're in a new country, we try our hardest to visit its zoo. Our zoo experiences thus far:

Orange County (A distant memory from our dating days, but we do recall a pacing wolf.)

London (Rainy, but it was our honeymoon, so it was romantic. It was there that I learned that Eric's parents used to buy him those enormous lollipops -- the ones that are as big as a kid's face. My parents NEVER let us get those! And thus began our first-ever parenting conversation. Guess who buys Dietrich donuts?)

San Diego Wild Animal Park (We slept there for Eric's 30th birthday. Nothing like waking up to a rhino passing gas.)

The National Zoo in DC (Lame zoo, but with good friends.)

Kyiv (Many, many times.)

Budapest (Cool baboons and hippos, but they don't stop patrons from feeding the animals, which creeps me out.)

Prague (Built on a hillside -- a nice zoo and a nice workout.)

Krakow (Dietrich got bit by a duck.)

Hamburg (Serious German quality -- probably the best zoo we've been to.)

San Francisco (A great brown bear and a lovely location, right next to the ocean.)

In March, Dietrich and I added two zoos to our list. Dietrich is rather hard to pose at the moment, so I've no photos of him with anything actually wild.



Dietrich's favorite animal at the Santa Ana Zoo was the rooster, although he's still talking about the swinging monkeys. Here he is in the big eggs on display next to the chicken coop.

Our first stop at the Los Angeles Zoo was the petting zoo. This really threw Dietrich off ... for the rest of the day, he begged to touch the less-touchable animals ... the zebras, the giraffes. Finally, he got to climb on an elephant. Well, an elephant statue, to be quite technical.



Cuddle-bugging a goat.


Dietrich's Baba and Papa have goats and sheep, so Dietrich didn't really understand why he couldn't touch these animals on their faces or try to climb on them.


The elephant.

Little house

One of my favorite things about this time in America has been the back house in which we reside. It's two blocks from the park, and we also can walk to the post office, pharmacy, toy store, coffee shop and farmers' market, which keeps my Ukraine legs in shape (and my America tummy in check), plus keeps Dietrich accustomed to stroller time.

The cottage is charming and old, with built-in corner china cabinets, potato bins in the kitchen and floor-to-ceiling windows in the front room. I do a lot of cooking, and every time I make borsch, I appreciate the double sink, good-sized stove and refrigerator, and ample counter space.

But the best part might be the shower. Its big, round shower head points straight down, which means that Dietrich can stand under the water
with the curtain open, and droplets don't get all over the place.

Little joys. I love 'em.

For our Russian-speaking readers

"Dietrich, say moon."

"Moon!"

"Now say moon na Russkom."

"Moo-na!"

(For our English-speaking readers: It's actually pronounced loona.)

Dietrich's guide to American icons

Dietrich, upon seeing the cover of the very fat IRS instruction guide for ex-pats:

"What's that?"

"That's the Statue of Liberty."

"It's got ice cream!"

"Actually, that's a torch."

"No, it's ice cream."

The alpha-bret song

Last weekend, we drove to Henderson, Nevada, to visit South Hills Church Community. We stayed with Pastor Bret, who was Eric's youth pastor back when Eric was a youth, and his lovely wife, Sallie.

Dietrich was, and remains, smitten with Bret. It's the first time he's been so instantly attached to a grownup who didn't, you know, give birth to him.

Need proof?

Here's Dietrich's current version of the ABC song:

A B C
BRET!
E F G
BRET!
H I
BRET!
M N O
BRET!

... and so on, all the way to, "Now I BRET my ABCs. Next time won't you BRET! with me?"

The people have spoken ...

Photo number 2 it is. And thanks to all who noticed the missing "p" in equipping. It shall be properly spelled in the final version.

Please vote

We're cranking out a new brochure about our work in Ukraine, and we can't choose a cover. The size is 3.75 by 5 inches. Which one would you pick?

Descriptive

Dietrich, halfway through his first-ever Jamba Juice:

"I no like it."

"Why not?"

"Iz too swippery! Iz too hot!"

Favorite Christmas moments

We've moved down to Southern California, and I'm re-living Christmas as I (finally) download pictures.


The quality of this photo isn't great, but I love the way all the grown-ups are standing expectantly in the back, waiting to see if the slide will be a hit.


Wouldn't go to sleep without his new baseball book. Still won't, actually.


Aunt Jit Fong and Uncle Sam introduce Dietrich to "Yo Gabba Gabba."


Yep, it was a hit. Thanks, Craig's list!