Baby Carrier

So today we bought a Baby Carrier, mostly to make it easier at the airport when we go flying somewhere, but it is actually very nice, and Emilia likes it, so we will probably use it a lot more.

After a lot of looking around, and reading a lot of tests and reviews, I decided that we would get a Manduca Baby Carrier, I read on several forums that it was a very nice and comfortable Baby Carrier, and it was comfortable even for older babies, people were talking about even 3-4 year old kids sitting in them, and it is approved for up to 20 kilos.

Anyway before buying one, I wanted to try it on, so I found this nice little web-shop , that also had the possibility to visit the store to try it, and it was nice and close to where we live.

We tried it on, and it was rather amazing, I could hardly feel I was carrying Emilia, and it can be put front, back or sideways on the hip, the weight is put on your hip, instead of on your shoulders, making it much more comfortable to carry, well we decided for the colour Skyline Plum “Limited Edition”.

We have some forest around here, and last summer we did the mistake of thinking that the paths in the forest were drivable with a cart, we ended up carrying the cart and Emilia through the forest. Well so now we had this nice new Baby Carrier, we thought of taking it out in the forest, and it was great, Emilia loved it and well soon she fell asleep, she slept for 1 hour on my back, she is sleeping on the pictures above so we opened the headrest so to show that she was there.

Anyway, we were out for about two hours, walking in the forest and also doing some shopping, and it worked very well, except that in the beginning before we figured out how to adjust it correctly, I got some back-pain, I can still feel it, but after adjusting it, it did not get worse at least, I think it still requires some adjusting, I’m also going to try to have her in front, to see how she likes that, and also to see if it is possible to have her in front and a backpack at the same time, more for when we go travelling.

So for those of you wit small babies, or even small kids, I can highly recommend this.

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Emilia is born.

On 28 March 2009 at 05:52, Emilia was born at Huddinge Hospital.
As I have written before we were expecting a baby, and on Saturday morning she was born.
It is funny because earlier on the week I told to her while still in the belly that Friday would be a good day, and it all started Friday morning.

Well, my part of the story starts at lunch on Friday.
I’m sitting eating my lunch when I get an SMS from Marina asking me why I’m not on-line on MSN.
I reply back, with just “Lunch”.
After lunch I get back to my desk and log in to MSN again, here is a copy of the conversation.

Marina säger: (13.13.39)
hi

Marina säger: (13.20.42)
take the metal plate from cake


The cake was one Marina made, that I had brought with me for Friday afternoon coffee.
For that reason I had also taken the car, since bringing a cake in a stuffed bus , is not a good idea, well secretly I think Marina had told me to take the car not for the cake, but in case something would happen, since later she told me that the water had broken already before I was even awake that morning, but she did not want to tell me anything since no contractions at the time.

Anyway so on the way home Marina calls me, and tell me to go to the midwife clinic (Barnomorskemottagningen) on the way home to pick up some blood tests, we have been waiting for.

So I’m not home until about 14:30.
And when I get home I call the hospital, according to the phone log this is at 14:40, I explain that the water had broken this morning and that she had started to have small contractions, they told us to come in for a check to see, since we suspected the water had broken.

We drive to the hospital, a 15 minute drive, and arrive around 15:15.
They take us into an intake room and put some sensors on Marinas belly, to listen at the baby’s Heart rate as well as measuring the contractions, this lasts I think about 30 minutes, they then come back and say that they want a doctor to have a look, since if the water broke they can’t “Feel” down there, due to the risk of infection.
Unfortunately this is a very busy Friday afternoon and only one doctor on duty.
And since the contractions are not so strong, we have low priority, and have to wait.
And waiting we did, some 5 hours, apparently someone had to get an emergency cecarium (is it spelled like that?)
Meanwhile the contractions are getting stronger, but are not frequent, sometimes 20 minutes in between.
We move to a TV room while waiting, since sitting in that intake room is getting rather boring.

At about 21:30 the doctor finally has time, and we go back to the intake room, and she starts checking, she tells that the water has not broken, and that the wetness that Marina had felt that morning in combination with a bit of red slime, was a so called slime plug(Not sure how to translate it), and sometimes if at all, comes a week or two before delivery.
She also measures, and Marina is about 1.5-2cm open.
She asks Marina if she wants this baby soon, and Marina says yes, so she does something, I think she said to stimulate, but she points out that it is not sure that it will work.
Then she says that now we wait, the baby could come in a couple of days or even in a week or two.

The doctor leaves, and there is a midwife who explains a bit more in detail, she tells that the contractions should be more frequent and much much stronger, like a knife in the back, to quote what she said. She also tells that type of contractions she has now are more like the body exercising for the real thing.
We wait a bit longer, since we need to get our papers back, and also the journal for our visit.

And then we go back home.
We are home around 22:30, I read the journal of our visit, and it is very cryptic and with a lot of medical abbreviations, but I read something about going home with two citadon, not sure what that is, later on I find out we were supposed to have gotten some pain killers with us home, they just forgot to give it.

Marinas contractions are still getting stronger, but they are still not frequent and sometimes takes a break of up to 20 minutes.
She takes 2 Alvedon (Paracetamol)
But some time after midnight, Marina is getting in more pain, she goes into the shower to get some warm water to, lower the pain, I start timing the contractions, and get that they are between 3 and 5 minutes in between, but still sometimes takes a break of 10-20 minutes, I did not know I had to time the length also.

At around 02:00 while she is in the shower I call the hospital again, and they ask for the frequency and length of contractions, while on the phone i time the length, and get that they are about 20-30 seconds in length, the lady from the hospital tells me that they should be about 1minute, and not so long breaks.
They tell me to wait, since there are still some longer pauses in between, and they don’t think they are strong enough yet.

So we hang up, and I explain this to Marina, and she is not happy about it.
She is tired, and in pain, but we decided to try and get some sleep in between when the longer breaks come.
However there is no chance for this, so it ends up being a mix of sleeping, and timing the contractions, they are getting more frequent and stronger, but still not longer than 40 seconds, and still occasionally takes a longer break.
She takes another Alvedon.

The pain is getting stronger, and a bit after 04:00 Marina is in such pain, that I again call the hospital, asking what I can do to help her, since she is in such pain.
After a bit of convincing, they now agree that perhaps it is a good idea that we come in.

We grab the stuff we need, and I go and get the car from the parking, and then we go to the hospital.
We arrive around 05:00, according to the Journal we got written in at 05:15.
The time I have now are from the Journal, I only know that it all went very fast.

They again ask if the water had broken, and I explain no, but that we were there earlier since we thought it had broken earlier.

The again put the monitor thing on her belly, and this time the contractions show up strong, so half an hour later the midwife comes back, and feel inside of her, this time they say, that she is fully open, and the baby want to get out, so we go directly to the delivery room.

When we get there, they ask Marina to push, hoping the water will break. But it doesn’t, so at 05:40 they manually break the water, the first birth contraction starts at 05:45, and 4 pushes and some laughing gas later at 05:52, Emilia is born.

The first thing she does when she comes out is pooping, then screaming, but only briefly, as soon as she is on Marinas chest, she is quiet again.

I was so happy, I even cried a little bit, very emotional moment.
We spend most of the morning in the delivery room, waiting for a free spot on the BB, (This is a department on Swedish Hospitals, where women go to recover after the delivery)
While we waited they came to weigh the baby as well as doing some basic checks.
She weighed in at 3.7kg, and was 51cm long, and they also measured 35.5cm around the head.

But right after lunch we got a family room in the BB department, We went there, and I went home to grab some stuff, as well as getting some sleep, and a shower, did not get much sleep, to much excitement, but at dinner I came back, I took the laptop with me since I had earlier found out there were wireless internet at the hospital, we called Marinas parents on Skype and turned on video.
We slept there over night, we were both very tired, with not much sleep, she did scream once a lot, and it was when we put her in the baby bed, we took her back but she kept screaming, we rang the bell for the Midwife, and she came, and explained that many babies don’t like to sleep alone, and that she might be hungry.

I got a nice talk to this Midwife, and she gave many very handy tips, I also asked about cat’s, sicne we have two of them, she told that she herself has cats, and two children and that it was never an issue, also officially there are no recommendations, there are two believes, one is that having them around when you are small will strengthen the resistance to allergy, and the other is that one should be careful if there are allergies already in the family.
Since my whole family has pets, and I had them aroudn when I was a kid, and Marina is clearly not allergic, we are not so worried, we do keep them out of the children bed and stuff, but they are allowed to come and sniff, and investigate.

Anyway, the night went pretty smooth, we did wake up several times, but we did get some sleep. The next morning we were waiting to have the children doctor check up the health of Emilia, they asked if we wanted to stay another night, but both Marina and me wanted to go home.
The doctor checked Emilia, and all was well, so he allowed us to go home, but that we had to come back for additional check-up.
So I went home to go and get the car, and in the afternoon we were back home.
Since none of us had much sleep over the weekend, we tried to get some sleep, I was very tired, and so was Emilia.

Today we went back to see the doctor as well as making a hearing test.
All is well except she is a bit Yellow, apparently something quite common that should go away, but just in case we have another appointment on Thursday to see that it is getting less.

For more pictures, be sure to head over to the album.

For Dogs: How to hug a baby. »« Give Blood

Small update.

ok small update.

The hospital called back with the results.

And they told that according to the test, there is 1 in 20.000 chance that the baby will have down syndrome.

I guess that is good. since we have no plans to have that many babies.

I got a JOB!!!!!!!! »« Baby on the way, first pictures available.

Baby on the way, first pictures available.

Hello everyone.

Just a quick update to let you know how it goes with the baby business.

Yesterday we had a meeting with the doctor, just to talk about different things.

One of the things, we were wondering was about a test that can be done to screen for Down syndrome, this includes a Blood test of the mother and an Ultrasound, so yesterday they took a blood test and today we went for Ultrasound.

The blood test had not yet been analyzed so we have no result, but well since Marina is only 28 the risk of Down Syndrome is only about 0.1%.

I will put an update when we get the result.

But for now you can go to the album to see the images from the Ultrasound.

We have another Ultrasound, the one they usually do, this one is on 24th of October. Will get some more images then, as well as a video, I found out that they can actually record the session on a DVD, so will get that for sure.   :smile:

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Some updates and Server Maintanance.

Hello everyone,

Quite a while since I made any updates here, so it’s about time.

So what has happened since last time?

Well me, Marina, Holly, Balder and Heimdal has moved to Hässelby in Sweden, it is in the Western part of Stockholm.

Here we share a large apartment with some friends, Aurelie (who also moved from Holland to Sweden.) and Göran(He moved up some months earlier.)
Move was a pain, we moved during the weekend of 27-30th of June, And well trust me driving Amsterdam-Stockholm-Amsterdam with way to little sleep in 3 days is no fun.

We have started to settle in, Marina is going to Swedish course, and I have started looking for work.

I had saved up Holidays from my previous employer, enabling me to be on Holiday from June to end of September, I have used this to get all the details arranged, including getting me some well needed rest.  :smile:

And I have some great news too, In end of July actually only 2 days before my Birthdate, we found out that Marina is pregnant. This was kind of unexpected news, but still very welcome news, since the plan was to move to Sweden to start a family, although the start a family part was supposed to be a bit later, but well nature wanted it differently.  :razz:

So after our calculations, expected delivery is on the 24th of March 2009.

Marina is going through some hard times, as many other pregnanat women, she is nausious, puking, difficulty eating many things, pain and general weak feeling. But luckily this should start to wear of, since she is entering 11th week now, and they say that most women start feeling better in 11-12th week.

I will kep you  updated on what happends on this of course.

So another update, this more boring than babies.  :roll:

With the move came a bonus, as I mentioned in the previous blogg, the server would be moved to a faster connection, well this was true, right now it is connected to a 100/100mbit Fiber connection.

Well not directly to fiber, but close, the Fiber converter is in the Fuse cabinet.

So you should notice a slight speed improvement loading images and such on the Album, or on your page if you are hosted with me.

Another update is that I decided to learn more about Server Virtualization, for those of you who don’t know what that is well, to be brief, I have a Computer that acts as a server, This server does a lot of things, most noticibly Hosting this blog, and the album, but it also does E-mail, file server, Database server and some other things. And right now it all runs as one server, all running in the same environement.

For a home server that is fine, but for businesses, it is not a good idea, since if for example the Mail server crashes or if a hacker found a security flaw in the web server, this could spread to all the other services, and take them all down.

Before this was solved by having one or more computers for each type of service, so one computer for Mail, one for Web, and another for Database, and so on.

But that is very inefficient and expensive, both in Energy and Money.

Because usually not all services need all the resources of the computer at the same time leaving many servers stanidng doing nothing a lot of the time.

So instead someone came up with the idea of Virtual servers.

Basically that means that on one computer runs several virtual servers, all Isolated from each other.

So even if one server get’s hacked or crashes, all the others will remain unaffected.

It also gives the advantage that you can run different type of Operating systems on the same computer at the same time, for example different flavours of Linux, Windows, and Solaris.

Well i wanted to try and learn more about this, so started investigating and I found a nice open source virtualization system called Xen, unfortuantly the hardware I have does not fully support virtualization, basically as you remember some time ago I upgraded the hardware in the Server, and bought new motherboard and CPU and so on, well the CPU I got was a Pentium D 805, and this does not have the Virtualization feature, so Today I bought a new CPU called Pentium D 930.

Unfortunatly my Motherboard is too old to support the new Core2Duo or Quad processors, so had to stick with the Pentium D generation.

I picked up the last one they had in the store.

I installed it and besides having the ability to do Virtualization, it also got a  bigger Level 2 Cache and it is a bit faster, 3.0Ghz, vs the old 2.6Ghz, this while still using slightly less electricity.

Now I need to collect some money to upgrade the memory also, this would give a good speed bump, since right now it is kind of struggeling with only 1GB.

I even tried to steal some memory from my old Dell PC, it has 1,5GB, so wanted to take the 1G, but it was too old. the Dell is using DDR 400, and server uses DDR2 667

So I have to go and get some new once.

Donations are as usually always welcome.  :mrgreen:

Well anyway, to be able to set up Virtual servers on my server, I need to reinstall everything, since I don’t have another server to take over while doing this it means I have to take down everything while doing that.

I plan to do it this comming weekend 5, 6 and 7th of September, if it does not work out I will make another attempt in the weekend after.

Well that was all for this time.

Brian.

Spam and Maintanance update. »« Moving to Sweden