Hello again! I seem to have got out of the habit of writing every week which is a shame so I'll try better from now on.
We have had a lot on these past few weeks (as usual!). The last time that I wrote I talked about how my dad, sister and her children came over for a week. Well they left and a few days later Cathy
Fooks came to visit (for all you that were at our wedding Cathy was one of my fab bridesmaids - but she's now 18!!!!!!!!!) We had a really nice week together although having another chocoholic in the house is fatal!! I was ill for a few days of her visit but she was very patient with me and we relaxed a lot - cinema a few times & umpteen films!!
Yay that was nice!
As I dropped off Cathy at
Schiphol I hung round for a while and then collected my mum. J went away for a week snowboarding with Church to Switzerland. We haven't had a chance to download his photos yet so I'll put them on here in a few days time. I was a really fab time away for him, bonding with some good friends & getting to know more people from Crossroads (our church) He says that by the end of the week he was getting pretty good so now he needs to go back and make the most of it.... any excuse. While he was away I really didn't want to be here alone, so it was great having mum here. Nothing like being pampered hey!! I have a midwife appointment that week so mum was able to come with me and hear the baby's heart beat.
On to baby stuff. Everything is going well. I've had no complications and the baby is growing well. I have been having quite a bit of back ache recently and it's sometimes making it hard to sleep but I'm back at the gym now (after a few weeks break) so hopefully I can exercise the right areas to help. It's great going there and the staff are really helpful & kind to me. I will hopefully be able to go to the '
Zwanger & fit' (Pregnant and fit) class now with other mums to be so I'll let you know how that goes!
I have also started my 'Fit en
gezond zwanger" (fit & healthy pregnancy) course. I decided to do it mainly to meet other mums to be but I knew that it would be a huge challenge for me. And it is! The teacher speaks good English so if I don't understand something I'm supposed to ask her. But there are 9 other mums in the room all Dutch. The entire evening is in Dutch including all the chit chat, questions etc. I understand very little other than the words I recognise and can pick out.
You might say why go then but I feel that I should go. It'll give me confidence & hopefully I will build up some kind of relationship with the ladies over 8 or so weeks! J and I are also doing a "
Samen Bevallen" (together birth) course. (Courses coming out our ears but in another country I decided that it's best to get as much info as possible.) This is usually a group thing over 6 weeks but the lady doing it said that having a non Dutch speaker on the course made it hard for me and everyone else. So instead she's
coming here twice for 2 hours to go through everything we need to know.... ha.. including my "puffin"!! She's really nice & gives me a lot of peace. I even got the giggles
whilst practicing the puffing which in this circumstance and
considering I want to cry at the other course, is quite a feat! It was really good to be doing it together. The other course is only me, J comes to one session in April. So all in all it's been a manic few weeks!
We've started to look into buying stuff for the baby. Sat. we bought the bedroom set (even though it's going into our bedroom for as long as we're in the flat - we will move into the lounge if we decide that having the baby in the same room for too long
isn't so good.) We are looking frantically for a pushchair thing... something basic and something we like. However I stood in the shop crying at one point! Bit of culture shock. All the 'buggy's' you can buy over here are very fancy - huge wheels, flashy frames, big pram parts that clip in and out and all other
gadgety stuff. I want simple (one like the UK) but can we get it here????.... NO!!! I'm still not sure how we're going to fix the prob but I feel I can't
justify buying stuff that I'll use fora very short time (maybe) the store in an
Attic for a few years or more!
You also have to order stuff here and pushchairs can take up to 15 weeks to arrive.. Get this... we're even thinking about coming over to
Harwich to get one from there (maybe order one and get it delivered to J's Auntie & Uncle that live there! Mad or what!!!!
Anyway I'm sure it'll work out!
But it's not just baby stuff going on too. We are still looking for a house to live in. I have resigned myself to the fact that we will be here when the baby arrives and probably for a few months afterward too. While J was skiing mum & I looked at a great house. We prayed
a lot about it and I chatted to J about it too on the phone & decided to make an offer. Our prayer was that if it wasn't right and God didn't want us to have it then we wouldn't get it. Well I'm guessing that he didn't want us to have it as they didn't accept our offer. The estate agent said they were asking WAY too much for it but in the market at the mo I wouldn't be surprised if they got
what they are asking for..... houses are selling with a day or 2 of going on the market!!! So we keep looking!!!
So this blogs been pretty long! Sorry bout that! I'll try and write less more regularly if I can. As I write this
pj is bouncing around all over the place - so I think it's saying hi!!!!
Here's the link to the website as usual:
http://www.babycentre.co.uk/pregnancy/fetaldevelopment/28weeks/Til next time, maybe we'll have some new pics to post!
Again... not such a great picture of me but I guess it's the bump that's the focus not me! 
