Time surely flies... Fei just turned 3 months and he has come a long way from the tiny little baby he was just a few short weeks ago.

Mentally speaking, he is showing more and more personality. He can entertain himself for extended periods of time, and he is genuinely really happy when a familiar face appears in sight.

It's getting quite obvious that he got his mom's temper, unfortunately. He is most of the time a really happy baby but if something happens that he doesn't like, and the situation isn't fixed at the very instant, he tends to get very upset and make a lot of noise.

Fortunately he is good at calming down too. We've noticed he is especially easy to calm down by talking, which is a little surprising. For whatever reason he seems to like me quite a bit and often it is enough that I pick him, look him in the eyes and explain what is going on... I guess he probably doesn't understand what I'm saying, but it works. He will go from crying to kind of loud talking, something like telling me what happened. I usually respond to him, telling I agree and I understand how he feels, which amuses Wen a lot. Usually after a short conversation like this he starts to smile become the usually happy baby he is!

Physically he is quite a strong boy already. He likes to do "sit-ups", which means that he gets up from laying down to sitting position, assisted by someone pulling his hands. He usually finishes the movement by attempting to stand up by straightening his legs. He can pretty much do this, especially with slight support, but I don't like to let him stay that way so I just continue the movement and lead him back laying down. And then we do it again. And again... and again!

This concludes my "Brand New Dad's Life" blog. Thanks for reading!

I'm not going to stop writing though. I will start a new blog, which I intend to write directly to Fei for him to read when he gets older. I got this idea from my mom who just recently gave me a kind of a diary she wrote for me during my first year. It was short, but it was very interesting to read.

You may have noticed XIHA Life has a new logo. What do you think? Would you believe the idea for the logo came from our little Fei!

As I wrote before Fei loves to look at plants. Flowers are ok, but he is most interested in green leaves. A lot of people like watching the beauty of the nature, but we're talking about a baby less than 3 months old here... so this kind of proves there is something naturally beautiful about green leaves! There's no way he could ever have learned it from somewhere... it's built in!

This important realization helped us a lot when designing the new logo. We had been through a lot of symbols, from speach bubbles to smileys. All kinds of "web 2.0" buzz... but nothing seemed to be universally acceptable, as we couldn't even agree to it inside our group.

Finally it was Wen who realized that tree leaves would be a symbol that fits best what XIHA Life is. We thought of Chinese Rose as well as Maple and Birch, but eventually decided on Palm Tree as is kind of a symbol of "Good Life" that most of the people will immediatelly understand.

Fei has already shown a lot of personality. He's quite much like his mom; he knows what he wants and wants it now. He's not a tough baby to handle though. As long as he gets enough attention he can be quite an angel.

He likes it a lot when I talk to him and he often talks back. He when he talks (in baby language, for now) he looks straight into eyes and obviously tries hard to talk like I do.

However, there's something he absolutely loves more than anything else - he is totally in love with nature!

From the very early on he has enjoyed looking out of the window, as well as looking at the plats we have indoors. One of his favorite things to do so far has been to stare at a Chinese Rose we have in livingroom. It's pretty tall, kind of like a tree, and he seems to never get tired of watching it.

Couple days ago Wen moved another Chinese Rose next to our bed to see if that would entertain Fei. Sure enough, today he was on the bed for more than an hour at a stretch looking at it, sometimes talking to it and often smiling!

Smiling, that's a thing he does a lot now. He always smiles when he sees me. That makes me feel very good, so I often go just to say hi to him even during the day when I'm working, just to see that beautiful smile!

I can't believe Fei is already more than two months old. And I also can't believe it's been more than a month since I updated this blgo the last time!

A lot has happened during the last month. First, we got a piano. We have a piano back in China but it would be quite a lot of work to transfer it here so now we have a new one. We're still looking for a piano teacher who could come visit us couple times a week. The plan is to find someone who can teach me and Wen and then play something for Fei, to get him used to piano music (rather than just having him listen to people practicing... which might make him hate piano music!)

Another, perhaps even more interesting thing is that we placed an ad for hiring native speakers in English, Mandarin, Cantonese, Finnish and French! We have already hired French and English teachers and interviewed quite many Chinese.

With French, Wen and I are both studying it. Meriem, our teacher, spends two hours at a time teaching us and then about one our playing with Fei, talking and singing in French. Even though Fei is too young to speak even single words for many months, he is already forming the basis of language.

We want to help him by giving him "language baths", opportunities for him to communicate with native speakers of different languages. So far the experience has been extremely positive. Fei absolutely loves playing with Meriem and listening to French!

English is a little different since we both speak quite fluent English, but Wen just wants to practice her English skills with a native speaker. This gives a chance to Fei to listen to English as spoken by someone who has no accent!

Chinese is something I will need to learn. My Chinese is still very limited so basically I am looking forward to similar arrangement in Chinese as Wen has in English. Wen's mom is coming tomorrow to stay with us for a month and I was hoping to improve my Chinese before that, but it seems I am running late from the schedule...

Oh, and Fei has been growing fast! One week ago was his latest appointment with the nurse. His weight was 6410 grams and length 59 cm. I'll need to check with the growth curves to see how that compares with the previous readings but the nurse was very happy and said everything looks perfect.

Until next time!

Fei is now one full month old. We held a birthday party yesterday to celebrate the occasion, as is the traditional Chinese way to do. Our party was western style though, a small party for the closest friends and family. The birthday boy probably didn't really know what was going on, but he behaved really well the whole day so the guests must be wondering if he even knows how to cry...

In Chinese tradition, the baby is protected and cannot even be seen by anyone until he is full month old. At that point the family organizes a party and the friends and relatives get a chance to see the baby for the first time. The next important party in the baby's life comes at 100 days old... just over two months to go!

This week Fei has been very much a daddy's boy. He started to want to be in my lap a lot, being unhappy at almost everywhere else. Kind of funny but also really nice, of course.

This also gave Wen some much needed privacy and she has been able to venture out to do some shopping couple times in the past few days. I can manage with Fei about three hours just fine, but then of course he will already be quite hungry and that is something I cannot help him with.

On Monday we had the second checkup with the nurse, by the way, and it turns out Fei is growing really well! He is already 55.5 cm long (or can you say "tall" for someone who doens't know how to stand yet..?) and weighs 4540 grams! In about 12 days he has gained 530 grams, which as far as I know is pretty good!

Fei always knows how to behave. He actually has quite a temper and can get really angry if he doesn't get what he wants right away, but every time someone else has seen him he is like a little angel! Well, of course he is a really sweet boy, but it's quite surprising to me how he seems to know when it is appropriate to demand attention and when it's enough to just be cute.

Yesterday Fei seems to have caught some cold as his nose was making a lot of weird sounds and his breathing seemed quite difficult. Babies mostly breath through their nose so this can be quite uncomfortable for them. I called the health advice line (100 23 - a very useful number to know in Finland) and I was told it's most likely not cold, but milk which sometimes can get into babies nose and make it hard for them to breathe.

The suggested treatment was steam, so we ran some hot water in the bathroom and spent a while in the steam. This seems to have helped, as he is feeling much better now. As a precaution we also bought some "cooking salt liquid", which should clear the nose without too much discomfort. It seems we don't need to use that just yet though.

The day after tomorrow we will have Fei's one month celebration... should be fun!

Check out Wen's photo album, she took a whole bunch of cool photos of Fei and I! (www.xihalife.com/photos/by/wen)

Little Fei is already three weeks old. Can't believe how fast time goes. I am realizing I haven't even updated the blog since the birth announcement... I will try to do some updates retro-actively but we'll see how that goes!

Fei is doing great! He is eating and sleeping, and growing fast. He has an amazing spectrum of facial expressions. I think he might become an actor. It's really quite amusing to look at his face, which keeps showing a lot of emotions. It's like he would really want to talk but is unable to...

I've been trying to balance between doing work and being a dad. Fei sleeps most of the time so it's not too hard yet, but when he is awake he can keep both Wen and I pretty busy! He eats a lot which means he generates a lot of byproducts, so to speak. Sometimes stuff is coming out faster than we can manage... and sometimes he waits to make his move just when the diaper is removed.

In the past few nights he has started sleeping through the night with only one feeding in the middle, which is great. He still seems to get pretty active around midnight and will refuse to fall asleep until about 1-2AM, but beyond that he usually sleeps 3-4 hours, eats, and then goes back to sleep.

He likes taking bath and he absolutely loves receiving gentle baby massage. Generally speaking he's a really happy boy who only cries when there really is a reason. On Monday we'll have the second check up with nurse, so well know his weight and how tall he is...

Today we got a nurse visiting from the health care center, taking a look at how Fei and his mom are doing. It was a little bit of work to get someone to come over as our regular nurse is on holiday. In the end another nurse volunteered to come and so Fei was checked up more or less in time.

So at 12 days old Fei's weight is 4010 grams. The most important thing about this number is that at this point the baby is supposed to be heavier than at birth (the weight goes down quite a bit during the first few days) so we're doing ok. The nurse was very pleased with the way Fei behaved and said he looks like he could be older than just couple of weeks.

She told us to start giving vitamin D to Fei from the time he is two weeks old, as the amount of sunlight (the natural source of the vitamin) is way too low during the winter. Vitamin D is needed for the calsium to sink in, to make so he will get strong bones.

The next nurse check up will be in couple week's time...

Fei was born in Helsinki on December 21 at 10:30 AM! At birth he was 53 cm tall and weighed 3900 grams. He was much bigger than the doctors had estimated, which made the delivery quite a bit more difficult than anyone had anticipated. As a result we stayed in the hospital for a total of one week and returned home only yesterday.

The week was very eventful, but most importantly both Fei and Wen are doing very good and we are all home now. I will fill in the events of the week later, this is just a quick note that Fei has arrived!

Photos can be found here: www.xihalife.com/photosets/854/
More to be added soon!



2007-12-28: New photos uploaded to the album. Here's a couple for a sample, click on the photos to see more. Quite interestingly Fei is becoming more like me these days with eyes turning a little towards green/gray and the hair becoming lighter.

So we started our family life at Ward 61 in Naistenklinikka (women's clinic) hospital. This is strictly for families only and the dad needs to stay the night there too. The ward has quite minimal staff, during the night there are only two nurses, so most of the things work on self-service and the dad's role in that is important.

We got a room at the "old side" of the floor. This means there was no TV in the room but since we don't watch TV at home either it wasn't an issue. The room was nice, pretty good size. Kind of like a hotel room, just equipped with hospital necessities.

The foor was good at every single meal (I'm writing this after returning home, by the way, if you're wondering about the "was" part). It was on self-service basis so at every meal time I went to the kitchen and got food for Wen and myself.

Fortunately Wen somehow fell in love with the Finnish food so we didn't have to worry about where to get Chinese food to the hospital! Food had been one of Wen's biggest worries for the post-delivery time... she thought she might not be able to accept the hospital food, right at the time when she is weak and needs a lot of food to recover. But right from the beginning, at every meal, she ate everything with a good appetite!

Blood test

In Saturday afternoon we got a surprise - the hospital wanted to take blood samples from Fei to make sure he doesn't have any infection. He seemed perfectly healthy so we were asking what is going on. They told us it is a routine procedure every time when there is morethan 17 hours from breaking of the water to the delivery. In our case there had been 18 hours!

We protested at first, since the baby could have been delivered at least 5 hours earlier if only the night nurse wouldn't have insisted on waiting. We really didn't want any extra blood tests on our newborn, but gave up fighting it when we were told it is always a risk when the water breaks early, even if we spent all of that time in the hospital delivery room. Needless to say Fei didn't enjoy the test...

The result - CRP counts very high

So this was a shock - couple hours later the nurse returned and said the CRP counts, which are a sign of an infection, are very high. Normal value is 3, and an upper limit before something is done is 10... Fei's tests came back with 68! The pediatrician wanted to take another blood test right away to see if the counts are going higher or lower.

At around midnight the results came back higher. I can't remember if it was 84 or what, but in any case I had to take Fei downstairs to Children's hospital's baby care unit for check up. The pediatrician checked him but couldn't find anything wrong. The said babies this young don't have good immune system show they also don't show symptoms early enough... it would be too risky in her opinion to wait to see how it goes so she decided to start antibiotics.

Antibiotics for newborn babies are given through an IV. Usually it is placed on a vein on their head, but after several failed attempts the doctor decided to put it in Fei's hand - similar to when adults are placed on IV. The doctor was quite strongly asking me to not look when she was doing it but I just couldn't let anything to be done to my little baby without me being there. Fortunately it wasn't very painful for Fei, he cried a lot less than during the blood samples.

Unfortunately starting the antibiotics also meant that Fei had to stay in the baby care unit overnight. He would be allowed to go back up with us in the noon time if everything was fine. I felt really sad. There was just nothing I could do. I felt like crying when I pushed the empty baby cart back upstairs... but I also didn't want to show emotions there, as there basically was nothing to worry about. Fei was ok, and in fact he was in the best possible place to be should anything actually be wrong.

Nevertheless, that was a very long night. Wen wanted to go downstairs check for Fei at around 3AM but I was able to talk her out of it. I visited him early in the morning and then after breakfast we went there together to feed him...  then finally at about 3PM he was returned back upstairs.

Since Wen got the epidural and didn't feel the pain anymore we were able to sleep for a couple of hours. One shot of the anesthetic only lasts for about two hours so then the pain started to come back.

At this point she was about 5cm open and getting regular contractions so the nurse decided to give another shot of the pain medication and we slept some more. Two or three hours later, at about 5AM, the pain was back again but now she was fully open. The nurse said the baby is pretty low at this point and everything was looking good.

Wen was given more pain medication to the epidural and we were told to wait until she starts to feel the urge to push. Nothing really happened. The contractions were really strong and came often at this point - you could see it on the meter - but Wen was not feeling any need to push and the nurse wanted to keep waiting. At 8AM the night shift ended so we got another nurse. Towards the end the night nurse was saying she doesn't want to start the delivery because she is going home soon, so it was time for one more epidural shot and then some more waiting...

It was already about 10AM when Wen asked if she the nurse could ask for a doctor to help... it seems the nurses just like to keep waiting and waiting. She started already feel the pain again and the baby was nothing coming out. She had tried pushing but the baby didn't really move anywhere.

When the doctor came, her first reaction was wondering why she was called in, as the baby seems almost out. She was told that the situation has been like this for 5 hours and the baby is just not coming out. Another doctor came, and they decided to use a suction cup to help the baby out.

During the first try of the suction cup it became loose and popped out in the middle of the pushing. That was one of the most horrible moments of my life... my heart probably stopped. I didn't know what had happened, but I really wasn't expecting the baby to be ripped out quite at that kind of force. In the corner of my eye the cup, hanging from a line on the doctor's hand, seemed like the it could be something.. well, fortunately it turned out the doctor had made a mistake and the cup was not placed properly.

The other doctor stepped in and we continued. Wen pushed as hard as she could and the doctor was pulling. Then, after a lot of screaming and pushing, Fei was born! The doctors and nurses immediatelly agreed he is very big, much bigger than expected. It was obvious there had been a mistake in the estimated birth size and this was why the baby couldn't get out... I was very big, same size as Fei, when I was born so they could have at least considered it... especially since Wen's only worry before the delivery had been whether she will be able to delivery the baby naturally or not given that she is quite small and western tend to be bigger on average.

After the delivery Fei was immediatelly placed on Wen's chest. He was a little blue and not very active so he received some extra oxygen, but otherwise he was totally fine. The back of his head was a little cone-shaped from the suction, but that should disappear over time. And for the record, my own birth was almost exactly like this and I ended up being delivered the same way.

We spent nearly two hours with Fei before he was weighed and measured (3900 grams, 53 cm). After that we got some food to eat and prepared to move upstairs to Ward 61, to a family room. Before going up Wen was told to take a shower, which made her feel very cold and weak. She could hardly stand, not to mention walking, so she was transferred using a wheel chair.

And then, during all this waiting in the cold delivery room, Fei's body temperature dropped to below 36.5 C so he was taken to a baby care unit to rest under a heat lamp. I was allowed to follow him to see where he will stay... and then we got him to our room an hour later, so it wasn't a long separation. At the end of the day it was an amazing feeling to have all three of us together in the family room, as a real family! The delivery had been a lot harder than I ever imagined so it was a real relief that it was all over.

We had a few false alarms where Wen felt contractions and we thought if this is it... but then it all quieted down. Today she woke up to contractions at 4AM and couldn't sleep after it, but no real action still took place. We took a long walk, did some grocery shopping. just like we've been doing lately and then returned home. Wen was going to take a nap and I was thinking of eating something when she called me from the bathroom - the water had broken!

There was like "two chinese spoons" of water, like she said it, so I called the hospital and asked what to do. I was told that if it's only a little bit of water, there would be no need to hurry. We should stay home and wait for contractions to begin and if nothing happened, they would ask us to come the next day to start the labor, but only after 24 hours has passed.

Right after I ended the call Wen told me a lot of more water is coming and she basically cannot stand up because it keeps leaking. I called the hospital again but they still kept insisting there's no rush. For as long as there are no contractions we would not be admitted to the ward. They told us since there is a lot of water we can wait a couple of hours and then slowly head out to the hospital...

We didn't want to wait so I called a taxi and we got headed out to the hospital. Somehow coincidentally as soon as we stepped in the cab, her contractions started. She had been having those painless Braxton-Hicks contractions before but this was for real.

At the hospital she was place on monitors to check the contractions and the baby's heart beat. We happened to be there at the supper time too, so we were given (both of us, amazingly!) some food. People make jokes about hospital food and Wen had been seriously worried about not being able to get Chinese food during the stay... but the turkey soup completely changed her mind about Finnish food!

Couple of hours later we were moved to a labor room. Her contractions were not strong or regular yet so they were contemplating sending me home and putting her in monitoring over night. Fortunately the decision was changed and I was allowed to change as it would have been very impractical for me to go back home right when she's already having contractions and the pain was increasing.

We got the delivery room 213. The room was nice and big, with a small extra room with a sofa for me to sleep in. She was first given some laughing gas to control the pain, but that made her dizzy. She was trying a "birth ball" to sit on, but being dizzy from the gas and sitting on a ball can be kind of a bad combination.

She was managing the pain pretty well and around midnight she open enough to be administered epidural anesthesia. Epidural completely removed the pain feeling so we were able to sleep through the worst part of the opening. Which was good, as we hadn't had much sleep the previous night and little did we knew the process was still far from over...

Still no baby, but now I have a very strong feeling he will be born this coming Saturday. My method is quite un-scientific: I was born two days before the due date and for some reason I just started to feel he will be too. And hey, I was right about the gender! At the very least we won't have to wait for long to find out...

This morning we had yet another early morning wake up call and (perhas the final?) appointment with the nurse. Wen had gained a little too much weight last time and her blood suger was slightly up so this time the nurse took a blood sample to check the blood sugar (Wen had to spend 12 hours without eating or drinking, but fortunately this time there was just one blood sample, not three...)

We kind of knew it would be ok as last time Wen had just eaten a big meal before the appointment so it was quite natural to be heavier and have some blood sugar... and so it was not a big surprise that everything checked out to be totally ok! So, now we have a mom who is doing perfectly fine with a huge belly and we're basically just waiting for the baby to come out.

Today we took a little trip to the city to buy a whole load of Chinese "baozi", which is a type of meat filled breakfast bun. They well them frozen and they can be cooked by steaming. Recently Wen found those from "Vii Voan" which is one of the best Asian supermarkets around here, and ever since she's had craving for those.

My car is having some problems these days so we were thinking of taking  a cab, but cleverly I didn't have the taxi center's number on my cellphone. Wen didn't want me spend time finding the number...  and in fact she felt energetic and wanted to do some exercise so we decided to take a walk. It's been a while since we've walked as much as today! They say walking is good during pregnancy and walking at these final days can even help start the labor...

Well, needless to say it didn't work (otherwise I wouldn't be writing this) but at least we had a nice long walk in the chilly winter weather. Until next time...

Last night we thought it would be the time to get going to hospital as Wen noticed a little bit of water... just a very tiny bit. But after that, nothing. She's not having any contractions and the baby keeps moving as usual so I guess it was a false alarm. Right? From all the books I've read it seems there's nothing to worry about as long as there's no blood, contractions or pain.

We're still two weeks from the due date so there's no telling when the baby will be born really. Any time during the next four weeks I guess! Tomorrow we will have an appointment with the nurse again... at the very least she will be able to check everything's ok still, but probably she won't be able to give any ideas on the time of delivery...

Wen is now really big... and I mean, big. It's pretty hard for her to move around, or at least a lot of work. When we go out she's getting quite exhausted already by the time she gets her clothes on (even with my help, hehe). She's gained some 10kg or so, and the baby is only 3 kgs so there's quite a bit of extra... though the doctor says the weight gain and the baby's weight are totally normal.

One funny thing is she started to like to drink milk these days. That's something she's never done in her life as they don't really drink milk in China. It started with cocoa, but these days she drinks just pure milk. Cold milk, straight out of the fridge. That's another new to her too - she's never been fond of cold drinks. Just thought I'd mention it.

In the past few days we've pretty much prepared everything for the new arrival here in home so we're ready... any time you're ready, little Fei!

Yay! The nurse union made a deal at the last moment and the strike was canceled. The nurses were supposed to leave their working place tonight at midnight. This would have been bad news to us as one of the most heavily affected areas of health care was going to be the maternity clinic.

What a relief! And good for the nurses, at the very least this shows how important work they're doing.

I just wish they could have solve this without playing with people's lives as it really has been quite a stress for us and a lot of other people.

On Friday we visited the hospital Naistenklinikka, or "Women's clinic" which is the leading hospital in Finland for baby deliveries. The visit was surprisingly nice experience. Obviously we're still pretty not sure about the nurses strike that is about to begin on the 19th, so whatever we saw today might still change for the worse. But let's forget about the strike for the moment...

Our tour was specifically for English speaking couples. The nurse guiding the tour did a pretty good job even though she said that was her first tour in English. We learned that every mother will get their own room for the delivery. The rooms appear quite nice and well equipped. There's only one room with a bath tub though, so using it to ease the uncomfort will depend on luck... but other than that all of the rooms seem to have the same equipment.

There's a plenty of choice on how to deliver, which was a surprise to me. You can choose the traditional delivery position lying on the bed, but you also choose to use a birth ball or a specifically designed birth chair. The nice thing is that the mom can make the decision on almost everything, as long as there's no medical reason to do otherwise.

Another surprise to me is that unlike in some other countries, the delivery is entirely taken care of by a midwife. There is a doctor on call at all times, but only for emergencies. If everything goes normally, we won't even see a doctor. Suddenly the effects of the nurse strike start to feel quite real... oh, but I wasn't supposed to think about it. Anyway, when we check in the hospital we will get a midwife assigned to us. On a normal day each midwife will focus on only one family at a time. This seems like a really nice system.

An interesting little fact is that mom will get food before and after the baby is born but the new dads will only get something to eat after the delivery. Which is ok, I was not expecting to be given any food anyway. It's also nice that the mother-to-be is not restricted from eating before the delivery. I know in some countries the mom can only suckle ice chips before the baby is born, and not eat or drink anything else. I guess there really are a lot of differences between countries...

After the delivery we'll stay in the delivery room for about two hours. During this time the baby will mostly be able to be with mom (and dad, too!) which is another positive difference I've noted compared to some other countries. After about two hours we will move up to a "family room", which is where we will spend the next two or three days until a doctor checks the baby and lets us go home. We'll have another tour on the family room later on, so I'll write more about it when I have something more to say!

The winter is here! Well, I highly doubt the snow will stay but at least we're now one giant step closer to real winter. I wonder if we'll get a white Christmas this year...

Today we received "äitiyspakkaus", maternity package, which contains pretty much everything the baby and the mom need in the first couple months. We were told the package would be arriving about one month before the due date so it's definitely a surprise that it arrived so early, but it's better too soon than too late. It's been kind of troublesome to buy the necessities when we didn't know exaxctly what the package would contain and what we need to get by ourselves.

Now that we have the package, what does it contain? Well, lots and lots of stuff. There's a variety of clothes, both underwear and outer wear, diapers, sheets, books, toys... you name it! They even included a book for parents on how to deal with the relationship after the baby comes, condoms (even some female condoms) and lubricant. It's nice to see the Finnish government planners are quite forward thinking and not only focused on the baby.

Wen is liking the products for the most part. She's really picky with the quality and mostly she feels everything is ok. The only complain is some outer wear, but for example the diapers get full points.



At this point I feel we are mostly over-stocked. There may be something missing, but mostly we probably have too many pieces of clothes for the first couple months and I can only hope we have a chance to try out everything before they're too small!



There's only about two months to go before the little dude moves in with us! In a way that seems short, but on the other hand I would be willing to welcome him even today! It'll be so exciting to finally meet him!

The next appointment with the maternity nurse is in one week. Because of the situation with the nurses union in Finland announcing plans for a mass-resigning of nurses in one month, we're trying to think of our options. In a way we might be better off using private health clinics for prenatal check ups, but unfortunately we will still need to deliver in a public hospital (no private hospitals in Finland take care of deliveries).

I almost can't believe it seems to be happening - the nurses in Finland are about to start a strike. Of all the possible times this is happening when we're about to deliver a baby! We're still about two months from the due date but there's no date set for the strike (as far as I know) and the baby can obviously be born at any time, so there's a chance it will happen in the middle of it all! The nurses already have been banned from doing overtime which can make the hospitals more crowded. If the strike starts then obviously the situation will remain chaotic even long after the work has resumed.

In fact, we can already see changes in the behavior the nurse in our local health center. She used to be nice and warm, but in the latest check up last Tuesday she was absent minded and quite unfriendly and unprofessional. When she took a blood sample she somehow managed to make a cut that was too deep, and so we had blood all over the place... Wen's index finger is still hurting almost one week later after the incident.

Wen's belly is also still sore from the nurse's failed attempts to locate the baby's head by pressing with her hands. She went on for several minutes pressing everywhere at growing intensity until Wen was hurting so much she had to ask her stop. I've never heard of that happening. She was saying she must do it in order to know that the baby is developing normally but I feel what she is doing is more likely to harm the normal development than anything else. Can it really be normal to have bruises on the belly after a visit to a nurse for a regular check up..?



I think it must be that she is thinking of the upcoming strike and not focusing on her work. Perhaps she is worried about what will happen to her. Whatever the case, the treatment was pretty bad and I guess it can only become worse if the strike will actually start. My personal opinion is that "Tehy", which is the nurse union, should be banned as it seems they can do nothing but cause damage. As we learned from the previous nurse strike more than 10 years ago, it will not help the nurses and it will most certainly not help the general population. I seem to remember last time it took the nurses almost 6 years to break even, to recover from the 4 weeks of lost earnings during the strike, and probably at least for as long for people to learn to like them again.



There's been talk about all the union nurses possibly resigning simultaneously (instead of a typical strike). I really would hate to see that happen and I'm sure most of the population would feel the same. We decided to stay in Finland to have the baby mostly because of the high quality health care in here but now it's starting to look it would have been better to have the baby in China...

Today is Wen's birthday and today also happens to be the first day when I snows this year. It's not even covering the ground yet so it's not much of a blizzard, but it's snow flakes anyway.

We took a leap from the old 2D black and white fuzzy ultrasound images and booked a time to a private clinic for "4D" ultrasound check. Actually, this machine produces "3D" images and the fourth dimension is time, which just means it's animated.

The 3D ultrasound helps get clearer image of the baby to make sure there are no problems. It also gives a chance to "see" the baby for the first time. In some countries (such as China) 3D ultrasound is provided as part of the regular health care but in Finland it is only provided if there is a reason to believe something is not right. Otherwise, as in our case, the only option is to use a private clinic.

We got all-clear from the doctor, there's no sign of anything abnormal, which is the most important thing. We also got 100% proof now that the baby really is a boy (until now we had a 99% guestimate...) There's a 15-minute DVD of the examination which I will post if I find a way to rip it on Mac. Mostly the 4D ultrasound picture is not very clear as it seems pretty hard to focus with it but there's some pretty nice footage anyway.

Unfortunately Fei decided to hide his face. I guess he feels it's too early to take photos! He was holding his hands in front of the face at first and later as the doctor tried again to see the face he also bent his legs to cover the face! Oh well... Wen is quite disappointed but I had pretty minimal expectations to begin with. I've seen 3D ultrasound pictures and I kind of never really "see" much in them.

Perhaps the most interesting thing that came out from the ultrasound is that Fei's head seems pretty big compared to the rest of the body. I guess he'll be pretty super-smart like the daddy, hehe.

Check this out:


Important stuff comes halfway in the page.

BPD = The Biparietal diameter. "Hadlock" refers to Frank P Hadlock who came up with a chart that is commonly used to estimate the gestational age from the head size. In our case the diameter is 7.85 centimeters. This gives an age of 31 weeks and 3 days!

HC = Head Circumference. This is 27.62 cm which would mean the age of 30 weeks and 1 day.
FL = Femur Length. The femur is the longest bone in the body, in this case 5.60 cm. The age using this would be 29 weeks and 3 days.
AC = Abdominal Circumference. This is 25.69 cm and it would indicate 29 weeks and 6 days of age.

A combination of these values gives an estimated age of 30 weeks and 2 days which is one week older than we thought. This also moves the estimated date of delivery one week earlier. I guess now there's a possibility that the baby can even be born on my birthday as the window kind of goes from two weeks before to two weeks after the estimated date.

All these numbers together can be used to come up with an estimated weight of 1472 grams... about one and half kilograms. The thing is, it says +/- 215 grams, which kind of takes away much of the credibility. But in any case, that's the best guess we have so I guess we'll just live with it.

Ah, ok, I'm done with the numbers... if anyone's still awake after this, thanks for reading!

Starbucks milkshakes are a little too sweet...

On Friday Wen had to go to a "sugar stress test". This is because last time we went to the doctor's office she had a small amount of sugar in her pee, which can be a sign of diabetes - a fairly common problem during pregnancy which can be serious if not detected (Chinese call this simply "sugar pee"). We were thinking it might have been because of an extremely sweet Starbucks strawberry milkshake Wen was drinking when we went to see the doctor but in any case they said we need to take the test...

I can honestly say Wen didn't enjoy the experience! First, 12 hours not eating anything. We had to go to the health station at 8AM. The morning started by giving a blood sample, after which Wen had to drink quite a bit of very sweet drink. She usually doesn't like sweet at all (barring an occasional Starbucks milkshake...) so drinking a lot of sweet liquid quickly was quite unpleasant. I, on the other hand, felt a little jealous...

We were told not to leave the office, so we crammed back to the crowded waiting room for an hour and then gave another blood sample... then waited for another hour and gave the final sample. By that time the laboratory waiting room was already almost empty so it seems most people prefer an early morning appointment (or, perhaps they were all told to come in that that time.. who knows?)

---

It's Monday and the results are in! Everything's totally fine!

The results are as follows:

The first test: 5.1 (maximum limit is 5.7)
The second test: 7.1 (limit 10.0)
The third test: 4.3 (limit 8.7)

So, I don't know the exact scale but basically this measures the blood sugar level after spending 12 hours not eating, then one and two hours after drinking the sugar drink. Apparently Wen's body handles sugar just fine and there's no problem at all. Now we know to stay away from those milkshakes before heading out to the doctor! Other than that, there seems to be no reason to limit the diet, which it great.

I guess we can definitely say the summer is over and won't be back until next year. The weather's been steadily getting colder and now the trees show a beautiful color show of red and yellow. It was quite rainy for a while but the recent days have been nice so I was able to take some photos of the Finland autumn. This is my least favorite of the seasons but at least it's beautiful!

They say the summer is not a good time to deliver a baby in Finland because the hospital staff is on summer holiday and you'll get to do with temporary helpers and trainees. The summer here is kind of short, the holidays are long and everyone naturally wants to have their time off during the warm summer months. Well, I'm trying to keep that in mind when I look outside and feel the weather getting colder, thinking of the freezing December when our baby is due. At least nobody's gonna be on summer holiday at that time!

Something that keeps hitting us constantly is the short opening hours of Finnish speciality stores, and even supermarkets. Last Saturday we drove all the way to the other side of the city to do some "baby shopping", only to find out that the shop had already closed at 2PM! The window of opportunity is pretty small unless you want to take a day off during the week to get you shopping done during the business hours. Back when I was living in Las Vegas I pretty much got used to supermarkets being open 24 hours a day and speciality stores until 9PM, usually seven days a week. China is not much different in that aspect, most shops are open until late even especially during weekends.

Tomorrow morning we'll go to the doctor's office to do a "sugar stress test" as Wen's sugar values are a little high and next week we have an appointment to do a 4D ultrasound... lots of stuff happening, I'll keep you posted!

We had the first prenatal visit with a doctor today (up until now they've always been with a nurse only). Everything checked out perfect except for a slightly elevated glucose levels which are either an indication of a problem or not. It might be as simple as the immediate effect of the breakfast we had moments before the appointment or in the worst case it could be a sign of diabetes, which can happen during pregnancy. The doctor told us it's most likely nothing, but still as a precaution we need go for something called "sugar stress test" in couple weeks time. The test will be performed the first thing in the morning by feeding Wen some sugar drink and seeing how the sugar levels in her blood behave... I'll post more when we've been through it.

The doctor also performed an ultra sound scan of the baby to see how he's growing. The current weight is estimated to be at 982 grams. The baby's now 26 weeks and 4 days which gives an estimate that the birth weight will be about 3.2-3.3kg. Not huge, but according to the doctor it's very good size for Wen, who is kind of a small girl to begin with. Too big baby would be a problem, as well as too small, so this size ought to be good!

Wen is a little surprised by our doctor's low tech ultra sound equipment. She says practically all the doctors in China these days use 3D ultra sound which can do facial scan at this point of pregnancy to see how the baby is looking and to know if there are any potential developmental problems. Oh well... I'm seeing the budgets for the social security system as very limited in Finland so I doubt they will be updating their systems soon.

We're now going on week 25+2. I don't know how other new dads have felt at this point but at least for myself I can say that I pretty much can't wait to meet the little dude already! It's quite exciting try to think what he will look like but obviously there's no way to know. Since we're a mixed couple, our case is even more interesting than usually. I know dark eyes and dark hair are dominant so the chances are he'll have those, but the rest is kind of an open question. I've seen some mixed Asian/western kids and sometimes they look quite Asian and sometimes almost not at all.

Wen has been really nice to me lately. Not quite sure why, really, but I you won't hear me complaining. I'm still recovering from the mood swings of the early pregnancy, with morning sickness and all... Now that she's feeling good, perhaps she's just happy to be pregnant or perhaps I've managed to a good husband during the pregnancy.

She's getting pretty big now. The last month has definitely been a time of growth for the baby and you can tell it by the size of the belly. Unfortunately the kicks are still not very clear from the outside. I'm perhaps a little jealous of the fact she can be so close with the baby and as a man I will never have hope to feel the same.

Not much to report... we're going day by day, just letting time pass. Wen feels we're still not very prepared and I feel we're doing good. Yesterday we got new lense for the Canon 400D so I'm ready to shoot photos. It's a great camera, but a little too big to carry around everywhere so we also bought a new small pocket camera (Canon Digital IXUS 950 IS). These two should be pretty much enough to cover all the possible situations. The IXUS 950 can also record video but I have yet to see what the quality is so I don't know if we need a video camera. Hopefully not, as that would mean yet another gadget to remember to charge and then carry around...

Just couple days ago I finally for the first time felt the baby kicking! Very very light, and almost impossible to feel. In fact, I could only know for sure because Wen confirmed that the baby had kicked at the same time as I felt a tiny little bump on her belly!

Yesterday we had another appointment with the nurse and everything checked out great. Wen seems to be gaining weight a little bit on the fast side, but still within the normal limits. The nurse suggested we do more exercise (she put surprising amount of weight on the word we when she said that... after taking a brief glance on my waistline... hehe), even going for a one hour walk every day or something simple like that. Wen's blood hemoglobin is also getting lower and even though it is still "ok", she suggested taking extra iron to keep it from going lower.

Other than these two little issues, everything else seems great. We basically just need to walk more and she needs to eat more meat (or iron tablets) and that's about it. The next visit will be with a doctor in about 3 weeks time.

We're having a very comfortable life these days. Wen is feeling great, and she is full of energy. Her appetite has grown too. She can now eat almost anything (quite a change from the days of morning sickness!) and her special favorite seems to be shrimps (see this yummy recipe I posted a few days ago... Baked shrimp in a shell by Jani). I must say I am starting to have shrimps coming out of my ears already, but it's still better than she not being able to eat anything.

Now that 22 weeks is full (she's 23 weeks now) the nurse signed a letter to proof that Wen has received prenatal care. This letter is important as it is needed for applying for the government backed support for newborn babies. The best part of this support program is a box full of essentials for the first few weeks and months of the baby's life! It is given free of charge to all newborn babies as long as the mom seeks prenatal care before the fourth month of pregnancy. This box should arrive about one month before the due date so I'll go over the contents later on...

Yesterday we received a long awaited package from China. Wen ordered a bunch of stuff from Chinese online shops and had them delivered to her parents, who then shipped the whole lot to us. Somehow it was a lot cheaper this way. We were a little nervous of how it will turn out, but in the end the package found its way from China to here in one week with no problems at all.

The prices in China are obviously way lower than in Finland or the US so even with shipping costs this ought to have been quite a good deal. Mostly though it's about the huge selection. There's a lot of stuff available in China that is hard to find elsewhere. I guess it has to do with the fact that pretty much everything is made in China these days.



On the right there's a cute little "doll house" for newborns. It's all cotton with no small detachable parts. It comes with a set of small furniture too, all made out of the same material. We'll see how much our little boy will like to play with the house, and how much he will make of it as a newborn...

It says on the roof "wo de jia" which means "my house"... makes sense, huh?

The little unicorn is cute, but Wen seems not like the material so much. It says 100% cotton but the feeling is not quite what she was expecting. Oh well... at least she looks pretty cute!
The boy wearing the blue cap is cool. He's a "wash wash boy". As you can see he's pretty "dirty"... but place him under warm water and tadah - the "spots" are gone! Then let him dry and the spots return so he can be washed again. And again. I have yet to try it out, will post photos later.

In addition to a bunch of soft toys the packet contained a selection of books written in Chinese. Mostly they're American books translated to Chinese so I guess I could order the same ones from Amazon in English for my own enjoyment...

Lately I've been doing some reading on infant development. Based on how much new information there is from just the past few years it almost seems like my parents generation really didn't understand babies at all! Poor me, and poor everyone of my age!

Well, it's true that people have been having babies for thousands of years even before anyone knew how to read, not to mention write, books about babies. Still it's alarming how little we seem to have known about infants and how many misconceptions there have been. The thinking throughout most of the history seems to have been that babies don't understand anything, they almost can't see or hear and they definitely don't understand or remember things happening around them.

Nothing, it seems, could be further from the truth. Very young babies can't express themselves so it is difficult to "interview" them. However, in recent years some very smart (and patient) researchers have come up with ways to extract the thoughts out of babies. The idea is quite simple; rather than asking the baby describe how she feels, they monitor the changes in her behavior.

Here's a simple example. Have a content baby suck a pacifier and show him pictures. The rythm of sucking will change when he sees something interesting. Makes sense, right? When the baby sees a new and surprising picture, he puts his focus on the picture and everything else becomes less important (the same same is obviously true for adults!)

Now that we know baby will react differently to a surprising picture, there are a lot of interesting experiments to make. You can show a picture of a person wearing a hat. Show it all over again until it is obvious that the baby knows what to expect. Then show a picture of the same person but wearing a hat that is different color. If the baby appears more interested, it means he realized something changed. If not, it means he didn't see a difference between the two colors!



Experiments like this require a lot of time and need to be done with a lot of babies. You need to make sure your own behavior doesn't change! It's very easy to be more excited when presenting the different picture - excited to see if the baby reacts different way you might trigger his reaction by your own behavior! If you present the new picture more exitedly as the old, the baby might show more interest just because of the way you moved.

Fortunately a lot of hard working scientists have conducted studies like this in recent years, so we begin to understand which age the infants start seeing different colors (apparently not all the colors show up at the same time), when do they understand facial expressions or when can they hear a difference between two similar words, or two speakers. It turns out babies understand, and remember a lot. And all of this contributes to his development!

I'm currently halfway through a book called Baby Minds: Brain-Building Games Your Baby Will Love written by Linda Acredolo and Susan Goodwyn, both Ph.D. I haven't finished it yet but I can definitely recommend checking it out. It's written in an entertaining way that is easy to read but full of (at least to me ) new information.

Time to mark the calendars again - today's the first day we saw milk! It's a little early I feel, given that the little dude is still many months away, but after some googling I feel it seems to be normal. The milk production should start around half way and we're almost exactly half way now, so... Anyway, I took some photos and was gonna post here but no matter how I tried to tweak the colors to try and make them look artistic I still didn't feel "ok" about it. So... sorry folks, no photos.



Couple days ago we went to IKEA and bought a bed for the baby. We had a little argument about the price before going. Wen said the bed would be less than a hundred euros. I was expecting the bed to be at least more than a hundred euros, probably couple hundred or even more... well it turns out I was wrong - to my great surprise the bed was less than 40 EUR! Just goes to prove how game shows like Price is Right really hit the nail. However as I was putting it together I found out one of the screws doesn't quite work the way it should so I'm gonna have to go back and ask for a replacement. Not a big deal, but... come on, it's a screw. How hard can is possibly be to make it right?

So we're now over the halfway! We were thinking of visiting Shenzhen before she gets too big, but we are hearing the weather there just unbearably hot these days. Perhaps, in a month or two, it'll be better... but then we're already nearing the time when it's not a good idea to take the 9 hour flight. Seems we'll probably have to forget the plans after all. We also thought of going to New York for shopping but the stupid idiotic US visa regulations are probably going to keep us out (I'll post more on that on the forum... sigh)

Up until now we've only been able to guess. I've said from all along I have a strong feeling it's a boy, but I'm known to make mistakes sometimes, so... Today we had the second ultrasound (we're at week 19+3 now) with finally a chance to find out!

Ladies and gentlemen... It's a boy!

Well... at least that's what it looks like. Just like the nurse cautioned there's no way to be 100% sure based on an ultrasound but in her experience it seems to be a boy. And sure enough, take a look at the ultrasound picture on the right: above the arrow you'll see a sign of the growing manhood right there. He's still quite a small baby though so you may have to click the photo to see a larger version!



The 2D ultrasound pictures are not clear at all and I guess only the professionals can really understand what's going on. From this picture I can't really tell what the position of the baby is but the nurse seemed pretty confident that right there in the picture is what it looks like.

She also measured the major bones and the head and said everything looks perfect. The little baby was also moving quite a bit after she shook the belly a little and supposedly his movement is good, too!

I was all smiles when we left the hospital, in fact all the day ever since. Wen is quite amused by my reaction and she's confident it's because we're having a boy. I keep telling her I'm just happy everything's going fine. I also think one reason for such happy feeling is that we now know the sex. It somehow makes the pregnancy feel more real. We are not just having a baby, we're having a baby boy. I'm pretty sure I would have been equally happy to receive news of a girl.

All in all we seem to be past the worst and Wen has been feeling much better lately. She's made wonderful breakfast for me every morning for the past few days and she's been her lovely self again. I bought her some beautiful pink roses yesterday just to show I appreciate how much work she has to do carrying my baby. She is, after all, doing most of that job! We still have several months to go, but for now we can breathe a little easier. Wen's feeling good and the baby is growing as he should. Still it's a long way to go until I'm out there playing soccer with him...

Today the mail brought something rather special - a packet containing all of the 22 Baby Einstein DVD's! I was a little uncertain if the deal was true when I saw it advertised for $53 USD couple weeks ago in Amazon, but I decided to give it a shot. I had already decided to order a few of the DVD's (they go for $10-15 each when ordered individually) and I was trying to decide which ones to get when I saw this amazing offer.

What struct me as a little odd was that it's actually offered from the Amazon marketplace rather than Amazon itself - which means the seller is someone else. Nevertheless I figured Amazon must have some type of a quality control in place. I've ordered from them a number of  times and always been happy so I placed an order. Now I'm happy to report the offer is real and the product appears to be the real thing!

Baby Einstein videos, for those who don't know, are these cute yet educational videos aimed specifically for infants. They have classical music playing on the background and very simple things happening on the screen. Usually there's only a single thing on the screen, making it easier for the baby to focus. Colors are bright and the events are meaningful. The idea is to make it fun to watch while teaching the babies the basics of math, languages, and so on. And babies love it!

So I ended up ordering a lot of the baby literature and DVD's from Amazon. My wife doesn't speak Finnish so the Finnish bookstores aren't really much of help. And when ordering online, well, Amazon has the best selection. Especially when it comes to books in English. This kind of sucks compared to the US, as I like browsing through books in a bookstore.

When I was living in Las Vegas I often visited the local Borders and Barnes & Noble just to browse throught their selections. In here I can do the same but since the selection is pretty much 99% in Finnish it's not quite as useful for our mixed family. But I guess the truth is that more and more people order their books online even in the US so in a way this is not much different. Just the "random browsing" part is missing, or at least there is less of it.

I have another package on the way so I'll be able to tell you more about the books later on. I ordered the "sequel" to the Pregnant Father book, which (surprise!) talks about the first year of baby's life from dad's point of view. I also ordered a pile of other reading but I can hardly even remember what I ordered. By the time the delivery comes I've probably forgotten everything so it'll be like Christmas to open up the box!

If you're interested in Baby Einstein DVD's I can definitely recommend the box set. It's a bargain compared to buying them individually. Here's a link to the product in Amazon: Baby Einstein 22 DVD Gift Set! They deliver everywhere in the world. These DVD's are not region coded so they will also work in any DVD player!

Mark this day on your calendars dear friends - the belly has definitely started growing! It's quite amazing how the tiny little fetus grows with such a scientific level of accurate planning. Even at this stage it is possible to measure the size of the head or length of the bones to know the exact age, almost to the day.

The tiny little creature first develops all the vital organs and only after everything has been built (more or less finished, of course) he or she starts to grow. Until now the fetus has been relatively small but now the size will double in the next month and the pace keeps pretty rapid over the next months. The last trimester is then mainly preparing for the life outside, learning how to breath, suck, move and so on.

So the baby appears to be growing well, but unfortunately the mom has been on a rollercoaster. She's started to feel more energy just in the past couple days, not getting to the bed until way past midnight. Her appetite also changed all of a sudden and now we've made some trips to McDonald's to eat chicken wings, for example.

This would be nice, except for the fact that she's also become increasingly moody. It's hard to imagine anyone so sweet can complain so much. The target can be just about anything; as an example, apparently my English is not good at all and my writing is really boring. And not only that, as she might obviously be right about it, but all of a sudden it really bothers heck out of her.

Today we were in a book store and I wanted to buy some comic books. I picked up a favorite of mine, Viivi and Wagner. It's a funny Finnish comic strip about a girl who is married to a pig - literally. It makes fun of a daily life of pretty much everyone. It's a lot of fun to read and I was actually looking forward to translate the jokes to her. But no. A big no.

The moment she saw the book she got almost angry, saying she can't handle to look at it. She says the pig's face on the drawings seem full of negativity. Reading it can't be healthy for me! I tried to explain it's actually really funny, but no luck. Apparently if she'll go crazy even seeing the cover so I better not buy it. I'm trying to balance between being a man with some self respect and being a loving husband whose wife is pregnant and therefore must always be right. It must be the pregnancy for sure. I also tried to pick up a Far Side collection but it was also left behind with a "it's black and white" remark... what can I do. It's obvious we're from completely different cultures. Fortunately she's quite fond of Donald Duck so I still have some ways enjoy comics.

We're currently living in time time after the second check up by a nurse and before the second ultrasound. Not much is going on that can be seen from outside of the belly, so it's just waiting, waiting... This ultrasound is gonna happen at about week 20 it is by all accounts pretty thorough check up on how the fetus is developing. It should be possible to see the sex of the baby but I guess that's not really guaranteed as the baby might just decide to stick in a position where it's impossible to know... and even a visual clue won't necessarily be a guarantee.

What worries me, though only a little, is that Wen keeps reading from a lot of Chinese websites how the ultrasound is actually not good for the fetal development. The sound waves itself are not the problem, but the harm is caused by the heat generated by the device itself. Exposure of a few minutes is not a problem but the second ultrasound is said to take 30-40 minutes... which does sound like a long time to be exposed to anything!

We're also seen photos from the "3D" ultrasound, as well as "4D" (which is an animated version of 4D) where the shape of the baby can clearly be seen. The difference to the old style black and white ultrasound pictures is quite dramatic. I don't think the Finnish hospitals offer 3D ultrasound but I know there are some private clinics that do. However, since we definitely don't want to add the exposure to unnecessary testing... we wouldn't want to do add a private "photo session" to the hospital ultrasound, but probably just switch to it. But I'm not really sure about it...

One thing is the cost, obviously, as the cost of the regular ultrasound is paid for by the general health care system. The other thing is the quality; the staff in the major hospitals deals with this a lot and they should be very experienced. It's pretty hard to know if a private clinic has similar experience and expertise, or do they just boast an expensive piece of equipment.

Oh well... a lot of decisions to make. For now I guess it seems we'll just live with the old style black and white version.

Yesterday was our second visit to the nurse's office (Neuvola in Finnish) and everything's going great. Actually this was our first prenatal visit in Helsinki, since we moved from Espoo to here between this and the last appointment.

Mom is doing good. The only thing we didn't test is the blood hemoglobin, as Wen is afraid of it and the nurse said since the last time her hemoglobin was really good there's no real reason to test it every time.

We're now at week 15. The baby's heart was beating 158 times a minute which is pretty fast. Wen was trying to make the nurse admit it's faster than average, as there's a superstition that the faster beat would mean a girl and a slower a boy. I don't really care if the baby is a boy or a girl, and I think Wen is welcoming both as well (edit: after reading this she pointed out to me she actually wants a girl a little more... but in case it's a boy and he is reading this text years later, mom still loves you a lot!), but it would be nice to have at least some idea!

The structural ultra sound will be in about 5 weeks and that's when we'll have our first real shot of telling - if we're lucky. Until then we'll have to stick with superstitions!

To be continued... I'm off to dentist now!



...and I'm back. so, basically, the nurse at the prenatal appointment told us that since we'll be kissing the baby it's a good idea to take a good care of the teeth now. There happens to be a dentist office about a stone throw away from here so we booked appointments there. My appointment was first and Wen's was right after me. She has been very sensitive to all types of smells lately so I wasn't even surprised when the first words she said when she walked in were "It's so smelly here, is this a new office? It smells really strong here..." And then, just as she was leaving: "You guys should open the windows, it's so smelly..." Oh well. The staff at the office didn't seem to react to this in any way so either they didn't quite understand what she means or perhaps they hear it too much. Their office is pretty new and the construction smell is still clearly in the air, but I guess most people who are not pregnant won't pay much attention to it.

Back to the subject! One of the superstitions is that if you hold a needle over the vein on the mom's wrist it will start moving either along the vein or perpendicular to it, depending on if the baby is a boy or a girl. Perpendicular means boy, and that's what we got. We also did an online questionaire which gave like a 70% "chance" of a boy. One more thing we did was check a Chinese traditional wisdom which is based on calendar - the sex depends on the mom's age and the month of conception. However, the date we think it happened occurs on the change of two months in Chinese calendar... and we get a different result from each of them. Since it's hard to know 100% the date, we again can't get a "definite" answer.

Time goes fast! It's already the time for mid-summer festival, the day when neither the sun nor the people go sleep all night long.

It's actually pretty bright during the night time all summer long so in that sense this is no different than ordinary summer days. And for us, it was pretty much like an ordinary day anyways. Wen is still pretty sick most of the time so we couldn't even thinking of spending the weekend at a lakeside cottage or anything of that sort. We walked to a nearby beach and had a very good time, which was nice. Since she got pregnant we haven't really had too many of those moments as her morning sickness started right from the beginning and has extended at least up until now (week 15).

For us to attend a juhannus party (as they call the mid-summer day in Finnish) would also not be a good idea as the smell of barbequed sausages, among other things, happens to make her sick. In fact I thought of creating a little bit of a festival feeling by lighting up the fireplace but I was turned down before I could actually do it. Supposedly there's always a little bit of smoke in the air from the fire, and that's just not acceptable. Of course.

In the end I baked couple sausages in the oven but since that also smells, I ended up eating alone in the balcony. For the rest of the evening the doors and windows were kept open but fortunately we survived and the smell is now gone for good.

When things start to go that way, being an expectant daddy can be like being in a prison. Anything you do can and will annoy her. When she's awake she needs your attention and when she sleeps it needs to be perfectly quiet. You can't eat what you like, at least not so that she can see or smell it, as everything can trigger the nausea. In fact, it's better to not even talk about food in order to avoid saying something wrong. For a person who loves good food this is not always easy.

I know it's a temporary situation. With luck, she should start feeling better any day now and even with a little less luck it'll last no longer than half more year. I know as a man I'm supposed to take everything, never complain and always just do the right thing. But when you don't get to satisfy your needs, any of them, for many weeks or months, you just tend to become a little crumpy.

On a positive note, I'm very much expecting the baby already. I'm pretty sure it's a boy but either way he or she is most welcome! I don't know why I feel so strongly it's a he, but that's the way I've felt from the beginning. Most of the clothes we've bought so far are sort of unisex but still steered towards the boyish colors and designs. It's hard to be too sure about it though so I'm still mostly sitting on my hands and trying not to buy anything that is absolutely a boy thing. If nothing else, I don't want to offend my daughter when she asks why she's wearing boy's clothes and playing with cars in all her baby photos!



But it's not like gambling either - I know already I have about 50/50 chances of being right and in both cases I'll still be a winner! In the meanwhile, if anyone has suggestions on how to best care for a girl who is suffering from morning sickness, I'm all ears...

Our new toys Dian Dian and Dou Dou had to take a bath. No big drama, it's just that the thought of a lot of people handling them in a store and then handing them out to a newborn baby just makes you wanna make sure they're clean, right?

The easiest way to wash them? Well, enjoy the photos. The little dudes are doing totally fine, though they were a little shocked. Notice how they have no clue what's gonna happen! They keep smiling all the way until I turn on the washing machine... poor guys! But in the end, they turned out to be fine and perfectly clean!

Today we went out and bought something cool for the unborn baby! It's still very early but at least we're doing it in time. We'll see how huge pile of toys the little one has by the time he or she shows up in this world!

I was actually a little worried as we didn't see a very good selection of baby stuff earlier when browsing the selection at Itäkeskus (the largest shopping mall in Finland) so it was a nice surprise to find a bunch of very cool toys in a small boutique shop around Esplanadi, which is a park street in the city center.

Finland is quite unlike the USA, but I guess that's also good in a way. Back in the US there are huge toy stores like Toys 'R' Us and Babies 'R' Us, and every department store has a large selection of toys and baby stuff. This selection can easily be overwhelming and actually the American kids tend to have too many toys to ever really spend time on a single one of them. Of course it would be nice to have a larger selection avaialble in Finland but I'll happily leave out the guns and overly automated toys that do even the playing for you.

Another thing that's lacking here, though not surprisingly, are English language books for babies and kids. Usually when you ask for books in English, the store clerks point you to study books which are intended for Finnish kids to study English. Obviously the number of English speaking kids in Finland is quite small but still you've expect at least the main book shops have a selection of quality books available.

Click on the photos to get to Wen's photo album which contains a bunch of more nice shots. As I said these are mostly from a small boutique shop along Esplanadi. There are a few pretty nice stores in the new Kamppi center, too. Those will be useful when we're shopping for baby clothes and larger toys or furniture.

The past week has been really hectic. When we first moved to Finland couple months ago we didn't immediatelly rent an apartment. We've been staying in an apartment hotel so we can have a good chance to look around and find the type of place we both really like. It took a little longer than expected but now we finally moved a few days ago!

The new home is in the east side of Helsinki in a place called Aurinkolahti (freely translated it would be Sunny Cove). As the name tells it's a beach community and in fact quite similar to the one we were living in on the other side of the city, in Espoo.

We somehow seem to like the sea view as this is also similar to the place we lived in Shenzhen, China. Well, except of course it's way less crowded, but that's simply because there aren't so many people in Finland...

The apartment is really nice, with a sauna and even a fireplace in the livingroom. That will be really nice in the winter I'm sure! There are two balconies, one of which opens directly to the see overlooking a small marina. See the photo on the right to see a view from the balcony to see what I mean... On the left from the marina is a nice beach too, see the photo below!

Less than 10 minutes walk is a shopping center which covers all the daily needs. There's also a subway stop which gives a quick access to Helsinki city center (about 20 minutes) and Itäkeskus (East Center) is only 5 minutes ride away. Itäkeskus is the largest shopping mall in all of Scandinavia. It is, however, really tiny compared to the large malls I've seen in China so now it doesn't feel as big as it used to when I was living in Finland earlier.

Check my photo albums for more shots from around here (just click on any of the photos on this blog to get to the album).

I'm quite different from my wife. We're in some ways completely opposite personalities. This has been very clear during the pregnancy, which is a time when her personality goes from one extreme to the other. There are mood swings, sure, but I believe nothing new is added. Just her personality gets a lot more intense for the better and the worse.

Let's take food as an example. I've heard of girls getting quite picky during the pregnancy but Wen has become super selective on what she can eat and what not. This has caused some interesting side effects. Often times I've cooked something for her, as she's been feeling too sick to even approach the kitchen. I give her the food and prepare something quick for myself. When I finish my meal she tells me the food is great, but she just can't eat it. But since the food is good and she doesn't want to waste it, she wants I eat it!

No matter how hard I try to explain I already ate, she doesn't give up. She gives me that type of begging puppy dog look, making me feel really guilty if I feel the food on the plate. The end result - I've been eating a lot and that starts to show around the belly region. People might soon start to think I'm the one who's pregnant...

There's fortunately some types of food she likes to eat, but it's almost never without some odd twist. Chicken soup is one of my favorite examples. She likes to do it the Chinese way, which goes like this: take a whole uncooked chicken, place it in a large pot of water and boil for several hours, together with peanuts, ginger and sometimes other stuff.

Sounds delicious? Well here's the thing - she'll then drink the broth, and only that! Well, she also likes to nibble some of the skin. But the meat... that's good for nothing! So in this case we're pretty perfect match - she gets her soup and I get a whole load of delicious chicken meat! The same goes for a lot of things. For example she's learned to like oatmeal porridge. But instead of eating the actual oatmeal, she likes to add twice as much water as usual and just drink the water. Once she's finished she likes to give me the bowl, which at that point contains yummy porridge with all the extra water gone.

Unfortunately the biggest mismatch these days comes from sex, or in fact from the lack of it. She seems to feel it can hurt the baby. She's also pretty tired these days and often feels sick and gross. Which tends to mean she's not even remotely in the mood for it. And I... well I can't help being even more than usually excited when she's getting more curvy by the day. I happen to feel a pregnant girl is very sexy. And as you can imagine (at least most guys should know), when you're turned on it's quite hard to realize/understand/accept the other person is not. That just seems to make no sense.

I've tried to not even try... just control myself and wait for her to make the move. And I thought for a while it is going ok. Well, except for the fact I was still not getting anything, but at least there was no hurt feelings over it. However just recently she's been saying it seems I have totally lost my feelings for her. She now thinks I feel she's not pretty and sexy anymore. So basically, if I try, I lose, if I don't I still lose. I'm wondering if there is any way to actually do it right or is pregnancy just meant to be difficult time. I wish it was like with the food... no matter what I do I seem to always get too much of it, and it's always really good!

Today was a special day. We did the first official ultrasound (the earlier one was just to confirm the pregnancy and not part of the actual baby health care process) at Jorvi hospital in Espoo. This is likely going to be the place where we'll deliver the baby when the time comes, too!

The trip to the hospital took about 30 minutes in a bus so if we later need to get there quickly I guess we better call a taxi or I need to have a car. At the hospital we spend a little extra time on the check in as Wen's social security number is too new to be found on the computer systems. Fortunately it didn't take too long to get signed up, and in the upcoming visits our information should already be in the system.

The ultrasound was typical old-style 2D machine with black and white output. For the next visit we might consider going to a 3D/4D ultrasound in Helsinki, as even this was already quite an amazing experience. Initially the baby was apparently sleeping as the was no movement. But after the nurse poked the belly gently, this little dude got very active! The little baby was doing a lot of exercise, moving the hands and legs and sometimes the whole body.

To our surprise the fetus was quite a bit smaller than expected. This moves the estimated age and the delivery date. We thought we're already on the 12+ weeks but it turns out the age is about 11 weeks and 3 days! The baby should still arrive this year but now it's gonna be quite close to the Christmas.

Due to the early age, the nurse was initially unsure if she can get the required measurements. Fortunately after the baby started moving she was able to zoom in a get the thickness of the neck, the length and the head size. The neck was 0.9mm, which is good news. The head to tail length was 46mm, which is what determines the age. Apparently everyone grows at about the same speed during the first three months.

The only thing I'm not totally sure about if there are any differences between Asian and western babies. If anyone know more about this, please let me know! All estimates we have are based on the same charts the Finnish babies use, which could be a problem if there are differences in fetal development...

It really changes everything when you know your wife is expecting a baby. All of a sudden everything else seems less important. I have always had the habit of working too much, and I always have a lot of business plans and projects going on. But these days work is not number one. I'm also realizing some plans I may just have to forget as I no longer even want to think of anything that would mean working long days and weekends for long periods of time.

Wen has been quite weak in the early pregnancy with morning sickness extending from morning to the evening, so I've become very involved with the household duties. We have weekly cleaning service in our home which helps, but I do laundry, clean the kitchen, fill and empty the dishwasher and so on.

I do grocery shopping and in fact quite a bit of cooking too. She needs to eat, of course, for two people. Not only does she need more often than before, but also the food needs to be good. Unfortunately she isn't used to western style foods and now that she feels sick most of the time she especially wants to eat food familiar to her - Chinese home food!

I guess I am quite fortunate in that I can choose to work less. This gives me a enough time to help out, and enables me to actually enjoy it! I've become quite a master in making handmade noodles for example. I can make a number of different styles of noodles and Wen is saying my noodles are better than her or her mom's!

I've started to realize one reason guys don't like doing household duties is simply because we suck at it. At least I personally hate doing something unless I know how to do it well. Somehow it's important for guys to feel good at what we do, and hear how great we are!

Take cleaning, for example. That's something I've never been doing all that well. If I need to clean up the kitchen I would usually stuff up the washing machine and wash any noticeably dirty bowls and large dishes. If there's something that I can see on a surface, I would wipe it, otherwise I would consider the job well done.

This, of course, can never seem to satisfy the girls. After Wen cleans up the kitchen, it would always shine and be perfectly clean everywhere. Just the thought of spending so much effort in cleaning used to freak me out! However, these days she's been uncomfortable most of the time and well, walking into a dirty kitchen certainly doesn't make her feel any less gross.

To try and help out, I've started to take a different attitude to things like cleaning. Instead of thinking I'll quickly get this done and then I can go back work, I'm trying to think my goal is to make the kitchen spotless. I gave a name to this process: I'm deep-cleaning, which sounds better than just cleaning. The problem with cleaning is that usually people only notice it when the job was not done well. If you clean well, you rarely get thanks for the job.

For us guys, it's important to hear how good we are, so the solution is to do the job so well that you stand out. Nothing really feels better than hearing "wow" when she walks to the kitchen. Now, of course it helps that the expectations were not very high to begin with...

So, I'm learning. As I do more I can also do it quicker. I can do quite a good selection of Chinese food, too, but that's still something I need a lot more practice. Wen never used to trust me enough to let me cook (her thinking has always been that since I'm a western and a guy, I can't possily cook Chinese food well enough so it doesn't make sense to even let me try...) These days she has to, and I've been doing quite a good job, so far. After a few months I should probably write a Chinese cook book for western kitchen!

We're pregnant! Which means, not only is my wife expecting baby but I also have become an expectant father! This is quite a change in life, attitude, priorities and really just about everything. A very good and welcome change, I should add!

Here's an interesting little detail. We had a wedding ceremony in Beijing earlier this year but in fact we didn't marry officially at that time. The amount of paperwork required to get the wedding done in China seemed quite too much so we decided to do the official paperwork in Finland. We did this in late March. It just so happens that on that same day a tiny little Jani Jr. found an egg... or at least that's what the doctor's current estimate is. Good timing, eh?

We were cruising around Europe on our honeymoon when we found out about the pregnancy. We'd just entered southern France and were planning on proceeding to Italy and then later to north of France. But the news of the baby made us stop still in Nice, right on the French Riviera.

We had some scary moments right at the start! Just as we settled down at Radisson SAS in Nice, my wife noticed a small amount of blood in her panties... this was just couple days after we got the positive pregnancy test so we didn't know what was going on.

To be sure, I called the concierge who found an on-call doctor who came to check her at our room. It was late in the night so it was pretty good luck to get a doctor quickly, even if it turned out that everything was ok and there was no reason to worry. The doctor determined she was fine, but suggested we take an ultrasound the following day.

The ultrasound was a major disappointment - we saw nothing. Later we learned that it was too early to be doing an ultrasound anyway, but of course we didn't know that at the time. The doctor doing the ultrasound suggested we take a blood test or make another ultrasound later, but in the meanwhile we should take it very easy and definitely discontinue our travel as sitting in a car for extended periods would be too stressful early on in the pregnancy.

We stayed in Nice for a few days but then the hotel food started to come out of the ears. Wen started to have morning sickness (well, more like a whole-day sickness) so we really needed to get a place witha proper kitchen so we could cook food that she is able to accept. There was a moment when we considered renting an apartment in France but that would have been pretty crazy in the circumstances. In the end we took a flight back to Finland, and so here we are.

We did an ultrasound in Finland which confirmed the pregnancy! The tiny little dude was just 3 millimeters long at the time so it was still very early on, but the little heart was already bumping!

Just yesterday we visited "neuvola" for the first time. Neuvola is a government provided system where mom is provided a frequent check up by a nurse and a doctor during the pregnancy and then check ups of the baby after the birth. This system is basically the corner stone of the baby health care system in Finland and one of the primary reasons why Finland is considered the best place in the world to have a baby (along with Japan and the rest of the Scandinavian countries).

So far so good... the nurse checked Wen's blood pressure and bunch of other things and everything is great. We had a chance to hear the baby's heart beat, which was exciting. The heart beats really fast at this stage, and the sound is more like a steam engine than a human heart. But all of that is (I've been told) perfectly normal!

I've been doing a ton of reading lately. My main interest at the moment is a book titled "Pregnant Father" and so far it is turning out to be quite a positive surprise. I'll post more about it once I finish it but it's definitely good reading for the dads-to-be out there. It's a little too United States -centric with its advices but if you skip the irrelevant stuff there is still a lot of good content left...