you can take a breath but don't wait too long

I would like to just provide a disclaimer that I mostly blog for myself. Not as an excuse, but as an explanation. I like the exercise in writing for the idea of an audience (when I write in my journal, the images of my future descendants doesn't work. They're going to hate me, and what is usually chicken scratch and disjointed ideas and large gaps in between entries is going to make them crazy. I'm a little sorry, but also I'm over it. #sorrynotsorry kids.). So putting info up on a blog is a much better mental exercise for me. Even if no one were ever to read it, I'm still usually pleased with myself when I'm finished and have managed to remember so much because I've taken the time to pull out ALL of the memories and put them together in a logical, sensible, follow-able manner.  

Now, when you live thousands of miles from family and friends that want to know what's going on in your life, and there actually is an audience, there's not any more pressure on quality of writing, just on quantity of details. The longer I wait to write a long story, the more details I have perhaps forgotten, but also the more details accrue in the passing of time. So I've been in a catch-22 of writing about Oxford, Oslo, and now Berlin, and everything in between because there's so much that has happened since I last wrote that it's overwhelming, but as I wait longer there's ever more to cover... Yes, my self-induced stress is making my life rough. Don't mock. 

So in attempt to get caught up, there are going to be some readers' digested versions that are then readers-digested again before they end up here. I'm a little sorry about that, not to any readers, but for myself, because so far this organized chaos is way better than the chaos in my journal. 

First, Oslo. I started writing about Oslo getting here well before he was even here. And almost a year later, I'm trying to finish it up. It was the crazy start to a lot of adventures. So I might as well start there. Maybe, someday, when the details don't matter or aren't interesting anymore, other stories will follow. Don't hold your breath.

His birth actually started in June of last year, when my water broke sometime toward the end of 20 weeks. I wasn't aware that was what had happened til 22 weeks (because I didn't realize anything was wrong in the meantime). Jeremy was still at school in England, finishing up his term, while Berlin and I were in Texas for Jace's homecoming (read: family reunion), and the Friday that everybody in my extended family arrived was the same day I snuck out of the pool party with Rick to go to the emergency room when I saw blood. I was hospitalized that night, we learned my water had broken sometime the week before, my amniotic fluid level was about 3cm (of the normal 15-20), and even though I hadn't gone into labor the first week, there was still a pretty good chance I would go into labor any day within the next week. Jeremy flew out the next day, and we met with neonatologists to learn what to expect when the baby came, whenever that would be, while I was pumped full of antibiotics and listened to the baby's heartbeat every few hours. On Monday I was discharged because, even if I went into labor, there wasn't anything they'd be able to do for our then 22-week baby.

It was absolutely terrifying. The first doctor who suggested the broken amniotic sac looked at an ultrasound, pointed to the lack of fluid, and said, "I hope that I'm wrong. This ultrasound image isn't very detailed, and I really hope that it's the lack of detail that I'm seeing. But I'm afraid you'd better prepare yourself for the worst." While I waited through the more detailed ultrasound, I was waiting for the doctor to say, "Oh, everything is fine, you just need some antibiotics. No worries!" To this doctor's credit, he was just as kind as he said exactly the opposite. Every doctor had to give me the very difficult truth of what would happen if I went into labor anytime in the next three weeks, and at the same time, tell me there was nothing to do but wait and see what happened.

Being without Jeremy for the first 36 hours was also a lot harder than I thought it would be. I certainly had visitors (I had 40-something members of my extended family in town, so... duh.), and of course my attitude is always, "I've got this, no big deal," but this was different. The night before Jeremy landed, another doctor came in to talk to me to tell me that even though the situation wasn't promising, there was always hope, and he'd seen a lot of miracles. As soon as he left I started bawling. Miracles or no, I was scared, and I didn't want to do it by myself.

When Jeremy did arrive, I found myself finally embracing the good signs, of which there were quite a few. The fact that I'd made it a week without really noticing anything was wrong was great because it meant there weren't any signs of labor. Then I made it through the weekend at the hospital sans contractions. The baby still appeared to be growing normally, and was actually measuring (weight-wise) a week or two ahead of schedule. This was all promising because, really, there's nothing anyone can do about it but wait. There's no surgery that can be performed or medication that can cause it to heal. Basically, I just needed to wait for signs of infection or labor, and hope for the best.

Jeremy and I debated for the next few days whether we were going to stay in Texas or fly back to Oxford, and with a million different factors weighing in, finally decided to fly back to the UK. One doctor suggested that if we were going to do it, making the pond jump before we hit our unborn's brink of viability was really the only time. We went to the doctor when we got back to Oxford. She told us what to watch for and when to come back to the hospital, and I was admitted at the end of the week for blood loss. I stayed for a few days until I was stable again, went home, and was back a week later. After a few days of still not being stable, my doctor said, "I think you're here for the long haul," which was really, really hard to hear. It had only been the start of my second full week living in the hospital and I was going a little crazy. Every time I had a major gush of blood they brought me across the hall from the delivery rooms for monitoring. I'd spend a day or so there and then be brought back to the maternity ward. A few times a day I waddled down to the monitoring room to listen for contractions and monitor the baby's heartbeat. I was hot, I was exhausted, and the normal discomfort of pregnancy was amplified because I'd lost my cushion around the baby. I really would've just slept through my time at the hospital except that a nurse or midwife came in every few hours to check my vitals, give me antibiotics, or just make sure I wasn't losing blood.

I did have a number of visitors (despite the somewhat insane restrictions on visiting hours - 3-4PM and 6-8PM. The only exception to that rule was Jeremy, not Berlin). While I was in the hospital Jeremy's sisters came to visit the UK, so when I had energy I would go to the park across the street from the hospital and sit and chat with them. And outside of my desire for contact with the outside world, it was pretty life-saving that they came because Jeremy was trying to finish his MBA program and run around after Berlin in addition to making sure I was feeling loved every day. So as crazy as everything was, it went as smoothly as we could've ever hoped for.

But one of his sisters came and went while I was still in the hospital. I couldn't believe I'd been in the hospital so long. On the day I reached 29 weeks, August 4th (the DAY my sister-in-law left, of all days),  my doctor came into my room and said, "We're going to send you home today!" They decided I was stable enough to be away from the hospital (since we lived only a couple of miles from the hospital) and they were aware that I was probably going crazy. I was so excited. So excited that I slept for the first 12 hours I could in my own bed. The next day I slept again, had a few hours of being awake and coherent, but was ready to go to bed with everybody else because I was, once again, exhausted.

Don't worry, I was only home for 36 hours.

I woke up at 4AM, and I was so exhaustedly out of it that it took me several minutes to be conscious enough to realize I was having crazy contractions. (I had had zero up to this point. Zero. Not even Braxton Hicks contractions.) We called an ambulance, an experience which turned out to be thoroughly foreign and confusing. The operator asked Jeremy if she could talk to me, and then she ran me through 20-questions before the paramedics arrived (including "Is the baby crowning? No? Are you sure? Can you have your husband check?"), and then once the ambulance arrived, three paramedics were sitting in our living room asking me further questions for what felt like forever while I was sure I was going to deliver the baby on the couch. Then their supervisor showed up, only stayed for a few minutes before deciding everything was some sort of satisfactory, and then several more minutes after that we eventually went downstairs and got in the ambulance, a ride which was about the most uncomfortable I'd ever taken in my life (not even including the contractions part). Next time we have a baby and don't own a car, we're calling a taxi.

Everything after that went pretty quickly. I was all for an epidural the second I got there, but since I was only at a 3 it seemed we had plenty of time to wait for the anesthesiologist, who had been notified I was ready for her but she was working with other patients, so I was somewhere at the bottom of the list. But there wasn't really time to wait for the anesthesiologist anyway. Oslo made his appearance less than an hour and half later at 8:25AM, weighing a whopping 3 lbs 9 oz.

The first week was probably the craziest. They were the most concerned about his lungs (my water broke right in the middle of the most important weeks for lung development), and he had a torn alveolar sac that meant that air was leaking into his chest cavity and making his blood pressure go crazy. But with the help of a chest drain and faith and blessings, it healed. He had taken his own first gasping breaths and x-rays showed that his lungs seemed fine, just little and needing more time to grow. He was on oxygen and air pressure to keep his lungs open for almost two months, had a jaundice lamp to help his bilirubin levels, but almost everything else appeared to be normal for his age. Before he could come home from the NICU he had to reach a few benchmarks, like being able to breathe on his own, and he had to prove he would consistently gain weight eating out of a bottle instead of a tube (his cleft lip and palate meant that he couldn't nurse, and the doctors wanted to make sure it wouldn't make the fact that he was born so little any harder). He came home in October, a week before his due date, and he was already 8.5 pounds.

Oslo Larry Lindström, 10 weeks old, the day before his due date.

Since then, we've mostly just been watching him grow. He's doing well. He's weighing in a normal range for his age group, and he's enormous for his corrected age group. The regular follow-up doctors appointments finished in December. He's developing normally. He did have his first cleft surgery, and everything went really well (minus him pulling out some stitches in the recovery room, but. What can you do). He's a little champ. Sometimes it's a little crazy that we've had him here so long, and other times it's fun that in some ways we got this baby phased slowed down by a few months. I've been shortening this story to, "he was just really excited to be here!" Most days, that still seems true. Occasionally, though, he reminds us that he is, in fact, tolerating us.

[title from little bit better by sherwood]

the fire's burning bright

Before we moved to Oxford, we knew that Christmas 2015 was going to be spent with all of Jeremy's siblings finally under one roof (nobody on missions, all of the married siblings on the same rotation with in-laws, etc.). We also knew, as soon as we decided on Oxford, that we might be the only ones to ruin that. 

Of course we wanted to go, who doesn't want to spend Christmas with family? but it was going to be really expensive, especially for a student loan budget. Even if we bought our tickets early. Then we found out one of our friends was getting married in Provo the weekend before Christmas, which meant that if we flew to Jeremy's parents (which would mean flying into Salt Lake), we could totally catch the wedding before we headed to Rexburg.

So I called my dad. We thought we could at least get estimates on what flying standby would be like and see if we could maybe even possibly justify the rough chance of perhaps making it over the ocean in time for all of these events. It took a while to get in touch with him during normal hours for both of us, and when we finally got a hold of him, it was already the first week of December, and if we were going at all, it was going to be like the next week. By a miracle or two, he found us some buddy passes, and we just bought them. Without a lot of further consideration. We were so excited by the prospect of going to see family for Christmas (and the fact that it wasn't going to cost us a couple thousand dollars), we didn't have much time to worry about how crazy it is to fly standby, ever, but especially around the holidays.

And of course, whether we gave it ample consideration or not, crazy it was. Jeremy still had some classes/projects to finish, so Berlin and I were leaving first, hopefully getting a decent head start on the holiday rush. It was cheaper to fly out of Brussels than to fly out of London (by a few hundred dollars), so we took a bus from London to Brussels. It was an overnight bus that didn't leave until 10PM, and was a 7-hour bus ride, which isn't the most ideal for a toddler, or his mom, but hey. We can make a few sacrifices, right?

We got to Brussels at about 5AM, which turned out to be good timing because it took me a while to navigate the train station. Not because it's incredibly difficult, but because I could not for the life of me find a bathroom, and I just wanted to change the poor kid's diaper (who had only slept for about 4 hours but who was now wide awake). We made it to the airport in plenty of time for standing in line, getting through the line and being sent to another wing of the airport, confirming that Berlin's info was all correct (people were positive he was older than 2, which was a little annoying, but. I get it. Here's his passport...), and getting back to that first line. We also finally found a great bathroom (which means "clean and not cramped"), and there was a sort of playground in the waiting area in the shape of an airplane, so Berlin got to stretch his legs.

Fortunately, we made it on the very first flight we tried to get on, fortunate for a lot of reasons, but most especially because there are only two flights that leave from Brussels that go to the US, and they leave at the exact same time, so you can only try to make it on one of them. Berlin fell asleep while we were waiting for them to call our names, and he got a decent amount of sleep on the plane (great for me because it meant I could also sleep). 

While we were waiting to get on the plane in Brussels, I happened to meet a couple who were also headed to Salt Lake. I happened to notice their "Bountiful, UT" luggage tags as they noticed my BYU shirt (also kind of a weird coincidence because I almost never wear BYU shirts in public. Not because I don't like to, but I just generally sleep in them. So I try not to wear those ones in public).

Our flight went from Brussels to Atlanta, and once in Atlanta, there were two more planes going from Atlanta to Salt Lake that night. And both were overbooked. Some quick things to know about standby: 1) everything is about priority, which is set by the date whatever employee started working. 2) Buddy passes are the lowest of the totem pole, regardless of the priority of the employee that gave you the buddy passes. So if all of the other standby passengers make it on and there are still seats available, a buddy pass holder might get a seat. If the plane isn't overweight or anything. 

So I was looking at the standby passenger board and seeing my name very far down the list for next to zero seats and trying to mentally prepare myself for spending the night in the airport with Berlin while still paying rapt attention to the TSA desk in case something changed. The Bountiful couple wife came over to me and said something like, "This doesn't look good for anybody." I laughed and made some comment about that being the way it goes flying standby, not thinking much of it, still focused on the board, and she said, "And you have the baby..." I maybe should've seen that she was trying to be sympathetic, but of course, still not paying a ton of attention, I just said, "yeah, it's okay. We've done this a few times before."

It came down to one seat left, and the Bountiful couple was in front of me in line for it. They were talking to the TSA person, but I'd stopped listening and was trying to decide how far I wanted to walk to find dinner. Then I realized that the wife was pointing at me. The couple had decided that instead of splitting up so one of them could take the last seat to Salt Lake, they would let me take the one seat (Berlin was riding in my lap) and they would stay with some friends in Atlanta and try for another flight the next day. Talk about Christmas miracles. I cried. I was so grateful and trying to blubber out an intelligible "thank you" as the TSA lady was rushing me through the door down the ramp. I hopped on the plane, heaved a huge sigh of relief that was mingled with one of the most powerful gratitude prayers I think I've ever offered, and Berlin and I fell asleep before takeoff. 

My grandparents met us at the airport, and we got home to this. Oxford's winter means rain, albeit cold rain, but not snow. I think for the first time in my life, this much snow was an incredibly welcoming sight :)

Our plan was to stay with my grandparents until Sunday, when we would get on a bus to Rexburg after church and hopefully still surprise the majority of Jeremy's family (we did tell Jeremy's dad, for the sake of logistics, but we hadn't told anybody else). Jeremy was supposed to take a bus  on Wednesday night from London to Brussels and fly out of Brussels on Thursday morning, making it just in time for Zack's bachelor party. 

So naturally, he didn't get on the flight to Atlanta on Thursday morning. Not because there weren't open seats on the flight, but because the plane was overweight. Which is so frustrating. At this point, of course, it was cutting it really close for Jeremy to even make it for the wedding (Saturday), even assuming he made every flight after that.

This was the only time I'd ever considered what would happen if Jeremy couldn't make it out of Brussels. And I was freaking out. Of course my mind jumped to the conclusion that if he couldn't make it out on the Thursday before Christmas, he wasn't going to make it at all. Sheer panic. This was an overreaction, but standby is merciless and doesn't care about Christmas. Or weddings. Or happiness. 

So I started frantically searching for flights in nearby countries (if you have never flown standby, I understand that this might not seem logical. I promise it was). I found a flight from Paris leaving the following morning that had a large amount of empty seats, so even running the risk of being overweight, it was likely that Jeremy would get a seat on the plane. It also was a direct flight to Salt Lake City, so it meant avoiding one more crazy airport like ATL or JFK, making it all around the best bet. So he spent the day running around in Brussels (which ended up being almost zero sight seeing), spent the night in the Brussels airport, I switched his buddy pass information, and he took the first train to Paris the following morning. 

While he was at the Brussels airport, some guy asked to borrow his computer cord and ran off with it. Rude.

I was panicked during this whole lapse of time, largely due to sleep deprivation. From about 9AM on Thursday his time (1AM for me Wednesday night/Thursday morning) I was losing it, so psychotically worried he wasn't going to get on a flight (I also had only been in the US for 24 hours and had definitely not adjusted to the time difference). He should have left on the Brussels flight at 2:30AM my time, that came and went, so we searched for another option at 3AM. Around 3:30 when we decided Paris was the best option, I finally went to sleep. I think Jeremy did too, right on the airport floor. 

The following evening for me at about 5, Jeremy had gone to sleep about 1AM his time and needed to be up at about 6AM (10PM for me) to get on the only train that would get him to his Paris flight on time. So at 10, I was waiting for him to text me that he had gotten up and was leaving the airport. Our UK phones pretty much only work in the UK, so Jeremy was dependent on places with wifi to communicate with me. It was 11:30PM when his train should've gotten to the Charles de Gaulle airport, and I still hadn't heard from him. Panic panic panic panic. At 12:30AM, only an hour and a half before his plane is supposed to be flying away from the airport, I got a text from him. 

It was a picture of the passport line, which is the line and a still a bit of a walk away from the actual security line.

Cue the aneurysm. 

Meanwhile, he continues to text me lyrics to the Christmas song that's stuck in his head, cool as a cucumber. I didn't even have the stable or witty nerves to text back emojis of the weapons I would have liked to injure him with just then. Jeremy doesn't have a good track record for not missing flights, and remember, I was losing it.

I was trying to be relieved by his lack of stress, but of course my stress was only amplified with his apparent lack of stress. You cannot miss this plane. You can't. You can't ruin Christmas. But in true Jeremy style (for everything BUT flights), he got to the gate with plenty of time to spare without stressing (or acting like it to me, anyway), especially since they don't start calling standby passengers until most of the other passengers are already boarded. And somehow he wasn't worried, probably because he's practical and knows that there's no amount of stressing that helps you make it through a standby list. I'm not super practical when I haven't slept in several days, so I probably had a twitch or two at this point, besides the sea of pessimism my poor tired brain wasn't even trying to swim through.  

It was 2AM when he texted me to tell me he was boarding the plane. I probably would've cried if I hadn't been so annoyed at him for being so calm through all of it. I said goodbye and fell asleep, completely forgetting to ask him what time he was supposed to land in Salt Lake. 

So he missed the bachelor party. Which, as it turns out, he wouldn't really have made if he had made the first series of flights anyway (something about a last minute change of plans), so that wasn't the worst thing in the world. We were both going to be able to be at the wedding. What more can you ask for?

Well, actually, your luggage, despite how hard it is to complain after the miracle of making it on a flight. Somehow, even on a direct flight, Jeremy's suitcase got lost (I still am shaking my head. It was one flight...), which besides clean clothes also had his suit, the one that he was planning on wearing to this wedding, and his electric razor. He also hadn't shaved in a few days, and he had a bit of a beard going, so switching to a disposable razor wasn't going to be a great fix. 

By another miracle, however, Jeremy had decided in Brussels that he didn't want to fly looking like a scrub, so he'd changed out of his sweats and put on dressier slacks and a white, collared, french-cuffed shirt with cufflinks. So he did have to borrow a tie (and my sweats and one of my t-shirts while we washed and dried everything he was wearing), but he did at least look presentable without having to run out and buy completely new clothes.  

Miracle after miracle, we made it to the wedding, and wearing wedding clothes. This picture of all the boys (present at the wedding, anyway) from the ward where we all met is probably my favorite of this crazy week. It was such an adventure for us to get there, but we were so glad that we'd made it. Beautiful sealing, beautiful couple, and a great party afterwards. 

Dancing at the reception

Of course we should have known that seeing as many people as we did who are all as active on social media as they are would mean that we couldn't keep our surprise from Jeremy's family for very long. Sure enough, Sunday morning (we were surprised it even lasted that long) we were receiving texts from Jeremy's siblings about how they all knew we were coming (nevermind that we decided only the week before that we were actually going to make it, sans flight trauma...). The unfortunate part about this was that once all of Jeremy's siblings knew, there was no guarantee that Jeremy's mom didn't know. She wasn't as likely to check Facebook, so I frantically started telling everybody to keep the secret from their mom! But I forgot to text Jeremy's dad. So Lane came home from a meeting, made some casual remark about how we would be there in a few hours, and Elaine dropped everything she was doing in shock.

Oh well :)

Waiting for the shuttle to Rexburg (my arm is numb)

It's so fun to see these little cousins play together. Even if it means no sleep for anyone.

He really, really likes hats. 

Sledding.

Berlin hated it.

Really, really hated it.

This is my favorite of the snow pictures. That's Elaine, pinned under there.

We went for a horse-drawn cart ride. Everybody was pretty happy about it. 

Especially Berlin, who requested snuggling in Daddy's coat.

This was Berlin's first Santa visit. I didn't know what to expect, but he sat very happily on Santa's lap when Santa offered him a candy cane, and he said, "I want legos and cars." He doesn't get it, but man, the kid knows what he wants.

I didn't finish Christmas gifts before I left, so I spent every free minute finishing these just before Christmas Eve. In hindsight, asking to make sure I had their sizes right first would have helped. But hey, they were cute!

Christmas Eve snow

I maybe got a little carried away with planning costumes for our Nativity. But I really wanted everyone to have a costume. Here I'm measuring the two-year-old for angel wings. She was very cooperative.

Expected Christmas Eve family picture

Realistic Christmas Eve family picture

Christmas Eve present (Berlin has stolen Grandpa's)

Christmas Day- Santa listened!

Jeremy took this while the boys went snowboarding. Incredible that this is real.

Our German host family's daughter is spending a year in the US and happened to be in Rexburg while we were. A very happy coincidence.

I don't even know.

Lunch at the hospital. Of course, this was all he wanted for lunch.

Baptisms with Brita and Kiersten. Cold! but fun!

Crashing after jump rope practice (I think Kiersten went running?)

We celebrated Berlin's birthday before we left so Grandma and Grandpa could be part of it. When he started opening this present he was squealing and jumping up and down because he knew what it was. It was so fun to watch.

My birthday was the day we had to drive back down to Salt Lake, so we had my choice for birthday dinner the night before. 

I regret nothing.

Jeremy playing the stereotype that all of his classmates think he should be.

Driving back to Utah

We went to Nickel City for FHE with Tietjens the night before we left.

Good times had by all. Especially Berlin.

Berlin and I spent a few days in Florida while Jeremy went home to study for finals. He set these up in Berlin's room. 

He missed us.

The only remotely Floridian picture I got during our time in Florida. 

And while it's not great of us, that guy's timing was perfect.

It was so fun to be with family, and we were so grateful for the huge list of Christmas miracles that made it so we could spend our Christmas with them. So much fun, so little sleep, not enough time together with all of them. I hope we all get to do it again soon.


[title from merry christmas, here's to many more by relient k]