Let the countdown begin!

Well, as some of you know, people here in Finland like to take a long vacation (at least 2 weeks, but usually a whole month) during the summer. All companies and such, yes, even McDonalds, give their employees a long summer holiday which is awesome when you get to take it, but unfortunately it can also be a huge inconvenience. Since I wasn't in the computer system at the maternity clinic this week, I won't be able to go until August 12th because the nurse is on her holiday now until 8/11. I have an appointment set for 9:45am on the 12th though, so needless to say, we are both counting down the days. By then I should not only be in the system, but we should have our KELA cards so there won't be any issues once I get there. It seems like an eternity away (especially when following Lisa and all of her appointments and ultrasounds - thanks, Lisa :p), but we will manage.

I'm still working on David, hoping he'll come around on finding out the sex of our little baby. Since our place is only a one bedroom, the baby will have a small nursery corner in our room. I'm kind of sad that we won't get to decorate a whole nursery since that was something I had really looked forward too, but we'll work with what we have and make the best of it! Hopefully some generous co-worker of David's will have some baby furniture that they are willing to hand down to us at least temporarily because there's just no way we're going to afford buying our own new set. Even if we could, we'd have to part with it when we left to come back to the states, so it just isn't worth it.

We're also not sure how we're going to work a baby registry for a few reasons (see below), so any suggestions are welcome. It is highly unlikely that either of us will be back in the states before the baby is born since flights are expensive and quite long, especially by yourself. So.. our reasons..

1. Shipping to Finland from the states is quite ridiculous price-wise.
2. The one baby store we know of here doesn't have online shopping, so that's not an option.
3. We have to pay customs, taxes, duties, etc. on anything that we receive here (and those can be pricey).

So, again, any suggestions are welcome... VERY welcome.

I think David and I have decided on a belly picture every two weeks unless my belly decides to really pop out overnight, so you have to wait another week for that, though I promise that my belly hasn't gotten much bigger. That said, I am having problems sleeping as I just can't stay comfortable in any position for long. Baby has also decided the past couple of nights to get really active before bed and I can feel him/her moving around (I think :p). At this stage, it is hard to tell, but I'm pretty sure it is the baby moving, which is very exciting! I just wish baby would decide to play around during the day, not when I'm trying to sleep :).

Hope everything is well with everyone back in the states!