pregnant in Switzerland

Posted on 20. August 2015 by erdhummel

We (more specifically I) have entered the final spurt of the pregnancy. It is going to be the our second child that will be born in Switzerland and while I was quite nervous during the first pregnancy I feel much more confident this time, basically because I know what to do, what to expect and what to keep in mind. Because although Germany and Switzerland are not necessarily very different (no, I am lying here, these two countries are incredibly different if one thinks about it, but it is still not comparable with differences between other cultural areas), there are certain aspects during the pregnancy and the time after the baby is born which fundamentally differ between these countries. And since this blog is listed as expat blog I thought I’ll give a quick insight into these main aspects:

The first thing that I noticed was the difference regarding the medical check-ups during the pregnancy. At the beginning of my first pregnancy I was still living in Germany and the German check-ups were incredibly detailed including many tests which costs are covered by your health insurance (the toxoplasmosis test for instance). In Switzerland, everything seems to be a bit more relaxed. I haven’t really been tested for anything apart from the NT screening and gestational diabetes and if I would insist on it, I would have to pay the costs myself (which is no option anyway considering the high medical costs). The normal procedure when going to the gynecologist during your pregnancy is simple: urine sample, blood pressure, weight and then ultra sound. I don’t even need to get undressed. While in Germany your check-ups increase with the upcoming birth, you’ll have your last one in Switzerland around 4 weeks before your estimated birth date and then you’ll see the doctor on the date of the birth again in case nothing has happened until then. During my first pregnancy I felt a bit unsecure about that, I admit, but right now I am quite happy as I don’t really want to have too many appointments anymore.

Another big difference between Germany and Switzerland is the maternity leave. In Germany it starts six weeks before the estimated birth date. In Switzerland you work until you go into labour. Hardcore. To be honest, I am quite happy that I don’t have a full job right now. The family centre where I work was closed during the summer holidays, so I didn’t have to work during the last weeks and right now I just have to manage a few meetings and preparations. The next event I have to organise is one day before the birth date and I do hope sincerely that the baby will come a few days earlier – not sure how I am supposed to conduct events with thirty or forty children while I am moving at a snail’s pace.

Regarding your health insurance it is very, very important to have your baby registered before it is born. That way you don’t risk to end up paying when your child needs medical assistance right after it is born. As medical assistance in a hospital can quickly eat up all your savings (a quick visit of the emergency unit during my first pregnancy costed us almost 1000 euros as I wasn’t insured in Switzerland at that time), it is indeed very wise to simply register your unborn child at your insurance.

When you decide to give birth at a  hospital (which is our plan) your insurance will cover three days at the hospital (if you baby is born at 11pm it still counts as first day…). You will sleep in shared rooms unless you agree to pay a special fee. When you leave the hospital after three days (or earlier) you have to have organised a midwife that will visit you during the first ten days at home. This is actually an important positive difference: while the situation of the midwives in Germany has sadly hit rock bottom (there have been efforts to improve it again but it sadly looks like freelance midwives are doomed and I am not sure what mothers are supposed to do in Germany without the proper assistance of a midwife!) the midwives seem to be much more supported and appreciated by the insurances and the government in Switzerland (just my impression – if it’s really that way I don’t know). We have organised the same midwife as last time and it is actually a very nice feeling to know that she’ll also take care of our second child.

During the first weeks at home with the baby you are asked to meet up with a local parent counselling where the weight of the baby will be regularly checked and where you’ll find help with any important questions young mothers could have (if the answers really help is debatable). Apart from the weight checks it is a good way to get in touch with other young mothers – I have met one of mine and the little one’s best friends at our parent counsellor.

And then you have to go back to work after 14 weeks. Hardcore again. I know many mothers who saved their entire annual holiday plus overtime hours in order to be able to stay at home for a few more weeks. But basically you are asked to hand your baby over to a day nursery when it is 3 months old. It is something I don’t really understand and while I know that the discussion in Germany about parental leave and parent’s money is a heated one, I often wish that German parents would be aware of how lucky they are. Karsten will have ten days of parental leave after the birth which is a lot for the Swiss standard. When the little one was born, he only had five. As for myself, I really appreciated not having a job because it allowed me to stay home with the baby (without getting any money at all). Apart from the fact that I don’t want to give my baby to a day nursery when it is just 3 months old, the day nurseries are also incredibly expensive in Switzerland. They guarantee a good standard and the nurses are much more appreciated and better paid than in Germany, which is good! But the nurseries are so expensive that it doesn’t make sense for most mothers to actually continue working when having a second child. Unless you have a top salary you will end up spending all your income on child care. And seriously, I would only do that if I have a job that it completely and 100% fulfilling and fun and without which I can’t live.

But! At least with our second child I am aware of certain tricks. I can, for instance, apply for child care subsidy if I stay at home and if our salary is below a certain rate. We didn’t know that when the little one was born. Because none of the officials will tell you (very smart strategy, isn’t it?). We found out about it via a Swiss friend. Child care subsidy will be paid until your child’s second birthday. Since we didn’t know about it during the first year, we missed approximately 6000 CHF. Which is not much for a year in Switzerland, really, but a fortune for us. And we won’t miss it this time, I promise.

You will also get a certain amount of child allowance, depending on the canton and your employer (and if none of you is a Swiss citizen, your child will be perfectly integrated into Swiss policy by paying the foreigner tax when getting the allowance). 🙂

To be honest, family policy is not one of the greatest achievements in Switzerland. I know that there are many countries where it is worse and that it is complaining on a high level. We are incredibly lucky to be able to live a peaceful and good life. But at the same time I notice how the situation is managed in Germany or let alone Finland and I wonder why there are so big difference between these countries.

Anyhow, here we go, second child! 🙂

Posted in Children, Family, small but significant differences, Switzerland | Tagged , , , | 3 Comments

Picasso pigs

Posted on 17. August 2015 by erdhummel

6 o’clock in the morning….I have now been awake for almost two hours for no specific reason and I finally decided that I can as well get up and do some work as long as everyone else is still asleep.

The weekend has been busy, busy, busy. There is some serious nesting instinct kicking in. By now, the little one does not only have a new bed but also a new wardrobe/storage shelf in her bedroom which Karsten picked up on Saturday. While he was away, the little one and I took the opportunity to get busy in the kitchen. On Friday, the little one saw a recipe for “pigs” in my cook book and I promised her to make them this weekend. The dough consists of almonds, curd, flour, sugar and oil as basic ingredients and is actually perfect for little children (and pregnant women, for that matter) because they can nibble as much as they want as there are no raw eggs in there (I am not able to stop her nibbling dough with raw eggs anyway, and neither do I think that it is actually possible to stop a child nibbling dough – I mean, what’s the fun otherwise??). So in the afternoon, we enjoyed the few pigs which actually made it out of the oven…..they didn’t look like the original as I had to use almonds for the eyes instead of raisins which gave them a slightly evil look. But the little one took the matter into her own hands anyway and created her own pigs, and boy, they do look so much cooler than the normal ones!! Picasso would have been proud!!

(We also did a big shopping tour, washed four loads of laundry, cleaned some of our windows, harvested potatos, played on the playground, met friends, tidied up the wardrobe, cleaned the kitchen, jumped into puddles and and and…All of it is made much easier with a pig in between :-))

Posted in culinary bits and pieces, the little one | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

relief….

Posted on 15. August 2015 by erdhummel

After one (hopefully) last day of over 30° celsius on Thursday…..

finally some relief!

Since then a slight breeze and constant summer rain…SO GOOD!

Posted in Allgemein | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

light hearts and heavy feet

Posted on 9. August 2015 by erdhummel

This post was actually supposed to be written a week ago….but with the stomach bug last week and again temperatures over 30°C there was neither energy nor ambition to sit down and write. Which is a pity because the weekend before all of our energy levels were fully loaded again (and it is alarming how fast that’s gone again :-)).

Last weekend we took the chance to enjoy some time as a couple before our lives will be dominated once again by sleepless nights, breastfeeding hours and teething. The little one was handed over to her grandparents and Karsten and I spent the day in Freiburg, one of our favorite cities in Germany. We went shopping – mainly books for the little one, but with enough time and peace to sit down and browse through all the interesting and good books the nice guy in the children book shop recommended us (a children book shop! Can there be anything better??). We ate pizza. And ice-cream. We enjoyed a really cool book project which attracted lots of people, especially families, and welcomed everyone to sit down, get comfortable and browse through books. We relaxed. We enjoyed some rain. We went to the beer garden where we already ate on the evening of our civil wedding and enjoyed some proper Alsacian Wurstsalat. We went to the cinema to watch Slow West. We slept in a hotel. And enjoyed the best hotel breakfast ever (with waffles and a juicer to design your own fruit juice). And after a short stop at the book project again, underlined by the sunday morning peal of bells of the Freiburg cathedral, we went back to my parents in law.

The little one picked us up at the tram station. When she saw us, she tossed and turned on the ground because she apparently wanted her time with the grandparents to continue and somehow we didn’t fit into the picture anymore. I guess it was a beautiful weekend for all of us and it can and should be repeated as soon as possible 🙂

It was such a perfect break. Even with a big belly. Freiburg is such a beautiful city with its little canals, the music groups on every corner, all the individual shops, the good food and the cultural offers. And the time as a couple was long overdue. With a small kid, work, the hot summer and the pregnancy, the days are too often dictated by daily routine. Daily routine which I find harder and harder to cope with simply because I can’t do as much as usual. It too often results in discussions, in sighs and discontendness concerning who should do what and when. No sighs and discontendness this weekend though. Instead the feeling as if we were back in time, back at university, with a light heart and without the daily responsibility which comes with being grown-up.

Such a nice treat in between!

Posted in Family, Germany | Tagged , , | 3 Comments

about zwieback and Cassiopeia

Posted on 4. August 2015 by erdhummel

It doesn’t always need to be a laceration. Sometimes, a stomach bug is just what it takes to arrange a visit to the emergency unit again. Or, in this case, the birth section of the hospital. Because that’s where you are sent to with unspecific symptoms such as nausea, stomach pain and hurting legs and arms in your 35th pregnancy week.

On the bright side: my mother-in-law happened to be with us so we had a perfect babysitter. And we were finally able to check out the hospital where baby number two (which so far is lovingly called “Hoppadaia” by the little one) is supposed to be born. Maybe we will even meet one or two of the midwives again in five weeks.

And while the midwives checked whether I can keep some water and some zwieback inside, Karsten discovered that his moles on his legs do not only form the Little Dipper, but also Cassiopeia. Who would have thought that there can be even more exciting discoveries than little babies in a birth section?

Posted in Family | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

late July garden update

Posted on 30. July 2015 by erdhummel

The last garden update has been over a month ago and due to the sunshine and the high temperatures the garden almost exploded while I was on holiday. Karsten was doing his best watering the plants and weeding the paths and has to do just a little more until the baby is born. Whenever I am in the garden, I can’t resist to do a little work here and there as well, but I am normaly regretting it a few hours later.

The garden two weeks ago when I came back

…and today after getting rid of all withered flowers

Since we know that the postdoc in Zurich is not going to be funded, we are not sure whether or not we’ll be able to stay here next year. Which means that I feel a bit melancholic every time I work in the garden…if I’d know for certain that we’ll have another garden season I would already do some planning for next year (change the strawberry bed, for instance, or plant some spring flowers), but like this both Karsten and myself are hestitant to plan.

Also, it doesn’t seem to be a good year for our vegetables. First the mangetouts didn’t grow well, and now the courgette and the pumpkins are rather a dissappointment. So far, we only have two pumpkins (while our friends have so many that I can’t actually count them).

While we didn’t know what to do with all the courgettes last year, we now have to wait several days until we can harvest the next one

This year’s experiment: melons (one)

white and red cabbage….though not very breast-feeding-compatible…

So far, our most promising (and only) pumpkin….

But the flowers are doing well and I am really enjoying some flower boquets on our table from time to time. The marguerites are huge and even the lavender which didn’t flower for two years when growing on the balcony seems to be happy now that it’s in the garden.

And since we can’t resist: at least some winter planning (leek, broccoli, curly cale and that sort of thing…)

Posted in Garden | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

playground reloaded

Posted on 29. July 2015 by erdhummel

Although the weather has finally cooled down a bit which almost feels like being reborn again (haha, I am starting birth metaphors), I don’t seem to find the time to write proper blog posts. There are many things to write about, but somehow I feel like I am out of steam. Also, I suspect that someone has exchanged my cute, little daughter with Rumpelstiltskin – at least that’s how my mornings feel like. Yesterday, it took us more than an hour to leave the house in order to do some shopping…an hour full of hue and cry and I am sure she doesn’t even know what she is crying about (most of the times I don’t have a clue either). During her lunch nap I normally nap as well and in the evening I can’t really pull myself together either….and if I do, there is plenty of stuff to prepare. Hence no time for many blog posts…

But here’s some news:

After months and months of construction work, we finally reached one of the milestones: the new playground is ready and open for children. (Well, grass and flowers still need to be newly planted and the sandbox doesn’t contain sand but gravel instead but hey – the children started to play “gravel quarry” so it’s fine for them!).

And after months and months of discussions and numerous complaints from all sides, everyone seems surprisingly happy with the new playground. And why shouldn’t we! It’s the best playground in the whole village and it’s right in front of our door. Even the fear that there wouldn’t be enough options for the very little ones didn’t become true: the climbing frames are perfectly fine for little children, the sandbox has finally been ground off so that we hopefully don’t risk any deep-down-to-the-bone-lacerations and despite the worries that the tree house with the including slide might be too dangerous and steep it took the little one only one week to climb and slide all by herself (with me watching anxiously from the ground). The only real disadvantages is the lack of shadow which was, however, foreseeable. What do you expect if you replace big trees with small ones (sigh….). But thanks to the cooler temperatures we are no longer restricted to play times before 10am and after 6pm but can climb and swing and slide all day long.

Hip, hip, hooray! 🙂

Posted in Switzerland, the little one | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

hanging on

Posted on 22. July 2015 by erdhummel

It’s early in the morning. Our flat is hot. The bedroom is hot. I feel hot. I mean, really hot. Not in the sexy sense of hot, but in the heat wave-14-kilos-too-much-weight-and-hormon-samba kind of hot. I try to roll from one side to the other.

At 5:30 the little one wakes up and demands a fresh diaper. One of the “firsts” that I’d welcome during the day, but please, not before 6am. It’s Karsten’s turn to play the hero and I can hear the sounds of a changing diaper. Shortly after, the little one seems to go back to sleep, but both Karsten and I are only halfheartedly snoozing away. About one hour later, the little one decides that she slept long enough for today.

The little one joins Karsten in the shower. Afterwards she wants something to drink and from what I hear something is wrong and she starts to rapidly jump up and down while tipping over her full glass of water. Karsten uses the “sh*” word which we agreed not to use anymore after our kid shouted it out loudly in the stairhall. I have a slight impression that it’s not going to be the best day for the little one (and consequently neither for me). Oh, how right I can already be at 7am in the morning….it’s a blessing and a punishment, I tell you…

The next two hours are characterized by two things: crying and slapping. Mind you, both coming from the little one. In five-minute intervals. Nothing is going right, according to her. Nothing is going right in my opinion neither. The temperatures rise.

After two hours, we walk to our friends flat as I have agreed to babysit the little one’s two older friends today. Already yesterday it sounded a bit like a kamikaze action considering the late pregnancy, my swollen feet and the heat. But I really like the kids (and so does the little one) and it is also a promising prospect that the little one might at least stop throwing tantrums for two hours.

The kids start the upcoming two hours with a wild jumping session on the sofa aka guest bed in the living room. Somehow I doubt that it is normally allowed to jump on it, but on the other hand I don’t feel like playing the bad cop in case it is allowed after all. After ten minutes the little one hits her head. I feel one or two drops of sweat on my forehead. In order to calm down the kids a bit, I decide to start a game that always worked incredibly well with my cousins, my nephews and my former babysitter kids: treasure hunt. First we make a treasure box (10 minutes of calm and quiet drawing!). Then I fill the treasure box with a treasure and hide it in the flat. And the following minutes, the kids are busy looking for the box. This is only the beginner’s version of the game, by the way. My proper treasure hunt involves several written hints which the kids have to solve. It takes some time to prepare, but it is still the most awesome way to keep them busy without risking injuries and tantrums. My one cousin was especially keen on treasure hunts. When he was twelve, I put an end to it as he decided that it was more fun to design them for me instead of me designing them for him and I wasn’t able to solve his equations with three unknowns…..

Well, the treasure hunts keeps us busy for another half an hour. Then the one kid is suddenly throwind a tantrum because I put something to eat on the table and he got the feeling that there weren’t enough snacks in form of small dragons for him (I assure you there were enough! But he can’t understand what I am saying because he is crying so loudly). After ten minutes of shouting, crying and angry tears, I decide that it is time for a halfway decent telling off. Which results in the fact that he grabs the plate with the snacks and bites it while wildly shaking his head so that the rest of the snacks are flying into every direction. One quick look to the side assures me that the little one is watching quietly but keenly. Yay.

Two minutes later, when everything is fine again, we start playing hide and seek. Until the little one hits – what? her head? her leg? her toe?…no idea, I am already hidden – and the game comes to an end. Instead the kids start jumping on the sofa again. We also have a tea party with small cups and plates designed for gnomes. It escalates when the oldest girl decides to empty the whole tea-pot of water on the table in order to “clean”. And the younger brother decides to do exactly the same,

Finally we are playing with building bricks when the older girl decides to use the cross trainer (another forbidden thing which I am unaware of) and tells the little one to step back so that she doesn’t get hurt. Which causes the little one to be inconsolably sad. While she is crying loudly, I hear the liberating sound of the key in the door. Phew.

We stay for lunch (funnily enough as soon as the parents were back it is completely fine for the kids to just sit on the sofa and read a book with me…) and afterwards the little one and I make our way back to our home. Just thirty metres, but the sunshine and the heat make us almost crawl. At home, the little one falls asleep right away and I followe ten minutes later.

After one hour, the little one wakes me up again. Her hair is sweaty. So is my whole body. One quick look and I know that her mood from this morning hasn’t really changed. I tell her to go back to her bed in order to snooze for some more minutes. It is indeed quiet for another 15 minutes which give me enough time to somehow roll out of bed and into the kitchen. As soon as I have an iced coffee in my hand, the little one joins me and starts, surprise-surprise, a small tantrum. I notice that my feet are so swollen that half of my toes don’t reach the floor anymore.

We have something to drink. She enjoyes the ice-cube in her cup. Until she tipps the glass over again. (oommmmmm).

I call my mother in law. When I finish, the little one throws another tantrum because she wanted to talk to her as well (she had her chance though, but she wouldn’t speak on the phone..). (Oommmmmm).

I try to call the health insurance to ensure that the registration for the baby is correct. The little one repeats non-stop that she wants to sit on my lap. The registration wasn’t registered (I try to escape the little one by going into the next room, but she follows, insisting that she wants to sit on my lap) so I have to do it again (underlined by a crying little one because she can’t sit on my lap. (Ooooommmmmmmmmmmmmm).

We sit down and have some chocolate ice-cream in order to make everyone happy. The little one is so eager to eat the ice-cream that she falls of the chair. (Ooommm).

I write Karsten a text that the person with the least mental breakdowns tonight wins and has to tidy up the flat. I write a second text that I just noticed he already won.

We go to the balcony and I try to convince her to play in the small paddling pool. She insists that she wants to go to a playgroup. As I wanted to make that call anyway, I try to call the playgroup team to ask whether the little one could join although she just turned two (playgroups are normally starting at the age of three. Before your kid turns three, your only chance of a social surrounding is the daycare which is far too expensive for us.). Unfortunately, I don’t reach anyone. While I am on the phone, the little one empties a whole bucket of water from the paddling pool into our living room. Is that a tear on my face or just sweat running down my cheeks??

In between, she suddenly grabs the bowl with the snacks, bites in it and shakes it wildly to all sides. Wait a second, that’s something I have already seen today…..(Ooommmm).

On the bright side, she uses the potty about ten times. I am still trying to figure out how to manage a day without diapers if my daughter apparently needs to pee every two minutes.

When checking my emails I find out that the postdoc position that Karsten and I had our hopes up for didn’t work out. Which means that we have basically no idea where we will live next year and whether or not one of us will have a job. Well, those are definitely tears on my face now. My desperation is even more increased when I notice that a turned down post doc position probably weighs more than the 50 or so mental breakdowns of today and that it is now up to me to tidy up the flat. Damn it.

Desperately waiting for salvation I start to read books to the little one. The one of the hedgehog and the mole who are saving all the animals from the torrential downpour. And the one of the hippo in the night train which looses its earring in the drain and Egon, the worm, takes a deep breath and dives into the drain to catch it. All of them feel very suitable considering my mental condition. I wonder whether our friends are up to the challenge to dive down the sewage pipe for me to make me happy again?

Then the little one makes a number two on the potty! For the first time since christmas Hooray! It’s the little things that make your day.

When Karsten comes home, it starts raining. There are even a few thunders and it feels a little bit cooler this evening. Maybe I will fit into my shoes again tomorrow.

Now we’ll eat more ice cream. I have tidied up the flat. And I was even generous enough to let Karsten choose which Ben&Jerry’s ice-cream cup he wants to eat. He went for cookie dough. That leaves peanut butter cups for me. It’s the little things, I tell you. And with these little things I keep hanging on.

Posted in Family, Miscellaneous, the little one | Tagged , , , , | 8 Comments

holiday snapshot number six: company

Posted on 20. July 2015 by erdhummel

During our last days at my parent’s garden, the little one and I enjoyed the company of my sister and her family. While I enjoyed the time to catch up a little bit, the little one was delighted to observe her older cousins – and to kiss and pet and watch the so far youngest member of the family. It’s always heartwarming to see the kids play together (peacefully, I may add!!). I pray that her enthusiasm for babies will last a bit longer 😉

Since a few days we are back in Switzerland and although our holiday was beautiful and relaxing I felt it was about time to get back home. Climbing the top bed in the night train isn’t getting easier when being nine months pregnant, and both the little one and myself were missing Karsten a lot. The little one has learned so much during the last three weeks that he felt a completely different child was coming back home. She is talking (and talking and talking) and getting more and more independent (at least she wants to be….doesn’t work out every now and then, unfortunately). She is also getting incredibly active which kind of contradicts my longing for sleep and staying in the shadow. Somehow we need to figure out how to make her tired during the next weeks. Temperatures are over 30°Celsius each and every day, we wake up completely sweaty in the morning and my feet are killing me (I normally am a huge fan of a hot water bottle in my bed in order to warm my feet, but right now I am using an ice pack instead and it still doesn’t get better). But there is lots to be done and still some stuff to be prepared….exciting times are lying ahead!

Please note: yes, the kids are painting the bench with water and yes, they are weeding the garden path, but they were doing it completely voluntarily…

Posted in Family, Germany, Travel | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

heat exhaustion

Posted on 18. July 2015 by erdhummel

If your husband stands next to your neighbour’s garden and you think he is joking when he tells you that he sets fire to it in order to burn the weeds which have been happily blooming and seeding away this summer, and if you then after some minutes recognise that it smells burned and you notice that your husband wasn’t joking but that he indeed set fire to the weeds after weeks and weeks of heat wave, then his action can only be excused by heat exhaustion…

Posted in Garden | Tagged , , , | 3 Comments