Tangerine's PoV

He is the best thing in the world.

Welcome Alex! We hope you will enjoy your stay in this world as much as you shit and cry!!

This is the end. One of these days you will decide to live on your own, you will decide you don’t need my belly to hide yourself anymore, you will decide I’m no longer a comfortable place for you. I’m scared, I don’t pretend to lie and seem strong, I’m not. I’m scared because I know it will hurt so much I won’t be able to think of you, I will only want you out. I’m scared because I know our lives will not be the same with you out. Your daddy is dying to see you, your grandparents also, as for me… I don’t know. I want to see you but I guess I enjoy having you inside, I am the one priviledged to have you inside, I have a special communication with you and you can only beat me. In a somewhat selfish way I’d like to enjoy a little bit more this special relationship because I know that we will never feel this connection again. It’s a quite strange feeling, I’d like to see you but I’d also like to keep you inside. Inside there you’re so innocent, so untouched, so pure… But you have to get out, it’s time now… Get ready and please push with mummy, I will surely be grateful for it all my life.

I’d like to tell you more things but it seems you are not very comfortable when I’m sitting on this chair and I have to take you to bed. I’ll tell you a story until you fall asleep now that I can still talk to you without saying a word.

I’ll wait for you to give me a sign. When you’re ready, I’m ready.

One year ago at 5 o’clock in the morning I was going to the airport with my luggage, my memories, my hopes, my illusions, and looking forward to see B and start a new life with him. I had left my parent’s house the day before, with tears in my eyes although I still had the hope that it will be fine and I’d have a better life in Barcelona. I arrived to Bucharest the night before at around 10 PM. I went out with the girls to have dinner in Piranha, where we laughed, we talked as we used to as if it was an usual night. Then I went to Cornelia’s house to sleep or something. We eventually chose the “something” so we didn’t sleep that night. We talked about work, about our friends, about how my life would be far away. 4 days before I had left Softwin thinking that I would get a better job in Spain. I remember the day I left, I use to see the pics now and then. Half of my colleagues were friends. I remember when we had to work on Christmas we spent the night there with champagne and “sarmale”, playing badminton and attending the clients in the meantime. But I left… with a smile on my face…

113, the taxi that I used to go to work with came to pick me up and left me at the airport. I came to hate airports because I had to travel so much in the previous months but still, that morning the feeling I had was the most peculiar feeling I ever had. I remember I was dying to get to Barcelona, to see B, to see our new house, to see Terrassa, but I knew that I had left my friends behind, that I didn’t know anyone but B in Barcelona and that it would be hard to make friends again in a country where romanians are not that well considered, and that my only family will be B. And I left…

Today I was talking to B:

- Today it’s the 4th of July, I told him.

- Oh, it’s been one year since you’re here.

- Yeah…

- Shall we celebrate or forget about it?

I still don’t know… Since I came here I cried more that I ever cried, I missed my country more than I thought I would, I was close to go back several times. It was definitely not what I expected, not what I dreamed, and it was hard to stay here and not to leave everything and go back to where I was considered a person.

First of all school… I have never seen so many posh people together. God I hate it… All defending Catalonia as a country and defending the Catalan language because of course it was so hard when they was punished for speaking Catalan. OH MY GOD! They are 18 years old, what do they know about that??? When they were born all this had ended and world was a peaceful and lovely place. Until they “grew up”, of course…

And then work… where you’re an immigrant and they don’t pay you what they should pay you and you cannot say anything. When you are willing to do anything for the company, when you spend extra hours in there, you would at least want for that to be seen and considered (not materially, but at least you would wait to see their respect). Where they treat you as you would depend on them… And you do… And you would like to run away, to say something but you can’t because there HE is, to talk shit about you just because you got pregnant without asking for his permission. And just because you don’t want to play his game, and talk shit about him you have to stand still and see how people look at you as if you were the worst person in the world. And you deserve more than that, you go home, you cry, you get back and look people in the eyes hoping that they will finally see who you are. But that moment never comes… I’d really like to feel person again…

So here goes the question again… “should we celebrate or forget about it?”

Work sucks, the university too, people here are strange, whenever I need a paper I have to queue for at least 4 hours, everytime someone asks me where I am from I see that look in their eyes… I hate that look…

But there are things that can still make me forget about this and have a close to normal life here… B who helped me most of the times to get over it and A who is growing inside my belly and who moves from time to time to tell me that he is there and I can count on him. My two reasons to stay here and the two persons that can still make me happy, my two reasons for living. This year, after all, brought what I thought I would never have: A.

B, thank you, for this and for being with me all this time… I finally, after one year, could take a photo of you smiling.

So… shall we celebrate or forget about this day, about this year and hope for better days? I decided to forget the bad things, and consider that this was an year with you, and year seeing you eveyday when I woke up, and year who brought us the little alien, a wonderful year after all. So… for that and for other unknown reasons, consider yourself invited to dinner. You pick the place!

This one goes for you:

It’s been 7 months since the baby exists inside there, 7 months since our lives are not the same, not even a bit. I remeber my life, what I did, what I had before and I see it empty, senseless. I remember I could understand the ones that had kids, I remember I could understand what it was to be a mother, but I didn’t, and I still don’t; everything I thought I knew before about it is wrong, completely wrong. You cannot explain what it is to be a mother or a father, and trying to explain it is useless: the ones that have kids don’t need an explanation and the ones that don’t have kids will not understand it until they eventually have kids.

I remember when I found out that I was pregnant. I went with the test to tell B. and he looked at me with the specific look he has in his eyes when he doesn’t understand a thing. I remember him asking “What does that mean?”. I was starting to freak out, I didn’t believe it, and he kept telling me that it would be ok, it would be fine. I couldn’t believe it, I bought another test, positive, I went to the hospital to ask for a test, positive. It was all so unbelievable. Now, 6 months later I know it will be fine and I know that our lives have no sense without the little alien I carry inside.

2 months and we will see him, we will hear him cry (maybe too much), we will hug him and we will be parents, young parents, good parents. I know that we will have to give up things, lots of things, and that we could have enjoyed more our youth, but still, we still have the hope that with 30 years we will have an 8 years old child and we will be able to enjoy our youth in a better way.

Alex is a gift for us, he will make our lives better, shinier, and we will try to give him everything a child could wish for: a good education, common sense, scalextric cars, passion for the music and lots of things we have to share with him. We are anxious to welcome him home.

We are definitely living in Barcelona now. We may not have lamps already, the apartament is not clean already, but we’re here and we love it.

Here you have a preview of it: The new gran

After almost one year of living in Terrassa and spending 3 hours/day in the train/bus we finally got sick of it. A small problem in the apartment also helped a bit, and we finally decided to move to Barcelona, look for something close to work, etc… Hard task, as we work in the center of Barcelona. But we did it! We found an apartament and at the end of this week we’ll have the keys. Starting from next week (I hope) we will only have to walk for 15 minutes to get home. And I am at 10 minutes from the University. And the zone is precious. We will definitely post photos of the apartment and the zone soon.

Gràcia, here we come!!!

Yeah, he’s a little boy, as we thought he’d be!

Welcome little Alex!

On Thursday we will finally find out if we will have a boy or a girl (of course if he wants to show his/her face). Meanwhile I wanted to see what the Old wives would say, as I have some suspicions that he will be a boy (maybe because since I’m pregnant I have became allergic to earrings).

Nevertheless the test did not help too much. The results:

You have a 52% chance of having a boy.

 And you have a 47% chance of having a girl.

I had a 50 % chance before of having any of the two, and now I have 52% chance to have a boy. Does this result mean that I have a 1% chance to have a cat, or a dog, or maybe a horse? I don’t understand this, but well, when I studied mathmatics things used to be different.

And Here’s Why I got this result…

You are carrying the extra weight out front, so it’s a boy.
The hair on your legs is not growing any faster during your preganacy, so it’s a girl.
Boys are carried low. You are going to have a boy.
Sleeping in a bed with your pillow to the south indicates that you will be having a girl.
Your feet are not colder than they were before pregnancy. You are having a girl.
You refuse to eat the heel of a loaf of bread. You are having a girl.
Dad-to-be is gaining weight right along with Mom-to-be, which means that you’ll have a boy.
The maternal grandmother doesn’t have gray hair (dyed or natural), so a girl will be born.
You had morning sickness early in pregnancy, so you are expecting a girl.
You are not looking particularly good during pregnancy. Therefore, it must be a girl, because girls steal their mother’s looks.
Your chest development has been quite dramatic during pregnancy. You should expect a girl.
Since the sum of the mother’s age at conception and the number of the month of conception is even, it will be a boy.
A needle on a thread held over you belly moves from side-to-side, so it will be a girl.
Your urine is a bright neon yellow color, so you will have a boy.
You have a craving for salty or sour foods, which means that it is a boy.
Your nose has been spreading, which indicates a boy.
You have been craving meats or cheeses, so it is a boy.
Your baby’s heart rate is 140 or more beats per minute, so it’s a girl.
You have no desire for orange juice, so it’s a boy.
You are having headaches, so it’s a boy.
Your belly looks like a basketball, so it’s a boy.
You show the back of your hand, so it’s a boy.
You use the body of the mug, so it’s a girl.

On Thursday we will see if the Old Wives are right or not. At least it has a 99% possibilty to be a human being.

Week 18:

How’s the baby?

According to  the scientists the baby should measure up to 15 cm now and should start to do that particular activity that babies most like: sucking their thumb. I still think he’s a boy even if in the last two scans he turned his back to us shamelessly and we could not confirm it, but still, something inside me tells me he’s a boy (maybe because he likes to play Ronaldinho inside my belly with my ovaries). Anyway, if she’s a girl I promise I will not make her wear the blue clothes we bought for the little baby to be. As in both cases the name would have the same initial I will call the little bulb A for the next two weeks (I hope he/she will open his/her legs and let us admire his/her little treasure “You’d better start opening your legs if you don’t want to live naked the first days of your life”).

I think the baby has a special relationship with his father. A few days ago B was ill and when I thought he was better I felt asleep. A few hours later I felt a strong pain in my belly which made me wake up in 0,30 seconds. I found B sweating, with fever and feeling very ill. Also when I get angry with B and I shout or anything similar I feel A kicking my ovaries. I know he cannot hear anything yet, and that he can feel what I feel, but why don’t I feel this when I get angry with any other person? B may have a new ally. Lucky him.

How’s mom?

The belly is getting bigger and bigger everyday. I still cannot understand how I don’t put on weight and I have such a big belly. I hope the next time I visit my doctor I will find an answer to this.

The first three months passed but I still feel exhausted sometimes. Luckily spring is here and the light and the sun gives me more energy, otherwise I would still do nothing but work and sleep every day.  It’s true what thy say; that after the first three months you start to feel better. B is starting to notice this also, I don’t get angry that easily and we are getting along very well these days.

As starting from the week 20 A will be able to  hear I will start to prepare a music selection that will not include Pantera (right, B?), and that I will play for the baby now and after he is born. Will he recognize the songs when he hears them after he is born as scientists say?

Message to non-pregnant people

I am angry with people in general today because nobody lets you sit in the bus/metro/train/anypublictransportationatall. And I don’t speak about myself here, I still can stand and support my belly successfully, but the poor women that are in 8 or 9 months can hardly stand, and still are seen as “enemies” when they enter the public transporation and are not offered a seat, and if they are this happens only when someone has to get off the bus/train/stuff. This works like this with pregnant women, with old people and with anyone who needs special attention. What makes me really sick is that a lot of the persons in a bus/train are women that were pregnant someday and know how it feels. And these are the women that you will later see fighting for solidarity and women rights. Shame to you all!

“I’ve seen your face a hundred times
Everyday weve been apart
I dont care about the sunshine, yeah
cause mama, mama, Im coming home
Im coming home”

Finally, the day arrived. Tonight we will fly to Romania to spend two weeks with my family. It’s funny when they say “You’ll see, when you live abroad you will spend all of your holidays in your home country with your family”, and you think “Yeah, right. Maybe, but not me.”. And then a few months pass and your only dream is to get to what was your home before and see your family, enjoy of a few days of peace. I guess this is the beginning, and I will eventually get used to it, but for the moment all I want is arrive to Bucharest, see my friends, go to KFC (in Spain KFC is not comparable to the Romanian KFC) then go to Vaslui and see my parents and my brother and spend time with them, talk to them and show Bruno where I was born, where I used to study, and why not? where I used to get drunk, or something.

We will post photos, as now we have a memory card for the new camera (Lumix DMC FZ7) .  Happy Easter to all of you, and to some of you “See you this Sunday”.