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I apologise for the absolutely obscene length of this. I tried editing it down, but once I get going it's really hard to shut me up. Also, it's been two months so I just need to post the damn thing already.

Gjörið svo vel!

I was due January 23rd. Several days on I was still twiddling my thumbs, waiting for some sign that labor might be imminent.

Borgar & I went to sleep at around 3am on Sunday the 27th. About an hour later I woke up with bad abdominal pains. I stumbled half-asleep to the kitchen to get a glass of water and noticed that it was 4.12am. The pain disappeared and I went back to sleep without thinking much of it.

Around 5am I woke up in pain again. It felt like extremely bad cramps and lasted about a minute. I realised it couldn't be anything other than contractions. YAY‼ Finally, something was happening!

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Borgar:

Sarah:

Mía:

Lots more photos on mia.is and my Flickr page. :)

My dear Grandma, Betty, passed away on Friday. She was very much loved by everyone who knew her, and she will be very greatly missed.

Rest in peace, Grandma.

Apparently it's Konudagur today. Borgar got me red roses and cake. Not just any old cake either, but Cake of the Year. For those of you who don't read Icelandic, it's made of several layers: chocolate cake, nut-flavoured cake, chocolate-coffee mousse, then coated with a white chocolate glaze. I highly recommend it!

Mía had her 1 week birthday yesterday. I meant to have her birth story written & published by now, but man, that thing is turning into a novel!

So far everything's going really well. She's feeding well and is a pretty easy baby overall. She already has a little bit of a cold & fever, but she's fine. She's growing & changing every day. I swear she looks different every time I see her! Her eyes are changing from dark blue to lighter blue, and it could be my imagination, but I think her hair is getting a reddish tone to it. When she was born my first thought was that she was Borgar's mini-me, but now I think she's a pretty even blend of the two of us.

Borgar has been beyond amazing! He's head-over-heels in love with his daughter and has taken to being a father like he never did anything else. Mía is of course very dependent on me as she's breastfeeding, and in turn we're both very dependent on Borgar, who has been waiting on us hand & foot with no complaint. I do feel a little guilty that I get so much time with the baby while Borgar runs around taking care of everything else, but I guess that's just the nature of things at this stage.

I'm doing pretty well physically. I wasn't prepared for how rough the postpartum healing would be, but it's getting better. I've been extremely lucky with everything else. My tummy was flat within a couple of days of giving birth and I've already lost all the baby-weight. My boobs are something else! A couple of days ago I would have put Pamela Anderson to shame, but they seem to be going back to normal now…thank god!

That's about all the news for now. I'm going to try to post the birth story within the next few days!

I've posted some baby photos here. If you have a Flickr account then make sure you're signed in as I've set some of the pics to be viewable only by friends & family. I'll try to add some more over the next few days, so check back!

Our baby girl is here‼ :)

She arrived at 3.38am on Monday the 28th, 52cm long and weighing in at 3,550g. She's perfect in every way and Borgar & I are absolutely ecstatic to be parents. :)

Thanks for all the congrats messages! I really appreciate them and I hope you guys understand me not having time to reply right now. ;)

Anyway, that's the quick update. I'm going to try to write a proper birth story and post some pics here soon!

It's my due date today! It's so weird. I've had this date, January 23, in my mind for so long and now it's finally here. :) I wish I could say the same thing for the baby, but she seems to be perfectly comfortable in there and not showing many signs of wanting to join us anytime soon.

I'm guessing I have a few days left. I'm aiming for Saturday as it's Australia Day, or next Tuesday, because it's Úlfar's (Borgar's brother) 30 birthday. We'll see!

Today I learned that some churches will not christen babies. They believe that that's a choice for an adult to make, so they won't do it until a person is old enough to decide for themselves. Instead they offer some kind of naming/presentation ceremony for the parents & congregation to welcome the baby.

I think that's pretty cool. I mean I know plenty of Christians who agree with that sentiment and choose not to have their children baptised until they're old enough to express a desire to do so; I just didn't realise that some churches actually have a set policy about it.

With all the ass-backwardsness I've been hearing from the church lately, it's nice to be reminded that some churches actually have some pretty progressive ideas. :)

I've no idea if any churches here in Iceland do this…I suspect not. Anyone know?