Sigh

You know it is going to be a long day when you have taken a walk, finished with the zoo, eaten a happy meal and exhausted the McPlayland all before noon. And hey, check out the countdown clock in my sidebar. Oh yeah.

On the upside, I fit into a pair of pre-pregnancy summer pants today. Which is nice. Since it's summer.

Euro 08 comes to an end in Bern

Well, Bern's part of playing host to the Euro 08 is over; from here on out we're not hosting any games anymore. Contrary to my concerns, it was really hardly an issue at all. On the three days we hosted the Dutch games the city was at capacity, but it was a friendly capacity. Once the Swiss team crashed out, the Bernese seemed to adopt the Dutch - staff at many restaurants were wearing Dutch jerseys and a lot of shops had "Hup Holland!" ("Go Holland!") banners up. But all in all I have to say the overall "Euro-phoria" was muted, to say the least.

Finding a fellow traveller

Remember "gaydar?" The little bell that goes off in the heads of the gay and gay-friendly that makes you think somebody is part of the community, a fellow traveller? That little something? Do you think infertiles have something similar? (What would we call it? Inf-dar? Bar-dar? ART-dar?) Because I did the strangest thing this afternoon.

I hold my cards pretty close to the vest regarding the whole IVF-thing. Neither my family nor R's knows that Small Boy and Boychen are IVF/FET babies (though sometimes I think R's mom might suspect). Some of our good friends know - three we told during the process, people we'd been friends with for over a decade and who stood up for us at our US wedding; but Small Boy was one before I told Dutch Friend and two before I told Australian Friend. I don't mind people knowing, but I don't broadcast it. As I said, I hold my cards pretty close to the vest.

Today I was at a playgroup some of the expat moms have been trying to get off the ground forever and talking with a new woman; I had come into the conversation late and she and Australian Friend were talking about how hard twins would have been and we don't know how we would have done it. But then we all agreed that we would have done it because it is what it is, and you just do it. Especially twins with a first (successful) pregnancy - you don't have any basis of comparison and infants are just hard anyway. And then we all agreed that twins the second time around would be really hard and I said - to a woman I'd just met five minutes ago - that when we were trying to get pregnant with the Small Boy I was willing to risk twins with a two-embryo transfer but the second time around, with Boychen, we only ever considered single embryo transfers. It just slipped out of mouth with all the natural ease in the world.

And she said, that's what we're doing too.

Whoa.

Her child is an IVF baby too. We have different REs but they use the same lab and she knows Herr G, the Labmeister, too; we agreed he's a super-nice guy. (Did I ever mention that after my last transfer - the Boychen transfer - we hung around with Herr G chatting about cycling, the Tour de France, Lance Armstrong, and Fabian Cancellara? Well we did.) What a small world. And how strange that I would have picked that moment, with that woman, to say something that honestly I never introduce into conversation.

What do you think, fellow ART-ers? Do you think we have an "ART-dar?" Has yours ever tingled? And were you right?

Officially Swissally

The boys' (I love saying "the boys" - who would have imagined I'd be saying "the boys?") Swiss passports and ID cards arrived (by registered mail). Small Boy is renewed and Boychen is official. Yay. (Well, Boychen was official at birth due to the whole Swissness of the Dada thing....but it's nice to have the documents.)

If I don't blog it, will it still happen?

Here's something I haven't blogged. Bern is one of the host cities for the Euro2008 (that's the European Football [aka soccer] Championships). I can't begin to express the many ways in which this does not excite me, but I'll try:

1. I'm not a football fan. I didn't grow up playing it, I didn't grow up watching it, and I'm too old and too busy to get interested in a new sport now.
2. I don't like crowds. When I lived in Washington, DC, inauguration day was a nightmare. Protest times were a nightmare. Heck, high tourist season was a nightmare. People lost, taking up tables at my favorite restaurants, crowding the Metro, people standing still on the left-hand side of of escalators! Ack.
3. I don't like drunken crowds.
4. I hate lines.
5. The Old Town is being converted into a fan-zone.
6. I have to cut through the Old Town to get to several of my old stand-by playgrounds and other interesting Smal Boy places.
7. Plus, I just like to hang out in the Old Town.
8. The stadium is on the same tram line as Dr. Norwegian (our pediatrician).
9. The most convenient grocery store to shop in with two small children is directly next to the stadium.
10. There are, apparantly, fears of a Wurst shortage! (link via This Non-American Life)
11. The camp ground that has apparantly been booked out by the Dutch is on the same tram line as our Tagesmutter.
12. The camp ground that has apparantly been booked out by the Dutch is just upstream from one of my Small Boy hangouts.
13. Half of the games start at 8:45 pm and will end around 10:30; so the horn-honking car brigades will roll from 10:30 until....?
14. The Euro2008 will last for three weeks.
15. R will be gone for those exact three weeks: 1 week in Zurich (also a host city) and two weeks in the United States!
16. Could there be a worse overlap?

Seriously. If I ignore this, will it go away?