OK, I have been home from Brazil for 4 months, so I guess I should finish writing out some of my notes. I have a real problem with finishing what I start sometimes.
In my first post I got through our journey to Brazil and our first day there. I need to get through all of this before I forget, and I want to always remember Livia's first trip there.
Feb. 21st, Thursday
After breakfast we walked to the neighborhood grocery store/market to buy stuff for lunch. Braganca Paulista (the town) is VERY hilly. I wore Livia in the ring sling and it was a huge workout. Everything takes a little more time and effort, especially without a car. I was thinking that maybe I could get used to this kind of lifestyle. Then something else would happen and I would think I could never adjust. We are building a house in Brazil, with the intention of someday moving there. Maybe. The more time that passes the more comfortable we are in our lives here, the harder it is to pick up and move. Every immigrant I know always says they are returning home 'next year' and then end up staying ten or twenty more years. Even though I'm not an immigrant, we have that same kind of mentality. Who knows if we ever will move there, but in the meantime we are building our house. My mother-in-laws house is already built, directly behind our house. Families tend to live closer together in Brazil. It was great to see the house and how much progress has been made since I was there 3 years ago, when it was just a piece of land with tropical overgrowth.
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| the progress on our house in Brazil |
It was really difficult to not have access to my phone or a computer. I still carried my phone with me so I could use the calendar, games, and other features. It was a good thing to be away from technology but it was also boring!
One thing that was really stressful was the carseat situation. I took Livia's Graco bucket carseat, and it did NOT fit in most Brazilian cars. It was too long, their backseats do not have as much leg room as American cars. So a lot of times it would not be level, but I could at least lock it into place. In my brother-in-laws car, the seatbelt only locks in case of impact, so sometimes it was very unsafe--unleveled and the belt was not in locking position. I found out when we came back that you can get a lock clip for those kinds of seatbelts, so that was my fault for not researching it ahead of time. The main obstacle was that in smaller cities and towns the carseat laws in Brazil are not enforced. People seemed to view carseats as optional, and would encourage me to take Livia out of hers if she was fussing or not bring it at all if we were just going somewhere in town. It was extremely stressful and if we were riding somewhere when I knew her carseat was not properly secured, all I could think about was that if we got in a wreck and she died, it would definitely be my fault. I looked in to buying a Brazilian carseat but the ONLY one I saw in the stores in Braganca was over $200.
At night we went to a churrasco (Brazilian barbecue, as in grilled meats, NOT BBQ sauce) at a family friend's house. I had met most of them when I was in Brazil in 2010, so it was fun. One of the ladies there had a baby who was born the same day as Livia. She started telling me her birth story. She went on and and and on, she really is a nice lady, just very talkative. Her story was very interesting. Her water broke a month early while she was out in the country and she didn't know it had broken, just thought she was peeing a lot. By the time she went to the hospital 3 days later, she had barely any fluid left. In Brazil, they have a public healthcare system that is free, but a lot of people also have private insurance in order to get better care. Unfortunately, she didn't have her insurance card with her so her doctor didn't believe her that she had other insurance. Since she was "just" a public patient he told her "your baby will be stillborn, there is nothing we can do." A few hours later her husband got there with their insurance information and they rushed her in for an emergency c-section. Her little boy was just fine! Now, I really had mixed feelings while listening to her story. Of course I was glad he was alive, but also jealous, because isn't that every stillbirth mom's dream/fantasy? That it was all a big mistake and never mind, your baby is ok! Why coudln't that have happened to Kayla? I was also so mad that money and class play such a role in medical care (not just in Brazil). But then, I also realized that maybe she could relate just a little bit to what I felt because she actually was told that her baby was going to die. After all of that, I did not share with her that I had actually had a child die. I didn't want it to seem like I was one-upping her with my story, and there was a room full of people in a party atmosphere and it didn't feel like I could give Kayla's story justice in that environment.
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| Sao Paulo, Brazil. Two miracle babies born on the same day. |
Feb 22, 2013
Both Livia and I started getting a cold/allergies a couple days into our trip. The air was so dry there and we were both coughing a lot. It was also very hot and not a lot of places had air conditioning. We took the bus into the center of town and had to walk up a huge hill to get there, with Livia in the ring sling. There was no way my stroller would have worked with the bus, hills, and no sidewalks. But, it was worth it to walk around the markets. I love buying all the fresh fruits and vegetables right from the sellers. We drank some fresh pinneapple with mint juice, and iced guava juice.
Everywhere we went Livia got tons of attention, and she loved it! Brazilians in general really love babies. My mother in law also started having espresso and cake in the afternoons and really just talking to each other. We finally got to talk in-depth about Kayla which was nice. She was kind of quiet when Kayla died, and so I wasn't sure how involved she wanted to be. But she shared with me that it was just the distance plus her own grief. A few months after Kayla died, her next door neighbor started hemorraghing at 20 weeks pregnant and eventually lost her baby boy. My mother-in-law was the one to really take care of her, cook for her, be there in the early days. She said it felt good to be able to take care of someone else like that since she couldn't be there for us when Kayla died. That meant a lot and I like hearing stories of how Kayla has changed people's lives.
Feb 23 & 24th, 2013
Our first weekend there, we went to Pedra Bela, a small town where my sister-in-law's family lives. It is beautiful to get out of the city and the countryside was really green. Livia had to be very adaptable, going from place to place, sleeping on air mattresses, fold out beds, etc. Overall she did great and proved that she is a great traveler. I liked being around my sister-in-law Juliana's family, they are very open and loving. We even went out for a "typical" pizza dinner at about 10 pm. No one thought it was crazy to have the baby out that late! I also never saw a high chair the whole time we were there, so Livia stayed on my lap.
The next morning we hiked up the "beautiful rock" (Pedra Bela in Portuguese). There is some story about a religious experience on the mountainside that no one really explained fully, so there is a church at the top and lots of statues of saints on the way up. It also is home to one of the longest zip lines in South America (maybe THE longest), at 2 km long. I did NOT go down the zipline, because that's not what you do in a foreign country when you are your daughters only guardian present. Also, it was scary looking!
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| Making sugar cane juice in the back of his van |
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| sister-in-law w/ Livia, me, Mother-in-law, Juliana's sister |
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