HUGO XABI IS BORN & BOOK RECOMMENDATIONS PART 4

He decided to take his time, but on 6-2-2021 Hugo Xabi was born. His official due date was 29-1-2021, but at that time he was too busy chilling in the womb. We are super happy with the birth of little Huug, overwhelmed with love and joy and also super tired. This blog will feature some pictures of Hugo, a little birth story and I will finish off with my book recommendations as I had lots of time to read during my pregnancy leave.

Hugo Xabi

Just before I had a check up in the hospital to check if Huug still had sufficient fluids, as he officially was one week overdue, my contractions started at 7.30AM on 5-2-2021. I still decided to go to the hospital appointment as you never know if the contractions are real. Luckily everything looked fine and when I came back from the appointment my contractions started getting heavier. At around 2PM we were admitted to the hospital because I was 5 cm dilated. After that, giving birth was getting more complicated and the birth didn’t progress steadily. Around 3.30AM the next day we decided on having a C-section as his heart rate started getting unsteady when pushing and I was exhausted. More details available in personal conversations 😉 Hugo was born at 5.26AM on 6-2-2021. The moment the doctors lifted him out of my belly was the most incredible moment of my life and I loved him so much right away. I started crying with happiness. During the C-section it was discovered that Hugo sat in a weird corner of my belly, it was difficult to take him out of my belly even with the C-section. Because of his location it would have been almost impossible to give a natural birth so we were very happy with our decision to do a C-section. We had to stay in the hospital for two nights as I had to recover more before being allowed to go home. Luckily, Hugo was doing great at a very healthy 50 cm and 3570 grams. We were treated very well in the hospital, though it was a shame that we couldn’t have any visitors.

We are currently at home, after an exciting ride through the snow storm. We think it is very symbolic that we brought Huug home in the snow, as Hielke and I also met each other in the snow, it was meant to be. I am slowly recovering from the C-section and am in bed most of the time, so Hielke has a lot of tasks with Huug. It is exhausting and not the maternity leave I was expecting, but we will be fine and we are making progress each day. My mother and the maternity carer are taking care of us very well.

You probably have discovered that the nickname Huug that we used during the pregnancy is a short for his real name: Hugo. Originally we wanted to call him Xabi (I must even admit he looks like a Xabi), but Hugo has a special meaning to us. My late father’s name is Huub and Hielke’s “Spanish name” is Hugo. So this name relates to the both of us.

Book recommendations

During my pregnancy leave I had lots and lots of time to read, so I made sure 2021 was off to a good start of my book count. These are the books that I would recommend:

The authenticity project by Clare Pooley: Again, a romantic book that I loved! I guess pregnancy makes me more mushy than usual 😉 This book is about a few people that live in the same neighborhood that find a notebook that challenges them to live an authentic and honest life. They meet each other because of the notebook and they all end up having a life changing experience. This book gave me fuzzy feelings, just like Love Actually did. It’s the perfect feel good book to take your mind off the news.

The guest list by Lucy Foley: This book is a thriller about a wedding in Ireland, where all the guest seem to have something to hide for each other. It is a very fast paced, don’t think too much about it book, but the characters and surroundings were well described and the ending was satisfying.

Maybe you should talk to someone by Lori Gottlieb: This is a book about a therapist who decided to visit a therapist herself after she gets dumped by the love of her life. The chapters alternate between flashbacks of stories of clients and chapters in which she goes to therapy herself, a plot device that works very well and keeps you engaged. If you are interested in therapy this is definitely an interesting book as it reads like fiction, but also explains a lot of psychological theories behind therapy.

Stoorzender by Arjen Lubach (Dutch): Arjen Lubach is one of the Netherland’s most famous tv-presenters and this autobiography describes a few years of his life. Arjen is incredibly witty and liberal and I loved getting a detailed look into his brain. There is also a little mystery in this book that you can solve yourself: which DJ has gotten world famous with a song that was originally produced by Arjen?

Such a fun age by Kiley Reid: This is a novel about two women: a rich mother and the babysitter that she hires to look after one of her kids. The babysitter is black and gets into an accident in a supermarket when she is being accused of kidnapping, which kickstarts the story. The book is really easy to read, though it deals with difficult topics such as race, privilege and bias. I thought it was extremely well written and the book gave me a lot of food for thought.

21 lessons for the 21st century by Yuval Noah Harari: I don’t know what the 21 lessons exactly were, besides the chapters about different topics, but I did find this book very interesting. Yuval Noah Harari is a historian and philosopher and I loved his take on important topics such as technological and biological disruption. He gives many great examples of philosophical dilemma’s regarding for example self-driving cars and how they should be programmed. I found the book incredibly relevant and was surprised about how easy to read it was (compared to a book by his colleague Philipp Blom that expects you to have a lot of knowledge about philosophy before you start reading his books). If you are very religious you probably will not like this book, as it offers quite some criticism of religion.

Japan in honderd kleine stukjes by Paulien Cornelisse (Dutch): I love Japan, I love language and I love Paulien Cornelisse, so this book was a straight up winner. The book is full with cute little anecdotes, some of which are surprising and others are a trip down memory lane when you have been to Japan. Only downside to this book is that is was so short!

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