Tomorrow we will enter the period in which, if the birth takes place, it will be considered that the pregnancy had normal duration.
Being so close to having a son (probably) is really exciting. They bay has grown a lot and for several months my wife and I can "play" with him by touching the belly in parts where his legs or hands are pressing , and noticing all the movements. It's really funny to notice how he stretches or how he reacts when we touch his feet^^.
We have finally prepared the emergency bag for the hospital, and we believe we have everything more or less ready. We have lots of clothes that everybody has been giving us, several toys and things that other expats have offered to us, a bed and a stroller.
The stroller took a lot of time and effort. When we first checked what was there in the market, we visited some internet pages, read recommendations and such things. We created a certain picture in our mind, about what exactly did we want for a stroller.
First of all, we wanted a 2 in 1. This model has two different baskets, one were the baby lays on his back and is meant for small babies, and another one that is more like a sit, but that can be rearranged in several ways, for older babies. These two baskets needed to be of good quality and with several settings, while being able to protect the baby from the sun, the cold, or from insects. Then we wanted big wheels, since Adler has quite hard streets, and we needed something resistant and able to move with obstacles and bumps. We also wanted to be able to turn the stroller without having to lift the front wheels. We wanted a basket under the stroller with easy access, and finally we wanted it to be as light as possible (the lighter ones are around 11 Kg). We would also like nice colours in the stroller, but we were more flexible in that aspect. Finally the price should not be very expensive.
This was clearly impossible to get.
First thing we did was visiting all the shops we could find in Adler and Sochi. We actually did several trips to Sochi, to one big shopping centre, so we could see a selection of strollers. However, most shops in that centre had a very small selection. In Adler things were not much better, but there was a couple of shops that had some more strollers.
All of these strollers were not even close to our requirements. Most were transformers or 3 in 1. Some 2 in 1 had big wheels, but could not turn them at all. Even the expensive ones were bad, without turning wheels or with terrible handlebars. One of the most decent ones had a stupid bar that did not allow access to the basket, and most of them were almost 20 Kg in weight.
We have spent close to 2 months visiting these shops, from time to time, and with no luck. After a while we decided to turn to internet, to see if we could order the stroller from there.
In shops outside Russia there were awesome strollers, but also really expensive ones. However, the sending prices were huge, and would take months to reach us. If that wasn't enough, to enter the country we would need to pay taxes, and the price easily doubled.
As per the Russian on-line shops, prices were not much cheaper plus we had no trust in them. It seems in Russia it's still normal to put a website and then cheat and trick people out of their money. In normal countries these practices are mostly eliminated, because they're not productive at all, but well, it's Russia.
We've also heard that deliveries in Russia may take 2 months, and you may find your package open and missing something. Besides, since the country is so big, maybe they don't even send things to the place where you live.
We couldn't trust on-line shopping. We were already thinking we would buy a second hand transformer for a cheap price, and get a good stroller in Barcelona.
However, a couple of weeks ago, we were in one of the baby shops trying to buy other things for the baby, and we checked strollers one more time, just for fun. In the middle of the usual ones, there was one that looked new, decent, and that had all the things we wanted. After asking about it, it turned out it was really new, just arrived to the shop. They had it in a couple of colours.
We checked the stroller, and it was really good. We really liked it. We ordered one in a different colour, and picked it up the following week.
It was a great release. We were not thinking about it, but we were very tired of trying to find the ideal one, and we felt very lucky to have found this by random chance.
However, this showed us the difficulties of buying anything in here. They don't have consistent deliveries, they don't have the same products, they have very limited stock, and you cannot trust on-line shops.
All in all, we're really glad we will not be living here once the Olympics finish...
Being so close to having a son (probably) is really exciting. They bay has grown a lot and for several months my wife and I can "play" with him by touching the belly in parts where his legs or hands are pressing , and noticing all the movements. It's really funny to notice how he stretches or how he reacts when we touch his feet^^.
We have finally prepared the emergency bag for the hospital, and we believe we have everything more or less ready. We have lots of clothes that everybody has been giving us, several toys and things that other expats have offered to us, a bed and a stroller.
The stroller took a lot of time and effort. When we first checked what was there in the market, we visited some internet pages, read recommendations and such things. We created a certain picture in our mind, about what exactly did we want for a stroller.
First of all, we wanted a 2 in 1. This model has two different baskets, one were the baby lays on his back and is meant for small babies, and another one that is more like a sit, but that can be rearranged in several ways, for older babies. These two baskets needed to be of good quality and with several settings, while being able to protect the baby from the sun, the cold, or from insects. Then we wanted big wheels, since Adler has quite hard streets, and we needed something resistant and able to move with obstacles and bumps. We also wanted to be able to turn the stroller without having to lift the front wheels. We wanted a basket under the stroller with easy access, and finally we wanted it to be as light as possible (the lighter ones are around 11 Kg). We would also like nice colours in the stroller, but we were more flexible in that aspect. Finally the price should not be very expensive.
This was clearly impossible to get.
First thing we did was visiting all the shops we could find in Adler and Sochi. We actually did several trips to Sochi, to one big shopping centre, so we could see a selection of strollers. However, most shops in that centre had a very small selection. In Adler things were not much better, but there was a couple of shops that had some more strollers.
All of these strollers were not even close to our requirements. Most were transformers or 3 in 1. Some 2 in 1 had big wheels, but could not turn them at all. Even the expensive ones were bad, without turning wheels or with terrible handlebars. One of the most decent ones had a stupid bar that did not allow access to the basket, and most of them were almost 20 Kg in weight.
We have spent close to 2 months visiting these shops, from time to time, and with no luck. After a while we decided to turn to internet, to see if we could order the stroller from there.
In shops outside Russia there were awesome strollers, but also really expensive ones. However, the sending prices were huge, and would take months to reach us. If that wasn't enough, to enter the country we would need to pay taxes, and the price easily doubled.
As per the Russian on-line shops, prices were not much cheaper plus we had no trust in them. It seems in Russia it's still normal to put a website and then cheat and trick people out of their money. In normal countries these practices are mostly eliminated, because they're not productive at all, but well, it's Russia.
We've also heard that deliveries in Russia may take 2 months, and you may find your package open and missing something. Besides, since the country is so big, maybe they don't even send things to the place where you live.
We couldn't trust on-line shopping. We were already thinking we would buy a second hand transformer for a cheap price, and get a good stroller in Barcelona.
However, a couple of weeks ago, we were in one of the baby shops trying to buy other things for the baby, and we checked strollers one more time, just for fun. In the middle of the usual ones, there was one that looked new, decent, and that had all the things we wanted. After asking about it, it turned out it was really new, just arrived to the shop. They had it in a couple of colours.
We checked the stroller, and it was really good. We really liked it. We ordered one in a different colour, and picked it up the following week.
It was a great release. We were not thinking about it, but we were very tired of trying to find the ideal one, and we felt very lucky to have found this by random chance.
However, this showed us the difficulties of buying anything in here. They don't have consistent deliveries, they don't have the same products, they have very limited stock, and you cannot trust on-line shops.
All in all, we're really glad we will not be living here once the Olympics finish...
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