Heja Herrljunga!: Our Story

I've been wanting to sit down and write this update for a long while, but I just haven't had the time to commit to capturing all the moving parts of my life and how they all blend into the picture of a not-so-new yet not-so-seasoned expat in Sweden :)

But I'm here now, so.... no time like the present! Let's just dive right in :)

What I've been up to since moving to Sweden!

Well, isn't that a loaded question ;)

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THE FIRST YEAR
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The first year was MUCH slower than I had anticipated. I had expected to get a head start, dive right in, and not be one of those people who had lived in Sweden for years and "barely accomplished anything". Little did I know, the delays and slippage of time was inevitable. Everything here takes a lot of time. From getting an appointment to do the biometrics (I've heard stories that some cities have a queue of 6-12 months!?) to getting your residence card, and then filing for your PN, and then eventually getting your ID Kort..... and then queueing for SFI or SAS classes, and so forth.... navigating Arbetsförmedlingen and learning about nystartsjobb and instegsjobb opportunities, praktik positions, or heck! Just learning how to write a resume ("CV") the 'Swedish Way'... all of these things consume that first year.

I spent my first year in Sweden getting all my necessary ID cards, signing up for SFI, waiting 9 months for a seat in a distance class, and attending prenatal appointments. 6 months after I moved, I had my first baby and JESUS CHRIST was that a lot to handle!! Note to future migrants: Moving to a new country is hard enough as it is; try to avoid doing it while pregnant, especially if it's your first kid. Talk about adding stress onto stress!!!

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THE SECOND YEAR
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The second year was actually the hardest year for me. The first year, while full of a bunch of paperwork, was still super exciting. I just enjoyed my pregnancy and the break I was getting from quitting my super stressful job back in Los Angeles. I was thriving on my savings, buying all kinds of baby things and researching baby products, reading books and preparing for labor, working out and cooking good food. I walked the dogs every day and just really reveled in enjoying being reunited with my Swede <3

But the second year was time for business. I had my baby and was ushered into the world of new parenthood and all the enormous stresses it put on my life, our finances, and even our relationship. Anyone who has had a child for the first time, knows what I'm talking about. But it was made even more difficult by the fact that I was living through my first Swedish winter with a newborn and so far away from my family and support system. I developed a nasty case of postpartum depression and no counselors spoke English in my kommun, so I just walked that path on my own. I changed a lot as a person in my second year in Sweden, and all I can say is - thank god my husband is who he is. I affected him GREATLY in my personal struggles of recovery, but he loved me through the whole thing. I am so indebted to him, the man he is, and how he stepped up to the plate. And we are so much stronger for what we've been through.

We also got married in my second year! We traveled to the US half way through the year as well for our daughter's first birthday, and CRAP was that a needed trip. My parents gave us cash for our wedding gift and we LIVED IT UP ;D ;D Shopping sprees on shopping sprees!

But my bank account was still rapidly dwindling and I hadn't pursued Svenska som andra språk after finishing SFI because I was so overwhelmed with my daughter's first year of life (and my postpartum depression issues) that I couldn't bear to add one more thing to my plate. And without Swedish, I couldn't get a job. So that was starting to stress me out. Not to mention, my 1-year driving license exemption had long run out, and I needed to start studying for that ASAP because how could I even get to SAS classes or a job without a license!? I was already driving locally with an expired foreign license as it was.... (which I DO NOT recommend!!!!!)....

So, the last part of my second year was dedicated to studying for my license. I spent one of the last 10,000kr in my savings to pay for all the classes and such needed, and treated getting my license as a job. Our daughter started förskola at 15 months of age just 2 months before my second year was finished, and later that month I took (and passed!!!) both driving tests. A couple weeks after that, I applied for my permit extension, and was granted PUT 4 weeks later. HALLELUJAH!!

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THE THIRD YEAR
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The third year was when I really got my life back on track, but I didn't mention one major thing from the end of my second year - and I want to use this as a segway to a future couple of blog posts I want to make for those who might find themselves in a similar position as me in the future:

At the very end of my second year in Sweden and the very beginning of my third year, I suffered two back-to-back miscarriages.

We had one in January, and another in March - actually, the loss in March officially began on 1 April 2018; April Fool's Day. So cruel.

We had decided to start trying for our second baby in January now that our daughter was stable and in förskola, and I had gotten my license and was registered for Svenska som andra språk classes. Our reasoning was that I was already halfway to age 35 and we didn't want to wait much longer given that fertility issues can arise once a woman reaches that age. But I had passed some major milestones: I had my PUT, I had my Swedish driver's license, and assuming it would take us 6-12 months to get pregnant, we figured I would be able to make a lot of progress into SAS classes (while collecting CSN - $$) and I could look for work at the same time. I'd get a job, I'd fall pregnant, and it would all fall into place. Right!??

Not really.

I will detail my two miscarriage stories later when I get around to beginning my Pregnancy in Sweden series; but for now, I'll leave out the gory details. But long story short, we tried a third time in April after the two losses, and successfully conceived a healthy baby! <3

But this all went a lot quicker than we had anticipated, nonetheless. I genuinely thought it would take us the full 6-12 months to even conceive once. I finished SAS Grund during my first trimester, and at the very end of my course, I got a job!! I work 50% right now doing marketing and communications at a local Med-Tech company, and it is going great. The woman who hired me is the mom of one of the kids at my daughter's förskola, and we have grown quite close. So I spent my summer focusing on work (and surviving the rest of my first trimester), and then after summer, I began SAS 1.

I am actually only about halfway through my third year in Sweden at the time of writing this, but life is beautiful and it has FINALLY fallen into place. My husband and I just enjoyed our first wedding anniversary; our daughter turns 2 years old in just 3 days(!); I am 25 weeks pregnant with our son (IT'S A BOY!!) who is due on New Year's Eve(!); and I am working at 50% and studying SAS 1 at 50%. The class actually doesn't end until after my son's due date, so I'm going to need to test out early. But my plan is to just keep working and studying up until the bitter end :) I hope to test out of SAS at the beginning of December so I can just focus on work and my pregnancy in that last month, and then we'll see what happens.

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LIFE IN THE NEAR-FUTURE
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Since I didn't folkbokförd myself immediately after moving to Sweden, I am actually not eligible to apply for citizenship until (I believe) April 7, 2019. By then, our son should be about 3 months old and the weather should be getting better. So our plan is to spend the first 3 months home together with our kids on parental leave, get our son his Swedish passport in that time, and then conclude it with a trip to Stockholm to register our son as a US citizen after which we will immediately submit my paperwork and passport to Migrationsverket for my citizenship application (assuming they still ask for your passport in the beginning?) We plan to travel to the US around Christmas 2019, so hopefully I'll have my citizenship by then (doubtful), otherwise I'll need to get my passport back from them ASAP.

We are thinking of having me have a shorter maternity leave - taking 4 months off, then working from home part time for the rest of the year until our boy is old enough for förskola. It's important for me to get back to work, and since I can mostly work from home, we're hoping it might work out that we alternate weeks where he works Monday-Wednesday and I work Thursday-Friday, and then the next week I work Monday and Thursday-Friday and he only works Tuesday-Wednesday. My boss is due with her second child just 3 months after me, so it will be important that we coordinate our maternity leave because we can't just leave the company unmanned (it's a small company; we account for 50% of the workforce, LOL!)

But ANYWAY. That's the scoop on my first 3 years here in Sweden! I can't believe how quickly the time has flown, and while so much time was spent feeling like I wasn't doing anything to get myself ahead, I am so proud of what I have accomplished. I have my license, a job, and I'm well on my way to a solid language skill set (I can understand Swedish almost fluently - both written and spoken - but speaking and writing it myself is taking some time. I make a lot of mistakes still, and my vocabulary when I want to speaking isn't even half as good as my vocabulary when understanding what others are saying to me).

Not to mention, I will soon be a mom to two babies!!! Who would have thought, when I started this blog, that such a short time later I would be a mom of 2. HA!

If you are pregnant or plan to be in the near future, stay tuned - I hope to launch my "Pregnancy in Sweden" series soon! <3

5 Months Pregnant <3

As I sit here at Starbucks with an old coffee cup full of wine (what people don't know won't kill them), I feel both exhausted and prematurely relieved to be writing this blog post. I feel I have told Johan's and my story a hundred different times, to a thousand different people, in at least 50 different ways.

Here, for the first (and last) "official" time, is our story:

I have always been a lover of cultures and languages. I had studied 6 years of Spanish through high school and college, and was (at that point) an avid lover of Latin cultures. However, while still in college, I met a guy of Swedish decent in my local gym. He and I dated for several years, and I fell in love with how alien Swedish culture was from what I had grown up knowing. I couldn't get enough of learning how a society like theirs worked, what drove their beliefs and opinions, what was at the root of their life philosophy and how it evolved to be as such.

I also took up learning the language recreationally, because I just thought it was cool-sounding. After college, the relationship came to a natural end, and we parted ways. However, as the months passed, I felt my heart longing to learn more, missing so much that window into a different world that I had. I continued to study the language through books, LiveMocha.com and InterPals.com, but it just wasn't enough. I wanted more than just a resource; I wanted direct access.

So, on 17 February 2010, on a rainy evening while procrastinating going to the gym, I hopped online and went into Facebook. There, I typed in the Swedish version of my ex's last name (the only Swedish surname I really knew at the time), and drew up a list of people. I selected the first goood-looking guy on the list (after all, who wouldn't want their penpal to be cute!), and sent him the following message:

Hej! Du känner mig inte, men jag försöker lära mig svenksa och jag behöver en "penpal"! I just randomly found you on Facebook and was wondering if you'd be willing to send messages a little with me? We don't need to become friends or anything. I'm just trying to learn the language and slang and stuff. Kan du hjälpa mig? Tack så mycket gärna!"

The next day, Johan sent me a message. Over the course of the next 5 years, we would talk almost daily, often times for hours. We also had a variety of failed trips to visit one another, and endured more hardships between us than ever before.

In 2010, we had to cancel my first trip to visit him because of the eruption of Eyjafjallajökull. Then, later that year, we had to cancel because Johan took a job in Norway and couldn't get the time off to be with me.

In 2011, I took a new job and Johan enrolled into a school program, which prevented either of us from being able to visit each other. Later that year, a close friend of Johan's took his life, which cast an even darker pallor on us meeting up for the first time. But still, we talked often.

In 2012, I learned I had a tumor in my breast. After much monitoring, it was determined it was benign, and I knew I was tired of waiting to meet Johan. He was in the process of receiving keys to a second house his family purchased, and so I planned my trip to come visit him. But escrow took forever and I couldn't reschedule my time off. So, I booked my flight for Spain instead. As luck should always have it, Johan received his keys after all.... but flights were impossibly expensive, so we had to forgo meeting up. I remember sitting at London Heathrow on my leg back to Los Angeles, staring at my phone's GPS map and thinking of that quote from the movie GATTACCA where Ethan Hawke said, "I was never so sure of how far I was from my dream, than when I was standing right beside it."

In 2013, Johan finished up school but I slipped two discs in my back and was unable to do anything else but focus on the next 1.5 years of recovery.

Finally, in 2014, we were able to make it happen. I flew out in the summertime, and despite the excitement and the jitters of the first 45 minutes or so, we quickly eased into being in the presence of one another, and the love and laughter has not ended since.

There was one moment in particular, toward the end of my trip, as we were driving home from a ridiculous day of golfing and the sunset made the sky all shades of pink and purple, that I thought to myself, "I could live here all my life and be happy." It was a strong statement, given I adjusted quite roughly to the isolation of the Swedish countryside, no matter how beautiful it was.

Johan and I never spoke of our feelings before that summer of 2014. No doubt that after years of getting to know someone from the inside out, we both felt strongly for one another. But to voice them without meeting in person and finding out for real if the chemistry was truly there, would have been crazy. But the chemistry WAS indeed there, so strong that I couldn't deny it. So strong that my heart must have swelled to 8 times it's size, because I choked on it the whole way to the airport on that awful day I had to leave.

Johan came to visit me for a month between December 2014 and January 2015, and in that time, we decided that our love for each other was unavoidable, and that we needed to be together. We knew we were "the one" for each other, and so we began the process of applying for a Sambo Visa in order that I may emigrate to Sweden to be with him.

Some pictures of us: