This one's for the dads

So much of pregnancy is about the mums and the bond between mums and the baby. Johnson & Johnson's tagline is "When a baby is born, so is a mother." Sometimes we forget "When a baby is born, so is a FATHER."

My father was over the moon when I was born and he would rush home from work to cuddle and play with me. This was in an era when taking care of babies was "women's work" and the other men would give him weird looks when they saw him helping to feed me.
Thankfully, most guys these days are a lot more involved. Lots of guys I worked with would rush home to play with their children and kept weekends strictly for family time. There have been many times when our girls' get-togethers happened only because the men in their lives were only too happy to be baby-sitting the little ones.

So mums-to-be, get the daddy-to-be involved from the start. Share with him your feelings, your hopes and your fears. Remember, he's had a hand in this miracle too and he deserves to be there every step of the way. Tell him what it's like when the baby moves about in you. He can't feel it the way you can, so describe it to him and let him imagine what it must be like. My husband is fascinated when I tell him what the movements feel like and I can tell that he's trying to imagine what it's like.

Sing lullabies to the baby together. Watch his face change with all the emotions he's feeling inside when he comes along to the check-ups and he sees the baby's scan or hears the tiny heart beat for the first time. Tell him your pregnancy fears and when you can't hold back your tears, love him for keeping strong to comfort you. Encourage him to talk to the bump - my husband never fails to say good morning and kiss my bump goodbye before he leaves for work. Talk with him about parenting styles, get him involved and thinking early about this - will you be strict or liberal? Daydream with him about the day your little boy grows up to be the champion golfer/footballer he'd always wanted to be but couldn't because he had to do something else more down-to-earth.

All this mummyhood talk isn't just to share with your mum, your sisters, your girlfriends. He deserves to share all that too but in a different way because I know for sure my Top Monkey gets bored when I start talking about matching baby clothes with my clothes while the girls all squeal, "Oh that's soooo cute!" But he lights up when I tell him things like how the baby responds when I play Poke Me games with him. And he enjoys it when I tell him stuff like "Stop eating beans on toast! Our baby is x weeks old and he's as big as a baked bean, so it's like you're eating heaps of babies!" It helps him visualise how our son is developing inside me.

The bonding between father and child doesn't have to wait till the little one is born. It can start right now, right here.

24 weeks and bankrupting my husband with my hunger

Well, I'm at the 24-week mark. I've gained about 7kg now, most of it going to my hips, thighs and the belly bump. I'm what my husband lovingly calls a weeble or, as we Chinese call it, the "don't tip over doll". It means I'm prone to putting on weight around my hips and thighs. When I put weight on, it's always from the bottom up and when I lose it, it's always from the top down. So now I look like a jolly little weighted doll with cheekbones.

According to here, Little Monkey is now about a foot long. How about that? He's the size of the foot-long subs we always eat on our holidays! I can actually feel he's about that length because I know where his head is.. wedged somewhere on the left of my belly, aligned with my belly button. This is also why the left side of my bump feels firmer to the touch compared to the right. I think that's why he always kicks up a huge fuss - and I mean a HUGE fuss - when I lie on my left side. I don't blame the little guy, who enjoys being suspended upside down in a bag of fluid? His feet are to my right, just where my bump's just starting to round out. I know his arms and hands are usually curled up around his head so I'm just wondering what on earth is he using to poke me at the bellybutton???

Most women take a glucose screening test about now to test for gestational diabetes. You can read more about it by clicking the link I've provided above. What I didn't know was that if you have gestational diabetes, you could have a more difficult vaginal birth as it will cause your baby to grow too large. I'll be talking to my doctor about this when I get back to Jakarta.

I'm eating quite a bit more than I used to. I would say I'm probably eating about 1 1/2 portions each time I have a meal. I can't drink a glass of milk for my calcium because I'm not used to it, so I get my milk from my cereal breakfasts and from mixing into drinks. I also top that up with a calcium supplement. For my vit C, I make sure I eat fruits everyday. I don't get to eat a lot of fish so I take a DHA supplement for my omega-3. Chicken tends to be my main source of protein and rice is my main carbo source... I am Asian after all.. hehe.

I've also noticed that I get dizzy if my sugar levels are low, so I always make sure I keep mints in my bag when I'm out and about shopping. I get leg cramps sometimes at night but all I need to do is massage my leg and I'm all right again. I need a bolster or pillow to hold when I sleep (cue hubby whining, "But what about me?") because I can't balance properly sleeping on my side with the bump. Craps with the lower back, I can sense the pains will come later in the pregnancy if I don't take care now and don't find a chiro to work with soon!

Right now, I've got this itch to go out and spend, spend, spend on baby stuff. I know I'm supposed to stick to a list and really, it doesn't make sense to buy too much because babies grow so quickly... but oh! it's so cute and I can just imagine my little boy looking so adorable in it!

Mum and Dad get to see Little Monkey's latest scan

I'm back home in my little hometown in Malaysia for a week to see my mum and dad. I flew infrom Jakarta on Air Asia, one of the region's many budget carriers. It's pretty good service, the planes were on time and we landed 20 minutes early. Unfortunately, the baggage took about 20 minutes to appear so we lost the time advantage.

I'd emailed home Little Monkey's latest scan to my parents to show them the baby but it so happened the PC at home konked out and they didn't get to see it. So I brought the actual scan home to show them a glimpse of their first grandchild-to-come.

I didn't realise that people who aren't used to seeing ultrasound scans can't make head or tail of them. I'd been seeing them so often that when the doctor points out, "Here's his head..." I can make it out immediately. So when Dad first saw the scan, he was puzzled, "What's this?" All his three children were born in an era when ultrasound wasn't freely available and I doubt if he ever got to see much of us in utero.

I told him it was the baby's face and hands. It took him a few minutes of squinting before he finally saw it. And when he did, he was just delighted! It was lovely to see his pleasure and excitement. My dad adores babies and children and he's always the one who would play with the kids in the family.

What my dad liked very much was that our Little Monkey seems to have inherited his father's strong Caucasian nose. We come from a family of snubby noses (or no-nose as my amused husband likes to put it) and a strong, sharp nose is a highly prized feature. He was proudly pointing out the nose to my mum when she appeared later to have a look. I'm guessing that when he's born, they're going to want to make a cast of his nose to show off to neighbours "Look at my grandson's nose! It's sharp enough to pierce a can!"

Bonding before birth

To tell the truth, I'm absolutely in love with our baby even before we've met him, so I don't have a bonding problem. Even though the thought of labour and delivery makes me really nervous, I can't wait to meet him and I think he'll make us a very lovely anniversary and Christmas present. He's due in Nov and we'd married early Dec last year and we'd first met each other three years ago in December as well, so he'll make an early present!

My old doc in KL told me to sing and talk with the baby. He said it would get him used to my voice and it would help his mental development. I know he was talking about playing the baby Mozart but I can't abide Mozart, so I just sang him whatever songs I knew. We've also got this made-up lullaby to the tune of "My Bonny lies over the ocean" with the words "My Bonny" subbed with "My Monkey". All the books I'd read said that newborns calm down when they hear or feel something that they've been familiar with in the womb. So I figured I might as well pick an easy to sing song and sing it over and over again to him while he's still inside. My hope was that if he was fussing, we could sing it to him and hopefully he'll recognise it as "Ah! That's the song the nice protective womb person sang to me all the time before I came out into this weird world!" and calm down.

Another thing we've been doing is playing Poke Me games. I've found out that he'll respond to my poking my tummy when he's active. If I poke my belly button, he'll respond with a kick there. If I poke somewhere else, he'll kick there instead. I was delighted when I first found out he was able to play even from the womb and have been playing Poke Me with him for a few weeks now. He doesn't always respond but when he does, I can play with him till my tummy's black and blue.

Just the other day, I found this article online about bonding with your baby before birth. I was delighted to find that whatever I'd been doing instinctively to bond with my baby were in the article. It made me feel a wee bit more confident that maybe I'm going to be okay at this motherhood thing and maybe I will know what to do. Check it out, mums-to-be (especially us first-timers!).

Fathers are different from mothers!

Well... I emailed yesterday's scan off to Top Monkey and gushed about how cute our boy is in the womb and how glad I am that he has inherited his father's nose. Top Monkey had flown back to KL the night before for a one-day meeting, so he couldn't accompany me to the check. I also had scans of other bits of our baby but I thought I would show it to him in person.

When he arrived home last night from the airport, I showed him all the scans. I told him enthusiastically about the baby's progress and what he was doing at the check and how cheeky he was by turning away when we prodded him but was my husband listening? No, of course not.

He was staring at the last scan in the series which showed a shot of the baby's bottom and his wee-wee. Pointing to the pic, he said proudly in a tone which told me that he'd not heard a single word I'd been saying so far, "Looks like he's got a big one! That's my son! What a boy!"

Men.

Aw... finally a cute picture of Little Monkey!

Everytime I've had 4D scans of our baby boy, he always looks like some alien being in my tummy. This is his first good picture and praise be, he has his Daddy's nose! A nice strong nose, unlike my snubby one. I bet it's going to get squashed and bent all out of shape once he's passed through the birth canal but for the time being, we're celebrating that he has a proper L family nose.

He was fast asleep during the examination and when we tried prodding him, he merely yawned and turned his back to us. You cheeky boy! LOL All is well with the baby, his measurements are spot on for a 23-week-old baby in the womb.

I also checked out the delivery rooms and maternity wards in the hospital. Talking with the nurses there helped reassure me that I was going to be in the hands of people who were competent and knew what they were doing. It also helped to see the er.. battleground, it helped me visualise what things would be like come Nov. They told me that they would also arrange for me to attend breast-feeding and babycare classes and boy, was I super-relieved to hear that because I'm sure I'm going to need lots of help.

I asked for room and delivery charges so that we can plan out our finances for the delivery. We're pretty fortunate that Top Monkey's company will cover the delivery costs up to a certain amount but we'll have to foot the bill first, so it's useful to know what costs are involved. I also checked out registration details for the baby. We'll need to ensure the baby's birth is registered at the British Embassy here in Jakarta within a certain number of days post-delivery and I wanted to make sure I knew what paperwork was required and the fees involved. Here in Indonesia, you normally get an agent to liaise with government agencies for you, especially if you don't speak the language and don't know who to contact. They get everything done without hassle for a fee. It's well worth it, in my opinion.

So 23 weeks on and all is well so far. Phew. I'm glad. And I'm so happy I have a cute picture to stare at for hours on end until my next appointment in August!

Congratulations to M and A for their Big Fat Positive!

I just wanted to post this because I'm so happy for my friend, M. We got to know each other at the last company I worked at before I chucked it all to be a wife and mom-to-be. She's a great person, she's warm, she's funny, she's intelligent... and she'd been trying for so long to get pregnant.

I was one of the lucky ones. I stopped the Pill in Dec last year right after our wedding and found I was pregnant by March. I was disappointed that Aunt Flo made her monthly appearance in January but I found it easier to accept because mentally, I was prepared to try for at least six months before we sought any more medical help. Besides, I knew my body would need time to adjust, so I was prepared to wait.

But I could identify with M's longing to get pregnant and be a mother. I remembered thinking, "I gotta wait for my body to adjust??? Nono!!! I want to get pregnant NOW!" I can just imagine how she must have felt, having tried for years and not been successful despite numerous fertility treatments. It's not just physically exhausting, it also takes its toll on you emotionally. She told me once that she doubted her womanhood with every failure and I can just imagine what her hubby, A, must have felt as well.

Lately, she tried a different fertility treatment. I'll post more about this once I get more details on the procedure in case there's anyone out there who's trying and trying as well and would like to know more about it. To cut a long story short, she got her Big Fat Positive!!! WOOHOO!!!!

I'm so happy for you, M. May this be a sticky... looking forward to sharing mummyhood experiences with you!

For everyone else who's trying and is getting sick and tired... keep positive, don't give up hope. I believe that when the time is right, something will happen.

The PERFECT outfit for my Little Monkey

Our nickname for my husband is Top Monkey (long story...) and when we discovered I was pregnant, the little one was nicknamed Little Monkey right from the start.

So you can imagine my delight when I found this outfit at Mothercare, Pondok Indah Mall! *happy Mommy dance* What a perfect outfit for my Little Monkey to wear!

Almost 23 weeks pregnant!

Tomorrow, I'll be 23 weeks pregnant. I can't believe there's only 17 weeks to go before Little Monkey is out. According to the books, he's now about the size of a small doll. Cool... I'll go out tomorrow to toy shops and have a look at how big he is. I can feel he's a lot bigger though... the easiest way is to just turn sideways, look in the mirror and marvel at how big my belly is now compared to just a month ago! I measure my belly sometimes (measured across the belly button), just to see how big I've grown. I'm now 35" around! Gosh! I've always worked hard to ensure my now-long-gone waist stayed in the 20"s and it's such a surprise to see the tape read that much!

When we were in Comox, Canada, we bought me a belly band and it's an absolute lifesaver. I'm now able to pull out my pre-pregnancy jeans and wear them again, unbuttoned and held up by this band. I'd looked everywhere for it here in Jakarta but couldn't find it so when I spotted it in Canada, I grabbed it.

I'm definitely looking pregnant now. The hotel staff have begun to rush out to help me each time I arrive back laden with groceries. They didn't bother much before... hehe... just thought I was probably fat and strong enough to carry everything. Don't worry, guys... I can still carry most stuff and I'm really training to be strong enough to carry a baby around all night long.

I finally picked up my Triple Screen test results from the doctor on Friday. I had my test done when I was 16 weeks pregnant, it's a screening test for Down Syndrome. Phew... I had a negative result! Yay! Now, for you worried mums out there, if you have a positive result, it does NOT mean that you have a Down baby. It merely means you must now undergo more tests for confirmation, that's what known as a diagnostic test.

The lab included a set of standards for comparison vs my own results. At about 16 weeks, it was a 1 in 3300 chance of the baby having Down's. My results came back as 1 in 3800, so I'm feeling quite relieved. They also included a results standard for your age risk. Mine (at 34 years when the baby is due) was 1 in 510.

The lab also screened for Edward's Syndrome. I didn't know what this was, so I checked up on the Net for it. It's when a baby has an extra 18th chromosome. It's a pretty serious condition with most babies stillborn before the end of pregnancy. You can read more about it here.

We've not started buying baby stuff yet as we're still living in a hotel here and haven't got any place to store our stuff. Crappo really... I'm so glad our home will be ready by early Aug and we can finally move in and have a proper home. All I've bought so far is a shirt-pants set, a souvenir baby shirt from Vancouver and a little black Canadian stuffed bear to put into his cot. I'll have to get pics of them to post up, they're all so cute!

It's been quite an uneventful pregnancy so far, for which I'm thankful. Apart from the morning sickness and lethargy in my first trimester, I've not had many probs. I've not had constipation, I don't really have muscle aches and cramps (but I still ask Top Monkey for back rubs! Hehe) and I've not had any mood swings. I've generally been happy and excited about the baby, really nervous about labour and delivery and unsure about my ability to care for a newborn. I ensure I'm out and about walking for at least 2 hours everyday for my exercise and I'm really, really, really trying to go back to the gym regularly. Honest.

Well, I've got my monthly appointment scheduled next week with the doctor. I always look forward to those, I adore seeing my baby in the scans and bringing home the new print-outs to show Top Monkey and end up staring at the print-outs for hours on end.

Knock, knock! Who's there?

Top Monkey finally felt his son kick for the first time last Thursday. I've noticed that Little Monkey likes to have a fiesta inside me around 11pm and he was kicking about quite strongly that night. So I took TM's hand and placed it on my belly. There was nothing at first but I said to TM, "Wait."

Sure enough, the little one gave me a huge boot in the belly and TM was delighted, "I can feel it!" Little Monkey gave Daddy a few more kicks as if to say, "Hi Daddy, it's me!" and then the kicks subsided in strength. I could still feel him jiggling around in me but if you put a hand on my belly, it wasn't obvious. Now that TM knows his little boy's kicks are strong enough, he's taken to putting his hand on my belly at random times of the day, especially when I report that the baby is kicking around.

It's kinda fun to have him moving around. For one thing, it reassures me that he's doing all right. A friend of mine told me to chart the baby's movements in the womb and to be particularly aware if he doesn't move for some time. For example, she said since I knew he had a tendency to wake up and kick about at 11am, I should monitor him closely if he doesn't do so as usual. If he doesn't move in two hours, she advised me to call the doctor.
Her advice to me was rooted in her own experience with her baby. Four days before her check-up, she realised the baby wasn't moving much and her gut feeling told her something was wrong. So she went to the doctor and when they did a scan and checked the baby's heartrate, they discovered the umbilical cord had wrapped around the baby's neck and his heartrate was too low. They wheeled her in for an emergency C-section that very day. Her little boy is now a healthy, bouncy 4-year-old but she's never forgotten the terror of that day.

What I've done is noted down the times when he's particularly active and I check on his movements during those times. So far, Little Monkey has been right on the dot... he's very punctual with his kicks and jabs. He's also discovered that my bladder makes a very lovely squeeze toy. Sigh. I was kinda hoping he wouldn't discover that till much later.

Little Monkey moons the world

Yep, dear readers, that is my unborn son mooning you.

On Friday morning 27 June, he finally decided he would moon the whole lot of us in the doctor's office. "Whole lot of us" meaning his daddy, the doctor, the nurse and me. And that was how we determined Little Monkey is a he, not a she because his wee wee-wee was quite obvious for all to see. (see arrow)
I think those two blobs above are his elbows. Not man boobs, okay.

Later, he must have felt embarrassed he was mooning us because when we tried to get a peek at his face, he'd covered it with his arms. I've just realised the machine this doctor uses is capable of doing 4D scans. Nono... not 4D as in 4D lottery numbers! 4D as in 3-dimensional with an added dimension of time. So instead of seeing the usual flat 2D scans as above, you'll get to see your baby in 3D moving. It's really cool when you see the facial features of your unborn child, Top Monkey's eyes popped wide open and he couldn't stop smiling when he saw his son's 4D scan for the first time. Ask if your doctor has the same machine, I don't know how common this machine is. If he has one, be sure to bring the baby's dad along for the appointment, he'll want to see this and I guarantee you'll love the look on his face when he sees his unborn child's face for the first time.

I'm dreamin' of a... little boy

Ever since we've confirmed Little Monkey is a boy and not a girl (Poor lad, I'd been calling him a "she" for about 5 months of his life so far!), my dreams have been populated with little boys. I dream of little boys tumbling about in parks and riding bikes and looking all angelic and sweet in my arms. I'm sure tired mums of real little boys can tell me that the angelic and sweet part is not always the case.

Sometimes, the little boys in my dreams have blond hair and blue eyes. I guess this is because I used to play quite a bit with a friend's baby boy and he was blond and blue-eyed. Or maybe this is because I wonder if Little Monkey will inherit the paternal family genes and come out blond and blue-eyed. If that happens, I can't imagine the hassle I'll get in the hospital when I try to convince the staff that this baby is mine. "Yes, Sister... I know this baby is blond and I'm Chinese, but trust me, I'm his MOTHER!" ;D

The other night, the baby boy in my dreams had Top Monkey's lovely hazel eyes. Ooh! I'd like that! I've always liked the way Top Monkey's eyes changed colour with the light unlike my eyes which stay dark brown in all lighting.

It's just so much fun trying to imagine what our baby will look like. Will he get my nose? Will he get his dad's slightly sticky-out ears? Or my big flat brontosaurus feet? 6-footer like dad? Or a shortie like me? Maybe he'll look like Joey G, the product of a Malay dad and an Irish mum. Or maybe like Dom, the son of a Chinese dad and an English mum. Or maybe he'll look like your average white English lad.

Each time a Caucasian-Asian kid runs by, I crane my neck trying to get a good look at him/her. I think their parents must think I'm rude because I keep looking at their kids so intently but I'm really just trying to visualise what Little Monkey may look like in the future. I'm looking now for fun software when you can input in two faces and the software will "scramble eggs" them into a new face, so if anyone knows where I can download that, please let me know. I'll be playing with that a LOT to just imagine what Little Monkey will look like!