It's a BOY!!!

Little Monkey is a BOY!!!

We've just returned from a holiday in Canada and arrived in Jakarta at 1130pm on Wed night. The first thing I did on Thurs was to call my doc and scheduled an appointment for the very next day. Top Monkey came along as we were quite certain that by now, we should be able to tell whether the little one is a boy or girl.

To our relief, Little Monkey decided to co-operate with the doctor and obligingly turned his body around. So for the first time, we saw his wee wee-wee and yes, it's a boy for sure! I'll post a pic of it later when I've taken a good pic of the scan. It was a big relief for us to see that he's okay after all those long flights he's had to endure across the Pacific and back. Another big relief was that my Triple Screen test results were normal. Phew.

I first started feeling his movements when I was 17 weeks pregnant. I wasn't too sure at first whether it was just gas or him moving but it became quickly became quite clear that it wasn't gas. (Clue: I didn't fart) His movements have been getting stronger over the weeks and right now, I think our Little Monkey possesses a right foot that David Beckham can envy. Ow.

He's got quite a regular wake-sleep pattern. He normally starts stirring at 11am and gives me a couple of nudges to say good morning. After jostling around merrily for a few hours, he'll settle down and go quiet in the afternoon. At night, around 7-8pm, he promptly wakes up again and starts jiggling about. Some of his strongest movements have come around 11pm-midnight and I'm thinking, "Oh no.. you'd better not be up this late when you're out of me!"

He reacts to certain stimuli. Music seems to get him going. I'm not sure if he's hearing it or if he's just sensing the sound waves but each time there's music around, he'll start kicking about. And as if to prove he's a proper lad, he kicked about madly last night while we were watching an E! programme about hot supermodels who made loads of money. Top Monkey said proudly, "Of course he's moving about now, he's a boy!" Hehe.

I'm delighted. I don't have any preference for boys/girls, but it's nice to know what to expect. I know some moms who prefer not to know, I'm just not one of them. I'm happiest most of all to learn that he's safe, he's progressing along nicely and all his vital signs and measurements are within the normal range. That's most important to me: that he comes out safe and healthy. Anything else is a bonus.

Time to go shopping for some blue baby gear!

Little Monkey waves to the world!

I went to see another gynae on Thursday. After thinking about it, I realised I wasn't too comfy with the first gynae I'd seen on Tues. For starters, I told him that I was now 16 weeks and my gynae in KL had told me that I should inform him that I need a Triple Screen test. And he didn't seem to know what it was, he kept asking if it was an amniocentesis. I said no, it wasn't. Finally, the nurse told him what test I must be talking about. I watched him fill out the request card for the test and he didn't seem too sure how to fill it out either! That's scary.


So after talking it over with Top Monkey, we decided to go for another gynae, one that's based at Pondok Indah Hospital. PI Hosp is one of the premier hospitals here in Jakarta and it's pretty close to where we'll be living, so I thought it would be a good choice.


Boy, was I glad I went! This doc seemed more assured and I felt happier about the whole process. He had this machine in his office which blew me away. The machine my doc in KL had was only able to scan a side profile of the tummy i.e. if the baby was lying on its back, you'll see it from the side profile only. But this machine in PI Hosp was able to sort of construct an image that looked as if the doc was scanning from the top! Here's what Little Monkey looks like!

Cripes. My baby looks like an alien. :))) Looks nothing like the pics I have in my pregnancy books! Top Monkey said so as well, "Hey, how come it doesn't look like the picture in the book?" The bump in the torso is its heart and it was going piddypiddypiddy at its usual breakneck speed. At one point during the scan, I clearly saw the baby open its mouth and swallow some amniotic fluid and I was thinking, "Oh phew... that bit works!" I think the baby is a late riser like me because she wasn't moving much unlike the other times I've seen her. Guess she was pretty surprised to be poked and prodded at 8am!

It's been a happy week for us Top Monkey family. For starters, Little Monkey's big bro, MSL, flew in from Aust where he'd been working. He's on his way back to Scotland and is staying a week with us. MSL has a great track record for scaring the living heck out of his dad and me. Whether it be girls or parties or flights, he's always managed to give us a fright.

This time was no different. We were waiting at the airport for him, his flight had already been delayed from 830pm to 1130pm. Imagine our surprise and fright when he didn't appear and security said there were no more passengers left in arrival hall. We insisted he had to be there since he had texted us before he boarded the plane in Perth but security insisted there were no more passengers.

So while Top Monkey argued with security (with our driver S acting as interpreter), I went searching for him in other arrival halls. With MSL, you never know. I couldn't find him anywhere and we were fearing that he'd boarded the wrong plane or something daft like that!

Finally, they said yes there was a white lad who was stuck in Immigration with passport problems and we knew that had to be MSL! Off went Top Monkey with S and I waited outside. They took a looooooooooooong time before they finally appeared and I gave MSL a relieved hug, "What happened???"

Well... MSL had once "washed" his passport with his laundry, and the result was a rather tattered and battered passport. Indon immigration officials saw their opportunity to get some er... shall we say... reward. It cost us Rp600,000 (US$60++) to get that sorted out, plus an additional Rp100,000 (US$10) to get TM and S into the Immigration Office to start with and I gave a kind gentleman Rp20,000 (US$2) because he loaned his phone to call Garuda for passenger info. (To put everything into perspective, a local meal at a roadside stall can be had for as little as Rp2,000 so Rp600,000 is quite a bit of cash for a local)

Oh well. At least MSL made it through. He's looking forward to the arrival of his baby bro/sis and has been giving rather unhelpful, cheeky suggestions for names. He's already appointed himself the guitar tutor for the baby (MSL is a fairly good guitarist) and I'm happy that he's excited and involving himself. I'm looking forward to having him come stay next year and play with his baby bro/sis for a bit as I don't intend to raise Little Monkey without involving his two elder brothers. It'll be fun to see them two and I'm just waiting to see if Little Monkey ends up with a Scottish accent like MSL!