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.

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!