Bottom's up!

These days, when I look down at my tummy, it no longer appears uniformly round, but strangely lopsided... like a bullet.

The view from the top

Sometimes it looks like the badly drawn picture A (above) and sometimes like picture B. My last scan confirmed that Baby had flipped over, and is now in the recommended "head down" position.

So that large bump is the nice little rounded bottom, which Baby keeps moving from side to side in a sort of slow but enthusiastic rumba... :)

Darling says what ever Baby's other features may be, Baby has certainly inherited my posterior! Lol!

Pregnant with song...

Hello everybody...! Well, you can see the sad outcome of my resolution to blog more. Darling - of course - took off with the laptop... and the desktop crashed shortly afterwards. Maybe it was lonely too. I managed to keep up with my bloglists at work, but felt guilty about blogging during work hours... and many posts just remained unwritten.

So even though JP and Chavie had some great ideas with links and the TV series, I did end up doing far more housework than was strictly necessary, including cooking a meal for my cousin (who is also pregnant) and her family. Am utterly exhausted today, but happy because I took the noon dane to the temple near my house and also found some time to meditate.

The good news is that Darling is back!! Yay! (Does happy dance)... And now I have laptop and interwebs while he sleeps off the jet lag. We watched the latest episodes of a couple of TV series, so I am very happy! The goodies brought home deserve a post of their own, and I shall get to it the moment I snaffle the camera and the cable from Darling's stuff.

I've been listening to a lot of great music these days, both for my benefit (keep down 'em raging hormones) and for Baby's benefit too. There's a lot of classical music on my play lists, Beethoven, Bach, Mozart and music from Swan lake and the Nutcracker Suite.

The Moonlight sonata, my favourite!

Also Yanni (esp. the Acropolis tracks... love them, totally love them!) and the more contemporary cute songs like Firefly

Getting a thousand hugs, from ten thousand lightning bugs... so cute!

I've also developed (not surprisingly paerhaps) an affinity for preggy movies/songs. Obviously, classics (ahem) like Juno and the Waitress top the list.

This is definitely going to be a "sing Baby to sleep" song

Great expectations indeed...

Ignore the slightly disturbing pregnant teen back-up singers in this!

So, yeah, that's what I've been up to last week. No internets, no skype with Darling (thank goodness for Dialog-my 10), lots of music and a reasonably clean house!

How has your week been?

Lonely

So here I am, sitting all alone in my room, hoping the days will pass quickly. Darling has flown out of SL on a work related trip, and I can't describe how much I miss him. Of course there are advantages in travelling on company moolah, like getting to fly business class, and being put up at a swanky hotel. Thanks to Halik, however, I have been having visions of svelte Cathay Pacific stewardesses cooing "oh hello, Mr. Darling, would you like unlimited refills of assorted nuts?", not the most restful, you would have to agree.

Darling has been trying very hard to lessen the impact on me... taking me on a delightful mini-break to Bentota just before he left, and calling me three times a day since he got there. He has also left instructions to Brother to maintain regular supply of chocolate eclairs and apple juice, and admonitions all over facebook, email and elsewhere not to be a pundit and do any cleaning or heavy lifting. This is quite justified because generally being jobless and lonely tends to trigger my OCD, which results in me cleaning the bathroom tiles or the floor skirting with a toothbrush.

Meanwhile, I've set myself a long "to-do" list, which includes blogging more. But gentle readers, do forgive the over abundance of preggy-posts. Nothing fills my universe more than the minute human being inside me... and nothing gives me more joy.

Have a great Monday!

I'm pregnant... what's your excuse?

Last week saw me waddle into one of the better known 5 star hotels in Colombo. I hadn't been to one of those for some time, and even better, my sense of taste was getting back to normal... so I was obviously looking forward to enjoying the fun, music and the food at the wedding.

We were late, but not late enough to dive into the buffet right away. After about 15 minutes of smiling serenely at the rest of the crowd and swaying gently to the strains of classical music, the hunger pangs hit. It is incredible how quick and intense the sensation of hypoglycaemia is these days... I get irritable, my head hurts, tummy rumbles and Baby does the cha-cha on my internal organs. There was no sign of wedding cake or the welcome drink. I waved frantically at a waiter who was loitering nearby, desperate for sustenance.

Angel (smiling sweetly) : we only just got to the hall, do you think we could have some drinks served to this table?

Waiter (somewhat loudly) : NO

Eh? What??? How dare he... what's wrong with him... can't he see I'm pregnant? I need special treatment...! Hang on.... I'm entitled to a welcome drink, dammit!!

I sit there, massively pregnant, wrapped in my cream silk saree, the voluminous folds making me look more like a beached whale than anything else, and stare up at him in shock.

Angel (stammering) : But why not?

Waiter (miffed) : we have been instructed not to serve drinks, Madam.

...................

...................

??????????

...................

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The penny drops.

@##$@&&****!!!!!

Angel (in a voice so cold that hell would have frozen over) : I meant a welcome drink you moron not an alcoholic drink!

Waiter : Ah... um... sure.... (and scuttles off)

The rest of my unsympathetic table-mates burst out into gales of hysterical laughter. The general consensus was that the waiter has (quite understandably) put down my dimensions to alcoholic cirrhosis!

Hmmmp! I don't get no respect!

Our little survivor

Thanks so much everyone for all your good wishes and for sharing our joy at the impending arrival of a wee bundle of joy. I owe everyone a bit of an explanation as to why the announcement was kept so late. Trust me, you weren't the only ones, some of our close relatives didn't find out till almost six months into the pregnancy...

Let me digress a minute on our traditions associated with pregnancy... among them eating jackfruit and brinjals (to ensure abundant milk), not completing the baby clothes before the delivery, not bringing the cot home before the baby, and reciting religious chants (Angulimala piritha) to ensure smooth delivery. In other words, there is no assumption that the birth is a certainty and that all will go well. Life is uncertain... and obviously, someone from my field will have abundant evidence of this uncertainty.

I knew I was pregnant a good couple of weeks before I missed my period. Maybe because I was more aware of the changes in my body... maybe because I just had a sense of not being "alone". So Darling and I waited, all starry eyed until it was time to do the blood test. I can't find the words to explain how I felt when I looked at my HCG report... nothing I have ever done before or since was comparable to this big jolt of joy that ran through my body. Some of you may remember that in the past, my views about kids have changed from ambivalent to negative to "whatevah" to expectant... mostly because (career woman that I am) I had little faith in my parenting skills. Over the last eight months, not a smidgen of a doubt has crossed my mind... even when I tested myself by deliberately thinking "will I be a good mum?" my gut reaction would always be "Good mum? Of course I'm going to be a good mum... I'm going to be the best mum ever, because no one can love my little Bubee more than I do".

One of the first pics... Baby lies between the green and yellow crosses

That said, the last 8 months have not been a bed of roses. Soon after the first scan, a contaminated sandwich gave me Shigella food poisoning. The fever, vomiting and diarrhoea nearly caused a miscarriage... Baby was 1.29cm long... and 1cm of the sac had separated from the protective walls of my womb! I was terrified... but our little survivor kept hanging in there.

After about 3 months, I kept feeling lousy, got odd fevers, swollen lymph nodes and developed a leaky valve in my heart. My blood work was crazy... and I had three consultants (still do actually) scratching their heads and wondering what was wrong. During the next 2 months I was tested for every nasty and obscure disease under the sun, from TB and HIV to toxaplasma and Epstein Barr virus. And throughout it all, Baby continued to thrive and grow in leaps and bounds.

Baby @ 13 weeks

Somehow, I got the ok to travel abroad, and honestly, those 3 weeks in Malaysia were a godsend. Of course the training was hectic... but I had no other responsibilities... I did minimum shopping and spent most evenings and weekends in my room with my feet up, reading Terry Pratchet. Once I got back, my Mum needed cataract surgery and Darling was hospitalised, (food poisoning again - honestly, we seem to attract the worst bugs).

And Baby continued to grow and develop. I felt the very first kicks exactly when I was supposed to... and the growth scans were right there in the midline. The "anormaly scan" is usually done at about 20 weeks and the doctor looks at everything visible... the brain, spine, heart, face, palate and nose, the stomach the kidneys and the bladder. Baby got gold stars in all of them... somehow managing to overcome the limitations of an illness prone mother.

I wish I could be in better health, for Baby's sake, but even as I type this, I am on medical leave, lying on my left side to maximise the blood flow to the placenta. Somehow, during the last few weeks, Baby hasn't grown as expected. I'm just 32 weeks pregnant and hoping against hope that we will not need to go for a pre-mature delivery. The worst thing about being a doctor is knowing full well of all the nasty things that can go wrong and having a dozen worst case scenarios playing through your mind.

Hang in there my little Angel, my Sweetie, my Cutie! You're a fighter and a survivor... You're the best thing that has ever happened to your Mum and Dad... we love you so very much and are rooting for you all the way...

Stay with us...

I can't do a shoe post because... (part II)

... I can no longer see my feetz!!

:D

I can't do a shoe post because... (part I)

I have ugly feetz.

No, seriously. I return from Malaysia, all ready to get pampered and petted by the usual ladies at my regular joint. I call them to get an appointment and I get this heavily accented female voice tersely informing me that they "do not provide services anymore". Hmmm.... I think they have gone bankoloth, though I doubt it had anything to do with my not gracing their premises with my custom.

So here I am, as hairy as big foot... make that big-ugly-foot, since I haven't had a pedi in ages, and the sight of my poor callused feet is not for the faint of heart.

Luckily, DeeCee in her timely and helpful manner has put up a post regarding her waxing experiences... and hopefully her wax-lady will be of help to me as well.

I've been waxing for about 4 years now... and trust me, although it hurts like hell at first, it's totally worth it because the hair grows slower and finer and softer each time and the skin gets nice and soft too. I get my upper lip waxed as well because threading hurts WAY more and the wax takes like 5 seconds.

I really wish my old place was still there though... the place was cosy and comfy, there wasn't much of a crowd, so more attention and the staff was very friendly. They also used this funny green wax imported from Singapore (I think). I found it differnt to the run of the mill hot/cold waxes I've had before. The wax hardens very fast, and the best thing is, it can be peeled off by itself, without the use of wax cloths or papers (less effort, more hygienic).

Oh well, no sense of crying over spilled wax... lets hope I have nice super smooth feet and legs soon!