Gynae Trip - 20 Week

My last trip to the Gynae was fun, very fun.

We started the visit by going through a series of USG scan on my wife’s tummy, which was conducted by a very nice nurse.

Yes she was very nice, because she tried to scan the baby many many times, but to no avail, because, just as she said, the baby was very active. Our baby just kept moving inside and refused to stay still. So cute.

Well at least for me and my wife the baby was cute. We could look at the monitor how the baby kept kicking and moving her hands. But for the nurse I think it’s as frustrating as it could be. She said the baby moved so fast. Too fast for her to scan. But she kept smiling all the time, clicking and moving her device to catch a proper scan. And failing, And moving again. And she kept smiling all the time, although I thought I saw her grasping the device tighter and tighter.

But at the end she managed to get all the pictures needed to make an examination for the Gynae. And she was nice enough to capture a picture of her only for us (see below) although the pose is not needed by the Gynae. But the happy thing is that the nurse said that although the baby moved very fast, but she gave a nice position for her to capture the picture. If the baby moved the other way, it would take a long time for her to catch the picture of the heart. In fact, at one time she wanted to scan the face of the baby, and suddenly our baby just tilted her face toward the scan, to show her face to us. A show off like a father, I said.

So, although the nurse was trying so hard to do the scanning, we were very happy inside, to see how active the baby was. We saw her moving her hands in front of her face and her legs kicking up and down. A hyperactive like her mother, I said.

Then we went up to see the Gynae to see him examine the results. It was a short one, because everything was normal and all the measurements are okay. And we were happy again. The Gynae also confirmed that the baby’s a female. And we were happy again and again.

Thank God for all of those, for all the experience, for all the happiness.

Back To Normal, Sort Of

Every pregnant woman would think that the fifth month is an important month because she has reached half of the journey to welcome a new life into the family. And every expecting father, at the week 20, usually forgets that the wife is pregnant, because at this week, the wife has mostly been back to the normal self.

There’s no more nauseous, no more throwing up, no more hitting the husband with ironing board because of the mood swing. Luckily there’s a bump on the wife’s tummy that reminds the husband that the wife is creating a life inside her. Or that the wife has been enjoying her jelly donuts too much.

So, most of things are back to normal. That also means that my wife is now very active again, refusing to sit down and wanting to do housework, because she really enjoys making the house clean. And because she thinks that me doing the housework more or less brings the same result as a lemur doing a calculus.

But I keep asking her to just sit down and let me do the work for her. And she then sits down for five minutes, then she does another housework. So we just make an agreement where my wife does several houseworks like cooking and ironing, whereas I do several others like doing the laundry and sweeping. So that means if you happen to visit our house, expect to see the floor covered by newspaper to hide the dirt.

Blurred Mind

Now let me tell you the story of my visit to the Gynae, on the week 20 of my wife’s pregnancy. It happened more than a week ago. It just so happens that I did not have the time to write about it. Well, actually I did. The correct sentence should be I did not have the energy to do it.

I have not gotten used to the working lifestyle of waking up at 6 a.m. in the morning to brush my teeth, take a bath, eat my breakfast and go to the office, and not always in that order, because I usually have not had my coffee that early.

So usually I cannot focus my mind the whole day. Sometimes the two gallons of coffee that I consume helps, but sometimes my mind just wandering around without clear pattern. Mmm, just like now, I wanted to write about my visit to the Gynae, but ended up talking about,… hmm, I cannot even remember what I was talking about.

I guess that means I need to postpone writing about the Gynae trip. Also, I have not scanned the ultrasound photo of my baby. I wanted to scan it but I always ended up turning on my microwave oven. That’s how unfocused my mind is these days.

21 Weeks And Hearing

Our baby is now 21 weeks old and this is what’s happening to her, according to BabyCenter:

Your baby can now hear your conversations, although in a distorted way. Your baby has also become a thumb-sucker. If you talk, read, or sing to your baby, expect her to hear you. Some studies have found that newborns will suck more vigorously when read to from a book they heard frequently in utero. If you want to try, pick a book now and read it out loud. Make sure you won't mind reading it over and over once the baby is here. It may be your baby's favourite bedtime story for a long time after birth

Ok, now the baby can hear. That means I’m no longer able to play Linkin Park when my wife is around, no longer free to gossip with my wife, and no longer allowed to sing in the bathroom.

The last one was already been asked by my wife a long time ago, but I always ignored her. But since now the baby can also hear my singing and therefore risk ruining her musical ability and taste for the rest of her life, I’d better stop my humming and singing in the house. The world might be a better place after all.

Touched By An Angel

The major development that happened to my wife’s pregnancy was that we could feel the baby moved. I read that some mothers could only feel the movement after the sixth month and some could only feel butterflies in her stomach. But it turned out that our baby decided that she wanted to move early and wildly.

So one day, my wife told me that she felt like someone touched the inside of her tummy. And upon hearing the extraordinary news, I immediately said to her,”Oh” and continued watching TV, because after the amount of food that we consumed together, even I felt like having an overactive hamster in my tummy. But then she said it was different, it really felt like the baby knocking on the tummy. Then I turned excited.

I then touched my wife tummy on the location that she pointed. Of course at first I could not feel anything. But after a few minutes of patience and love, I could feel on my hand… nothing.

Unfortunately the baby decided to only let the mother felt her at that time.

But on the next few days, I could really felt her. It was like a bump from inside my wife’s tummy. I put my hand on a certain area of my wife’s tummy, then suddenly it went “bump” from the inside. And it really felt amazing.

It’s not different from any simple knock on your hand, but knowing that it was made by the baby just change the whole thing, gives an entirely different meaning to it. The baby moves, along with our hearts.

20 Weeks And Halfway There

Our baby is now 20 weeks old in my wife’s tummy and this is what’s happening to her, according to BabyCenter:

Your baby is swallowing and processing more amniotic fluid this week. Even before birth, if babies taste sweetness, they will swallow more quickly!.

The baby's swallowing more this week, good practice for the digestive system. Your baby measures about 6.5 inches/ 16.5 centimetres from crown to rump and is steadily gaining weight.

The baby has started to learn how to swallow. Knowing how the father and the mother are, I guess she will have no problem in swallowing and eating.

Wow, it’s the 20^th week, we are halfway there. Gosh, how the time flies. 20 more weeks before the baby is arriving. 20 weeks left for us to learn to be a parent. We don’t know whether we are going to be ready and well-learnt for her. I guess there is no such thing as “ready” in this case. Just one thing for sure, we are going to do our best.

Hope that’s enough.

Working Hours

Ok, I am working the normal working hour, which, using Singapore standard, means from 8 am to 2 am everyday. But fortunately, since I am still new at the job, I still can go home quite early. But still, I cannot write the blog as often as I wish I could. So I am sorry to say that the frequency of this blog is going to reduce significantly.

It’s a sad thing because there are some important things going on in my wife’s pregnancy, like baby’s move, the next trip to gynae (again) and the usual growth of the baby. So I hope I can have more time soon to update this blog. In the mean time, why don’t you pay me, uhm, sorry I meant pray for me, to have more free time then.

19 Weeks And Growing

This is what I read from Baby Center about my baby:

Your baby's head is buzzing with activity. The nerve cells for each of the senses - taste, smell, hearing, seeing, touch - are now developing in specialised areas of the brain.
The fetus measures around 6 inches/ 15 centimetres long from crown to rump and weighs about 9 ounces/ 240 grams.

My baby's brain is starting to functioning and she started to feel. Wow.
On the same subject, my baby is more active now. My wife can feel her movement inside. Sometimes she feels the baby is touching her from the inside.
You might have heard about it from your pregnant friend. But you really need to experience it yourself to be amazed. Just like I did.

Pregnancy Tips & Tricks 5

A pregnant woman should not take over-the-counter medicine because the formula might harm the baby. It's like telling Michael Jackson to keep a distance from children.

Because pregnant women tend to have runny and stuffy nose more often. In my wife's case, it's every morning. She always wakes up with a tsunami inside her nose and it sometimes starts from the night before. So, I really want to give her more medicine to make her recover. But it's really not advisable. When the nose is really in a bad shape, she usually takes a sick leave. But the nose just keeps flooding the next day, and somehow my wife has gotten used to it. It's just me that still worried all the time.

The best way to handle this problem, as I read on the Internet, is to have a hot water in a bowl and to have her inhale the hot vapor. So we tried it last night. And it actually helped. At least for me. My stuffy nose felt better. My wife, on the other hand, although she said her nose felt a little better, I could still hear her trying to hold the flooding inside. Poor her. Hope I can find a better way on the Internet. But for now, sniffing hot water is the only small remedy, as small as giving a tiny umbrella in a tsunami victim.

Maternal Attractions

Now that both of us are going to be a parent, suddenly the attraction towards babies around us is increasing. Both ways. Now I keep looking at baby and play faces with her when there is one around when I take MRT. And babies are somehow more attracted to me and easily laugh to me. This was rarely happen in the past, Babies only laughed at me when I was mistaken as her Panda doll.

It also happens to my wife. Small children now somehow just approach her and sometime hug her without any reason whatsoever. Maybe because the children can sense maternal instinct in her, maybe they can sense a little sister in her and wants to play, or maybe because she's holding a pack of candy at that time. But the point is that we now really become child conscious. And it’s not a bad thing. I just love children these days. The way they smile, the way they move, and the way they scream at MRT and make other passengers look violently at the parents.

Hope that our baby will like us the way we will like her.

Pregnancy Tips & Facts 4

A pregnant woman should not wear high heels. Well, I don't know why women want to wear such painful torturing shoes in the first place. And now when a woman is pregnant, high heel is definitely a no-no.

The most problematic body area in a pregnant lady now is the lower back, along with the tummy, eyes, nose, legs, arms, breasts, and so on. So wearing high heels might give your lower back a pressure. I don't know how it can happen because I never wear high heels before, except when a lot of vodka involved.

Then, as it's always hard being pregnant, my wife heard that wearing a flat shoe was also bad for the lower back. So at that time we were confused of what shoes to wear. So again, I surfed the Internet. Then I found out that low heels and flat shoes were find. It depends on my wife. If she finds low heels are more comfortable then it's okay. Just try and see the result. So my wife is now taking low heels and flat shoes, and put all the high heels behind. She put it in a locked door with my vodka.

Work Start

I usually write my blog on my bus/MRT ride. But now I am working in an office that's only 5 minutes ride-away from my home. So I might not be able to write as often. Except if quit my job and become a professional blog writer. Yeap, I think I can do that. I only need a little push to motivate me. And thousands of readers every day. Ah well…