Week 31 - Freya shows us who's boss...

We went to get a 4D ultrasound and the first image that came up was Freya showing us her middle finger! :-) Marek said we have a little girl with an attitude! Spent the next 15 minutes or so giggling over her antics. She's very active, playing with her hand all the time - putting one little finger in her mouth, shoving it up her nose, making peace sign... seems like she's going to be a handful when she's out...

Week 30 - Back in Sydney

Arrived back in Sydney on Monday - the flight was 3 hours delayed from Singapore so we didn't take off until 3 am in the morning. Freya enjoyed all the special attention given to her by the SQ stewardess (all pregnant women out there, if you really need to fly - fly Singapore Airlines and you'll be spoiled rotten). Mommy spent almost the whole Tuesday sleeping...

In Jakarta Freya got the first taste of her grandfather's bus driver style driving (Indonesian bus driver, mind you - not civilized Australian ones). At 64, my dad can still make Sandra Bullock's driving in "Speed" look like child play.

Speed bump - kick. Another speed bump - kick kick. Sudden brake - punch punch kick. Another week with this driving Freya would've decided to come out early.

PS. We're doing the 4D ultrasound this Friday so check out this blog next week for cool pictures (and hopefully video)

FACT: This week and the following three, the bub puts on fat at a greater rate. The skin is still a bit wrinkled, so there's room for the new fat underneath (does this mean we'll talk diet soon?). The lanugo will start to fall out although a full head of hair may stay. The eyes are fully open, but it can't be very interesting just watching all that hair floating around. Baby hiccuping starts to get more violent (tell me about it...) and mommy can feel the little jerks (and sometimes big jerks in the middle of the night that wakes mommy up and then she can't sleep again and then.. oh forget it). Bub may be jiggled around by the Braxton Hicks contractions. Height: 27cm, weight: 1.3 kilos.

How mommy’s life is changing:

• Boobs are still getting bigger - will they ever stop? Unfortunately yes.
• Start feeling Braxton Hicks (practice contractions).
• Midnight wee starts easing out, only went to the loo once last nite (yippee!) although I went 12 times during the 7-hours flight from Singapore. Surely I can get so many frequent wee flyer points...
  

Week 29 - NujuhBulanAn

Mikkel Rev comes in rap and jazz versions this week but at least daddy has learned to sing the second verse of the song (but that means I get to hear Mikkel Rev for one full minute instead of 30 secs…). Tried very hard to start calling Freya “Klumpen” again simply because a couple of friends said their babies was determined to be girls on the ultrasound only to come out with teeny willies. However we already have “daddy’s little girl” in mind we can’t go back to Klumpen so Freya gotta stay.

Freya and mommy made the 8 hours trip to Singapore last Friday. More stories a bit later (mommy’s busy eating).

FACT: Baby is looking very babyesque at this point - plumper and rounder. The newborn-baby breathing rhythm is developing steadily; it's more regular, with fewer stops and starts. Height: 26cm, weight: 1.15 kilos.

How mommy’s life is changing:

• Finding a comfy sleeping position is getting really challenging. And still 10 more weeks to go *sigh*
  

Week 28 - Yoga Ooommmm….

After 6 months of denial, I finally dragged my sorry ass off to ante-natal yoga class for the first time. Apart from I can’t keep myself balanced standing on one leg, it was going well and I like the yoga instructor very much. The other ladies were a lot more graceful than I am but heck, I’m not going to give birth standing on one leg so sod it! The breathing exercises are good but some of the instruction goes well past my head - like “use your inner upper chest breathing and direct it down towards mother earth” kinda thing. Inner upper chest breathing my *** I inhale and I exhale and that’s it. No mother earth for me.

I desperately trying to teach my dear husband another children song so now he alternates between Mikkel Rev and Ole Brumm *phew* although it’s still just one Ole Brumm for every hundred Mikkel Rev…

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Her kommer Ole Brumm (Here comes Winnie the Pooh)

en liten bjørn i skogen (a little bear in the forest)
tra la la la la bum (well… tra la la la la bum)
jeg heter Ole Brumm (my name is Winnie the Pooh)

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Darling daddy-to-be said he’ll miss my tummy very much when Freya is out and he’s planning to impregnate me non-stop to keep my tummy forever at the right size. Hmmm…

Freya’s kicking is more coordinated this week and she can really aim at certain stomach part to take my breath away. If she comes out in time she’d probably have enough time to practice for the Olympic in Beijing next year.

FACT: Freya would start hiccuping. She will usually decide to party while mommy is resting or asleep. Her eyes are partially opened - quite sensibly as who would want to open their eyes wide in a fetid old swamp of amniotic fluid? She is now covered all over with vernix, so it looks a bit like one of those long-distance swimmers smothered in gunk. Except babies have got more brains than to try to swim from Cuba to Florida. Height: 25 cm, weight: 1 kilo.

How mommy’s life is changing:

• Nothing much. Just wee all the time.

Week 27 - The LAST Trimester!

I have my last doggie class this week *sigh* Freya is SO going to miss all those pooches trying to scratch her in my tummy. At the rate I’m doing doggie things these days she’s gonna be born barking instead of crying… By the way, we’ve started calling bub Freya almost full time now as she feels more and more real (delivering punches and kicks a la Jacky Chan). Mikkel Rev still dominates my day with the intensity of singing sometimes increases to 4 times a day.

My tummy is so big now people can’t have no more excuse not to give me seats on the bus. Ironically, I no longer take buses nowadays and won’t have a chance to get a good scream at ignorant people. Have to find another excuse to scream.

FACT: Freya has grown so much she’s running out of room (time to buy a house) and it takes a little longer to manoevre about and turn upside down and sideways. She has been practicing breathing (without any scuba aparatus) here and there, but from now on its breathing will become more rhythmic and constant. Folds and grooves appear on the surface of the brain, which is developing very quickly. Weight: 920 gr, Height: 24 cm.

How mommy’s life is changing:

• Mommy is now a size 14D!! Woohoooo! Pamela, try to beat THAT!
• Kaz suggested I raise my feet up whenever I can: at work, if possible on another chair - better still, make the boss massage the feet.

Week 26 - Mikkel Rev

Really, I shouldn’t have mentioned about playing music to Klumpen. Marek insisted that she would benefit a lot more if she listens to her father singing so he starts to sing to her religiously twice a day. Early morning and night he dives under the doona blanket and sings shamelessly to my precious (poor) little baby. The same song. The ONLY Norwegian children song that he knows and it goes like this:

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Mikkel Rev, satt og skrev (Michael the Fox, sat and wrote)
på ei lita tavle (on a little blackboard)
Tavla sprakk (the blackboard cracked) - there’s a lot of sound effect on the word “sprakk”
Mikkel skvatt (Michael dashed) - more sound effect on “skvatt”
oppi pappas flosshatt (up on daddy’s tall hat)

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Sharon and Warren are in Sydney this week, yippee! They went to Tetsuya for dinner and left me drooling all night with the stories of how good the food is. Warren almost even weeped and we’re talking Warren here. That’s it, first thing we’ll do when Klumpen is out is to go there and I’ll go mad on the raw food and cheese!

FACT: Freya spent most of her time putting on more fat (see what she has to say about this 16 years from now…) and muscle. According to one pregnancy expert, this week in the uterus the bub is showing signs of sensitivity, awareness and intelligence. So if me put a little calculator in there Klumpen could probably estimate the Gross National Product of Botswana. It can detect light even through its still-closed eyelids, smell (sadly for her the only thing on offer is the amniotic fluid, which smells like a swamp), as well as hear, and possibly play the slide guitar. Klumpen will recognise other voices from now on: friends, daddy singing (oh NO…) and Zoe barking. She’s now 23 cm and 820 gr.

How mommy’s life is changing:

• Mommy should get lots and LOTS of rest and exercise (mommy doesn’t like this exercise bit).
• Mommy should should stop wearing heels - tick!
• Mommy should not do any climbing or hurling about - tick!
• Centre of gravity has changed and tummy needs to be protected.
• Mommy will be steadily gaining weight (aargghhhhhh!)

Week 25 - Swimming Regime

I invested big bucks in a HUGE black frilly frilly pregnancy swim suit that looks like it once belongs to my great great grandmother. Even Nicole Kidman and Angelina Jolie wouldn’t look good in that. Start swimming twice a week this week and am very careful to only swim very early in the morning or late in the evening to avoid killing all those schoolchildren from laughing at my attire. Definetely want water birth - no gravity feeling in the water is bliss!!

FACT: Klumpen looks pretty much like a baby at birth by now. She will definetely (so Kaz says) have developed its own sleeping patterns, usually awake when me asleep and vice versa as me movements soothe it to sleep. Klumpen may be startled by loud music and start bashing me up when it hears a certain tune. Or maybe that’s just dancing. This is apparently a good time to play music, talk to her and see if there’s a reaction. She’s now 22.5 cm and 720 gr.

How mommy’s life is changing:

• Klumpen is about due to start putting pressure on me ribs and me digestive system.
• Me could get pains down the sides of me tummy from now on as the uterus stretches (yuck!)

Week 24 - First heartbeat

Went to see the obstetrician last Friday and heard Klumpen’s heartbeat for the first time! Among the sound of my oats & banana breakfast digesting themselves, I could hear “woosh woosh woosh” really quickly. Kawaaiiiiii!!

FACT: Many babies born at this stage have survived with the help of tubes and more tubes in the hospital intensive care. Problem is, the lungs aren’t really finished yet so if Klumpen is out early she would need help to breathe (maybe we should invest in a junior scuba equipment?). Klumpen is 21 cm now and weigh about 630 gr.

How mommy’s life is changing:

• Still waking up every couple of hours to wee at night - how’s that for a life-changing experience!

Week 23 - Packing up

We finally start the renovation! Wooohoooo!! Spent the whole week packing and although most of our stuff are still in the box from the last time we moved from Newtown (geeez..) we’ve collected quite a descent amount of junks in the last 8 months. Took a while to find a place that would also take Zoe and after resigning to the fate that we might have to just rent someone’s garage, we found this place far faaaar away in Sutherland.

So now we’re settling in this nice 2-storey place with a garden big enough for Zoe to have her daily adventure. The elderly couple who own the place, David and Estelle, live in the front part of the house and it looks like they’re gonna spoil little miss Zoe a bit.

FACT: According to Kaz, bub is growing like gangbusters and the brain is maturing. Some researchers believe the foetus has started to think. Others, to be safer, say we can’t really tell when this happens, and it may be much later (and anyway, it’s probably just stuff like ‘Gee, I like to suck things’ and ‘La, la, la, whatever’ or ‘It’s a bit wet in here, innit?’). The skin is growing very quickly but there’s not much fat yet developed for plumping up underneath it so the skin looks a bit pruney. Klumpen is now about 20cm long and 540 grams.

How mommy’s life is changing:

• Waking up every couple of hours to wee at night has been accepted as a new way of life and seen as a good practice for when the bub comes.
• Braxton Hicks (that’s the womb practicing labour contraction) might be felt but I ain’t feel nuthin’ sista!

Week 20 - The First Flutter…

Klumpen starts”fluttering” inside. Happened in the morning when I’m on the bus and at first I suspected it to be bowel movement (oh s**t what do I do what do I do) then I realized it wasn’t Miss Bowel moving but Miss Klumpen! How exciting!

FACT: Klumpen puts on more muscle and tests it out by moving around. The skin’s sebaceous glands (needed, of course, to make pimples later) become active and make the oily stuff called vernix caseosa that covers the skin. It’s the foetus’ do-it-yourself wetsuit made, disgustingly enough, of fatty material and dead skin cells (if that doesn’t make you feel sick, how’s this: doctors say the coating looks like cheese). Vernix caseosa waterproofs the skin against the amniotic fluid, and protects the foetus from scrapes when it bangs into the wall of the uterus. Height: 16 cm, weight: 320 gr.

How mommy’s life is changing:

• Klumpen is about due to start putting pressure on me ribs and me digestive system.
• Me could get pains down the sides of me tummy from now on as the uterus stretches (yuck!)

Week 15 - My tummy pops!

Welcome to the second trimester! One night I went to bed with a (reasonably) flat tummy and the next morning it decided it’s time to look seriously pregnant and pops! Am so proud of my new round tummy I can stare at it for ages in the shower. I feel less like an idiot too when doing my nightly chat with Klumpen as my tummy now does show signs that someone is actually living there. No one can accuse me of talking to my dinner anymore!

Marek is getting more and more clucky it worries me a little bit. He would cuddle Zoe to death (poor little Zoe…) and blabber “oy oy oy oy my little girl! oy oy oy so cute! oy oy oy” and so on and so on. If I am unlucky enough to be nearby, I would get sucked into the deadly cuddle and he goes “oy oy oy… my two little girls! oy oy oy my lovely little girls! oy oy oy” and I sometimes need to karate-chop him to break free. Everytime there’s a TV advertisement with a baby on it he would scream hysterically “I want that!” to which I reply “Coming soon”. Maybe I should buy a Barbie doll to keep him quiet until Klumpen comes out.

FACT: Head to bottom, Klumpen is now about 10 cm long and weighs about 70 gr - woohooo! She is busy inhaling and exhaling amniotic fluid, which will help develop the air sacs in her lungs. Her legs are growing longer than her arms now, and she can move all her joints and limbs. That means her hands are more functional too. Sweat glands are appearing (get the Rexona ready!) and although her eyelids are fused shut, she can sense light. If I shine a flashlight at my tummy, she is likely to move away from the beam. Hah! Let’s see how cranky she’ll be if I do that all night >:) There’s not much for the baby to taste at this point, but her taste buds are beginning to form.

How mommy’s life is changing:

• She should already gain 2.5kg by now *gulp* I think I have already gained almost 4kg! Damn the peanut butter and jam sandwiches!!
• Nose might be stuffed up. Hey, funny… my nose was stuffed up a couple of days ago but I think it’s common cold instead of the more sophisticated “rhinitis of pregnancy”. Sounds terribly serious, eh? Apparently pregnancy alters mommy’s immune system and makes her more susceptible to certain infections.

Week 14 - Peanut Butter and Jam Sandwich

Damn you Walter for mentioning peanut butter and jam sandwich. Been having exactly that for 10 days in a row now. Even bought a toaster especially for making peanut butter and jam sandwich at home.

FACT: Head to bottom, Klumpen is about 9 cm long and weighs about 45 gr. About the size of a lemon. Apparently her body is growing faster than her head, which now sits upon a more well-defined neck (which means the neck looks less than a rugby player’s neck *phew*). By the end of this week, her arms will have lengthened and will be in proportion to the rest of her body (well done! keep up the good work!). Her legs, however, still have some growing to do. She’s starting to develop an ultra-fine, downy covering of hair all over her body and her liver starts secreting bile this week, a sign that it’s already functioning properly. She’s also producing and discharging urine into the amniotic fluid, a normal process that she’ll keep up until birth. Mommy still can’t feel the bub’s movement but her hands and feet (which are now 1.3 cm long oh so cute!) are more flexible and active. Thanks to brain impulses, her little facial muscles are getting a workout as she squints, frowns and grimace. She can grasp now, too, and she may be able to suck her thumb.

How mommy’s life is changing:

• No more nausea (never have one anyway), no more fatigue (darn! No more excuse to sleep in) and no more breast tenderness (yep, gone!)
• Make less trip to the bathroom at night (MYTH!!)

Week 12 - Nuchal Translucency

Had a nuchal translucency ultrasound today - this is to determine whether bub has a down syndrome or not. We passed with flying colours with 1 in 8692 chance of having it (the average chance for women my age is 1 in 436). And I got 1 in 15138 chance of bub getting Edward's syndrome (whatever that is - the average number is 1 in 758) so all's good!

Klumpen was not very cooperative today and lying in the wrong position. The ultrasound chic had to poke my tummy in several places to get her moving so she can take the measurement and suddenly Klumpen jumped like having a big hiccup! *boing* Marek and I both jumped too but it was hilarious :-) We could see the hands and feet (although a bit blurry). And she no longer looks like a blob! She's a baby!

Week 6 - Klumpen's first picture

Had my first ultrasound this morning and as per today, 2 May 2007, Klumpen is 6 weeks and 2 days old. The ultrasound chic said bub is due 24 December 2007 - Christmas baby!!

Klumpen still looks pretty much like a small blob of "thing" but the "thing" had a little pulse which is the heartbeat... kawaiiiiiii!!! Apparently the heart had only started to work for a couple of days so we were lucky. I'm too excited now - calm down - take a deep breath - hhaaaahhhh..

Me pregnant!!

Tue, 17 April 2007 - Was watching "I shouldn't be alive" on TV with Marek and right at the part when this one guy got eaten by a shark a thought flashed in my head "I think I'm pregnant". Went to the bathroom to do a wee test and got two lines!! :-) Hooray!!

Wed, 18 April 2007 - Just to be sure I took another test in the toilet at work using another brand. Still two lines!! Hard to stop grinning from ear to ear in the office for the rest of the day.

Thu, 19 April 2007 - Just to be absolutely ABSOLUTELY sure I spent big bucks buying this digital pregnancy test and did a third test in Optus toilet. PREGNANT!! I'm gonna be mommy!! Oooooh... it's so hard not to tell people!! I wanna tell I wanna tell I wanna tell!! (ended up telling just my mommy and daddy and little sis).