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!)