Pandy and Andy create a baby...

Tuesday, November 21, 2006

Week 21... PS.

Dad just felt his first kick! (Only two weeks after mum.)
:-)

Week 21 - A mouthful of sticks...


We're now at week 21 and the changes just keep on truckin' in.

The most notable is the entrance into one of the more male dreaded stages of all.

See "preggas woman" has evolved over the millenia to prepare the nest/cave/double-brick-in-the-Baghdad-end-of-Hampton for the soon to arrive bub, to make said nest cosy, clean and secure to ensure the wee-tots survivability in the face of disease, sabertooths and/or bogans. Hence Darwin has kindly given us... the nesting instinct.

This has manifest itself in the P&A household as an insatiable urge to prepare the study as a baby room. To her credit Mistress P isn't all "paint the walls duckegg blue and put up wiggles posters" (thats more likely to be woosy old dad-to-be), but simply wants room to swing a cat(/baby), with a change table, cot, clothes & nappy storage etc etc. Sounds easy.

Of course in practice this means sorting out and converting what was a somewhat tiny study and computer room, but of late has become, well, a bit of a bomb area. Unfortunately this is where cleaning methodologies diverge...
AB (typical male): "I haven't used this crap since we moved in. Junk it."
Mistress P (common or garden variety preggas-brain woman): "Mmmm... this piece of paper with scribble on it from 1st year uni just may come in handy if I ever have to relearn basic rat physiology/papier mache a giant head - i'd better keep it just in case..."

Argh. But there appears method in the madness, and we're getting there steadily. The nest will indeed be livable, if not beautiful.

Mistress P is also now "enjoying" the delights of not sleeping on her back cos of a fear of the baby's now considerable weight applying pressure to the large vein (called the inferior vena cava) that carries blood back to the heart from the feet and legs. (Not helped by low - 90/50 - blood pressure as the blood vessels relax under the influence of the hormone progesterone.) And if we get all technical we only sleep on the left to stop the liver being squished as well. This of course means AB now gets regularly booted onto the "wrong" side of the bed - can a man survive without clock radio/light control(?) - and there is the significant risk of a wandering sleep dazed hubby returning from the post loo run and crushing said veins/babies/wifes anyway by springboarding into his regular bed-possie.

Aside from us, Mistress P's friend and previous workplace baby confidante, Fiona, has left the preggas club and joined the parent parade. Congrats... and welcome to the world cutie-pie Sarah. Its kinda brought the reality of the near future home to us fast - errr... and maybe to them too!

Wednesday, November 15, 2006

The next Lance..?



Scan Postscript: The results are in and the winner is... Sid-eh-nee... Well actually in this context it isn't, cos the winner is Stubbsy, who appears to be almost so normal he could be labelled boring (If it not for the fact that normal is fantastic in this context!).

The only thing slightly off centre (at about the 75th percentile) is the femur (thigh bone) length. Supposedly for bike riding the longer the better, since length improves leverage - you just may be reading about the next Lance Armstrong right here! (Dont say we didnt tell you first folks...)

Footnote: Biparietal = diameter of the head

Monday, November 13, 2006

Congratulations, its a .....

Its 20 weeks, and this can only mean one thing... off to the horsepiddle for yet another scan.

Of course Mistress P remained a little unsure about how well things were going bub-wise, but then such apprehension is also another tick on the "typical preggas stuff" list. Such doubts from mum are apparently only natural. However given the nature of the ever expanding belly it seemed a tad unlikely that the tike was anything other than a Pandora-powered growing machine.

The end result of scan 20 week - a perfect bub it seems; cooking well and at about the medium-rare stage. And apparently a handsome young devil too, as this is the second scan in a row where the apparently objective and sterile zapping machine person has suddenly gushed "Awwww isnt he a cutie!". (Maybe the next Zoolander?")

This time we also had a trainee zapping person as well as the seasoned expert, so we probably got a far longer session than is normal due to the old hand guiding the L-plater. However as the lil 'un has grown so much since last scan it was a little harder to tell what was what, as it appeared difficult to get the whole kit and kaboodle into the frame at the one time. Or maybe it was just us.

Speaking of kit and kaboodle, we saw some. And HE appeared to like playing with it too. (I think the operator(s) actually blushed when I said "Is he really doing what i think he's doing?" I think they blushed even more when I forgot to engage the brain and blurted "Guess he does take after dad..." - I was thinking of the infamous sperm test of course. N.B. All the above is noted purely for embarrassing 21st speeches of course...).

We also got to see all four chambers of the heart merrily squishing the blood in and out (a little slower than before (~150bpm), but still pretty much spot on normal), which frankly is bloody amazing, feet (see the second frame of the attached pic), arms, legs, spine, ribs, lips, nose... all the good stuff.

On the home front, Mistress P has become a little furnace, clearly responsible for a larger percentage of the enhanced greenhouse effect. Shes almost literally throwing the covers off the bed at night. Shes also become a hair growing machine - though thankfully just on her head. From a woman of fine locks she's developed a truly magnificent mane, apparently the result of increased levels of the oestrogen hormone. (Heres hoping that the flip side doesn't emerge during breastfeeding, when the opposite can occur and hair can apparently start falling out...)

The other apparent emergence is a little more emotion - the odd tear (but understandable; a close collegue passed away) and, thankfully for my stomach - a little more forcefulness. See, we were visiting this restaurant (cos, like, what in the world would we need savings for?) when we asked for garlic bread. They brought us herb. Now being of the good placid stock we are, we just started eating it and shrugged and gave the old "oh well, this is kinda nice anyway" when up walked the waitress. Mistress P, mouth still half full of aforementioned bread, and basket infront of us closer to empty than full, suddenly blurts out:

"EXCUSE ME,... but we ordered{chew chew, swallow swallow, chew chew} garlic bread!!"

"Oh sorry, i'll get you another..." the poor lass muttered meekly, and ran away, delivering another full (and free) batch of bread to the table in double time.

"Thank you" smiled Mistress P, glancing up with the look of a lioness protecting her kill.

"Its ok" I offered in my best Basil Fawlty/'dont worry, he's from Barcelona' voice.
"Shes pregnant..."

Wednesday, November 08, 2006

week 19 - hey, whats goin' on in there?




Week 19 and theres movement. Originally is wasn't clear whether it was indigestion from one too many Tim Tams on a typical Sandy Point holiday of gluttony, or the Kewell/Hamm-like kickings of a young 'un, but something was going on. But today (start of week 20) theres been clear and present movement at the station; we have kicking. Or at least very bizarre feeling wrigglin' about. Mistress P reports it's rather hard having a deep and meaningful about the science of gobal climate change with a crusty researcher when theres an alien dancing the achy-breaky-heart in ya' tum.

The week has also seen a rapid expansion of the belly. This has lead to the first real signs of preggy-wobble. Seems with getting bigger comes the added wonder of changing centre of gravity. It also means the Mistress P body continues to obey the laws of Newtonian mechanics, and takes a little more stopping than shes used to - kinda like Titanics avoiding icebergs. Case in point... a certain Mistress P is tootling along the bike path on her way to work, when a pedestrian steps in her way. She brakes. The bike stops as per usual, but... she doesnt... and does a slow motion topple off the side!

"I just kept moving!" she says.

Err... yup. Its called extra mass. A little differently placed than normal.

This of course lead to much tredipidation about the Melbourne Cup weekend away at Sandy Point, home of the windsurfing Cup-equivalent, and site of Mistress P's former speedsailing glory... would it be possible to hang out with a hundred or so of your favourite windsurfing friends on the biggest windsurfing weekend of the year, and be forced to sit on the beach patiently if you found you couldn't sail???

Aside from a few troubles getting the wetsuit to zip up (it couldn't quite) and getting comfy in the harness (not really possible, though once hooked in it was fine) she had no problems. Indeed she had to be coaxed out of going balls out in the speed comp. And even then it was only cos there wasn't a chickies competition, just an all in where only the big guns have a chance. In the end she sailed fine, even coming periloulsy close to pulling off her first carve gybe.

Little kicks, some wobbling about on a bike, and the bubs first sail. Could it be the next Harry Kewell/Mia Hamm, a twin for Kathy Watt/Lance Armstong or even a future Robby Naish/Daida Moreno? (Of course modesty, and hopefully sexual predication, forbids me from saying, "all of the above"... )

Wednesday, November 01, 2006

18 weeks and the living is easy

We're well and truly into the second trimester now, and true to form , Mistress P is ticking off the preggas list one by one.

She's indeed starting to look "rotund" and is clearly sporting a BigTum, but best of all everything has quietened down on the feeling queasy side, there is barely any nausea and lots of "feel good" hormones coarsing through the veins. So much so that theres been moments of "Am I sure i'm still pregnant?" (Its either that, or you've swallowed a basketball whole, my dear...)

Well, thats until the occasional heartburn kicks in - nobody told her about that (but shes now read about it...) Big, round and burning. And sometmies a little gassy. Aint it all so glamerous!

Being the superwoman Mistress P is, she's still riding to work 2-3 days a week (between 17 and 21 km each way, but now complaining (and fair enough too) she needs new hipster bike shorts), swimmin-with-the-wimmen, and pilates classes when she can. She's even talking about taking out the windsurfer - her embaressingly named Starboard FreeSex - this Cup Weekend. Rock. Is there nothing this woman cant do? (She certainly can make a mean rum ball, which she did this week too... mmmmm..... ruuuummmm ballllllll.)

We're also seeing bit of a return to, err... bedroom stuff.

...now, if the preggas list and Mistress P correlation remains true to form, we're just awaitin' the first kicks any day now. Stay tuned... more news at 10.