1st Ultrasound!

Dear Baby,

Mommy this week went for the first ultrasound scan. Was mommy excited? Wasn't sure because mommy was too busy trying to not have to go pee for one and a half hours while waiting for my turn in the queue as you need a full bladder for the scan to be picked up successfully. If mommy knew I had to wait that long, I would've only started drinking when I got to the clinic.

When it was mommy's turn to go into the room, told the radiologist, the person who was doing the scan, please don't press the bladder part so hard unless you want me to pee on the bed.

Mommy couldn't see what the radiologist saw, as the monitor was turned towards her, and everything was very quiet, so was just look at her facial expression and she looked serious especially when she kept on moving the wand like as if she couldn't find what she was looking for. Are you in there I wonder? Where did you go?

Finally she turned the monitor around, and mommy saw this:

"You can see the baby's head is right here, this is the spine. And there's the legs, you can see the bones. See the heart beating?"

Mommy saw a dark round space which was your head, and your back with your legs tucked, like as if you were sleeping on your side all curled up.

"The baby is looking fine, it's developing well" and mommy saw on the monitor that your measurements indicated you were 20 weeks and 5 days old.

"Can we see the gender?"

"No, it's not fully developed yet. Probably at your next visit." She lied, because all literature said you could already see by 20 weeks.

"When is that?"

"Oh, when you're about 8 months."

8 months? That's a while, that's another 3 months. She printed out the picture and handed it to mommy. I wasn't impressed. Maybe I had expectations about this as it was your first picture.

Let's see what happens at your next photo shoot...

love,

Mommy

3KG in 4 Weeks?!?!

Hi Baby,

Last week was... mommy can't remember which visit it was... possibly a third or fourth visit to the clinic already. Anyway, at the weighing in session mommy had a shock, the scales read 77.2. It was an unbelievable moment. The previous visit was 73.8. Everything else was fine and the nurse sent mommy to the doctor.

When I walked into the doctor's room, the first thing the doctor said was, "Oh you're tall enough, can't hardly see the weight on you." I'm not sure if that made me feel any better. She continued on saying that mommy had just come off 1st trimester and appetite to eat is back so it was no surprise there and proceeded to do the whole song and dance about watching what you eat and blah blah blah. Mommy kinda tuned out at that moment because the nurse had said the same thing earlier and I feel they have no right to tell me that when they themselves are overweight, baby will learn about people's hypocrisy. Mommy and daddy will do our best not to do that to you.

So, it had been 8 days since after that visit, and mommy been keeping a food diary to watch what I'm eating, according to pregnancy literature was only suppose to gain 1lb a week with a growing baby inside, and mommy stepped on the weighing scales and it read 77.4. Fantastic! Only gained 1/2 lb. So hopefully this will continue in the following weeks so by the time mommy go for the next check up would have only gained 1kg!

Mommy been asking daddy to look for a good treadmill... hopefully there is one available...

Hope you're doing well,

love

Mommy

The Chest Restraint

Hi Baby,

Mommy's chest have graduated to the *dum dum dum duuuuummmm* Maternity Bra! (extra echo included) That basically means I can't wear my usual underwired ones, they have started to over spill, although I do miss the cleavage they gave me. These mumsy bras are a bit... wide apart for my taste. And I can't remember when was the last time I wore a non wired bra. I asked daddy what he thought, and I felt like somebody out of the 60s wearing these bras. They are comfortable I suppose. Next bras to get: Nursing Bras.

Love,

Mom

Discovery

Dear Baby,

Mommy can eat chicken now! Daddy would be happy to hear that, he's been eating meat all the time past several months. Mommy discovered this during a meeting this morning, and the food served was nasi lemak with ayam masak merah, and the chicken looked really good and I decided to bit the bullet and just tried a piece, eating with caution, and gasp, it went down well! Then I had a few more pieces since it was already lunch time and figured I might as well eat and stay in the office today. Plus, it's raining heavily outside.

Can't wait for the check up next week to see how you are!

Love,
Mom

PS, mommy can't do that 'where's baby' trick anymore, cos mommy starting to show already! Baby's getting bigger!

Here's baby!

Hi Baby,

Mommy realised something, mommy is still not showing but if I let go of my stomach muscles you pop out... as in tummy bulge. So mommy showed this cool trick to daddy one night after his hard day at work, stood side ways and announced, "Where's baby?", let the tummy go and it rounded out, "Here's baby!" Daddy had to laugh and smile, made our day!

Love,

Mommy

The End Of The Year

Hello Baby,

It's that time of year again, when daddy is really busy and comes home much later than usual. So now you know, come November and December, he won't be back til after you've gone to bed. Which mean you have to make sure you wake him up in the mornings.

Last week mommy had the monthly check to see how we're doing. The nurse listened to your heartbeat again, yup, still fast as ever, and gave mommy more folic acid tablets and this time, iron tablets, that's to make mommy's blood take in more oxygen to make sure we both have enough. Not only that, because mommy's hemoglobin, they're the blood cells that carries the oxygen, is only 10.1 and for normal people is 70, mommy's not normal, the nurse decided mommy should have my blood monitored too, and that means having to do a blood test every month!

So now it has been 16 odd weeks, you're getting bigger in there, size of a palm, although thanks to mommy's strong abs muscle, I'm speculating, mommy's not showing much... yet. Daddy said most likely when mommy hits sixth month, that's about over 20 something weeks, then mommy will show that you're in there.

One thing mommy and daddy have learnt, McDonalds prosperity burger does not agree in our family. No more McD for us, from now on it'll be Burger King! Junior Whopper no mayo thanks *grin*

Love,
Mom

Buy Now Or Later...?

Dear Baby,

We came back from Singapore a week or two ago. Out of all the things mommy intended to buy or didn't buy ended up buying something that I didn't think I'd be buying. I did think of buying maybe a couple of maternity outfit to accommodate the growing tummy, something simple and nice and can wear on other occasions, and as the last day came and everything already packed and checked out the hotel and a leisure time spent checking out more shops, on the last place we went to, there was a shop which mommy got enticed to enter. It was a maternity shop to boot, the fancy kind.

Several change of outfits later, mom and dad walked out with about ten outfits, tops and dresses which what enticed me was that I could use it for breast feeding without having to take it off. Design was really great, one of those, now-how-come-no-one-thought-of-that... then on the way to the airport, of all places we forgot to ask for the GST refund!! And we were really good about making sure we always ask for it, but somehow at that particular shop we just forgot.

Interestingly while mommy was in the changing room, dad observed an old man who just walked into the shop and sat on the waiting seat, dad noticed the old man was fidgeting with his bag and prior to that the old man was by the decorated christmas tree just inside the shop. Then all of the sudden the old man just upped and left. Dad noticed that the lower branches of the tree was missing a couple of ornaments, good chance the old man swiped it. Who would have guessed...

Love,

Mom