100 days to go

Today its exactly 100 days to Feb 8th, which is my due date as per ME :) My midwife put it down as 10th Feb on my last visit and I'm certain she's got it wrong. I've checked online calculators all of which indicate that I am right. So I'm sticking with 8th Feb!!

I've got a list of probable names for bubs. Nothing which makes me go - "Yes, THAT's it!" yet. I think I'll make up my mind once I've seen her. You know, its as though her "personality" would tell me what she should be called :)

Got some great news yesterday - Shanta is pg as well, due in early June.

Had my first midwife visit at the GP today. BP is normal - 100/60, the same as last time. Weight is 60kgs, just a kg and a half since the last measurement. Totally I've gained 4 kgs. It may seem a little less but as the midwife said and from reports I've read, the weight gained is not indicative of the health of the baby. A normal gain is around 10-15 kgs during the course of the 9 months, most of which is in the last trimester. I still have a couple of weeks to go before I enter that phase.

I met this silly lady at the surgery today who kept insisting on telling me and everyone around how tiny she thought I was at 26 weeks. She seemed to think she was much larger at 25 weeks and was worried that she would have a difficult labour with a large baby. Well lady, I wonder how u missed noticing that u are larger than me all over and not just around the belly! Anyway not that she had me worried but just embarrassed.

My fundal height, which is the length measured from the top of the pubic bone to the top of the uterus, is 27cms. The fundal height normally matches the foetus' gestational age, within 1 - 3 cms. I am at 25wks and 5 days today so that seems normal, if a bit large. Measuring the fundal height is an indicator of proper fetal growth and amniotic fluid development. My midwife told me she would be focussing on this measurement more than the weight gain to check on my progress.

We heard the foetal heart beat again today. And felt around for foetal movements. The dip stick test for the urine was normal so no culture test is recommended. She has asked me to continue drinking lots of water. Iron supplements she does not recommend insisting that my Hb of 12.1 is a very good count. I discussed about the jittery baby condition in India due to lack of Calcium and she left it up to me to decide. Said she hasnt come across or even heard of this condition here.

Overall I came away satisfied with the visit. The midwife seem genuinely interested in handling the pregnancy as a normal physical condition and not as an illness requiring treatment and supplements all the time. All the same, she was sympathetic to my concerns of ethnic and cultural differences which necessitates some intervention. I guess we need to check with an Indian gynaec after all just to put our worries to rest. Meanwhile I will continue to ensure a balanced diet.

I wanted to sneak in a bit about our weekend away but this post seems to be getting too long already. More on that in the next post then.

The odds are better

I've completed 29 revolutions around the sun yesterday. That's nearly 3 decades and almost half my life!! Been a good ride so far, hmm, good and getting better.

Somehow I've always liked the odd birthdays more than the even ones. For example, dont u think 29 sounds better than 28 and 31 better than 30? Well except perhaps sweet-16 and officially-an-adult-18 :)

Our angel completed 23 weeks today and here's some cool foetal development facts:
Your baby now weighs a little over one pound/ 500 grams and measures about 11.4 inches/ 29 centimetres from crown to heel. Her hearing is well established and she can make out a distorted version of your voice, the beating of your heart and your stomach rumblings. Loud noises often heard in utero, such as the barking of a dog next door or the roar of a vacuum cleaner, probably won't bother your child when she hears them outside the womb.

Bump is growing each day and I wish I could put up a latest picture soon.

The miracle of birth

This post is to record all the amazing things I've learnt as a result of this pregnancy. Things about my body, about the baby, about the MIRACLE of bringing a new life into this world. Some facts are medical, some are not, some are brow-raising, some are mundane. But I've recorded them for posterity anyway. I hope u enjoy reading as much as I enjoyed learning about them.

Note: This is in no specific order and may appear random at times. That's because I'll just be putting them down as they occur to me. Isnt that the whole point of having a blog? :)

• It is believed (I dont know if this is a medical fact) that a pregnancy changes a woman's immune system so that the body does not reject the baby as a foreign object (which it is, as it is composed of half the partner's genes). This may be why pregnant women are more prone to infections and are advised to avoid someone having the sniffles :)
• The digestive system and processes in pregnant women slow down inorder to absorb the maximum possible nutrients from the food that the mother consumes. This is why pregnant women typically have digestive ailments.
• The amniotic fluid in which the baby floats is responsible for carrying nutrients to it and the waste products away. This is circulated every 30 mins and hence it is very important to keep up the fluid intake (especially water) during the course of the pregnancy.
• The internal body temperature is a couple of degrees higher for pregnant women. They are therefore advised to avoid hot baths, hot showers and over-exercising to prevent the baby from over-heating which can be harmful.
• Vitamin C boosts the body's absorption of Iron, while Calcium hinders the absorption of Iron.
• The baby is called an embryo from conception to 8 weeks. From the 9th week onwards it is called a foetus. At 24 weeks the baby is considered 'viable', which means it has a good chance of surviving outside the uterus if it is born.
• At about five months of gestation the baby is covered by downy hair called lanugo which is fine, soft and usually unpigmented. The hair supposedly insulates the baby in absence of fat and is usually shed before birth.
• Babies at birth are covered with a white cheesy substance called vernix. Vernix is composed of sebum (oil of the skin) and cells that have sloughed off the foetus's skin. Vernix comes from the latin word for 'varnish' and performs the same function for the baby, i.e. protecting its skin from the amniotic fluid.

Disclaimer: I do not vouch for the complete medical authenticity of the facts on this post.

It's a GIRL !!!!

:) I've ALWAYS wanted to make that announcement, and since we know already I dint want to wait until Feb. I realise I've been referring to 'her' in all my posts but we got the definite confirmation only at the scan last week (5th Oct).

This was our second and last scan and, like everyone told me, the last time we get to see bubs this way - the beating heart and all. I did think the first scan was more exciting cos we dint know what to expect and we could see all of her in one screen. She also had a whole lot of space to move around and made these big movements. This time however we saw her in parts and though we could make out she was moving around it wasnt as big as last time. But the motions I feel inside me now more than make up for all that loss of excitement at the scan. Now even Rohan's been able to sense them several times :) The results of the scan are that all is normal and she's growing in there just fine, praise God.

I set off the smoke alarm the other day at home, no, not a fire in the kitchen, just a "smoking" egg strata. At first I just couldn't place where that LOUD beep beep was coming from. I thought I'd set something off in the oven by turning it off all of a sudden. I thought the oven was gonna explode or something (jeez!). When I finally figured the source I panicked at the thought of not being able to shut down the sound in time and having my front door broken down by security staff or worse, firefighters!! Nothing all that dramatic happened, and I managed to shut it off by pushing my fingers into all possible buttons on the alarm. So much for a relaxing snack!!

My second test's come out normal (what's going on here?) so I dont need to start on any antibiotics, which is a relief.

Nothing else has been happening except that the days are getting shorter here and I'm already dreading December :(