As usual, Wengr was acting shy and refusing to let our doc capture a clean profile. So all we have is a semi-clear picture of his head… which we discovered was gynormous for 32 weeks. The head is already at 9cm and the limit for natural birth is apparently 10cm, so unless Jr decides to stop growing the size of his head, G may not have a choice on Caesarian. On the bright side, he’s in the 95% on height and normal on weight and body fat.
About two-thirds of what I bought. The rest are in the wine fridge as they have to be kept cool.
A friend, L, brought me to a medical hall that she swears by all the way in the northern part of the island. You see, we live on the west and I can still (easily) get lost in the city, so going to the north is almost like driving all the way to Malaysia. But, I digress.
The Chinese medical store is packed full of herbs and ointments, including many unidentifiable dried animal parts. The owners are a couple in their late 40s / early 50s with three kids. The husband, Peter, is Singaporean and fluent in English but the wife, Anna, who also happens to be the main expert, prefers to converse in Mandarin.
Ankle-less feet at week 25
During our gynae visit on Friday, the doc expressed concern over my seriously swollen feet. I’d thought it was a common condition in an earlier post and have been told that having swollen feet means that there is enough water for the baby to swim in. However, apparently it is just not normal to have such swollen feet this early in the pregnancy so the doc prescribed me some daflon.
The doc also chided me for wearing shoes that allowed my feet to expand further when I had purposely bought the softest and widest pair of Crocs I could find. It just seemed counter-intuitive to keep my feet in a covered-up shoe but the doc said not only should I switch to sneakers, I should also wear socks to help increase compression! Fortunately, I hadn’t gone out to buy a pair of the soft+wide Crocs in a few different colors just yet.
We had our monthly pregnancy checkup on Friday, and G had an urge to see Junior’s face. In addition to a standard ultrasound, more doctors are now able to perform a “4D” ultrasound scan (not to be confused with the other popular “4D” in Singapore). In a nutshell, a 4D scan is a moving 3D image (or err video) of your baby. The same types of sound waves are used, but rather than bouncing the waves directly, they are angled to produce a 3D composite view.
So even at just 25 weeks old, we can see what (and whom) our son looks like. His nose and forehead definitely take after G (and confirms that it is indeed her child). And the other “trait” that runs strong in this family is a shyness to photo taking. The brief glimpse of Junior’s face was the result of some prodding (and poking) by our baby doc to get him to move his arms away from his face. It really was as if he was trying his best to avoid getting his picture taken (just like mum and dad). Hopefully, photo-averseness is just temporary, and like our chins will be two traits that won’t run in the family.
Between G’s pregnancy and related respiratory issues, the list of foods that she should avoid is quite long and includes basic staples like chicken and dairy products. As an alternative to cow milk, she’s been drinking more soy, which has comparable levels of protein but significantly less calcium. Manufacturers of soy drinks do add vitamins, calcium, to enrich their products but also include chemical additives with unknown effects on pregnancy . So instead of buying our soy milk at the store, we’ve been enjoying it homemade courtesy of our family friend H.
The home version is way better than any store bought variety and really only takes about an hour of actual labor.
Here’s what you’ll need (makes approx 4-5 litres of soy milk):
- 1 kg soy beans
- 1 blender
- 2 or more cheesecloths
- pandan leaves (optional)
- raw cane sugar (optional)
So we wanted to squeeze in another baby moon via a short trip somewhere because something tells us that our world will be topsy turvy when Junior arrives. A trip to Okinawa with the cousins would have been perfect but things didn’t quite work out.
We thought about some places in Southeast Asia and came up with Cambodia (‘cos W really wants to visit Angkor Wat before the government restricts access to some temples) and Taiwan. Taiwan turned out to be really expensive after checking out some travel websites and Cambodia seemed like a better option. I figure it’s not the sort of place one would bring toddlers so if we didn’t visit now, it’d probably be closer to two decades before we could visit.
BUT… there’s alot of walking involved and sanitation is not the best. Also, we would be making the trip in my 28th week where we could run the risk of having Junior born on Cambodian soil. Just yesterday, a friend commented that she thought we were crazy for thinking of going while a cousin berated me for being reckless. As a result, it looks like we are now back to square one and are considering new options – Phuket, Bangkok or Bali. I personally don’t mind a staycation (just need a break without breaking the bank) but I think W has island fever and needs to get away.
BabyBump reports: Baby Size ~ 29.2cm (large mango). Baby Weight ~ 0.499kg
Your baby is probably quite active by now and you should be able to feel movement or kicks in your belly. It might even be possible to see the movements on the surface of your skin.
After the crazy worrying about not feeling kicks, our son is finally giving me some action. However, as W would say it, my belly is probably too lined with fats for us to see any movements on the surface of the skin just yet. He kicks a few times a day and sometimes gives a series of kicks around meal times. I’m also getting the feeling that he’s a fussy eater because he makes me puke food out even when they’re not that bad. And it’s not because I’m too full either because the first time I felt him kicking (and it was a series of kicks), I’d eaten A LOT of food including two whole bowls of Zosui (Japanese porridge).
We’re also wrecking our brains trying to think of names for the kid. “Junior” and “Wengr” are probably not going to help him survive high school. Fortunately, the responsibility for coming up with his Chinese name has been assigned to the in-laws.
On a more positive note, we are at least getting some headway with the crazy excel list of things to buy. Categorized according to areas like Feeding, Changing, to Travel etc, we are looking at a big hole in the pocket that we are trying to control by doing as much research as possible before buying. Today, we walked into Motherswork (a local store) and looked at strollers. They didn’t have a lot of models for us to select so we could only really look at the Bugaboo Cameleon and the Stokke Xplory. But more on strollers in another post…
Carrying a baby in your womb for months is not easy on the back and I’d been feeling lower back pains as early as in my fourth month despite a good night’s rest. So after doing some research on maternity pillows, I found a model that had nearly 500 reviews and a 4-star rating on Amazon. The Leachco Back ‘N Belly retailing at US$58.49 with free shipping.
Thanks to W’s 1k status, he was able to lug a suitcase with just that pillow in addition to his other two suitcases from his last U.S. work trip. And thank goodness for our awesome friend, L, who offered her office address (and got weird looks from her coworkers for all the bulky packages that came through) for my online purchases.
It may be a little too soon to think about it now but the other day at a friend’s baby shower, the conversation in our corner revolved around what to do with the placenta (after the baby is born). Apparently, one lady is planning to eat the placenta raw while another is planning to stir fry it (presumably with spring onions and ginger).
I did a quick search online and found that there’s an actual word for eating the placenta! It’s called Placentophagy. Someone even did a whole lot of research on a topic that she’d accidentally stumbled upon.
Would you eat your placenta?
Felt him kicking after a very satisfying homecooked Japanese meal yesterday evening at L&S’s home. L, the ultimate Japanese afficionado, made us a hot pot dinner with Japanese ingredients and a 3-mushroom soup stock (Japanese shabu shabu typically comes in a pretty tasteless stock). After everyone was done eating, L made Zosui (Japanese porridge) from the leftover stock and it was soooOOO good that I ate 2 bowls of it! And, I’m usually full after just half a bowl of rice so that is a lot of rice for me.
In fact, with the baby on the way, I have to be careful not to overeat or I’ll get nauseous from indigestion. But apparently our son is also a Japanese food fan and not only held down all the food, he even let me know how much he liked it with some pretty vigorous kicking.
This evening, I felt him kicking again but not quite as vigorously. Wen said it’s cos the baby has good taste and didn’t like tonight’s dinner as much as yesterday’s. =)
According to a quick search on Google, it seems like feeling kicks at the 20-something week period is not as consistent because it’s easier to get distracted by work and other matters to actually notice the kicks. By week 30, or even week 28, the mother should start monitoring the kicks (e.g. x number of movements every y minutes/hour) and even visibly see the baby moving across her belly.