The Year of the Dog

For all those Dogs out there, this is your year. Of course, I have no idea when the Chinese calendar actually starts, but it's your year anyway so revel in it.

I cannot believe it's 2006 now. It took me so long to get the date-writing right (from American to Australian: day/month/year) that I'm now going to get it scooched again for awhile until I remember EVERY DAY that we're now in 2006. My god.

Thank you to everyone who commented on my previous post, and for all the wonderful emails I've been receiving. Your guys are just the best. THE BEST!

So now... to recap because I haven't updated in a few days and I feel like I've been super busy, although by the time I write it all down I'll have realized that I haven't been super busy at all, and wonder how I managed to waste all the time inbetween.

Okokok, so let's see, I left off on the 26th December. Well the 27th wasn't anything spectacular; it was hot though, so I did spend a lot of time trying to keep cool, mostly with the fan blowing directly on me and ringing out wet towels all over my body. Mmmm wet skin under a fan...

The 29th I went down to Mamala's because I had an appointment with my midwife on the 30th at 8:15am. D, after having decided how much he truly hates where he works, rang me up on the 29th (on his way to work) and asked me what I thought about him taking the following day off, so he could come down and listen to the babys heartbeat and be with me for the checkup. Well I all but squealed (or possibly I did squeal) that yes that was a GREAT idea. And so, he called me back a few hours later and told me he'd gotten the time off work and would be joining me for my appointment.

Beyond that, the 29th wasn't that busy. We stayed at the Mall for awhile, trying to keep me cool, plus do a wee bit of grocery shopping, and then headed back to Mamalas. It was remarkably cool at her place and we were both chagrined to see how much my feet had actually swollen (I am not posting pictures, and don't actually HAVE pictures so no asking!) so I sat with my feet up on a cold towel for the remainder of the afternoon. My feet looked like mini submarines, minus the periscope thingy.

That night, the little parasite gave us something to laugh at as she kept moving and rolling around my belly, giving Mamala a chance to really see her acrobatics. Sometimes they were like wave-motions, and other times full on kicks; sometimes even moving and becoming so lopsided that the right side of my stomache was up in the air (mooning us?!) while the left side of my belly was perfectly flat. She's such a darling, my little parasite. We also spent quite awhile reminiscing over my childhood, things I remembered (or not) mostly about my grandparents.

The 30th came along, and D rolled up about 10mins before we had to leave for the hospital, which meant he was up at 5am Q-time (because we're an hour behind NSW in DST). He was terribly excited about hearing the heartbeat for the first time, and I only prayed we'd get the same midwife I had a couple of weeks ago, because so far she's been the only one who's been even remotely interested in finding the actual heartbeat and not the placental swish.

So in we went, waited about fifteen minutes I suppose, in a waiting room FULL of pregnant ladies - did you ever see that episode of the Simpsons where Homer drops Maggie off at playgroup, and when he comes to pick her up one afternoon, there's hundreds of babies everywhere just staring at him? Well that's what the waiting room reminded me of.

And... we were lucky enough to get Sue, the midwife I really wanted us to see! D came in, along with Mamala and my sister Tia. And he got to hear his daughter's heartbeat for the very first time! Of course, it was the first time for my sister as well so she burst into tears, which set off a chain reaction with Mamala and I, but it was very much worth it.

My uterus is measuring about 33cm long, babies heartrate was 154 beats per minute and OMG was she active during the exam!! And she's now out of the breech position and down where she should be. Sue did say that they will keep an eye on that, and even though bubby should stay where she's at right now, she may end up moving around a little and could get herself breech again. Still it's nothing to worry about yet, and Sue was extremely pleased about bub's progress. I might add she was also a little surprised at how active she was! My Nanna seems to think my daughter is going to be quite active and inquisitive - which Mamala concurs with; evidently that's a trait that was borne in me (and in D as well, I might add) so of course we're going to have one active, inquisitive child.

Can't wait!

So this week we're moving right along at 34 weeks and everything looks awesome. Sue says the baby is a nice size, not too big and not too small (as long as she's under 8lbs and over 5lbs I'll be happy) and growing as she should be. This made all of us, particularly D who hasn't been to many of my appointments, very happy. It's one thing for me to tell him what went on, it's something entirely different to hear it from the mouth of the midwife or doctor that everything is going along perfectly.

After our appointment was over, and we'd had breakfast, we drove back to Mamala's to pick up our car to head back into town and into the baby boutique. We wanted to price out carseats and how much it was going to cost to have one installed. Turns out that it's free installation as long as you buy from them, and luckily I found the exact carseat I wanted, for about $160 LESS than where I saw it in the first place!! So we put it on layaway, and will pick it up in a few weeks, along with the pram we have put away as well.

Then we went furniture shopping and found the chest of drawers we want for her room. We didn't pick those up yesterday because they come preassembled and we didn't think we'd have enough room in our car to transport it home. Luckily there's a furniture store closer to where we live, so we will be able to go in, buyt it and have it delivered if we can't fit it in our car.

We have 6 weeks to go before she's here and we've got nothing ready. I'm trying not to panic about it, but I feel like the time is FLYING by and it's all beyond my control. Of course, it's not really, it only feels like it. Or so I'm telling myself.

Anyway, that's the recap of the past few days, which now brings us up to speed, and the dawn of a New Year. We didn't do anything last night except watch a couple of movies: Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me and Hot Shots! before stumbling sleepily into bed around 10pm. We were woken up briefly at midnight by our neighbours counting down the remaining 5 seconds of the old year, and then screaming "Happy New Year!" and dissolving into much merriment and laughter, at which point D and woke up, wished each other a happy new year and then promptly fell back asleep again.

This was disappointing to me because it's the first year in I can't even tell you how many years, that I didn't stay up to watch the ball drop. Of course, this is also the first time in my life that I've been pregnant, and I'm always tired it seems, so I suppose that's my excuse for not being able to stay awake, no matter how much I wanted to.

This morning we had to head out and buy some milk, and while out, stopped at McDonalds for breakfast. It wasn't as good as it usually is, but that might have been because I was really wanting Nutri-Grain cereal and IGA wasn't open and I don't know if they even will be open today (is anything really?) so I had to settle for what was available.

Oh, and yes I have all my Christmas photos on my computer now, I just haven't uploaded them. I know, I'm terrible.