so the lil one went on its first flight and had a pretty good time. didn’t make me puke or anything. in fact, i felt invincible. i even agreed to a seafood buffet, for heavens’ sake!

of course, on the second day, it was back to being picky, ordering only mee goreng indomee instead of joining izad in his rice and ayam taliwang-sup kikil sapi feast. and later in the evening when his tummy decided it had a teensy bit too much and he slept on a few bottles of pocai, i had a nice plate of room-service fries all to myself. hehe. clever baby, being picky and saving mummy from eating smelly pocai.

but what IS it about inflight meal planners, they always equate ‘moslem food’ with rice, it’s so annoying. chicken curry and briyani in the air? i don’t think so. they don’t even have bread rolls. i had to ask for biscuits and milk instead.

my SIL asked me what i wanted from australia when they were there. i asked, as usual, for sheepskin, but knew they wouldn’t be too keen on spending that much on me, so i said anything will be fine. and then the lil one received its very first pieces of clothing…

from Target, no less. not Gap. not Guess. not even Mothercare. heh. that’s my budget-friendly brother & SIL for you. :)

i have a thing about buying clothes or baby stuff too early on (and at 15 weeks, it is way too early) but i figure, *i* didn’t buy it, so it’s ok. right? i don’t think we’ll seriously look at prams, cots, etc until very near the delivery date either, and probably by then i’ll be too fat to walk. superstition? i just want the lil one to come out safely first, i guess. just to be sure it’s all… real.

i’m still terrified of finding blood spots in my undies, or tripping over stairs, or (fill-in-every-imaginable-scary-thing). i know the first trimester is over and i should feel relief. but we’ve all heard horror stories. selisih kan…

i find myself rubbing my tummy or just putting my hand over it while i’m walking these days. just to make sure it’s there.

of course, to strangers i probably look like someone with a bad case of indigestion. (which is half true haha.)

so our latest visit to the doctor was a breeze. we arrived ten minutes after nine in the AM and while there were already a number of patients waiting, erm, patiently, the doc himself hadn’t arrived. suddenly he was already in the room and within an hour it was already our turn. hurrah!

he told us that the baby would be double the last time we saw it, which was 36mm. but when we looked, voila – it’s already 80mm!

magic, no? :)

the lil ‘un has been miraculously growing despite the mummy’s pathetic attempts to eat. i told this to the doc, but he assured me that i don’t have to eat a lot. he said he’d rather my husband’s wife remain “pretty” and not *here he puffs up his cheeks and mimics fat, bloated monster*. har har.

during the scan, the lil ‘un turned from side to side, as if showing off its spine and its front, then proceeded to turn upwards and touched its thighs with its hands. why, the little performer!

the scan on the left is the cross-section of the head, which is soooo ROUND hehe, and measures at 28mm. the scan on the right is, as you can see, the little exhibitionist showing its profile to its audience.

then the doc tried to look for signs of what he calls, “bird-bird”.

at first, lil ‘un was sitting cross-legged, and when we looked again, it’s uncrossed them. that’s the bum from below, and see that little white cross in the middle of the left scan? that, doc reckons, COULD be the makings of a “bird-bird”. to which i cried out, “b-b-but, that COULD be just its hand, right??” now i don’t think doctors like to be second-guessed haha, but he obliged me anyway, being the lovely, obliging man that he is. oh, the scan on the right is just an enlarged version, which i can’t make head or tail of (pardon the pun).

so it’s no more folic acid and stinky white multi-vit tablets for me anymore, since the 3 months are over. BUT, it’s replaced with calcium and obimin tablets (whatever that is, it looks pretty gruesome to swallow).

it’s always a lovely surprise to find out each time that the baby is growing well, when your mind has been worrying for four weeks about what’s going on in there coz you can’t see or feel it moving around.

next check up will consist of the gruelling blood tests. already, the first thing i have to do now after the weight check (44.1kg now!) and blood pressure, is to pee on a strip to see if there are any traces of protein or glucose.

now i’ll have to REALLY cut down on syrup and ice-cream, huh? :S

if there’s one part of my body i have an affinity with, it’s my belly button.

that’s because of a certain embellishment done in my throes of youth. it was removed before i got married, in preparation for the future, that future being this very present moment of being pregnant and having my belly stretching all over the place.

i never fail to tend to it, my belly button, and am quite familiar with its depth and curve and scars.

so i definitely yelped when a few days ago in the shower i discovered my belly button had become slightly bumpy and tender inside!

err, i don’t know if it’s normal so early on, coz i read later that belly buttons pop out in the 20th week onwards. mine is a very inny kind of navel, so i know it’s changing, slowly but surely, into an outy.

what amazes me is that the body changes so minutely, all to accomodate that little thing growing inside. i imagine it pushing my belly button outwards, as if there’s a control panel for him to play with on the wall of my womb.

for two mornings now, it’s been good. a little queasy and gaggish, but no vomitting. and i *think* my energy level’s gone up a bit, especially in the office. maybe that’s because i’m motivated – to go on leave next thursday onwards!!

12 whole days of doing absolutely nothing and waking up whenever i want = heaven. i even tried to talk izad into going away for a short trip which does not involve me stuck in babycolt for hours on a malaysian highway. i think i might be up for a trip now that i’m feeling slightly better, and it’s gotta be NOW before i grow too fat or the little one makes its appearance.

i say slightly better coz i still have an eating disorder. at first i thought it was my tongue that’s gone awry. then i speculated that it could be the pH balance of my saliva that’s causing my tastebuds to go all funny and me not liking the things i used to like eating. but what do i know, i’m just speculating.

rin and i were on the topic of baby names the other day, in our usual yahoo babbling at work (shhh!). i could only come up with girls’ names, and none for boys’ names. i’m so so bad at thinking up of clever names. and a lot of common ones i tend to associate with someone i know. so that’s no go. so the drawing board is still up.

it seems that, in my subconscious, i see myself having a girl. i know i shouldn’t wish for a particular gender, because i’ll be setting myself up for disappointment, and i don’t want to be disappointed with my child from the beginning just because of its gender.

furthermore, with my and izad’s genes, it’s only logical that i’ll have a boy. i mean, izad’s siblings are all boys. his cousin’s kids are boys. my mum had my brother before me. my brother has dadam. on my mum’s side, all my aunts had a boy first. my cousin’s eldest were twin boys. i mean, what are the odds, right?? so go ahead y’all, place yer bets, now. :p

then again, what do i know, i’m just speculating.

heartburn, i say.

i’m not sure what it really means, but i know it’s nothing to do with the heart. if it’s this irksome feeling of indigestion and a heaty stomach after eating even the blandest of mee hoon soup in tiny quantities, then i’m having it.

my body is definitely going bonkers.

rin asked her doctor boss, and told me that the baby is taking up “too much space inside” and “pushing its way up”. great, you think you’re living in a bungalow in there, honey? so the usual “don’t lie down after eating” advice ensued. it’s tempting to do that, but i know better.

the vomitting thing seems to be a daily showstopper recently. can you believe it’s in full swing JUST as i thought i managed to escape that with the first trimester over? (it’s officially week 13th now.)

mornings when i wake up from my supposed heartburn, it bubbles up to my throat and hello! i even lost good cornflakes down the toilet bown once, it was barely inside me for fifty seconds. this morning’s projectile was yellow bitter liquid, which i gather is stomach acid, because i had just woken up without having anything. not pretty. and it seems 2am in the mornings i’m at my worst, if i happen to still be up. immense hunger, and when i try to down some milk, it goes back up.

i DO have a packet of sugared biscuit on the bedside table, i do. you know, for consuming as soon as i open my eyes, before i brush my teeth. they say that helps. something about our blood sugar being its lowest in the morning and our bodies being most hungry after sleeping for many hours. but i haven’t had the desire to eat anything with my stale morning breath and saliva. hee.

ok, before i depress myself, and you, even further…. i shall nurse my heartburn in silent agony. (yes yes, your mama is into dramatics! now keep still in your SPACIOUS bubble that is my tummy.)

do you know how sympathetic doctors are to pregnant women?

quite.

i got three days worth of mc.

and i’m happily beached-whaling around like nobody’s business. plus, i get to spend the last few days with dadam before he leaves for australia for a few weeks.

i’m still not eating well, but kindly, sympathetic female GP told me not to worry, coz baby is so small, it takes up a minimal amount of nutrients from whatever i have in my body now, so it’s enough. then she went on to relate her entire pregnancy experiences, all two of them.

so pregnant ladies, to hell with work. tell your friendly neighbourhood GP you’re extremely nauseous, you can’t eat, you have a terribly low energy level, you can’t concentrate, your job is stressful, and a sad face would be good too for your cause.

*rubs fat tummy*