Week 36: Reflections on peeing on a stick

Homestretch folks!

Uncle Karl and Auntie Deanne took me to the beach yesterday. I enjoyed momentary weightlessness while they enjoyed real live National Geographic, watching a Dugong in its natural habitat.

My latest photo

I stopped waking up thirsty in the middle of the night. My hormones might have settled down. I don’t think baby’s dropped yet. I feel like he’s quickly losing space inside and protesting with fist raised. At least I think it’s his fist on my lower abdominal area, since the knife stab-like jabs to the rib from what is presumably his feet have become frequent, especially when I play him certain beat-based tunes. This week found us playing Alt-J (Thank you Tito Russ for the intro), which he’s very responsive to. Give this a listen:

No nursery rhymes for this boy. I enjoy watching my belly make waves throughout the song. It’s like I learned a new dance move without even trying. With all this movement though, baby has been cephalic presentation from the get-go and doesn't seem to want to make any major changes to that. I hope he doesn't suddenly turn at week 37 or summink.

In celebration of Easter and things-on-sticks, OffbeatFamilies posted the question of how women reacted to peeing on a stick andcoming up with the two lines.

I remember how mine went. While we were shooting Aberya, I was cranky, tired, constantly out-of-it, and very very emotional. Despite being hungry, my usual barbarian appetite was nonexistent. A month after shooting indefinitely wrapped, I was down with what I thought was ulcer.

Week 34: Down With the Sickness

Weeee're down to 6 weeks and I'm stuck in bed.

I just woke up one morning to an itchy throat. I don't know how I got it. I have several suspects:

1.) My water bottle spending too much time in the refrigerator mingling with Godzilla-Knows-What.
2.) Maybe it's time the electric fan got dusted.
3.) Unwashed fruit that went straight into my mouth.

The last bit comes from the bad habit of acting like every fruit I pop into my mouth came straight from the tree. It's not usually a problem when the fruit comes with natural packaging (oranges, bananas, lansones); or if someone else had the gumption to wash the fruit before I grabbed it. On normal days, my immune system is epic. Unfortunately, pregnancy gives you a -3 modifier to CON.

The doctor said something months ago about going straight to her if I got sick, as a 3 day cold could turn into pneumonia for the baby.

My friend google says otherwise, that the disease won't cross the placenta since it's respiratory, but that my antibodies would.

Who to trust, google or doktora?

On the second day of the sore throat, Mommy went on a mini trek to the family farm over the weekend to pick wild guavas. Figured maybe the sun and air would fix me.

It seemed like a good idea at the time.

Week 33: Dragon Baby Rising

Like you all said he would, baby's finally found my ribs. With his foot.

He's only ventured this far into my pain threshold once though. I'm probably just so bored that every little new thing he does excites me to the point of gushing over it online.

If it wasn't for this blog, this whole update would have just been one facebook status message: HOMAYGAD HE KICKED MY RIBS!! SO PROUD!!!11one

When he does this more frequently (in how many more days/weeks? Gulp), I expect it'll grow old quick and I'll be back to boredom. Boredom plus occasional rib jabs. That'll be new.

Speaking of boredom, I used to alternate between playing Civ 3 and Skyrim for most of the second trimester. After a faulty install, Civ 3 stopped loading. As for Skyrim, I shamefully admit that I can’t play it without Tito Raushan finishing instances for me anymore. The graphics and sound track freaks me out now. I’ll still remember the words of power during labor Tito Jian, just so it can still be said that this kid is dragonborn.

(This kind of dragonborn works too. Wata!)

I wonder if this sudden squeamishness over every little thing (except kung fu master babies) is going to evolve into the kind of helicopter parent behavior that people roll their eyes at:

Me: Nak, that movie is too dark. Throw it out.
Kid: But ma, you and daddy shot this.
Me: Oh.

(Note to partner: Must make something kid friendly. Also, I miss you and cranapple juice. I don't know what I miss about Cebu the most >:P)

In case of inexplicable irrational feels, I can thankfully blame it on the hormones. So I'm doing that. If this doesn't pass after kid is out, I'll look to the media to blame. Yay for victim mentality.

Now, with nothing left to do while waiting, I got maternal lola to teach me how to crochet.

The pregnancy so far

Baby likes to kick the right side of the belly. He stops when people are around and expect him to. One of my friends think it's performance anxiety. Hah. Filmmakers make shy baby. The irony.

I remember the first time we noticed him moving, we found the kicks cute, but a little hard to identify - kinda like shooting stars on a clear unpolluted-by-artificial-lights sky. Now they're like meteors on Armageddon - painful, frequent, and a sign of the end of days.

The doctor told me "Buntis na jud ka" ("You're definitely pregnant now") as if I wasn't to begin with. But I know what she means. I've had it relatively easy til now. Suddenly, my feet are ballooning, my bump is a basketball, and I feel like yoga can wait for a few more hours days. Cats gestate for less than 3 months. Maybe I am a cat, and I really HAVE only begun to be pregnant. As much as the first trimester felt like a bitch because of mood swings, why do I have a feeling these remaining months are going to be the longest in my life?