Toxic gas which isn’t coming out of my rear, for a change.

Howdy doody!

 

You find me now 23 weeks and 3 days along. Time is slipping by quite quickly and is sure to go by even faster as I am on holiday for the next three weeks.

A lot has been happening non-baby-wise. Firstly a couple of weeks ago an illegal garbage dump caught fire and began spewing toxic smog into our environment. The dump itself is quite far from us but when the wind changed on Monday morning our school was quickly filled with a smoky, burning plastic odor.  I didn’t think much of it at first as, unfortunately it isn’t that unusual to have our air tainted by various illegal fires, but by Wednesday the fire was still going strong and our school had to close. I was told it wasn’t safe for me to be at home or work and I should look for someplace out of the smog line for the time being.

 

To say I wasn’t best pleased was an understatement. I was angry at the school for not having me leave sooner. I was furious with myself for not being my own advocate and getting the heck out of dodge when it started happening. I was also pissed that WW and I would be spending on meager savings on a hotel in the same city as we already paid for a house. Mostly I was worried for the baby.

A long story short we were in a friend’s apartment,then hotels for 4 days before we were told the fire had been put out and we could come home. I made the most of being located in the city by indulging in western foods and especially cake. Naughty, I know. I tried for balance with a cereal breakfast, salad lunch and naughty dinner. Plus cake.

While we’re on the food topic my diet seems to have normalized somewhat. I haven’t felt nauseous with hunger for a long while, nor have I been having two (or three)  breakfasts or 3am snacks. Happily my weight gain seems to have stabilized also. I think I have gained half a kilo or less in the last month, which puts me a little closer to the recommended weight gain for my stage.  But that’s going by my used and abused bathroom scales which may or may not be telling the truth.

I think I seem smaller also. Today the 6 year olds asked me ‘Where is your baby?’ and a collegue asked if my trousers were too tight and was there room for the baby. I guess today was one of my more flattering outfits. Let me tell you when I’m farting away, smearing stinky cocoa butter into my skin and doing my sea lion impression trying to get out of bed to go pee every evening, it is quite obvious where the baby is.

TMI ALERT:

As I might have mentioned once or twice, I have been having some gassy episodes. These often occur late at night and Squirt celebrates the rumpus and cheers on the bubbling and gurgling with somersaults, fish out water routines and using my bladder as a trampoline. So when I was awoken with stomach cramps and the urge to fart in the middle of the night a few days ago, I thought Squirt was just partying with the gas again. A second later I realized I was wrong and just made it to the toilet in time. A night of vomiting and diarrhea ensued.

OK, a little confession here. Although WW had had an upset stomach a few days previous which may have been the cause of my night of poo waterfalls, I suspect it was more likely caused by my consumption of half a kilo of kab moo. Kab moo, for those of you who don’t know, is a wonderful treat of salted, deep fried pigs skin. Similar to English ‘pork scratchings’ but much yummier and without the little patches of pig stubble. I know there isn’t really anything which should be eaten in such quantities, and especially not fried, salty animal skin, but, having been sooo good at not eating anything salty for quite some time my self control got away from me and I paid the price.  The grossest thing is I am still craving it and have to work really hard every time WW sits munching not to pinch a piece. Her parents came visiting from the North and brought us two kilos. Torturous salty goodness. Don’t judge me. OK, go ahead, I deserve it.

We have had progression in the ‘Great Thai Birth Escape’. We have finally gathered almost all the evidence for WW’s visa, have completed the very lengthy and confusing application form and have booked the interview. Hopefully we should know if it has been granted in the next 3 weeks. If they say no they are going to feel the wrath of a very angry pregnant lady.

Symptom-wise I don’t really have anything new to report. I feel Squirt’s kicks and the movements all the time now. I think sometimes he is responding to the music I have on in the car in the morning. I can’t bring myself to listen to Beethoven and turn him into a genius. I’m hoping that a fetal soundtrack of  ‘Of Monsters and Men’ and the ‘White Stripes’ will make him at least dislike pop as much as his mother.

My fingers have started to swell during the day. My once loose rings are leaving marks during the morning and then falling of my hands when I shower in the evening. That might have something to do with the fact that it is now over 30 degrees C here and soupy as hell. Yuck. The worst thing about this season is right after comes months of torrential rain, air you can almost swim in, floods, traffic jams and nightmares trying to go anywhere. Oh how I dream of traditional seasons.

Um..anything else? I don’t think so. It’s my 6 month scan on Tuesday with our friendly Dr P. and then we’re off to K.L. (I’m not trying to be trendy, I have mushy pregnancy brain and can’t deal with spelling the full name) for a 3 day va-ca shortly after. WW managed to find a very good deal and booked us into one of the most expensive hotels we’ve stayed at for a fraction of the proper price. I am a little nervous about the whole ‘if it sounds too good to be true…’ aspect but fingers crossed it will be nice and if not, it’s only 2 nights. I’m going to miss my person sized pregnancy pillow though. Will the hotel think I’m greedy if I ask for 3 extra pillows? Do I really care what they think?

Back soon with scan updates. Now I’m off to eat some pig skin. Only joking….well, maybe.

 

TTFN X

 

 

Bleeding from the eyes, knitting and, of course, farting.

Howdy doody!

Here’s a wee post full of random, unconnected thoughts because that’s how my brain is working right now.

Firstly I accidentally outed myself to some of the students at school. As you may remember I changed my name and while explaining to the students that they had to call me something different I found myself in a quagmire of questions. Including: ‘You got married and didn’t tell us??!! (*hurt face)’ and ‘But who are you married to??! ‘- which I felt could have been rephrased as ‘But who would marry you??!’. In my explanations I used the term ‘partner’ without thinking much of it as these kids are all ESL but they picked up on it right away. After much gossiping and conferring a couple of giggly girls approached me and asked what my husband’s name was.

I had always promised myself that I wouldn’t broadcast it but I wouldn’t lie if asked directly so I explained that I had a wife, not a husband. The girls (4th grade) were a little giggly but there was no obvious negative reaction. So then I went home and waited, somewhat anxiously, for angry emails from concerned parents. You have to bear in mind I am working in a country which offers no protection for LGBT people, at a private school where parents have an extreme amount of power and could feasibly gang up against me and get me fired.

Thankfully I received no emails and only a little negative feedback. After talking with her parents at home, one of the kids returned and asked me if WW and I were just friends. I told her we were married but we were friends too. She said, ‘Hmm, I think you’re just good friends.’ and I gave up. Another boy told his mother (a colleague) that ‘it just isn’t natural’ which my colleague insists came from the other kids parents. But whatever. Hopefully I can be a role model to any potentially gay kids in the class and avoid any parental backlash. That’s enough for now.

While we’re talking about school I had a lot of fun telling the little kids that I teach. That I’m pregnant, that is. I didn’t share with them that I am a lover of ladies. Or one lady, rather. Ahem, anyway…

It started with a ‘Miss Emz, why is your tummy sooooooo big?’ To which I replied ‘Because there is a baby in there’, not ‘Because I have eaten 3 times my body weight in cheese in the last 5 months.’

They were pretty excited and had lots of questions including the inevitable:

Kid A: ‘But how does the baby get out of your tummy?’

Me: ‘Er…good question! I think you should ask your mummy how you got out of her tummy.’

Kid B: ‘It comes out of the PENIS!’

Me: ‘Um, I don’t think so because only men have a penis and women have babies.’

Kid B: ‘Yeah but you know, like this,’ *makes a large circle in his groin using two hands.

Me (slightly desperately): ‘OK, anymore questions?’

Kid C: ‘When I came out of my mummy I peed all over the nurse!’ *accompanying hand gestures. Hilarity ensues.

I also had another awkward conversation with the mini queen of awkward conversations. Past statements have included: ‘My mother says Indian people are snakes.’ and ‘When I grow up I’m going to marry a doctor so I can be rich.’ I think think this latest dialogue takes the biscuit though…

‘Miss Emz you should be really careful when you have your little boy. My mum showed me this thing on the internet where bad people take babies away and hurt them and kill them and it happened lots of times already and one mother cried so much she cried blood out of her eyes. Tell your son to hold you hand.’

This kid is 5 years old.

Symptom spotting.

It seems I now have zero control of my gas. I am not even given any warning anymore. Every time I get up and move around little bubbles of foulness are silently escaping from my rectum. My hyper sensitive nose doesn’t appreciate it. I’m sure my colleagues feel the same. Also I never knew before that little kids can have such bad breath. But they can. Trust me.

The bleeding eyes thing from earlier really affected me. Can you tell?

I’m am having some mixed reviews about my belly size. A couple of office staff made my day and told me I was small. Then my boss laughed when she saw I was reading ‘The Incredible Shrinking Teacher’ with a class and commented that I was the incredible expanding teacher. A kid asked me why my baby was so tiny and then another colleague said I had really ‘popped’ in the last two weeks. I’m taking it well. I think I prefer the obvious baby bump silhouette in my clothes to the fat rolls of yesteryear. Naked is a different story. Plus even my straight female friends seem to be having a hard time lifting their gaze from my boobs.

On the topic of boobs and bumps, they are getting in the way of my knitting project. Every two minutes I have to ask WW to help me find my hook as it has vanished under my boobs/ass/bump. My boobs obscured the view of the rest of my body long ago. Wow, I said ‘boobs’ a lot in this paragraph.

We’ve been getting crafty, WW and I. Not only am I half way through a blanket for the baby’s room and a cute cross stitch picture but we also spend last weekend turning ugly spherical paper light covers into cute hot airballoons to decorate Squirt’s room with. They turned out well and only cost about 5 GBP for 3. Check out my pintrest-ing bad self!

I have tried much harder, food-wise this week although I have been afraid to step on the scales for fear in will send me spiralling into a pizza-brownie-twix-eating depression. I am feeling less hungry after lunch time which is good although there have been a couple of 2am breakfasts recently.

The best thing has got to be Squirt’s belly parties. I will be hiking up my blood pressure with a misbehaving 5th grader and suddenly he busts out a couple of moves and takes my mind off it, cheering me right up. His biggest dancing sessions are around 7.30pm when I just settling into bed with my knitting (side note- the kids were shocked when I told them I was 28. 28 but going on 65 apparently). Then WW and I are treated to half an hour or so of rolly-pollys and ninja kicks. Lots of fun.

I am procrastinating at work again and should probably get back to it so catch you all later!

TTFN x

PS. My typing and spelling has gone to hell. I’m pretty sure there are loads of typos and probably a few made-up words in here. Also I seem to have forgotten how to use punctuation appropriately. Sincerest apologies.

‘Nice legs…and a nice ass too!’

Hello all,

I’m writing to you from post-ultrasound high….so maybe this post will be less whingey and sarcastic than normal. Then again, maybe not.

So we tried another hospital and a new doctor and I am happy to report it was pretty fantastic. We waited less than half an hour, almost unheard of in a Thai hospital. We had a quick chat with young Dr P (part of his name is porn…). He asked no personal/nosy questions which was a refreshing change after the last doctor. At one point he asked if my husband was tall, accepted when I told him I didn’t have one and eyed WW asking if I used donor sperm. This affirmation was accepted without missing a beat. When I commented on how accepting he was to WW later, she replied ‘Well I don’t think he was totally straight.’ Which probably explains it.

I had to do a urine test and had just peed seconds before so I necked a bottle of water. I gave them a rather copious amount of urine and needed to pee again just in time for the ultrasound starting. I tried to tough it out but was send to the bathroom by Dr P as the baby’s head was being squished under my heavy bladder and he couldn’t get his measurements.

The ultrasound was long and super detailed with Dr P making cute jokes and taking time to translate everything into English for me and Thai for WW. The first image confirmed we are having a boy. Dr P drew our attention nicely by framing his little penis with a few arrows. The baby’s penis, that is, not his own.

Our little boy was feeling quite sleepy throughout apparently so we were both subjected to lots of prodding, poking and jiggling trying to get him to wiggle around a bit and show off some other features.

He went from top to tail showing us the joins in the skull, the heart chambers and lungs, the umbilical cord site, the liver, the kidneys, lots of bones and the facial structures and a bunch of other stuff I can’t remember. He told us you can’t see everything yet because some things are still developing but so far everything is looking good. Especially his ‘beautiful legs’ and ‘beautiful butt’, apparently. Phew.

After about 45 mins of this he showed us the scary 4D monster shots where you can almost see the details of the baby’s face…but you pray he’s going to be a little less frightening when he emerges. Pretty cool bit of kit.

Thankfully WW kicked in with questions from time to time as I had reverted to my domestic cow blissed out trance and was mostly accepting everything easily while gazing with sickening adoration at the screen.

The dates the machines were showing were only three days ahead of my actual dates. WW very supportively asked ‘If the baby is only 360g how come the mother gain so much weight?’ and Dr W’s eyebrows did hit his hairline when I told him I had gained 8 kilos. He said I have to be careful about gestational diabetes, well acutally he said ‘diabetus’ which made me think of rednecks in ‘Murica. He advised that I not lose any weight but control the gain by cutting back on carbs, crap and sugar- including fruit. Not being allowed to eat fruit is an extreme sad face for me, maybe even more so than skipping the cake.

So we’re thrilled to have finally found a hospital and doctor I am happy with, and to be having a baby boy who is developing well. It almost makes me forget the gas that’s been leaking noxiously out of my bottom all day and the fire that has been inching up my esophagus for most of the afternoon. Hooray for happy days!!!

But anyway I must leave you all as I have decided to embrace becoming old and take up knitting. Of course I don’t have the patience, skill or technique for actual knitting so I’m cheating a bit with one of those awesome looms. I’d highly recommend them. Cheap practical and impossible to stab anyone with should you feel a little frustrated. I’m making a blanket for the baby’s room- check me!

Ultrasound pics after the jump.

TTFN X  

PS. A second ago WW just felt Squirt kick for the first time 🙂