Back to work, home to play

Today was mommy's first day back at work. Mommy missed baby Rian a lot!! Looks like baby too missed mommy a lot and was very fussy for his 2 bottle feeds and even otherwise. Hope baby gets used to it... else mommy's gonna have a hard time going to office to work.

After mommy got home, she held on to baby, even though baby was fussy and cranky. Then baby rewarded mommy with a few smiles, played a lot with mommy, and even dozed off a bit in mommy's arms.

The time between 14 April '08 (my previous post) and 15 September '08 (this post) is a blur to me. There are loads of wonderful memories burried in there, and maybe I'll get a few minutes each day to dig out the precious ones and pen them over time.

Mommy is now VCP and Daddy is back from UK

It's been a hectic week (and month) since I've written my last post. Lots has happened in the meantime.

I switched from my regular prenatals to using DuetDHA from StuartNatal. Nutritionist Karen Ross really insisted it is very beneficial. I also saw this article on Reuters about the benefits of DHA in the last 3 months of pregnancy.

Mommy and Daddy sat together, worked hard at Photoshop, Daddy worked hard at limericks and we finally sent out an evite for the baby shower. It'll be on May 11, Mother's Day, how swell :)!!



Then Daddy went off on a week long trip to the UK for work, and Mommy was at home with Dadi. Mommy really missed Daddy and Daddy too missed Mommy a lot.

Mommy studied for 3 weeks for her VCP certification, and today morning Mommy passed the exam, yay!! I'm sure Mommy benefited from all that DHA she's eating for baby :-)

The 50 yard line

So we're at midpoint now, just past the 20th week. The ultrasound reports just came in today and touch wood, everything seems to be normal! Here's a peeky peek at our little budding baby boy...

(s)he moves, he moves, he bangs...

Poetic plagiarization asides, I felt it!! I felt it move today. And now that I know my little one's gender as well, it's really hard to think of it as "it". So let's start all over again..

There I was talking to Mamata when she mentioned for the umpteenth time that the baby was on the move. I put my hand on her belly, expecting to feel ...nothing!, and then, bump. Just one solitary bump, but for the first time I wasn't guessing, or wondering what exactly it was that I was supposed to be feeling. Well, that's my baby alright, probably giving a lazy stretch! Aww... choo... chweet!

Now that did feel like a million dollars..

Did you guess right?

It's moving a lot now!!

All of this week, baby's been moving a lot. Baby's most active when I sit down or rest just after a meal. Today baby also woke me up at 7am! I guess we only have a few more weekends when we can afford to get up at 9am ;-) and we should take full advantage of those...

In 2 days, we'll know if it's a girl or a boy! How exciting...

A note about fitness

I'd always imagined I'd "get into" the best shape of my life and _then_ get pregnant. But you know, baby had other plans ;-) Due to my knee operation and recovery, I started seeing a personal trainer Maria at Axis, Mountain View. In less than 15 sessions, my knee was feeling a lot better. We'd also found out I was pregnant, so Maria shifted gears more into focusing on keeping my joints flexible and my balance where it belongs. I used to see her twice a week, but now started seeing her just once a week in the hope that I can get myself to do other activities during the week.

They recommend that during pregnancy women should exercise at least 3 times a week. In addition, Maria also wants me to go for a walk every night. Well, slow and steady as I am, I'm far from "walking every night". The once a week visit to Maria is the only thing I can manage in some weeks.

But I think I did find another activity for 2 more times a week: aqua exercise. I just went to my 24hr club today for the first time for the aqua exercise class. Suffice to say, right now, I'm feeling on top of the world :-) It feels wonderful to have worked out for an hr in the water. I got there a bit early, so was able to swim 4 laps. The class started and they made us do a proper warm up for 10-15 mins. Then the exercises started. They were pretty intense :-) and I had loads of fun doing them. Most of the other classmates were old women but at least 3 of us were around the same age. At the end, there was a 5-10 mins cool down and stretch session too!

I really enjoyed it and hope baby enjoyed it too. I'm sure I'll feel the effects of the workout in a day or two. In case they aren't too bad, I think I'm planning to go both days of the week - Wednesday and Friday at 8:30am!

I felt the first flutters :-)

When people often described their first baby movements, they'd say "oh, it felt like something fluttering" and I'd often wonder - how can that be?! Well wonder no more I had to, coz last night I felt it :-) and it was definitely a flutter.

I was in the middle of the night and I was fast asleep. All of a sudden I felt this pressure, then followed by some fluttering for quite some time :-) I really enjoyed the sensation of life inside for the first time. I was strong enough to wake me up too. Yes baby, I hear ya ...

Daddy's the BEST

Yeah baby, your Dad's the BEST :-) He loves me so much! And he loves you a lot too. In fact I'm beginning to suspect he loves you more than he loves me... You know, I'm not sure I'll be able to handle that very well ;-)

You got me all tied up in knots...
And I'm loving you lots and lots...
I'm just loving you lots and lots...
I'm loving you lots and lots...

We had fun with US

Ujjval & Sonali came down to CA to visit us all. As Sonali was in her 7th month already, we threw them a surprise baby shower on the day they landed here. It was a lot of fun. We also had 2 games, Indian Chinese khana and khoob saari baatein.

The Gappa session continued when we met at our place for Superbowl Sunday. We got a really precious "2 pregnant girls" photo together :-) I shared with all the girls the "booty" that Mumma got for us -baby clothes and items :-)

Baby Shayona, the little darling she is, was a real highlight. She's so cute and cuddly :-) Love her "haa" face!

Dada and Dadi are here

Amit's folks are finally here. Mumma will stay with us till the end of my eighth month. Thanks to Mumma (Dadi) for coming over to pamper me, feed me lovely home food, take care of me and Amit, support us through the pregnancy, answer so many of our queries.

I know Daddy gets his funny bone from Dada (Puppa). Baby, all the tickles you feel are thanks for Daddy and Dada making your Mummy laugh a lot :-) I hope and pray that you're born a happy baby.

Mumma (Dadi) has shopped wonderful cute dresses for Baby, even a book for your Mummy to read. Now Mummy has lots of reading material, and a big cataloging job to do, arrange your clothes in your baby room. Okay, time for your Mummy to make a TODO list :-)

Another group of friends in the know now

It was Friday night and we got together for dinner at Vidyut and Sarika's... coined the (U)naware's. Sarika had cooked everything at home for all of us. It was the first get together at their house after their wedding. This is our Qualcomm gang as we fondly refer to the group. Gokhan and Birsen were also attending after a long time. Birsen was in her 5th month.

I think it was casual conversation about their expected date, and all of a sudden, Amit announces "Oh ya, and I think Mamata has a news to announce". I was totally caught off guard :-) and as usual unprepared. Hope either Amit learns I can't handle these "on the spot" thinking situations, or I learn actually how to come up with good stuff to say, as Amit always does!

Anyways, I punted it right back and Amit, and he announced we are expecting. I think Rashmi was the most shocked, and asked me several times "You skied?!" :-) It seems Smita (Dabbu, Rashmi's sister) had some "idea" after reading my orkut scrapbook reply to a friend of mine. Vidyut and Sarika finally know now what Amit was bursting to reveal within the first 2 hrs of our trip to Tahoe over Christmas. Sudha knows now that I lied on the New Year's Party about that "medication". Of course Nitin had an idea, thanked him for not bugging us about it too much before we were ready to share the news.

NT ultrasound

We opted for genetic screening for the baby for known defects like Down's Syndrome, Trisomy 13 and Trisomy 18. On 11th Jan '08, they took a few drops of blood from me along with info about my race, origin etc.

Today they did an ultrasound called Nuchal Translucency ultrasound. They use this data with the first blood draw to give us an 85% accurate screen result for Down's syndrome and the accuracy is 91% for Trisomy 13 and 18.

In the second trimester, there is another blood draw, which is combined with the previous 2 results to increase the accuracy of prediction to 93% for Down's syndrome and almost 97% for Trisomy 13 and 18.

Case in point: Today's NT ultrasound. By far the worst experience I've had in my life so far. The technician could not position the baby correctly to get the measurement of the fluid behind the baby's neck. What followed can only be termed as abuse. The tech got increasingly frustrated and literally started "jabbing" the ultrasound machine (size of a computer mouse) into my belly. The jabs were so hard that I was wincing at every single poke, my legs wanted to curl up and protect my belly. There was no time to think as she barked orders "cough", "turn to your side" (as she physically pushed me over), "turn back" (she pulled me back), "cough again". She made statements like "oh, your uterus is tilted, more trouble for me, not for you". Something that really offended me was "turn, turn baby turn, this baby just won't turn, it is SO stubborn". Did she just call OUR baby stubborn? The nerve of her.

Relief came when the frustrated tech called for another tech to help, to "confirm her results".
This tech on the other hand was totally relaxed, even attempted to give a back rub to the apparently "frustrated" original tech, then proceeded to take all the measurements without hurting me.

I spent almost 3 days with aches in my abdomen. Amit was really pissed and wanted to lodge a formal complaint, but I just want to run into that tech again in the hospital. Anyways, bygones are bygones. We did get a cute pic of the baby from this one.

Dhak dhak karne laga

Yes yes, we heard the baby's heartbeat today for the first time :-) It was a wonderful moment. Doctor indulged us in the serene sound for quite some time, and also reassured us that it's strong and consistent. We clocked at ~155-160 beats a min.

Jamaica was cool, mon... No problem mon...

Sandy beaches, tall coconut trees, hammocks on the beach for afternoon naps, a food fest I've never seen before, fresh coconuts to sip the elixir, night snorkelling, sailing, lots of TT (ping pong)... just some of the awesome stuff that we got back from. It was the tail end of my first trimester, and I had almost no problems with travel (except for getting stranded in Houston for a night, thanks to Continental's delay). My sciatic pain had also reduced a lot, I guess the swimming helped.

7 days in an awesome place, almost a dream vacation. Amit had loads of alcohol :-) as I had insisted he have my share too. From rum punches to numerous Red Stripes on tap, Couples Negril had it all. The service was exceptional, the people very friendly. We'll definitely recommend this place.

I later heard the word "babymoon", the last vacation you take before the baby arrives. Ya so our planned second honeymoon was actually a babymoon for us :-) Lots of pictures from the place on my photo website. Bob Marley really rocks and I think Jamaican music has become one of my fav!

The first big revelation

And so it happened. We were 9 of us at the lunch anniv party at Amber, Santana Row. Lunch was good, filled with usual chit chats. A few requests for Amit's speech were received early on, but we decided it was best to save the news for the end.

After the cake cutting, Amit started off in Hindi on Hetav's request. It was tooooooooo funny to hear Amit speak in shudh Hindi but I should give him credit, he did a good job! After about 5mins of bakwas Amit got into the revelation mode...

Ab agle paach salon ke baare main bhi kuch kehna chahiye. Waise yeh 5 saal acche the lekin towards the end thoda problem hone laga... neend nahi aati hain, tond badhti jaa rahi hain, khatta khane ka mann karta hain. Yaaro darr lag raha hain, shayad badi gaadi khareedni padegi, ab kya kahoon...

Meera was the first one to scream "Congratulations!!!!" I think Hetav's expressions were priceless. Rachana was totally taken aback. I think she was silent for a while digesting the news. Jigga was so happy :-) Swati was very happy to hear the news too. Gunjan was sweet, he kept the secret so well!

Summer baby, you've got everyone thinking about you now...

Austin, we have some news

Ujjval and Sonali were gonna miss out on the anniv party and the whole big announcement. Plus we'd publicized Amit would be giving a speech at the party. They called us in the morning to wish us on our anniv. After the usual wishes, Ujjval insisted Amit give them a speech!

Amit asked Ujjval to promise that he won't be calling anyone in California :-) after our call, and I guess one thing led to another and then they knew... Sonali was real happy to learn I'm a few months right after she is due. We cacked for a while, promising to exchange notes (rather I'd get notes from her!) later.

Between timezones

Hiral and Meher were in India and flying out to come to SFO. They were going to literally miss the 5th of Jan - they'd neither be in India nor the US. By a stroke of luck, their flight got delayed by 4hrs and Hiral called us to wish us on our anniversary. Technically, it was the 5th of Jan in India already.

We kinda got into the mood: tell them about the big news when they wish us on our anniv! Of course my handsome and talented public speaker and proud dad-to-be was eager to break the news. Poor Hiral had to break through cryptic quotes from Amit like "I'm gaining sympathy weight" :-)) Finally Hiral goes "okay, I'll only believe it if my friend tells me the official news!" and I went "Hiral, officially officially!!!"

Our first scare

Yes, it happens, and yes, its very common, but we were not prepared for it. Last night I saw some spotting after I used some medication. I panicked and we called the on-call ob/gyn doc. She was very sweet, and told me in clear words - since we saw the baby's heart beating on 20th December, the chances of a miscarriage are very low. She also told me that if I have severe cramps like periods, or heavy flow, it will indicate a miscarriage. Even if that happens, there is nothing we can do about it.

Amit comforted me and made sure my mind was put to rest. I had a peaceful night of sleep. No more spotting seen today. To be doubly sure, I went by the ob/gyn dept at PAMF and met my physician's nurse, who gave me a clean chit. Phew!