Nice Landing

UFO - our baby boy - made a wonderful landing at 10:15am on July 9th, Friday.

Some facts about UFO:
1. 3.2kg, 49cm. (7 pounds, 19.3 inches)
2. We are still trying to figure out a real name. Although UFO seems to respond to our calling him “UFO” because he usually stops crying when he hears his “name”.
3. His first lesson in life is to learn how to suck. Every two or three hours he comes from the nursery and practices the art on his mother. The first couple of times he was crying more than sucking, but the last two times he has found his rhythm and was doing quite well, unless he falls asleep in the midst of it.

Thank you for all your support!

It’s a boy and a girl! (10)

(Tenth and last in the series, “Becoming a Father“)

With UFO ready to land anytime from now, the title of this piece might be misleading: let me start off by saying that UFO is still happily living in its mother at 37 weeks as we speak, and no, we are not having twins.

Rather, the offending title refers to the predictions from our friends and acquaintances on UFO’s gender. Recall in this previous column that we had decided not to rely on the ultrasound to reveal UFO’s sex; since then our family and friends have offered their valuable insights on this subject. What we find fascinating is the reasoning behind their answers, which are listed below.

Who	Says UFO will be a…	How does he/she know?
Huy (friend)	girl	put his hand in front of wife’s belly and measured the energy emitting from it. (A Vietnamese technique?)
Chinese Conception Charts	boy	takes into account when UFO is conceived and age of the mother at the time of conception. (Caveat: supposedly works 99% for Chinese, 90% for other Asians, and 85% for Americans.) Example links: here, here, and here.
wife’s hair dresser	girl	because wife’s complexion is smooth during pregnancy, just like the hair dresser’s when she was pregnant with her baby daughter
my mother-in-law	boy	She says if you are standing behind a pregnant woman and can tell from looking only at her back that she is pregnant, then it’s a girl, otherwise, a boy.
Miss Mao (friend)	boy	from the shape of wife’s belly, which is pointed. If it was a girl then the curve of the belly would be more rounded.
Miss Mao (yes, same person as above)	girl	says that it could also be a girl because wife’s neck is not dark and hairy. (Go figure.)
Some friends (who live abroad and haven’t met wife since she got pregnant)	girl	says in a email to wife that it’s probably a girl because of our personalities. (Hey, that’s a good one!)
Mrs. Wipa (language teacher)	boy	because wife likes to eat more salty food than sweet during the pregnancy.

The mystery continues, at least for a few more weeks.

A Trip to the Store (9)

(Ninth in the series, “Becoming a Father“)

I am a frequent window-shopper at a nice department store close to our house. It’s a seven-storey store: off the top of my head, I can tell you that on the fourth floor is a sporting goods corner, and on the sixth, an electronics section with the latest techno goodies.

It has never occurred to me what is sold on the fifth floor. Until today, the sole purpose of the fifth floor - for me anyway - was to connect the escalators from the forth to the sixth so that I can lust over the latest 6 megapixel CMOS-sensor digital SLR camera after I fondle those cool-looking Nike hi-tops.

But there would be no escape from that mysterious level.

As the due date of UFO approaches, wife drags me to the store. “Which floor?” I ask. “Why, the fifth, of course,” she answers.

We take the escalators up. At long last, the fifth floor springs into my view. It’s the first time I take a good look there: rows of new strollers greet my arrival. These kiddie wheels have probably been there forever, but it’s my first time actually noticing them. And they seem to smile back and say, “Welcome to the club.”

It’s a busy day at the “club”, because it’s sale day. Around the discount bins is a feeding frenzy of mothers and would-be moms snapping up imported Evenflo milk bottles.

Ah yes, Evenflo. Until this fateful visit I have been clueless about this brand. Besides milk bottles, they make strollers too, and almost everything else you want to buy for you baby: the General Electric of baby brands. Ditto Gerber, a giant in baby feeding products, and Graco, the king of strollers.

By reading product labels, I pick up some new vocab: pacifier (or teething ring). I honestly did not know that a pacifier is called a pacifier. Until now I would have described it as “plastic nipple sucker for babies”, or something like that.

Another new vocab: wife says we might need a “travel system”. I thought she meant a B5 subnotebook computer under 4 pounds. WRONG! What she really means: an infant car seat that can snap on a stroller as well. And while we are on this subject, I (computer programmer by trade) foolishly assumed that there would be an industry standard so that a Combi car seat can snap on a Graco stroller, just like MS Internet Explorer can access UNIX webservers. No such luck; each stroller company has their own proprietary “travel system” interface.

And the price/feature range of strollers is astounding: from $20 Chinese-made, no-name stroller with minimum protection and a flimsy seat insert, to a $200 (still Chinese-made) name-brand tank with comfy, padded seats that does full incline, equipped with sunshade and tire sizes that rival a Hummer. Personally I find it tough to pay more than $100 for this kind of “vehicle” that is mostly plastic with no air bags and doesn’t even come with a Honda engine.

(On the extreme side of the stroller spectrum - bordering on ridiculous - is the $300 “all terrain” tricycle stroller for jogging-crazed parents: wouldn’t that be one grumpy baby in that stroller at the end of a 10 minute run down a pebble-infested country trail?)

In all seriousness, even though good strollers are in general expensive, most are designed to last for a couple years so that cost might be justified by most parents. On the other hand, count me as one of the folks who thinks that baby clothes and shoes are outrageously-priced for what little they offer.

No big wonder that my hard-earned dollars has already begun its ascent towards the fifth floor cashiers more often than the fourth or sixth floors of the store.

But I find a bit of irony on the fifth floor after all: immediately next to the baby/maternity area lies the enormous lingerie section decorated with many full-bodied mannequins donning some sexy underwear amidst racy posters advertising “Trimuph: Dangerous Curves”. Would-be mommies with rounded bellies are shopping side by side with ladies who strive to be “dangerous” in the bedroom.

Alas the circle of life, as presented by my local dept. store.

A Movable Feast, part 2 (8)

(Eighth in the series, “Becoming a Father“)

[Note: wife is 30 weeks preganent at this point.]

As I reported three columns back, UFO started its kicking and stretching inside my wife. Since then, we found the baby would move quite frequently when wife is eating, or listening to music. So we decide to experiment: what kind of food and music would make UFO dance and wiggle the most? I have never gotten so excited about serious scientific experiments like this since my college biology-for-dummies class when I had the chance to test a cute classmate’s blood type.

Food

In this test, we check whether UFO moves within a five minute period after wife samples a particular food item. And here are the results:

Food	UFO Moves…?	UFO’s Comment
Mango	like no tomorrow	never had something so good in outer space
Brazilian bean stew (feijão)	a lot	‘em beans fatten mom up and keeps me in orbit
Passion fruit ice cream	a lot	a godsend for someone trapped in this hot, dark space
Blueberry yoghurt	moderately	I like it coz I ain’t got teeth yet
Japanese food	almost never	too fishy (sushi), too sour (tsukemono), and too salty (miso soup)!
Chinese food	almost never	Again? I am bored bored bored bored bored

Aside from the comments, we are not making this up. UFO has indeed danced after wife’s mango consumption on many separate occasions. And despite wife eating some form of Chinese food almost every day, UFO almost never moves. Can it be just coincidence or does UFO already have a penchant for sweetness? We may carry out the same tests on UFO in a year or so when UFO is old enough to chew and see if the results match up. (Care to predict what kind of face UFO would be showing after eating a piece of sushi? Place your bets now!)

Music

Since more than ten weeks ago, every night before we turn out the lights to sleep we would play two or three songs on a MP3 player that is hooked up to a pair of headphones laid flat on wife’s stomach. (Might as well take advantage of the fact that we can still control what music UFO listens: i.e. no pop, no heavy metal, and absolutely no Kenny G.)

Those who believe in the Mozart-only-for-babies camp will no doubt shake their heads when I reveal to you that I play lots of different kinds of music for UFO to listen: jazz, lots of Brazilian music (mom’s influence?), world music, in addition to classical. I recall a visit many years ago to a friend’s place: his wife would only play Mozart for their newborn. “And what about Beethoven?” I asked innocently. The wife shook her head in horror as if heresy was spoken, but to this day I still think the temperamental composer’s more serene works - one example would be his 6th symphony “Pastorale” - would not fry an infant’s brain. In any case, seeing how adamant my friend’s wife was about “Mozart-only”, I wisely avoided asking her about Miles or Coltrane.

Here are some stats and results from the UFO Music Tests the past ten weeks:

• Music that set UFO swinging in the womb: Bill Evans Trio (Waltz for Debby), any Louis and Ella song, any forro (a type of Brazilian country music) plus others;
• Music that got UFO wiggling its body somewhat: almost any samba (I only play the quieter canções, not carnival enredos), music from the Brazilian Trio Tribalistas, Mozart’s piano concertos (e.g. No. 17 in G major KV453), plus others;
• Music that has failed so far to get UFO moving: Miles Davis, bossa nova incl. João Gilberto (UFO falls asleep?), John Coltrane, plus others;
• First ever song we played for UFO: “Spiritual”, a jazz number by bassist Charlie Haden and guitarist Pat Metheny. UFO moved, albeit at that point UFO was only 20 weeks old and its movement was more of a “feathery touch” according to wife, and not the strong karate chops that our little black belt does today.

So I’ll end this with a question: what music would you play for your infant? Leave your answers in the comment system.

What’s in a Name? (7)

(Seventh in the series, “Becoming a Father“)

One question a lot of people ask us is, “Have you thought about names for your baby?”

The answer is yes, as far as a nickname is concerned. In my very first email to friends announcing wife’s pregnancy, I started writing about this UFO - unidentified floating object - in my wife’s belly, and the name stuck. Since then when wife and I talk to each other about the baby, we refer to “UFO this” and “UFO that”. (Instead of the usual “U-F-O”, we pronounce it as “you-ful”.)

Since we won’t find out UFO’s sex until it is born, we’d like to have prepared a list of proper names for both cases when UFO touches down on planet earth. Things however, are slow-going in this department.

Folks, naming a baby is hard. First we don’t want to pick a name where UFO’s classmates will be making fun of UFO for the rest of his/her life (e.g. Bertha, Dick, etc.). Second, one day UFO might win the Nobel Prize; so to sound good on BBC, its name must not be something plainjane or jack, yet not too dead serious either (e.g. Isaac, Sirus are out). Last of all, in my family any of our naming choices must make it through the censors (i.e. the baby’s grandparents).

If the task isn’t difficult enough already, in a globalized world today, it becomes impossible: we have a Korean acquaintance called “Yu Hong-Nam” and he always gets laughed at in Thailand because his name sounds exactly like “I am in the toilet” in Thai. I also know a tall Japanese girl living in Japan who is crazy about Brazilian dancing and calls herself “Valeria”, no doubt, to feel more Brazilian herself; nothing unusual except if she makes it down to Brazil one day she might get puzzled looks: Valeria seems to be a popular name for transvestites there.

 &nbsp Valeria: “Hi, I am Valeria from Japan.”
 &nbsp Brazilian Stranger: “And I thought..er…those were real! *Giggles*”

(Disclaimer: this has been an approximate translation of a probable exchange between Valeria and any sane Brazilian and is not meant to embarrass anyone, with the possible exception of Valeria.)

We also get mail from people saying things like, “Naming your baby is the fun part, isn’t it?” And right away we know that either they are the ones that name their babies “Maximilian” or “Glaedwine”, or they have never had a baby before.

So my strategy now, in addition to avoiding the pitfalls mentioned above, is to make my own list of names and take it to the hospital when UFO is born. Then while looking at UFO’s face I will go down the list one by one to see which name UFO resembles the most. “Do you look like Aaron? No. Do you look like Abby? No. Do you look like Abigail…”

My ultimate fear, however, is the answer of the question “Do you look like UFO?” will be a resounding “Yes” since the name has been ingrained in our minds for many months already.

But thankfully, that’s what censors are for.

Singing the mid-tri blues (6)

(Sixth in the series, “Becoming a Father“)

I had been updating this column every two weeks until this entry, which took a month.

I was suffering writer’s block. It was not entirely my fault because the only positive change around here has been the size of my wife’s stomach, and I had gained no new earth-shattering insights or breakthrough viewpoints on becoming a father.

The problem, I believe, is depression caused by boredom while waiting for my baby to come out. And when I try to kill time by watching cable TV, channels such as Animal Planet and National Geo. often go out of their way to remind me of frogs that take three seconds to mate and three seconds more for the fertilized eggs to turn into tadpoles.

Maybe I am exaggerating a bit. But why does it take so long for humans? It’s been five months already so we have just passed the halfway mark. Yet I want to kick a soccer ball with my baby, like, four months ago!

I must not be the only expectant father to feel these mid-trimester blues. Perhaps I will go into the hospital tomorrow to talk to an OB-GYN doctor regarding possible treatment.

Meanwhile, my wife is having the ball of her life. Her belly is now very noticeable, and by golly, pregnant women are pampered by everyone everywhere. Strangers are giving up their seats on the train for my wife; at the office, she is showered by snacks every hour - if it’s not green mango then it’s homemade chocolate chip cookies. Thanks to all of you who spoil her, just a few days ago wife remarked, “I wish I could stay pregnant forever.”

Note to wife: get the first one out, and you can stay pregnant as long as you want for the next one.

A Movable Feast, part 1 (5)

(Fifth in the series, “Becoming a Father“)

My previous piece on “Becoming a Father” discussed the wonders of the ultrasound machine, unfortunately one cannot buy and take an ultrasound machine home and scan his wife’s belly whenever he wants to look at the fetus. (Actually you can, but it’s a bit costly.)

So the next best thing to “keep in touch” with the little one inside is to feel its movement, which usually starts around the 15 to 16th week. The expectant mother will feel these initial fetus movements, described as “butterflies or little fish zigzagging about” by one of the maternity books we have.

For the anxious father, however, this is one thing we are missing out on by not having the fetus in our bellies. (I doubt I would trade places with wife for this privilege though. Sorry!) When our little one started to slosh around in its bubble a couple weeks ago, wife would periodically exclaim “oh, it’s moving”; and my fingers would be glued to her belly like chewed gum stuck to tennis shoes, but I would feel nothing.

Then I realized my ears were much better sensors because they can both hear and feel any movement, so whenever my wife alerted me immediately of fetus action I would instead stick my ears on her stomach. But the stomach is also where - naturally - a lot of digestive activities take place so it is difficult to tell what sounds are legit initially. Thankfully, after a week or so the fetus’ movement got a little stronger so I could finally pick up some noise and a little poke to my ear whenever it moved.

At its 20th week now, the fetus would move quite a lot around night time, and I have been listening to my wife’s belly more frequently than ever. A word of warning to future fathers however: be careful where you apply this listening technique. Once the fetus was moving while we were in the back seat of a taxi; of course I immediately put my head next to wife’s belly, which alarmed the taxi driver who looked back to see what the ruckus was about (and probably greatly relieved to see that it wasn’t what he probably had in mind).

Embryo, say cheese! (4)

(Fourth in the series, “Becoming a Father“)

There it is, the HDI 3000 - a large and imposing machine - sitting quietly in the dark hospital room. The machine is a computer - albeit a specialized one - complete with monitor, keyboard, and its main boards stuffed into a four-foot rack. There is also a joystick-looking device that is part of the keyboard, and a odd-shaped probe connected by wire to the main console.

It is rare to see a computing device that big these days; perhaps that is the price for instant gratification in the maternity world. Like other ultrasound machines, the HDI 3000 is the window to the embryo in the bubble.

Our doctor waves the probe like a magic wand over wife’s stomach, and the image of the little embryo appears on the monitor. At week 10, the embryo is only 3.26cm big, but already it’s got a big head with little hands and feet. While we are watching, the embryo seems to suffer a little hiccup-like seizure (choking on embryonic fluid perhaps) that its little body shakes and its little hands waves. To see that is quite incredible, because the embryo on the screen comes across like some sort of digital animation, but it is actually real and it is life!

What is even more unbelievable is that the ultrasound machine is able to pick up the embryo’s beating heart and render it as a blinking dot, however small that little flashing pixel may seem. And with a few clicks on the keyboard, the doctor captures on the speakers the sound of the embryo’s beating heart, which is beating at a rate much faster than its mom’s.

As fascinating as the ultrasound machine can digitize what is inside the womb, we have probably seen the last of our soon-to-be-fetus on the monitor. Wife and I both agree that it is much more exciting to not know the gender of the little one until it is born, so we have asked our doctor not to show us anymore ultrasound-scans on subsequent checkups that may ruin the surprise.

Though I can’t help but wonder: for parents like us, perhaps future ultrasound machines can include a feature to automatically render the genital area of the fetus as mosaic just like the way Japanese film censors blot out parts of revealing naked flesh in movies. This way, the gender secret is preserved, and we can still check out the fetus’ face before its birth to see if we need to sign the little one up early for double eyelid surgery, if necessary. (Just joking.)

The Great Paper Onslaught (3)

(Third in the series, “Becoming a Father“)

Question: once wife gets pregnant, what’s the first thing I should buy?
Answer: a big bookshelf.

Our first books about pregnancy arrived because my father persuaded me to go to a bookstore with him. On the way to the store he told me, “the one you should get is by Dr. Spock. It’s very famous.” Upon hearing that, my immediate thought was of the famous vulcan on Star Trek, tenderly cradling a young one in his arms. Call it generation gap, if you will.

As I flipped through one of the other books my father bought for my wife and I, the first natural instinct was for me to check out page 158, which is the first page for the chapter “Becoming a Father.” The author, Sheila Kitzinger, writes:

“As his partner becomes more involved in the pregnancy and the baby, he feels increasingly rejected and finds this shift of focus very threatening.”
Comment: that sure explains why wife doesn’t want to give me my nightly shoulder and back rub anymore. Thanks and no thanks, embryo!

And on the same page Mrs. Kitzinger dispenses some more alarming news:

“Some men acquire a woman as a kind of showpiece … desirable sex object … he may find it difficult to cope … as conventional attractiveness is replaced by a very different body.”
Comment: never mention to wife whether you had “acquired” her as a desirable sex object. Let’s say she wants to know and you say yes, she might get mad because that implies you don’t appreciate her inner beauty. And if you answer “no”? Then she might also get mad because that implies you don’t think she is downright sexy. Either way, you lose!

But I digress. The main point of this piece is: I got books on pregnancy and child rearing, lots of them. Especially if you are lucky enough like me to have a brother scouring Salvation Army for used books to re-sell. During Christmas a month ago, we received still more books from our wonderful friends (plus a baby diary - perhaps I will take note how often the newborn takes a dump). By now, I am pretty sure I have amassed an impressive collection of baby books that will put my local city library to shame.

But I am not complaining. Books are good: the more the better. Before reading them I wouldn’t be able to tell you the difference between an embryo and a fetus, since the last biology class I took was, oh, just twenty years ago. Just don’t ask me about “frank breech” or “footling breech” yet; I am still on the chapter “The couple under stress.”

New Eating Habits (2)

(Second in the series, “Becoming a Father“)

Little by little wife changes her eating habits.

She used to eat like a bird, namely, her small stomach got filled up quite quickly. I always had to finish half of her food, in addition to my own whenever we went out to eat.

After she got pregnant, it was natural she ate more because now she would need to support the growth of the fetus. However, I wasn’t prepared for the new eating habits that she had developed.

One morning some munching noise wakes me up. I turn my head and see my wife doing something she never did before: eating crackers in bed. Here is someone who has never been fond of carbohydrates and bland food, eating crackers the first thing in the morning! Says it keeps her from getting dizzy when she gets out of the bed. So now every night before she sleeps, she puts a small pack of crackers beside her pillow. (She could have at least picked something less noisy to eat!)

The other emerging habit of hers is having these strange and difficult cravings, strange because she has never been a big fan of hamburgers, or cold soba noodles, and difficult because she wants to eat “mom’s curry rice” (her mom is currently living more than 30 hours away by plane from us) or “Brazilian bean stew” (we are in Asia where Brazilian beans cannot be readily purchased), just to name a few.

And then there are things she used to love but can’t eat anymore. The garlicky smell of stir-fried Chinese vegetables, for example, drives her nuts. And green tea - once her favorite - has suddenly become bad-tasting. Not that she is supposed to drink anything with caffeine anyway, per doctor’s orders.