First moblogging attempt

I am blogging this entry from my mobile phone. A bit expensive considering it is billed by packet data size but nonetheless had to try it at least once.

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).

Wise words from Mr. Buffet of Omaha

1. Don’t save sex for old age.
2. Never buy a stock that you aren’t willing to hold long term.
3. If you ever sit down at a poker table and in 15 minutes you haven’t figured out who the pigeon is, you are the pigeon.

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.”