a few more weeks.. and..

india's batting was dismal and even a valiant fight back with their mercurial bowling couldn't thwart a well deserved pakistan win last sunday. but, i presume this is a blessing in disguise for india. surely, they cannot play like this if they are to win against the mighty australians – who are touring india this october. bear in mind, australia has not won against india in 30 years, on indian soil that is - a lot of pride at stake surely. during this cricket championship, all my predictions have been smacked silly. i predicted india to win against pakistan, pakistan to win against west indies and australia to win against england. unerringly the reverse happened on each instance, bloody bollocks !!

monica and i met up with the midwife on tuesday. we had all our apprehensions put to rest. evidently, this lady knows a lot and has seen many handsome & healthy babies successfully delivered under her supervision. she told us not to fret much about occasional vitamin/mineral deficiency in monica's food intake. we still do not know monica's blood group. we need to commence our parental classes soon. in 15 weeks approximately i will be a father. i am excitably nervous. i give too much thought to safety these days. imagine me coming to work, dock my laptop, sit in my chair and frantically search for seat belts !. yes, i am mortified when my colleague asks me what it is i am probing for – i certainly cannot say seat belts, can i ?

around this time, when the baby is growing at a frantic pace, a pregnant woman's back is supposed to ache. i hear that pregnant women could go for swimming to alleviate this a bit. sitting up straight – without legs crossed – is another option. monica is a bit concerned about pain & labour. i don't know what to say or advocate at the moment. admittedly, i am thinking more about the baby's safety than i am about monica's. i am sure monica does the same – caring more about the baby than herself. some of the options they suggest, which i am sure are tested time and again, are plainly difficult to visualise or digest. two days ago, i & monica had a dialogue about this and what ever it is i told pissed monica off barely a few minutes before she went off to bed. in the morning i informed her that we shouldn't worry too much about labour now. my uncle in australia, whom i admire much, once said the trick is to wait for it to come to you. it is true. in approximately 15 to 17 weeks, ready or not, our baby will make a grand entrance into this world. why bother now and worry about something that we know will happen ? i also drove a point: it can't be entirely unpleasant. monica's mom wouldn't have gone through it twice more if she had a difficult time delivering her first baby. at least for that day, monica seemed pacified.

we still have 4 to 5 appointments with the midwife – on a regular basis before delivery. we want to talk about all these pain killer options with the midwife. all in all, things look good at the moment. as shakespeare rightly said all's well that ends well.

i clasp my hands and pray !

kung fu

for the past few days the baby has been rehearsing kung fu moves inside monica's tummy. he is very active during specific times of the day. he most certainly likes string instruments. i make monica listen to some classical music before she sleeps – i insist on non-vocal classical, monica favours pavarotti type waffle. but we both know what the baby likes, classicals involving string instruments. when i was doing my research in australia, i had read many editorials in neural networks periodicals on how babies fortify their neural connections [called dentrites]. listening to classical music, not necessarily while in the womb, accelerates the baby's cranial development.

when i close my eyes and i listen to string instruments, it does something to my brain – a sensation that i perhaps cannot explain comprehensively, but i can confidently affirm that my concentration is far superior after one of those sessions. anyway, i asked monica if it hurts when he kicks about. she said it is makes her feel more or less ticklish. oh boy, i am waiting to glimpse what happens when the kicks become more pronounced and frequent. if monica wakes up in the middle of the night giggling hysterically, the only possible explanation – Tickles !

caron, chris's girl friend had her 2nd scan on the 14th and it turns out she will deliver a baby boy too ! my mate joe is coming over this weekend to visit us & cambridge. joe, chris, caron, monica, i & yovita will all meet up for dinner some place nice this weekend. on sunday [19.09.04] evening i will be either extremely cheerful or $^#%& pissed off, no mid point here. india plays pakistan at birmingham and i hope india wins the game by playing some fantastic cricket. i will let you know how it went on monday.

i noticed a visitor from the government to my web site. hmm, i wonder what s/he was looking for. don't know, don't care – got nothing to be afraid off.

aditya, may be.

a few days ago, i saw this survey on CNN. if we send a "noah's ark" to the moon who would you exclude ?

[1] politicians
[2] lawyers
[3] smokers
[4] sales people

over 40% of the people voted for smokers. i was thinking to myself, these people must either be genuinely outrageous or entirely dim-witted. with a non-existent atmosphere, the smoke just wouldn't be there after a puff ! then I thought, 40% of americans can't be daft [!!] and i went about interpreting the news in full. obviously, there will be a biosphere to take into description and we don't want any polluting in there, do we ? so, that makes sense now.

now that we know monica will deliver a baby boy, we are thinking about baby names. chief in that list at the moment is aditya. there are a few more names both I & monica like and there are many more that either i or monica like but not jointly.

monica scans an article on the BBC that alleges dads sleep through when babies cry at nights. to make matters worse, they also assert some dads pretend to be sound asleep when moms go through their routine. the fact is, i sleep very low & thin and the slightest clamour will wake me up. people shutting car doors an entire block away, door knobs turning, switching the fan off – everything & anything can wake me up [except when monica endeavours to wake me up by ordering me to discontinue snorrrring]. so you see, i can’t empathise why monica specifically sends me a link to that article.

on the funny side, monica dispatches [this link] yesterday and said the third photo on the page is hilarious. i had a quick look and i didn’t see anything remarkable or comical. so, i had a look at all the other photos on the page – still nothing curious or amusing. so, i revisit the 3rd photo and spent a few good seconds on it. Wallah !! there it was. absolutely hilarious. i trust you all can see the funny side of it.

ok, on to essential information: while we were reasonably sure monica gets an adequate amount of vitamins & minerals from her daily intakes, we just realised that she might be low on calcium. milk is a major base for calcium, but monica won't have any of that. Lactose intolerance is the appreciable rationale. so, we have a rendezvous with the doctor to enquire what can be done about this. don't worry, it is not that she is dreadfully low on calcium. she gets a moderate amount every day, but certainly not the minimum recommended allowance.

monica's brand new web site will be up and running sometime middle of next week, i am sure. i don’t want to give away too many particulars about the site at the moment. it will be a showcase for almost everything. my ever-so-patient niece [moose] has graciously offered to do all the hard work in relation to this.

at work, my design documents are geared up for review. there are a few that still needs work, but pretty much the whole of the design is ready for inspection. after that there will be some re-work, then re-review and wallah !! time to code & implement the 3G mobile ! monica has started looking at air fares [!!] to semarang for april 05. our idea is for monica to stay here in cambridge for up to 20 weeks after delivery and then go to indonesia for a just few months where she can get abundant domestic help.

2nd scan, week 21

i have this daft for a friend in india named sanjeev. he is a prime example of what a shallow reader is. he takes one single look at the subject heading [from my previous blog] and thinks monica has already delivered !!

so, he sends me a "congratulations mate" on yahoo IM™ and since i didn't know what for, i gleefully acknowledged it. he proceeded, "when" ? i thought he was enquiring when we knew the baby was a boy. i countered, "this morning, about 2 hours back". sanjeev comes back with, "oh good ! hope miaw and the baby are fine". do note, he always addresses monica as "miaw". albeit a bit aggravating, we have come to recognise the fact he cannot be changed.

i said, yeah, both monica and the baby are fine. i had not established anything atypical in the questions above. sanjeev continues, "when are you planning to bring monica and the baby back from the hospital"? NOW it hit me. nothing surprising, sanjeev is celebrated for things like this. he can read the first page of a book and conclude the whole story from that. he reads my previous blog [i mean the subject line alone] and assumes "wow, monica has delivered". he is just preposterous !!

i gave him a sucker punch, online ofcourse, and told him there are 21 more weeks before delivery. he said, "then how did you know the sex of the baby, saala"? saala in hindi translates to brother-in-law. if i had sisters who are of comparable age to sanjeev, i pledge to you, i would keep that a secret from him. the medical amenities in india are among the finest in the world, we have patients from the UK & Europe going abroad to india for treatment, surgeries etc. they have everything in india that they need to have in a clinic or a hospital, BUT ultrasound for the purpose of knowing the baby's sex is proscribed by the government of india. so you see, you won't know the sex of the baby in india up until birth !

there have been a decline in female births in india over the last decade and the government swiftly realised this is because of prospective parents, sadly, preferring to abort when they find the baby is a girl! so, across the board, every hostpital in india will use ultrasound & radio scans only for ascertaining basics about the baby - but not the sex. doctors lose their license to practice if they are caught doing so. hence, sanjeev could be let off for messing up this time.

we bought a juice maker. it is marvellous. monica gets her 5 portions of fruits sans vegetables these days. india finally managed to beat england, quite competently. batting could be a worry and needs more effort. last weekend was fantastic, weather wise ofcourse. try and envisage a HOT england in September - 30 degrees ! hmm ..

one single photo of the scan from 1st september [here].

it is a baby BOY !

quickie, 2nd scan on 01-09-2004: it is a boy ! we saw the feet, hands, fingers, toes, face, eyes, lips, jaw, spine, heart chambers, skull cross section - everything that we could identify. the ultrasound specialist said everything looks ok with the baby - the skull size, heart size, waist size, length etc.

will post the scans tomorrow or the day after.