39 Weeks & Going

Chamu has officially completed his 39-week stay inside of Mamu. We went for a check-up on Thursday and the Doc told us again that he is still floating. Now it's Monday morning and we will be going back for a check up to see if he has progressed at all.
Dadu finished cleaning out the maid's room/storage room/ guest room after 3 days of intensive work. I had gone through four boxes of memorabilia from my banker days and reduce them to just one box. All of sudden, those deals/projects which occupied my life (or were my life) didn't seem to matter anymore. The chance of me returning to my former life seems to diminish as my due date comes closer.
We reorganized the guest room and Chamu's stuff. We did two loads of laundry for Chamu with his tiny little newborn clothes. As I was folding away the dry laundry, it still seems so unreal that we are actually going to have a real baby in our arms very soon. We are going to be parents?! We have to find time to take care of a helpless little thing from our currently already very busy life? How is that possible? The biggest doubt I have is about myself because even at this point, I am not sure if I'm really ready to deal with bottles, breast feeding, diapers and a crying baby...
Still no conclusion on how Chamu will be delivered. Our doc is back today and hopefully we will be able to make a decision. We had a 1-on-1 session with a midwife from our ante-natal class which was quite helpful but not enough to make us decide one way or the other. Chamu has been moving quite actively and is using my belly as his treadmill...Belly is tensed up most of time. All signs are indicating we are entering the last stretch...
P.S. one of my best friends just announced her good news, I am so happy for her! Getting pregnant may seem easy from all the celebrity headlines (especially for those under 20) but only those who have been through it at our age understand that having a baby is a true miracle.

Nesting Instincts

Dadu is going thru his nesting phase. For the last 3 days, he has been busy cleaning out our closet, storage, maid's room and the guest room. It's amazing how much junk one accumulates over a few years and our ability to fill up any available space. It is still work is progress and our study room now looks like a garbage recycling center but at least the work has been started.

We went for another checkup for Chamu today with a different doctor (since my doctor is away until Monday). We wanted to take this chance to also get a second opinion on c-section. Chamu has not dropped yet and I'm certain he is over 4kg now (since mamu is at 175 lbs today-heavier than Dadu now!). Well Chamu will certainly stay until next Monday when we make the decision on his birth method...

P.S. Mamu finished her big project today so she can go on maternity leave starting this weekend!!! Thanks to a very cooperative Chamu...

Trouble Sleeping

Having trouble sleeping these days. Belly is really big and heavy and I have turned the sea of pillows into a mountain of pillows (10 of them now) but it still does not help much. Luckily the temperature has dropped in the last two days so I don't really wake up in sweat anymore. I slept for 6 hours straight yesterday and it was quite a pleasant surprise given it's been a while since I was able to sleep for more than 3 hours straight. Today, I'm back to having a sleepless night though.

Part of it is also driven by anxiety. I don't think I have been this nervous about any other events in my life, not even the first day of school in the U.S. when I spoke no word of English. These days, I'm constantly worried: Will I go into labor before Doc comes back next Monday? What kind of delivery will I have? What kind of baby will Chamu be? How will we get through the first month? Is Chamu moving too much? Moving too little?

I know people say to get as much sleep as you can before the baby pops out but my mind is filled with all these questions and it makes sleep a luxury I cannot afford to have. JoJomami @ 5am...

Naming Chamu

Of course by now all of you should know that Chamu is just a nick name. I came up with this name because the baby is a Cham and it rhymes with Shamu*. Chamu has lived up to his name and is a human whale in terms of his size. My dad has taken on the task of coming up with Chamu's Chinese name since week 15. Chinese name is not easy. You need to look at the baby's Chinese zodiac sign (year of rat) and his last name Cham (詹) in order to come up with the right combination of strokes and characters. Rats, for example, cannot have particles in the character that has water (水), rain (雨), sun (日), mountain (山) knife (刀), fire (火), or strength (力). Rats are likely to have better luck when there is any of the following elements: rice (米), field (田), moon/meat(月), wheat(禾), people(人) , gold (金), cover/shelter (top of 家) and grass (艹).
Dad first came up with a very nice name: 詹鈞宇(Junyu). We stuck with it for a while but since Jaime can only pronounce it like jinyu (sounds like 金魚(gold fish) or 鯨魚(whale)), we had to go back to Dad for a second look.
My mom also has studied Chinese names before so she helped pick the best strokes combination that would go with Cham. After putting all the plausible combination of characters in a final short list, we sent to Mom & Dad in Panama for their opinion. Right now, we are down to two choices and still haven't made up our mind. It is a big responsibility since the name will be stuck with Chamu for his life time but I think either one we end up picking will be a good name for Chamu.
As far as English name goes, we have already decided on a name with Spanish origin. Forgive us for not being able to disclose it yet since we are afraid of people telling us about some ex-boyfriend or some dorks having the same name as we picked. Both names will come on the birth announcement with Chamu's picture on it so people will have nothing else to comment other than saying how cute Chamu is (yes, "cute" is the only word you can say; and I beg you to be kind to him and to my feelings even if he does not turn out to be as cute as you expect). Until then, he will continue to be the little Chamu that grows at the same rate as Shamu.
*For those of you who are not familiar with Shamu, here is the google image.

C-section

Spoke to a good friend of mine last night. She has had two babies and both time with C-section. Her recovery both times were quite well. I have somewhat made up my mind but actually I'm still quite scared of both ways of delivery. And I guess this is not just me because the other day I was chatting with J who is due 6 weeks after me, she is also quite anxious given that we are both first-time moms. But somehow Chamu has to come out one way or another.

Just managed to squeeze into my doctor's schedule next Monday. At least I get to have the check up as soon as she comes back to Hong Kong and perhaps we can have Chamu on the 14th (which coincides with my best friend's birthday!).

Still working this week. Chamu has been a very good boy and will continue to grow nicely until we see him next week.

Hot Hot Hot

When you are pregnant, it feels like you are carrying a portable heater all the time. These days, I often wake up in my own sweat 4am in the morning while Jaime curls up under the sheet next to me because he is freezing (with all the windows wide open and the ceiling fan running). The other day I had to move to the living room so I can stop sweating and go back to sleep again. It is quite a strange scene because I was always the one who is always cold while he is the one who is hot. But with a bun in the oven, it means your body can't do much to adjust the heat in the oven. I already cut my hair to ear length but within the last three weeks, it has already grown to almost shoulder length (thanks to super human growth hormone that my body is producing). I feel like shaving it completely like what Britney Spears did last year, maybe that will help me cool down more and leave me no worries about how to address the hair washing issue during confinement. I'm almost certain that it will match Chamu's hairstyle anyways (but he will look adorable and I would look freaky with the same look).
Yesterday Jaime and I went to Ines' one-year birthday party and met quite a few parents and babies. Margaret has not invited any non-parent friends because she thinks it would scare people off and since we are only two weeks away from being parents, she wanted us to get a taste of what parenthood is like. Most of the parents are bankers and high achievers who are used to doing things on schedule and at their demand but most of them admit babie are here to test your ultimate patience since they do not follow any logic and each of them has his/her unique personality. It is still quite a scary thought to think how much our life will change after Chamu's arrival. We are so used to doing things spontaneously like watching midnight movies and playing video games until 3 or 4am (which would put us as failures under the Gina Ford model). I guess there is nothing we can do to ease our worries and we can only take it one step at a time.

Chamu @ 38 Weeks

Today we had another check up for Chamu. I am exactly 37 weeks and 6 days. Chamu gained another pound and is now estimated to be around 8 to 9 lbs (Doctor thinks he is more likely to be 8 lbs than 9 lbs). At any measure, he is a big baby. Cervix is still at 3.1 cm so no chance of him coming early. My doctor is actually going away from May 6 to 12 so I guess the earliest Chamu can be scheduled for delivery will be after May 12. Still somewhat debating on the topic of C-section but with such a big baby I guess the decision is quite clear.

It's getting very difficult for me to move around. I can't sleep on the bed anymore. For the last two nights, I had to sleep on the couch because it is softer than the mattress. Even so I can only sleep sitting half way up. I'm approaching 80 kgs (I don't even want to convert it to pounds because it's disgusting). My stretch marks are slowly crawling above my belly button. It is hard to imagine that I will have at least another 10 days to go but if Chamu wants to stay inside and grow to be a 10 pounder then we will just need to wait patiently for our plumpy fat baby... We are still missing a changing table, a car seat and the nursing chair but have made some good progress in finalizing the list (especially now we have 10 more days...).