The sweet life

Answering Gerard's request from last week, here's a photo of me at around 2 (click on photo to enlarge). Yep, I looked like a leg ham with all those layers of clothes.

And so much has changed since 1985... My current hourly income is more than what mum used to make in a month; I would not own my first CD for another 10 years; and I wouldn't have travelled outside of my province for another 5 years.

This week, I'd like to write about some of my most treasured childhood memories that I'll be sure to share with my children and even grandchildren for the many years to come.

Wontons or no wontons

From the age of around 8, I started walking to school by myself. On my way there, I'd always visit my favourite noodle house to get my daily breakfast. Eating out is such a common practice in Guangzhou (my home town) so it wasn't such an extravagance for a little kid to do the same. The most important decision was always 'wontons or no wontons'. Wontons are little dumplings stuffed with pork, prawns and mushrooms, and are usually part of your noodle soup. The dilemma for any 8 year old was whether to spend 1.50 yuan (around 25 cents) to include wontons with your noodles or just go with plain noodles, a thrifty 1 yuan. The saving would mean the difference of an ice-block later that day or no arvo snack. Decisions decisions. If only adult life was so simple!

Snails and swallows

For reasons unknown, I was fascinated by snails as a child. The way they move and leave what looks like snot trails, the way their tentacles shrink when you touch them, and not to mention the way they can fit their whole body into their shell. The apartment we used to live in was behind the main block of street facing buildings and could be reached via many alley ways from all different directions. There was a garden bed on one of the less direct alley ways that seemed to house snails en masse, especially after some rain. I'd always make sure to take that way home on rainy days so I could collect a new selection of snails, big and small. But for the life of me, I can't remember now what I ever did with them once I took them home. Another upside of taking the long way home was a swallows nest sitting on the wooden beam of an old fashion sliding door of one of the houses on that alley way. Even though it was quite high up and hard to see, hearing those little baby swallows chirp was just the best.

Summer holidays

When you're a kid, summer holidays always seemed to last a century. I'd always look forward to having my cousin, Cathy, over to play. We'd spend hours sitting in the plastic bath tub, scooping water in and out of our little pots, pretending to cook up a feast, until our skin would wrinkle up like prunes. Another favourite game was teachers and students. We gave all our dolls names of kids from our school – the naughty kids' names were always given to the boy dolls and the most well behaved dolls were always named after our best friends. We'd get really creative with what little classroom 'facilities' we had – a thin sheet of paper placed in front of the lamp would become the overhead projector, a knitting needle would become our blackboard pointer. Long days of play always ended with a nap on the bamboo weave mat placed on the tiled floor of the living room. I still love my naps till this day.

I know that our baby will have a very different life to mine. But I hope that one day, he/she will look back on their childhood and remember those simple things and moments which sums up 'la dolce vita'.

What's in a name?

It's been a while since my last entry. I cannot match Viv's prolific output; you know, busy busy busy, people to meet, places to visit.

Last time I talked about nicknames, this time I'll talk about names. Real names. You see, as most of you are probably aware, there will come a time when your baby will have to be given a name. Something that will haunt them for the rest of their lives. This is serious stuff. Viv and I discussed potential baby names years and years ago. It won't surprise you to hear it was always Vivian who started that discussion, but I'm always happy to go along with. Besides, I wouldn't know what else to talk to, and you gotta do something to avoid those awkward silent moments sitting side by side on the couch during ad breaks in Biggest Loser.

We collectively changed our minds a couple times (I'm easy with things like that), but for the past 3 years we settled on two names; X and Y. These names were going to be secret until the day the baby was born, but unfortunately that day I forgot to send Vivian a memo advising her of that decision. By week -10 (that's right, negative ten), all of Viv's colleagues with the names X and Y had been informed that that's what our children were going to be named, and that they themselves had nothing to do with that decision, because these names were picked way before we even knew these people. I guess it's still somewhat of an honour, because had those people been annoying or disagreeable in any way, that name would have probably been scrapped.

By week 12 Viv informed my brother via email simply because he mentioned names somewhere in the email. The cat was well and truly out of the bag now, but still I asked if we could keep it a surprise to at least a few people (the ones living under rocks). Reluctant to oblige she tried brushing it aside saying, 'It might not even look like an X or Y'. Now, I've heard that one before. In fact, I heard that one so often I lost count. I can't wait to finally understand what that means, because right now, I can't imagine what it's like to look at your newborn, and decide it definitely does/doesn't look like an X or Y. How on earth do you decide whether or not a baby looks like a particular name? Did I look like a David when I was born? Do I look like one now? Personally, I always thought I looked a bit like a Norbert (see photo – aged 6), but hey, what can you do; nobody asked me at the time. If I was to take a hot bath for the next 9 months, fully submerged, will I still look like a Norbert? Probably even more so, and the thought definitely sounds appealing.

As long as it doesn't come out looking like a Benjamin Button I don't care, because I will do a runner to the nearest canal; I can't wait for another 40 years before it looks like a Brad Pitt!

Ultrasound & Birth Centre

On Tuesday we went to have our second ultrasound to check that everything’s developing well with the baby. Again, I didn’t drink enough water (a large bladder pushes the womb upwards so it’s easier for the technician to make all the measurements) so the lady decided to tilt the bed backwards. It was…..interesting………to say the least and a couple of times I felt like I was going to slide off the bed!

Since there is less room this time, our baby wasn’t moving as much as last time. And since it’s bigger, you can't see the whole body in the one shot so it wasn’t as exciting as the last ultrasound. But we did get to see the baby’s hands and feet in great detail, as well as the heart pumping the blood at 153 beats a minute! Look at attached photo of our baby waving to the world.

From head to butt the baby is now a little over 15 centimetres long. And the technician should be able to tell the sex. Although we told her as soon as we walked in that we didn’t want to find out, we couldn’t help but notice when she made a gender specific comment! Even though it was just the once, it did put ideas in our heads.

After the ultrasound we also met our midwife, Alex, for the first time. She was very nice and understanding and I think it’ll be great to have her at the birth. She gave us the option to give birth at the birth centre or the delivery clinic. “What’s the difference?!” I hear you ask. We asked the same question too. Basically, the birth centre offers a setting similar to a home birth. They don’t perform continuous monitoring and provides little intervention. They also don’t offer any hard drugs (e.g. epidural) but will give me a little happy gas to ease the pain. The delivery clinic, just around the corridor, has a more clinical setting. You’ll be hooked up to all the machines monitoring everything and they will intervene and offer drugs when needed. When Alex showed us a room in the birth centre, our minds were easily made up. It looked like a normal bedroom, with a double bed (so dad can also get in) and a huge bathroom with an enormous bath tub (if you want to give water birth a go) and an equally big shower. You also get to have the room by yourself and if you need intervention or drugs at any stage, just say the word and they’ll walk you right into the delivery clinic. So it’s the best of both worlds! I hope I will be strong enough and that the birth will be smooth enough for us to stay in the birth centre the whole time.

Again, the hospital is impressing us with its endless good service and first class facilities. I don't think anyone has been as excited to go stay in a hospital as me! In a few weeks we'll be doing some classes on the birth and breast-feeding, plus a hospital tour. I'm sure there'll be more impressive hospital updates to come.

Bye bye for now......*baby waves good-bye to everyone*

Love,

Viv

All mixed up…

This week I decided to write about mixed-race children. I’ve always thought that mixed kids are the most good looking kids you can have, simply look at Keanu Reaves, Halle Berry, just to name a couple. And I’m surrounded by friends who are mixed – Laura (Chinese / Malaysian / New Zealander), April (Filipino / Australian), Lin (Singaporean / Dutch)… So I’m very excited that my kids will fit into this category of good looking people and I expect nothing less than giving birth to a super model in less than 5 months!

And as far as we’re both aware, we are as pure bred as they come. I’m 100% Chinese and David 100% Dutch. And for my side of the family, this is the most mixed-race child to join the family (I do have a cousin who is ¼ Indonesian) so everyone is psyched about the half ghost baby. Oh, and I should explain: when Chinese people first encountered Europeans, they thought that their skin was too impossibly white so they must’ve been ghosts. The name stuck, even till now, and most Chinese people will still refer to Westerners as ‘ghosts’. My grandma, for example, likes to call David ‘ghost boy’. It’s not meant to be derogatory but rather an endearing term. For Chinese people (and Asians in general), pale skin is sign of wealth and health – as only farmers and labourers should be tanned. Which explains my mum’s comment about soy sauce (see my last blog entry)!

And this brings me to some of the questions that we’ve had from David’s family about what surname the baby will take and what nationality he will have (we’re in an even number week, so it’s a ‘he’). We’ve never really discussed the surname as we’ve both always thought that the baby will have David’s surname. It’s not common in Chinese culture for the child to take the mother’s surname. Although, all married women retain their own surnames, rather than changing to their husbands’. And in terms of our baby’s nationality, he’ll of course be an AUSTRALIAN. As far as we know, he won’t be qualified for dual citizenship (definitely not part Chinese citizen and most probably not part Dutch either). I’ve long given up my Chinese citizenship but as long as David remains Dutch, our children will qualify to carry an EU passport. As for me, just like any non-Chinese citizen, I have to apply for a visa when I travel to China. But as soon as I enter the border, I’m required to give my Chinese name as I’m of Chinese ancestry. Isn’t that odd? When my sister first travelled to China, my parents had to come up with a Chinese name on the spot as they’ve never given her one!

And the exciting new for this week – week 18 – is that I felt the baby move for the first time! And so did Dave! I was lying on my back watching tv when all of a sudden there was this ‘flipping’ movement in my lower abdomen. So I quickly grabbed Dave’s hand and he felt the next movement too! It was so amazing – our baby was doing some complicated gymnastics routine at such a young age! Do you think they’ll let he represent China, Holland AND Australia in the 2012 Olympics?

Until next time….

Pregnancy superstitions

David has recently been advised by Simone to massage my little toe! Apparently it’s a technique from Chinese medicine to help with the wellbeing of mother and baby. Since I’m very ticklish with my feet and Dave isn’t too into my mangy little toes, we haven’t put this technique to the test. But it does make me think of all the pregnancy related superstitions……..sorry, I mean ‘advice’…….that I’ve been given lately.

- My mum actually told me to follow this one and she was dead serious: avoid soy sauce. At first I thought she meant it has too much salt but it’s actually a superstition that the colour will give your baby dark skin! (Oh, how my dad laughed!)

- Rachel (one of my close girlfriends) explained that if you deny being pregnant, when in fact you are, it will bring extreme bad luck. But luckily for me, she never asked me the question before our big announcement so I was able to avoid the bad luck for my baby. Phew!

- Wishing your baby is a particular sex: according to my colleague, if you wish that your baby is a particular sex when your baby is actually the opposite, it can create resentment in the baby, towards you (the mother) and its gender! Wow, I’m definitely not going to touch that one!

- Rubbing your tummy – this is one that I read from a website last night and it’s another Chinese superstition. Apparently if you rub your pregnant tummy too much, you’ll produce a demanding child. As if a new born isn’t demanding enough already! I really hope this one isn’t true because I enjoy rubbing my tummy way too much!

And for those of you thinking or wanting to fall pregnant – DON’T talk about it too often! According to my colleague Julia, if you yap about it too much it might never happen to you! So shhhhhhhhhhhhhhh…

One thing that I hope won't be bad luck for my baby is flowers. David surprised me last week with a bunch of baby pink roses! Awwww..... I love being pregnant! I can get used to getting roses every week :)

Where do nicknames come from?

Tonight Viv and I were both sitting on the couch, watching F1. Viv was lovingly putting coconut butter on her belly, hoping to avoid future stretch marks, and having some quality 'bonding' time with the baby (as suggested by the same book that says: 'tighten your stomach muscles to give your baby a hug'). When she was finished, she asked me: 'come and smell my tummy'. Having made myself quite comfortable on the opposite side of the couch I replied: 'can you just pass me the bottle?'. Unfortunately this request wasn't met with the enthusiasm I was hoping for, so I had to haul myself up to lean over to the other side, and have a smell. My first reaction was: 'it smells like an Easter egg, and it looks a bit like one as well', but immediately after it dawned on me; 'It's a Kinder Surprise!' Except that this one won't come out wrapped in a little instruction sheet, or a sticker sheet with a set of cartoonish eyes. Yet another nickname for our unborn child was born.

Week 1 to 2 there was no nickname, because there was nothing to name. From week 2 to 4 we generally referred to 'it' as our 'food baby', having just rented Juno a few weeks earlier. After the pregnancy test it became Baby David, inspired from our favourite show The Royle Family.
The one nickname that entertained me the most was a term introduced to us by Vicky (Vivian's younger sister) about 5 years ago: Oopsies. Accidentally switched tv channels? Oopsies! Dropped a ceramic bowl on your foot? Oopsies! The night I suggested that nickname for our baby was a night filled with laughter, though admittedly it was mainly me who was laughing.

None of these nicknames stuck for very long though, and we generally refer to 'it' as The Baby, seeing as how we don't know whether 'it's' a he or a she.
Our baby book works around the problem in a clever way. Rather than refer to 'it' as 'it' for 40 weeks, or talking about 'The baby' or 'Your baby' the whole way through, they alternate; on even weeks the baby's a He, on uneven weeks the baby's a She. What a great idea! We should do that, then we don't have to talk about 'it' as though it's just some Intra Terrestrial being until the day it's born.

I can't wait what nicknames we can give her when she's born!

David.

16 weeks and counting

Last Thursday was our second hospital appointment. Everything went well, except the doctor couldn’t find the baby heart beat with the Fetal Doppler machine. Although it made some impressive space-time-travel type noises, she just couldn’t quite get the heart beat. At one point she even closed her eyes to listen more closely, talk about being a baby whisperer! She quickly soothed our concern by tracking the baby with the ultrasound machine and we saw the heart ‘blinking’ instead of listening to it on the speaker. She called our baby a little rascal for moving so much and imitated its little ‘dance’ moves. Awwwwwww…….mummy V and daddy D were instantly smitten.

She handed me a clean bill of health: perfect blood pressure, clear urine test and the lowest odds of birth defects she has EVER seen! I felt extremely special by all her soothing words.

And the same goes for the rest of our hospital experience so far. We’ve booked in to give birth on the 26^th September at the Royal Hospital for Women at Randwick, 5 minutes drive from our house. We’ve only heard great things about this place, such as “the best maternity ward in the country”! And after all the horror stories in the news lately about birth in hospital bathrooms (I will spare you the gruesome details) we feel lucky to have such a great facility close to home. The receptionist are always efficient, the ultrasound technicians are highly understanding (even when I didn’t drink enough water for the ultrasound), the midwives are extremely reassuring (I have also been assigned a personal midwife called Alex, who will look after me all the way till I give birth and beyond), I just can’t say enough great things about the place.

My next appointment is scheduled for the 5^th of May. I will first have an ultrasound to track how the baby is developing. And then an appointment with my midwife Alex. I hope I will have more exciting developments for you again!

In the meantime, I am now at 16 weeks. And here is the ‘which bits are growing’ update:

The baby is now the size of an avocado, weighs around 100 grams, and in the next 3 weeks it will double in size. It is now playing with its first toy - the umbilical cord - by pulling and grabbing it. It is also practising breathing by inhaling and exhaling amniotic fluids through its lungs. Its arms and legs are complete and its joints are working. You can now also tell the baby's sex - we're happy either way and as David says "as long as it's not both".

Until next time....

Love,

Viv