My Lady of the Lantern

The silence on the blog has been deliberate. An intentional cut-down of the my-time on the internet, so that I could pursue something to finality. Lot of things have happened in between; completely unexpected turn of events and all. I want to blog about them, and surely will when I can put some concerted effort into documenting and weaving my words. I cut the silence to say something important: Kaiser/Lola is likely to be here on January 14th. A C-Section is in the offing. O.M.G.!!!! And I find myself unprepared to the hilt. I planned my shopping for the 'reprieve days' I had in City X, and I won't be making to the City X minus Kaiser, which means I need stuff for the baby and all. OMG! My mother is here, and it has brought in some semblance of sanity with me wanting to have done something completely before Kaiser/Lola came. Now Kaiser is going to be here sooner than I expected. OMG! I had composed a letter to the baby around December 28th/29th and I want to post it here, b...

This is the post I had put into the freezer for a while . I will rate it as charged. You have been warned. ----- I know I have said this before, or maybe I have not said this before. My full time work experience now stands a little beyond seven years now. I have earned paltry sums in the beginning and now make a decent amout. What I earn is still not comparable to Birdman's earnings, but still, there is some pride I associate with whatever I put into my kitty. When I go on my leave in Jan 2011, I will have three months of paid leave. I plan to stretch it out by a minimum of two months of unpaid leave and can easily add one more month to it. The unpaid part is the one scaring me. I have got some major insurance premium deadlines coming up in March. I do not have much in the name of savings, and so far do not seek assistance from Birdman in paying my own premium. I also stake in a tiny bit of money regularly in the household expenses and Birdman has said that he would like me to cont...

Non-Darn: Met Dr. BS yesterday for a regular appointment. Everything appears normal. Kaiser was in a head-down position. My BP was singing tra-la-la at 120/80 which is pretty good. I was 32w5d by LMP, and Kaiser was 34w3d by the average U/s Gestational Age( I-am-in-love-with-the-doc's-ultrasound-machine ). Kaiser weighed 2032 gms (2 kgs), and that is a good thing too. I got egged for not doing very good on the have-small-meals-frequently thing. We saw a loose cord around the neck y'day in the ultrasound, and I was told that it is not a big deal because it can wind and unwind/slip-off. I told Dr. BS about the fact that I would be going to City X for my delivery. I was feeling a bit guilty in telling her this, but thank God, she took it very nicely. She has offered me all help in case I need any medical aid before I reach City X. I promised her that once I come back, I will bring Kaiser to meet her. Darn: So I had in mind two boy names and one girl name for quite a fixated while...

- My food cravings change so fast! I was so in love with bread, and now am completely over it. - I had this moment this past week. I was taking a bath and I thought to myself - 'I am having a baby!!! '. It was more like - 'OMG, I am reallllly having a baby!!! ' . - I still do not take a pillow. My normal sleeping position used to be on my tummy. Once I place a pillow, I have found that I start turning onto the pillow, unconsciously taking the sleeping position from my pre-pregnancy days. - Kaiser kneads me from inside. I get double volleys and lately, I can visibly see my belly-skin dance and heave around with his/her movement. - I have this post I wrote and then left it on the chiller tray. I am not sure I am able to say what I want to say without sounding like a mean, self-absorbed leech. Of course, I am a mean, self-absorbed leech but I wont be able to hear that label from anyone else. The post also reflects that I tend to worry too much, predict too much and plan t...

...is what I say when I sit down to write down and forget what it was I wanted to title the post. Have you ever wondered about the difference between motherhood and the idea of motherhood? Those of us who have not had this easy to achieve and then have, has it ever felt that the dream we were running after and what it actually encompasses is different (in any degree)? I am not painting it in strong colours of black and white, just a random surge of thoughts in either direction would be good. Would love to hear your opinion on this. Also, here is a 31w5d belly shot of yours truly. I had a mini-adventure transferring the pic from the camera to my PC, wherein I landed on my bum. Ouch! I was instantly *oh-no & egad* and prayed hard for nothing adverse to have happened. So far, I am good. And speaking of adventures , what would you like to do?

As a teenager I once solved a maths problem in my dream. I had been working on it a little before dinner time. After I slept, my mind kept working on the problem and I figured out the solution in my dream. I woke up next day and tried what I saw in the dream and voila, the solution held true! That means I truly had the trapping of a great mad mathematician, barring that I managed to fail every Maths test except for the finals and that was the only one time I solved a maths problem in my sleep. Plus, dreaming about numbers was really not my best thought for a dream. Anyways, Monday night I woke up mid-sleep to relieve myself. After that, I had a tiny problem in regaining the sound sleep I was enjoying prior to leaving my bed. And in that half-sleep, half-awake state, there were delicious visions of the baby I was having. I realized that these were the few nights where I shared the bedroom alone with Birdman. I plan to have Kaiser sleep with us (in the same room, though not in the same b...

Come to think of it, I haven't done a concrete update on this for so long... - Cravings: Oranges and Tangerines! And I found them in the local market which is great. Cheese! Pizza! Cheese! Soups! - Stretch Marks: Yes and No . Yes because a few from my old days seem to have become prominent BUT there are no new marks - not on the belly or anywhere. Touchwood! -Sleep: The sleep gets disturbed by nature calls and the pain. And I have trouble falling asleep. And don't feel like getting up. But overall I will still rate it as good. - Movements: Intense in the afternoon (1400-1500/1600 hours) and then during evening (around 2200 hours). And plenty in-between. Have noticed K getting quieter when I am tired. - General Appearance: My bump defies gravity...pear shaped and with a distinct linea negra. And it is straight out...The bump does not spread...so if you were to look at me from behind, you would not guess that I am pregnant. Also, since there is no oedema or anything as suc...

Have you cooed cheer at Clare's news? Or am I the absolute last one to know? Go on and cheer in case you have not and make me feel less bad, please? The nut of this post is that I met Dr. BS yesterday and had a quick peek at Kaiser as well. Everything is fine and well. I was 30 weeks 2 days yesterday, but Kaiser being the show-off (in Kakunaa's words) was 31 weeks. One thing, I can now discontinue the aspirin I was taking. Secondly, there is not much that can be done about the pain that I am experiencing. I have my own tricks - partly taken from Dr. Google. For one, keeping knees together while moving on the bed helps. Second, the first time I hit the bed, I tend to not fallback on my back but sleep sideways. And flinch whenever it hurts. It helps to flinch. :-) ^WiseGuy^

I put in the following statements in my previous post, and I want to add a little clarity to them... How I will move back from City X to here with Kaiser is a big question mark in my mind. I cannot simply say, " Hey, my maternity leave is over. I am going away. Okthanxbye! " I do not plan to go back to work as soon as my maternity leave is over, and that is amply clear to my family, and that makes my ruse to return early even thinner. This would be the calendar of events in the WiseGuy household commencing in second week of January 2011. Mummy arrives around January 9. WiseGuy attends office till January 11. On 12th there is an out-of-town office trip that WiseGuy will skip. On 13th there will be an off that WiseGuy will enjoy. For 14th and 15th, WiseGuy will apply for a casual leave. On 16th or 17th WiseGuy and Mummy will leave for City X. Between 11th and departure, WiseGuy and Mummy will shop and pack and get the house organized a bit. Reach City X and unpack. In City X, W...

* I am sleeping well, but some discomfort seems to have set in because when I lie on the bed for the first time and attempt to turn on a side, it feels like something is folding-snapping between my legs...it is such a strange feeling. I have not been able to explain it well to my doc. :-( * I like all fruits - well most of them, except for apples against which I do not have anything per se, but having one a day everyday kills the joy of it because it almost becomes a medicine. * About a fortnight back, the frequency of my trysts with the loo had reduced and now they are back on. * I am a bit concerned about the placenta having moved lower (though it is not on the cervix). * Currently the fuzzy date for me to proceed on my maternity leave is January 17, 2011. * How I will move back from City X to here with Kaiser is a big question mark in my mind. I cannot simply say, "Hey, my maternity leave is over. I am going away. Okthanxbye!" * I do not plan to go back to work as soon as ...

I birthed Kaiser ( in a dream, thankfully ) on the night of 14th November. Of course, in my dream, the date and situation were very different. I was in office and felt the baby coming. Next thing I know the baby was born...I remember it was in the rear end of an empty classroom on the ground floor (of the institute's building). I do not remember any pain...Also, I was smashing conscious enough to record the date of birth and time as November 28 and 0820 Hrs. Kaiser was very healthy. In fact, by the afternoon, I had him sitting in my arms and I was moving around. The peculiarities do not end there. Kaiser had a thin moustache line. He looked a bit like my father. I was telling everybody that Kaiser was due in February but he had been born early and look how healthy he was. Kaiser had the weight and strength of a 5 month old. He was supporting his neck and sat well on my arm. And where did his clothes come from? I don't know. The dream ended there. Next day, I phoned up my mother...

Knee-Jerk Reactions. Mathematically Challenged. Feeling like a complete donkey. That would be me. I think it is a good time to go back to the old scale. As in the old scale of counting how many days I am in - into this pregnancy. As in undoing what I did yesterday, and going back to the previous count. I went for an anomaly scan yesterday, The doc (Dr. W) had an assistant par excellence ( she could count, you know ). Everything is in the right place, and growing the right way. Kaiser had a heart rate of 140 bpm and weighed 944 gms. Kaiser also privileged us a look at the face, because all other times that Dr. W tried, Kaiser was moving his/her hands in front of the face. And based on my LMP, I was 26w5d yesterday ( which the ticker duly told me ), but Kaiser measured 27 weeks 3 days on Dr. W's machine. I told Dr. W that just a day before I had met Dr. BS and she told me I was 28 weeks 3 (or 1?) days actually. He cleared his throat, and told me that machines are calibrated differe...

I am a bozo...I will let you know why very soon...in fact as soon as you hit the last part of this post...for which you are forbidden to skip the middle part and go straight to the last part, because in the middle part I haz not been styupid, and I have been styupid per se, but it is only described in the last part, so you first read what follows here and then go to the last, rather than going straight to the last. (Why do I feel like you are staring in pain at your monitor?) Okay, you haz to read this part first. This part and much of the rest of the post comes from yesterday evening when I went to meet Dr. BS and see Kaiser for good measure. *** BP is down to 120/80. Hurray! *** Kaiser was lying transverse. *** It seems my placenta has moved down. *** In my quest for movement pattern , Kaiser still flummoxes me. If I had written this on Wednesday, I would have said that Kaiser 'sleeps' when I wake up in the morning, coz there is nothing I feel for a good half hour after I am ...

So this is the output of a brain that has no single thread to follow. I have found myself very emotional lately. I have been secretly sensitive as a person. I have cried over scenes and movies and songs and such, but these days I seem to have tears readily poised over my lower eyelids. It's them hormones, right? In the baby shower there was a game - a gender predictor thing. Five items were hidden with a slip of paper kept underneath each of them. The woman is expected to lift one of the lids randomly and her first pick is supposed to be the gender of the baby she is expecting. What I picked first was an outright feminine word. The lady who made me do it, asked me to lift all other lids randomly and then tried to soothe me with bull* that I had seemed to pick more male words than female words. I immediately cut her off by saying that for five items, if three items were male, it was obvious that more picks would be made towards the male side in any order. Ahem! It's logical, I ...

Oh-ha 1. The trip went easier for me. The ease was aided with an ample supply of laxative. 2. Had a fun time with my niece...I made her learn her new name...If you ever henceforth say... 'My name is _______' , she will immediately supply it with her new name - Monkey . 3. The baby shower was good too. I had fun getting decked up in fresh flowers and all. Ha-O 1. Somebody from Birdman's side of the family expressed their desire to 'keep' Birdman's baby. My niece is a bit too old and recognizes her parents well. By that logic, if they kept my (and Birdman's) baby, the baby won't really know the parents well, and would be more attached to the caregivers. Can it please be loudly registered that Kaiser is my baby too? 2. Some strife which seems to be a part of all our trips...lots of shouting and all...ways to kill the mood and wonder why we land up here all the time. Don't want to elaborate on it anymore. 3. I had made Birdman promise me to feed me some ...

Okay, this is a composite of random things I don't want to dedicate individual posts to: a. I have an anterior placenta . I don't mean that in a good or bad way, just matter-of-fact way. b. Reaction of family: My in-laws revealed my news to their side of relatives after my first trimester was over. Apparently, my baby is a community effort. Everybody ( ??? ) was putting in their chips with God ( Gawd!!! ) to have me and Birdman be blessed with the divine. I am so miffed at knowing that as soon as something gets done, people just want to highlight it meant so much to them, and was their indirect doing. And yep, Kaiser has been booked for temple appointments, because he/she has come through from the respective prayers to the respective God. Blech! c. I can't get over my cola cravings . I do actually, but only by consuming. I feel very guilty and satiated...it is the satiation that comes before the guilt. Coffee is not a staple for me anymore. I have had about three cups (ima...

I saw Kaiser (through Dr. BS) again on Friday night. I did not get a very good profile of the baby, as the baby was turned 'away'. Kaiser rested his/her hands over his/her head and that is the one thing I remember distinctly. Other things follow: Le Good: I submitted my holy blood for a fasting sugar and hemoglobin test on October 21, 2010. The Good is that my sugar is well within range [82 mg/dL when the normal is between 74 - 100 mg/dL]. Le Bad: Hemoglobin is down to 10.7 gm/dL. The value at the beginning (in the tests run in the first trimester) was 12.0 gm/dL. What Dr. Google tells me is that during pregnancy, anemia is defined as Hb What surprised me is that Dr. BS did not take the dip seriously though. After she thought I was humming on and on, she asked me to - increase the number of times I feed myself. - increase milk intake. - turn Popeye - and, maybe increase the iron supplementation to twice a day for a while. She asked me to take care about the possible consequen...

Hey Kaiser, How are you? Well, I am sure you are doing okay. And I am hoping to catch a glimpse of you again very soon. I am sure my uterus feels like a cage right now...and you need to go 'Bang Bang Bang'. I want to say 'OMG, I felt it! ' all the time. I am fixed on where I would like to give birth, and why I stay obsessed with it is because I want to let my and your life be easy. I am sure wailing will be your only mode of complaint initially, and I pray you do not do it much. I can't believe that Jan/Feb is inching so close every day. I have a hundred things to do before I proceed for my maternity leave. I often lie at night hoping to feel you kick just before I go back to sleep. Sometimes I can feel you, sometimes I can't. But I always feel better when I do. As I have told you before, between your father and me, you are Baku to us. And Papa wants to feel 'Baku'. Anyways, poor fellow once told me 'I can feel the baby breathing' , and then real...

I can feel Kaiser move!!! And it is amazing really. [Though I almost always find a bone to get crucked on.] Like, the first time I felt those solid kicks was evening, then a couple of days later I got a three-kicker on an afternoon after I laughed at a funny statement a student made. And now I am obsessed with finding some pattern. One morning, I woke up and felt Kaiser having a go at my innards. I must tell you it hurts to be losing a boxing match where you just can't get back. I did have my 'ha!' when I turned sides and the kicking reduced. I did not feel bad about countering Kaiser then, and now I am like 'Jeez, I should have let that continue' . Since then, Kaiser seems to have understood that Mamma does know a couple of tricks, and he/she seems to space out flutterings throughout the day...rather than odd fixed time-spots. And I kind of miss him/her doing the jig during evening time...Kaiser just won't persist with a pattern. I almost managed to post a r...

I felt it!I felt it!I felt it! Four punches/kicks!! Yeah Baby, Rock it good! ^WiseGuy^