The Great Disconnect

30 July 2005, 08:28

So I went to Emergency a couple of weeks ago (I’d been having some bleeding you see, which is not such a great thing to have at 13 weeks…) and we got to see MiniMc Live on Screen. I was curious but not at all emotional. I think I just said, “Shit, that’s real” but it actually felt too bloody surreal. Husband was all choked up, but I, strangely, wasn’t.

Same thing happened a few days later when I went for my NT Scan. For those not ‘at one’ with pregnancy terminology and procedures, this is a “Nuchal Translucency” test where they zap a bit of your blood and measure the layer of skin at the back of the baby’s neck to give you odds of whether you have yourself a Down’s Syndrome baby.

For a middle-aged wench such as myself, I had startling odds - 1 in 2,760, which is 10 times less risk than the average for my age. It’s all such a gamble though - unless you have a battery of invasive tests, you don’t really know and there have been women who’ve had 1 in 3000 odds who’ve delivered a Downs Baby.

Anyway, I digress… I was able to see MiniMc sucking it’s thumb (nyah) and its little heart beating, but it still felt terribly scientific, like I’d been asked to examine a multiplying bacteria under a microscope. Objective. Detached. Logically, of course (I’m not an idiot, you know) I knew this was our baby but I still haven’t made the Great Connect.

According to other women who are or have been pregnant, this makes me somewhat akin to a freak. No, they’d never say that, but I sure think that. There are always tales of great unbridled emotion and sensations of protective, motherly love at the ultrasound when you see it for the first time. At least the unembarrassed shedding of a single tear. I guess it will come when it comes.

What became painfully obvious though, once I saw the photo the doc took of the ultrasound, was that the little Codger has McG’s browline and profile. AT 13 WEEKS OLD! BUT, I guess it did have my big head…

Posted by Kinki on 30 July 2005, 08:28

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Warning: Fun times ahead...

27 July 2005, 07:56

For those who missed my startling revelation that I am, in fact, going to bear a child (because no-one’s ever done that before), I am preggers, 14 weeks yesterday. This, for the unmathematical is 98 days of up-the-duffedness, roughly 50 of which has been spent in the throes of the dreaded 24/7 sickness.

For me, that meant entire days of queasiness (thankfully only made love to the porcelain bus thrice!), needing to eat all. the. time, with the very thought of food making me feel even sicker. Oh, the bitter irony! I was wretched.

I would unhappily stuff my face full of pasta alfredos, chips, nasty cheesy food and cruskits. Akin somewhat to Hangover food as that’s exactly how I felt. I stacked on 4 (un)holy kilos in the first trimester. That’s a lot of unwanted blubber, let me tell you.

Now am on healthkick of grave proportions. I have rational fear of being tired and overweight trakky-dak wearing Blubber-Girl. NO! Must be fit, glowing expectant Goddess, dammit!

I have a miracle-working pilates instructor (frightfully expensive wot!) who has been whipping my arse and tummy into shape. I have a chronic herniated disc problem in my lower back which could cause me grief later on in pregnancy-land, so must strengthen those core-muscles, oh yes, indeedy.

Will post pic of big-bellah once I have something to show. I’m barely showing yet or actually feeling preggers. If I hadn’t seen the Morsel on the ultrasound screen (twice - once in emergency - long and ongoing story - and once for my nuchal fold ultrasound - more on that later) I wouldn’t actually believe there was something alive and hiccuping in my uterus.

It’s all a very strange, theoretical proposition…if a baby kicks and hiccups (and, grossly, pees itself) and no-one sees it, is it really there?....

Posted by Kinki on 27 July 2005, 07:56

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Get in mah bellah!

24 July 2005, 19:00

To all those smug bastards sitting back at home musing, “I’m sure her literary absence means she’s up the duff (and my, didn’t she look puffy in that last photo she posted?)...”, well done. You are truly righteous dudes…

Posted by Kinki on 24 July 2005, 19:00

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A long time between drinks

17 July 2005, 11:36

Bloody Winter. Hibernation. Scarves. Coats. Frost on the Glass.

I used to love Winter. Couldn’t get enough of the sodding season. But that was in Canada and Japan, when, if you were lucky, it snowed overnight and everything was clean and white and the days were crisp with a rude blue sky (OK, maybe not every day was like that, just let me have my reverie, already…).

In Melbourne, if the sky is clear then you have my attention, but this winter, most days have been dreary with a misty drizzle cutting every bit of chill right into your bones. Your joints ache. Getting warm (particularly in a timber house with floorboards and no curtains yet) is impenatrably difficult.

So, we haven’t been socialising much. We just pop it in the too-hard-basket and snuggle up next to the gas heater with a hot chocolate and some berry pie (good explanation for thigh explosion of late) instead.

But we couldn’t possibly miss our good buddy, let’s call her the Succulent Wild Woman, as that is, in fact, her name, celebrating her 30th Birthday in the grungy mecca that is the Railway Hotel in South Melbourne.

It brings out the animal in me…

The theme was “Africa”, costumes were mandatory, and leopard skin abounded. Seems just about everyone in Melbourne has some shade of leopard skin in their wardrobes. I don’t know what that says about us [just for the record, I got mine at Savers yesterday for $6. No, I swear I did].

SWW’s husband took the prize, with his Golliwog impersonation(s), which he took to the streets later in the evening, attempting to scare patrons and strangers alike. I really should be ideologically correct and say I was horrified, but fuckit, it was hilarious. An African Golliwog with a plummy Manchunian accent and stay-ups sporting alarmingly white loins beneath his loin-cloth. Hilarious, I tell you…

The Golliwog Groove