Getting Our Fruitful On

It's raining little girls around here, or so the doc tells us. It is officially official - the Noodle is expecting a sister in October. Actually, the chances are "eighty to ninety percent" that it's a girl but extremely good that it will be our new darling baby. 

I'm fifteen weeks along. According to the internet, I'll have gained five pounds (so cute! try eight) and may have "rhinitis" which is fancy talk for a stuffed nose. Check. Also, I'm a total jerk. They don't tell you about that on the internet, but just ask my husband. Around this time my last pregnancy around he told me that he loved me but that I used to be a nice person and now I'm not. This time around he just rolls his eyes and walks away. 

Black and white photo of forthcoming daughter. Maybe this one will look like me.

Also according to the internet, our dear proto-baby is now the size of an apple. It can sense light, it's legs are longer than it's arms, and apparently this is a great week to start bonding with her (him?) by "narrating your activities," reading to it, or sharing "your secret wishes" for your child. 

My secret wish for my child is that she is healthy and grows up to be happy and surrounded by love. My more immediate concern is that she survives this pregnancy without being stomped on by her elder sibling, who is sweetly oblivious to the fragile assembly of sparrow bones and mist that is trying to become a person in her mommy's quickly expanding belly. 

Everyone has asked me whether we've tried to explain the situation to Miss Noodle. Well, sort of. Maybe once the belly is more obviously abnormal. And I'll order a few kids books soon, the kinds with titles like "Being a Big Sister is Great!" and "Betty's New Baby Brother is Great!" and "Sharing is Great!" and "Babies are Just So Great!". But for now, it's basically hopeless. 

When I got the first good womb shots we tried. We got the Noodle all set up with a bottle of milk. 

Black and white picture of our what is currently our only child. Enjoy, my sweet.

"Look at this picture, Sweetheart. What do you see?"

"Meine picture. Mine."

"Is this a baby?"

"This Noodle's* milk. Noodle's milk."

"This is a picture of a little baby."

Noodle considered. She pointed at the picture. "Me!"

"No, it's not you. It's a baby."

"Baby!" she said. 

"Yes! It's a baby! It's going to be your new brother or sister. Do you know what a sister is?"

"Noodle's milk. This Noodle's foot. Noodle's."

"This baby is inside Mommy's tummy."

Noodle slapped my belly. "Belly!"

"Yes! The baby is inside Mommy's belly."

"Ja. Nava's mommy. Mommy's belly. Nava's milk. Look, cat!"

"Are you going to be a good sister?"

"Yeah. Uh-huh. Katzi!"

"Are you going to be a terrible sister?"

"Mm-hmm. Yeah."

"Do you love babies?"

"Mm-hm. Yeah!"

"Do you hate babies?"

"Yeah!"

So we shelved this conversation for another day. I'm sure Miss Noodle would be totally stoked if she could conceive of the idea of pregnancy, new babies, or having to share everything she owns for the rest of her young life. 

As for me and Alex, we can't wait to meet the young 'un, and we can't wait to be the four of us. Well, the four of us plus also two cats, those wh*res. (This is just an aside, but I roasted char siu pork on Sunday and ran out to meet friends and then got a text from Alex who informed me that the cats had dragged this pork loin out from under the bowl, across the kitchen and living room, and had decimated it on the couch. Greedy and sticky, those little s**ts. Obviously, this morning there was porky cat puke all over the place. Greedy, sticky, ungrateful AND they can't hold their pig. Honestly, I don't want to give them away, I don't want them to die, but I do wish they'd just disappear. Not in a punitive way, just in a convenient way. I don't want them to suffer. I just want them to be Elsewhere. Like I wish the cats would just walk with God, like Abraham did in the Bible. Lord knows they've lived long enough. Though Abraham, being blameless, would probably never have stolen anything, much less roasted pork. But I fear I digress.)

So yes. We can't wait to be the four of us! And until then, we'll prepare in our own little ways. The Noodle will continue to plough along oblivious to the silver linings on the horizon, I'll read a bunch of parenting books that say soothing things, Alex will try not to think about it and we can all just pray we'll be ready. 

P.S. Thanks to Alex for this remarkably effing awesome video, featuring one of our two revolting animals. 
P.P.S. I would never actually want tiny space fighters to descend from the sky and blow up our cat, not even if she stole another char siu pork roast. Right? Right. 

*She doesn't actually call herself Noodle. But she finally learned her name and it's been her favorite word ever since. Well, that and "meine" (mine). 

Bagel Foot

I once saw this episode of Taboo on National Geographic that was all about bizarre body modifications, and the weirdest one of all was the "bagel head" phenomenon.  What they do is attach a saline drip to the fool's expressive individual's forehead and pump it in until a big bump forms, much like you'd imagine would be created by vigorous facepalming. Then, with a finger, an indent is pushed into the middle of the bump. The end result: the recipient looks like she or he has had a bagel implanted in their forehead, at least for a few hours until their bodies can absorb all the saline. Great success!

Watch it for yourself here:

I bring it up because yesterday I realized that I can do the same thing with my enormously swollen feet! And just when I thought that there was no upside to this condition, too. BEHOLD (the spots on my foot, by the way, are psoriasis, because I'm not allowed to take my usual meds because pregnant... it's awesome):

Now I know how EYE'LL be spending my Saturday. And you?

P.S. I had to go to the hospital again yesterday for yet another scan (all's well), and spoke to the head doctor about inducing labor. Basically she said I should show up on Tuesday morning with a car seat, cashew nuts and a suitcase full of giant underpants because I'm not leaving again without a baby. Thank Gof for clarity. 

Underpants and The Dangling Bough

I didn't post anything yesterday owing to a major laptop-related disaster. But today I'm back to talk about the underpants and share a very short video that I made of the laziest tree branch in the world.

Photo: Wikimedia Commons

Because the infant continues to make herself scarce, yesterday I again trooped up to the 18th district for a CTG (cardiotocography). A CTG measures your fetal heart beat and also any contractions you may be having by way of two transducers (had to look that one up) that are strapped to your heaving belly for about half an hour. Occasionally a nurse walks by and gives your gut a hearty jiggle to wake the baby up. This little exam takes place with increasing frequency after your due date, plus they do an ultrasound to check whether your kid is in the preferred head-down start position and make sure that your placenta and umbilical cord still work.

This might all be really boring for you, but for me it was totally riveting, not least because this was the only opportunity I have ever had to be concurrently in the company of several enormously pregnant women who all have their panties showing.  This is because the "CTG Lounge" (true story) at the clinic fits four girls at once. Last time I made the mistake of lying on my left side so I could watch the heart monitor. This time I made sure I could peer up everyone else's skirts. (And if I could have taken a photo to post, I would have).

The exam involves baring your belly so that the thingies can be strapped on. Thus everyone has a solid opportunity to scope out how bad everyone else's stretch marks are and see whether they too are wearing absurdly unattractive underpants. And they were!

The skinny, well-dressed woman had the same ones as me but in a different color. But so did the woman in a dun-colored headscarf who had had arrived with neither ankle nor wrist on display. And so did the other girl, who had (rather sweetly, I thought) come in to check whether she was actually in labor (The answer was YES, that lucky bitch, whom we all ogled with fear and envy as she was escorted out in a cloud of encouraging incantations and breathing exercises). So, in case you were wondering, all nine-month-pregnant women wear the same underpants. Science, you're welcome.

And speaking of labor and other ungainly transitions, then there was this tree. I was walking down the hill from the clinic when I brushed shoulders with this fat cluster of leaves that was hanging from above, like a glow worm on a thread. At first I thought it was dangling near my head because some giant limb above was about to snap off (so, terror) but actually, it was just hanging on a 20-foot, noodle-like branch that was hanging from another saggy branch.

It was just a lazy ass branch. It couldn't be bothered to stand up, but it also couldn't let go. The image was as pregnant as a simile, and though I wasn't sure which I filmed it.

Because I'd read YOUR blog

My due date came and went on Saturday, and despite the odd contraction, this child is showing no signs of wanting to be born. This total lack of initiative proves she is definitely our baby.

On the other hand, as the inspector at police headquarters told Alex and I today, maybe she's right to stay put. (It's a long story, but basically they've been ordered to investigate whether we have a so-called "Scheinehe", or a marriage for the sake of a visa. Pro tip: If you got married when you were eight months pregnant, chances are good that it wasn't for a visa.)  The world is so shit anyway, he explained. And once she comes out, he said, marking up our documents with  a highlighter and a great deal of disgust, she'd do better to just stay a child forever. 

"Alles, nur nie älter als sechs Jahr werden," he said. "Sechs. Bis dahin geht's grad noch." ("Do anything but get older than six. Six. Until then it's just about okay.") 

God, I love this country and the people in it. I'm serious.

The uncertainty about when I'll finally go into labor and what that will actually be like (sources say uncomfortable) makes me anxious and irritable, and my anxiousness and irritability are compounded by the heat and by the sounds of traffic down on Gumpendorfer Strasse, where we live, and by the fact that one of our two devil cats just peed in the corner again. Also, everyone keeps calling and texting to ask if I'm still pregnant, which is very sweet, and which is stressing me the fuck out because it means all I can think about all day is how very pregnant I am and that I am essentially waiting around to lay an egg. 

Also stressing me out is the long list of things I want to accomplish while I'm on maternity leave. This includes things like, "Be a good mother," although given the heat and my ill temper this has temporarily been downgraded to, "Give birth". One step at a time, right? 

Another thing on my list was to start a blog, because my understanding is that once you have a baby you finally have something worth blogging about. With this in mind, I forced Alex to join me in brainstorming session about what to name this blog (his suggestion: Naomi's Blog) and on the basis of that conversation I was thisclose to going with "Poo & Nipples," something I had previously discussed with another friend, but then I realized that maybe that's a little bit gross and essentialist and in any case I have no right to go around summarizing the experience of blogging about babies (and sundry) before I've even had a baby. I've spent the last week not blogging because I have been going back and worth about whether "Poo & Nipples," which is an awesome name, is maybe inappropriate and degrading, and I feel like it might be... ugh, it's all just so hard when you weigh nearly 100 kg and spend all your time crying and sweating. 

Anyway, so THEN I thought: Naomi, how about you pick any old freaking name and you can just reserve the right to change it any time in the event you manage to keep this up and can be bothered. 

Et voila, Life & Times on Gumpen Village Street. Enjoy.