I will try not to bore you with endless pregnancy stories, but have decided to do a weekly re-cap of events, developments (both biological and otherwise) and gained knowledge. Please feel free to skip over these posts if you are not interested! Catch up on the whole series here.
BabyCenter told us that at 36 weeks, the baby is over 18.5 inches in length and weighs almost 6 lbs, about the same as a Crenshaw melon. I am inundated with melon in the kitchen at the moment, and produce just did not go with this outfit, so here I am with my kangaroo pouch, sans fruit this week:
Dress & Wig: Soi 4 Pratunam market area; Shoes: Nine West; Feathers: AWC Thrift Shop
I will explain the attire in a minute…
Activities of the Week: What a week this was! Sunday I hosted our Bangkok Vegetarian/Vegan/Raw Meetup pot luck with about 20 people in attendance. The food was great!
Right before the event began, a glass Pyrex loaf pan slid off the wet kitchen counter onto the floor and shattered into what seemed like a gazillion pieces. Kevin proceeded to clean up the mess so that I would not step on a piece of glass, and as he bent down to pick up some big chunks, he split his shorts!
Seems we’re all gaining a bit of weight around here lately…
Monday we went to the doctor (see details below). Tuesday I attended the Combined Women’s Luncheon hosted by the American Women’s Club of Thailand, which was a charity event with a ’Rip Roaring Twenties’ theme. For 1,000 baht (US$32) I had a maternity flapper dress made, got a wig for 500 baht (US$16), some eyelashes for 30 baht (US$1) and a feather boa for 20 baht (less than US$1), calling it a day after that. In typical laid-back Thai fashion, the dress was not finished until late the afternoon before the event, and I had been too afraid to spend any more money or get any more into this project in the event that the dress was not ready and I had to end up wearing ‘normal’ maternity wear. Our table won the Best Dressed Table! If anyone needs a maternity Halloween costume, give me a call!
On Wednesday, I made some Halloween cupcakes and went to Kevin’s office to allow the secretaries to “ooo” and “ahh” over my largeness. You see, in the good ‘ol U.S. of A., I would be considered skinny, but here…well, that is a different story! Kevin has explained to them what a lotus birth was (if you have not heard of this, get ready for a surprise upon Googling!), and it seemed that they thought I was doing one, and so questions were ready! For the record, I am not doing a lotus birth, just so you know (and before anyone flips out and tells me that I am a crazy lunatic who needs medication).
Thursday afternoon I had my third of four Ayurvedic prenatal treatments from Dr. Dimple, and came home and rested up for a few hours.
Thursday evening we attended Fight Night, a white-collar boxing event held at the Dusit Thani hotel, benefiting Operation Smile Thailand. Kevin has wanted to enter, but was prohibited due to his surgery, so he served as cornerman for his work colleague Guillome, nicknamed “Atomic Bill.” The place was set up with a full-size boxing ring, fancy lights, a formal dinner, skinny Thai women dressed provocatively and sitting on motorcycles, a ‘cigar den’, and all the free-flowing alcohol a person could drink (which was completely wasted on us!). It was a stressful night as we waited for Atomic Bill to battle his opponent “Dale the Destroyer,” who looked ready to kill!
In the end, Guillome prevailed, both men survived, and relief could be felt in the air! If Kevin would have been in the ring, I think I would have gone into labor right there from the shear stress of it all! Bumrungrad Hospital had their ambulance stationed out front, so I suppose I would have been in good hands!
Doctor, Doctor: Blood pressure, temp and urine all good. Weight: 57 kgs! I just can’t seem to stop expanding! Doc and I took our relationship the next level and I had a test for Group B Strep, a bacteria which some women harbor in their vagina or intestines, which can be harmful to the newborn baby. If you are tested positive for it, it is recommended that you be put on an iv drip of antibiotics upon arrival to the labor ward. As the infection can come and go, testing is not normally done until week 36 of pregnancy. I had read all over the interwebs that a vaginal and anal swab is often done, but I was lucky enough to get by with just one hole being probed… Back when I imagined what it was like being pregnant, I envisioned having to drop trousers over and over again for 9 months, but this was the first time I had to bare more flesh than belly! I imagine from here on out the hospital staff will be getting more familiar with my nether-regions than I am.
Belly Measurement (End of This Week): 42.25 inches. I don’t seem to be growing out anymore, but instead dropping down.
What The Heck Is Going On In There?: (from BabyCenter) “Your baby is still packing on the pounds — at the rate of about an ounce a day. He’s shedding most of the downy covering of hair that covered his body as well as the vernix caseosa, the waxy substance that covered and protected his skin during his nine-month amniotic bath. Your baby swallows both of these substances, along with other secretions, resulting in a blackish mixture, called meconium, will form the contents of his first bowel movement.”
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