It's Raining Babies

It’s Raining Babies

It's Raining Men! Hallelujah!
It's Raining Men! Amen!
It's Raining Men! Hallelujah!
It's Raining Men! Amen! OW!

- It's Raining Men, Geri Halliwell -

This weekend had been a rather hectic one, and the theme of the weekend certainly evolved around the subject of babies. Both my wife and I began the weekend by making our routine monthly check-up to the gynae on Saturday morning. The pregnancy has now come to its 32nd week, and after this last visit, the routine check-up will be more frequent at once every two weeks.

I think it was the first time that I ever made an appointment with the gynae on a Saturday and the queue to see her was breathlessly long. Our appointment was scheduled at 9.30am, and when I arrived at the allotted time, there must have been like half a dozen couples already there in the waiting room. Dang… and the doctor sort of practices first comes first serve despite the so called appointment that we made. By the time it came to our turn to see her, we had waited for almost 2 hours. That famous Malay phrase ‘penantian itu satu penyiksaan’ could not have felt more true.

I was met with 2 surprises on my visit to the gynae this time. I found out that a friend-colleague of mine was also seeing the same doctor. It was her second routine check-up, and her fetus is now 13 weeks old. It seems that every one of my friends at my age or near my age is having babies these days. I’ve been getting news about this friend or that friend, either informing me of the good news of their conception, or news about the safe delivery of their new born. And on that note, I just received the belated news that my good friend and blog guru Sarini safely gave birth to a baby girl on the 16th June 2005. Congratulations Sarini! May this be the first of many for the both of you. :-)

Oh yeah, and the other surprise was seeing the comedian Azli of the Senario gang in the same place that day. Apparently his wife was due for labour on that day itself. He must have brought his whole clan with him as the place was crowded with his relatives and friends.

Anyway, had another glimpse of our baby when the doctor performed the scan on wifey. I always look forward to this moment when we go for her routine check-up. It gives me the chance to catch a glimpse of our baby, and what the little wonder is doing in mummy’s tummy. I remember seeing the baby on the scan machine for the first time on our first visit to the gynae, and I got excited more than I thought I would. I guess I was still grappling with the reality of my wife being pregnant then, after just being married for just over 2 months (and still grappling with the reality of being a husband), and the experience felt rather surreal. I wasn’t quite sure how to react to the whole pregnancy idea until that day when I saw the fetus, only about 16 weeks old, flailing her arms around in my wife’s tummy. From that day onwards, I got connected to the little one. It was like she was saying hello to me. And she certainly had me at hello...

The baby weighed at 1.864kg, and that’s slightly under the ideal weight of 2kg as the doctor advised us at this stage of the pregnancy. Hmm... I guess I must have not been stuffing wifey enough.. hehe. No worries, said the doctor. I still have enough time to do that. Wife has gained about 13kg so far, and I think she’s getting a bit worried about the weight gain. Hehe... don’t worry dear. You’re still as lovely as the person I married in September last year, if not lovelier.

Anyhow, the rest of our weekend was spent attending toddlers’ birthday parties. As I’ve mentioned in my post on Friday, we had a birthday party to celebrate the birthdays of my nephew and niece, who turned 3, and my younger brother Didi, on Saturday. It occurred to me again that I would soon belong to the bapak budak group. The place was littered with toddlers and babies that you could have been forgiven for thinking they had all fallen from the skies. Man I feel old... And then today, another birthday party, this time another niece’s of mine 1st birthday. It was a good place to exchange notes however, and conversations were naturally engaged about my own upcoming baby and my preparations for the baby’s arrival.

It’s raining babies I tell you. And soon enough, there will be one coming this way, Insya-Allah.