Half way today!

Trogdor at the 18 week scan

Here he is looking like... well, every other ultra sound you've ever seen.
Having the photo is lovely but it doesn't give you a sense of the little personality we saw bouncing around inside me.
I wish I had a little video to show you just how busy he is in there. He played peekaboo with the scanner, tried to grab at his feet when ever the sonographer attempted to scan them and waved his arms up and down while she was trying to get a picture of his heart. Playing up for the cameras already - heh.

Lifetime -20 and the 13th floor

On Thursday Trogers will be 20 weeks. It's strange to think that in 20 weeks (really 18 weeks when you consider that 2 of those weeks was just waiting around for ovulation) Trogdor has grown arms, legs, a brain, kidneys, fingernails, a penis (other wise called 'that bit in between' by the sonographer), ears, eyes and the rest yet his 'life time' will only start to be counted once he exits the womb. But Spidermonkey and I have known him for going on 4 months. We've talked about him and to him. Our lives are already starting to change around him. It's like waiting for godot.

20 weeks is half way though. The average pregnancy lasts any where between 37 to 42 weeks with 40 weeks considered an average of the average. Which leads us to the greatest pregnancy myth of all time - the 9 month pregnancy. If some-one asked you 'how long is a month in weeks?' you'd say 'about 4 weeks', right? So, if a month is about 4 weeks and a pregnancy is about 40 weeks a woman is pregnant for about 10 months! The extra days that each month has does get you down closer to the traditional 9 month mark but no book on pregnancy actually counts calender months - most of them are in weeks with each 4 week increment being described as a month. As they get closer to the end of the pregnancy they start to have chapters like '9 Months and Beyond' because for some reason we don't talk about the mysterious 10th month. It's like the 13th floor - *scary whisper* there is no 13th floor!

The great cheese conspiracy

In the early months of pregnancy a woman is given a huge list of food you are 'allowed' and 'not allowed' to eat.

Foods you MUST NOT EAT IN ANY CIRCUMSTANCES BECAUSE YOUR BABY WILL DIE!
include (but aren't limited to):

raw meats such as sushi, seafood especially shellfish, rare or uncooked beef or poultry (does any-one think eating raw chicken is a good idea?), raw eggs, foods containing raw egg such as Caesar dressing, mayonnaise, homemade ice cream or custard, unpasteurized eggnog or Hollandaise sauce, soft cheeses such as blue cheese, feta, goat cheese, brie, cambert, Latin-American soft white cheeses, blue-veined cheeses, caffeine, alcohol, fish that is high in mercury (presumably it's fine for every-one else?), deli meats including hot dogs, liver, artificial sweeteners and raw sprouts.

And for the first 2 or 3 months you follow this list like it was handed down to you on Mt Sinai written on stone tablets. Until one day you start to wonder how any-one ever managed to have a baby in the first place.

My problem is the cheese - and some times the smoked salmon but mainly the cheese. I love cheese! The softer, the gooier, the smellier the better. Give me a soft, blue vein cheese with a smell that makes your nasal passages bleed and I'm in heaven. Or a goat's cheese feta. Or a Camembert served with port soaked raisins. Ye gods I love cheese. Anyway.

So why? Why have I been denied this simple calcium rich pleasure? In times of trial and temptation I tried turning to cheddar and I'll admit, the sharp taste of a decent vintage did satisfy me for a while but it was just recreational use. My addiction requires soft, pungent, mouldy cheeses.

The answer to why these foods are on the forbidden list is simple - listeria. Listeria is a virus which won't generally harm a healthy adult but can cause severe illness, if not death, in an unborn baby. Soft cheeses are made in such a way that any bacteria from unpasteurized milk won't be killed in the manufacturing process so listeria has the opportunity to thrive.

bacteria from unpasteurized milk

bacteria from unpasteurized milk

Do you have any idea how difficult it is to find unpasteurized milk in Australia? Or how hard it is to buy a product that has been made with unpasteurized milk? It's nearly impossible. I would have to go out to the country, find a cow, sexually harass it myself and then figure out how to make blue vein cheese before I had the slightest chance of ingesting a listeria filled dairy product.

European cheeses might, might carry more of a risk as (apparently) they tend to use more raw milk in the production of cheese. So I'm not eating Roquefort. There's plenty of very decent home grown cheeses to tide me over coming in packs with ingredient lists clearly saying "milk (pasteurized)".

Guess what I've been eating this weekend?

For more info, if you're interested, try this link and this other link. (There was another very funny article that I can't find now but I'll link to it if I ever do.)

I'm not fat - I'm pregnant. (And fat)

This weekend I have heard over and over again - 'but you're not showing yet'.
No, I'm not showing but I'm starting to look like a bear getting ready for hibernation.
My hips are getting wider (yes, apparently it is possible, thanks for asking) and my waist is getting thicker (my waist! The only thing that stopped me from looking like a jam filled donut! It made me look like a jam filled donut with a rubber band around its middle) but I don't look pregnant.
I want out of this half way stage. I want to either have the classic 'swallowed a watermelon' look or not at all. Of course, I'll be sick of that too by the end.

The hills are alive

When I woke up this morning I found that Trodgor had hunkered over to my left side during the night. It was like a little mountain peak sloping down to the plains below...

I hope he moves more into the middle soon or all be spending my day walking in curves, dragged around my lopsided stomach.

6 Years and 19 weeks

Today Spidermonkey and I have been a couple for 6 years. On ANZAC Day 2002 we saw a movie, then went to a park and decided that why yes, we would like to see each other again.
6 years ago we really didn't know each other. We'd been out to dinner a few times, seen a few DVDs, built sets at the theatre but we weren't 'friends' before we started dating.
6 years later we have traveled together, bought our own place together and we have this

together.

SPOILER ALERT!!

First of all, and most importantly, Trogdor is fine.
And just a bit on the amazing side.
And a bit unearthly.
And very busy in there.

But with no more adieu in 6 months our family will be joined by a little:

(not a building)

(not a miniature palm tree)

(not a pet rooster)

(This is starting to look like the adieu I said we would do with out, isn't it? Still, I'm sure you can see where this is going. Let's have one more any-way...)

(not a pet rock)

I am proud to announce that Mumtotrogdor and Spidermonkey will be welcoming...

A SON!