gynaecologist

We took the belly to the gynaecologist the other day for another check. After a bit of mucking about with clear toothpaste and her echo scanning thingy, the baby doctor explained that all is looking well. Mrs.B is not having those dangerous series of contractions any more. The extra days of rest have worked - even the doctor remarked that she is not bouncing off the walls any more.

However, it's not clear whether Mrs.B's cervix has thinned or not - it just may have. so this Friday she has to have another check-up just to be on the safe side. If she passes that one, we can go on holiday to France. If we can't go, I may develop contractions.

What's also clear is that we're going to get a whopping baby, his or her measurements are well above average. Seems like Wolf is not going to push this little brother or sister around!

We went to the gynaecologist's yesterday for the four-weekly check-up. The baby is fine and growing fast - which came as no surprise because Mrs.B just received a honorary membership card from the international ballooning society.

But the doctor's verdict on the mother's health was less positive. My sweet bouncing ball has had too much on the agenda recently. Our weekends are packed with birthday parties, spring celebrations, open school days (our first one!) and various social occasions. And her work has been driving her mad lately. She was supposed to have another colleague to assist her by now, but given that this person has yet to be hired, she's doing a double job while being five months into her pregnancy.

So the doctor was adamant: if she continues to work and live like this with stress levels going through the roof, the baby may come too soon. Much too soon. So Mrs.B has to calm down now or face lying down for weeks in the near future. Amongst other things, that would mean cancelling our vacation in France.

Now calming down Mrs.B is not as easy as it may seem. In fact it's easier to tranquillize a charging rhinoceros with a syringe and a catapult, with a dose that's just enough for a small dog so you would shoot him about fifty times and retrieve the syringe before he gets to you. Trust me on this, I've tried.

So the gynaecologist looked very stern every time my wife uttered 'But I have to do this and that' and gave her the rest of the week off. And the coming weeks she can only work four days out of five. And she has to take medication. And if that doesn't work more rest will be described. And it's strictly forbidden to use that time to clean up the house or anything like that.

That baby needs to stay inside for another six weeks, at the very least. Another eight weeks and we'll be on a much safer side. But twelve weeks is definitely better.

We really hope the baby will hang in there until the end of August.

We went to the gynaecologist’s yesterday evening, for the baby’s monthly check-up. We had an appointment at 7.15pm, but when we arrived there were some 50.000 people in the waiting room. The doctor had been called away to a delivery earlier that day, so there was a delay of at least two hours. ‘Probably more like three’, said his helpful yet slightly pessimistic secretary.

No use in planting ourselves in the waiting room for three hours, so we drove back home to grab a bit to eat. After a healthy diner consisting of two large packets of fries, a curryworst spéciale (kind of sausage buried below layers of sauce and onions), a grizzly (spicy minced meat in batter), bitterballs (crispy balls with unspecified saucy filling), a sito-stick (alleged turkey with slices of onion in batter on a stick) and a kipcorn (industrially-processed chicken waste in corn batter), we returned two hours later to the baby-doctor.

Unfortunately, the waiting room was still packed. We had to wait for another hour before we could enter the doctor’s cabinet, and we were the lucky ones. Some people had their appointment scheduled at 9.30pm. I really felt sorry for the doctor when I shook his hand. He looked very tired and he still had hours of work in front of him. Still, he was his usual calm, confident and humorous self. A couple of minutes later we were all staring at the monitor, looking at slices of our child-to-be. The biggest surprise came when he calculated the weight of the baby. Normally it should weigh around 900-950 grams. Ours is a bit bigger. Actually, a lot bigger. Make that a whopping 30% bigger, bending the digital needle of the virtual scales to 1 kilo and 200 grams.

The doctor explained that this was rather exceptional. And then he blamed me for the baby’s size. My dearest darling is a bit apprehensive, she is trying desperately to imagine how she is going to press that little bundle of joy out of her tummy and into the delivery room in a couple of months time. I assume there will be some cursing and other foul language and I expect to be the main target. It may even get to physical violence. I start to understand why some new dads prefer to pass-out during delivery.

We went to the gynaecologist yesterday, and this time we didn’t forget the bloody video tape. The gycololo man asked us last time if we wanted to know whether we’re going to have a baby girl or a baby boy. At first we said we wanted it to be a surprise, but after the last scan we started to doubt and we ended up admitting to each other that we were very curious to know. Not in the least to facilitate the discussion about names. We quickly agreed on a name for a girl, but we were still bickering on over boys’ names.