Week 19

Perhaps Pregnancy Brain is contagious. Perhaps it was just post-holiday dopey-ness. On my first day back at work I took a spoon into a meeting. I sat down and put my pad, my pen, and my spoon on the conference table, and then realised what I’d done. I’ve talked my way out of many situations in the past, but on this occasion my creativity failed me. “I’m not quite sure why I brought my spoon in here today”. Laughter prevailed.

Genes

We often pondered what our first born will be like. Blonde & blue-eyed? Very likely. Porky? Unlikely. Jas: “I think it will have a pointy nose, since both of us do.” (jokingly, I thought: “With a beak like mine, there is very little chance of our child having something that doesn’t resemble the foresail of a sloop.”). I’d even worked out a few percentages based on my recollections of high school genetics classes: there was at least a 75% chance it would be blue eyed; at least a 50% chance that it would have mid-digital hair; and if it ended up being dark skinned, there was a 100% chance that Jas would have a few stern questions to answer.

More names

Jas ordered some baby books to assist in our search – our quest – for suitable names. Aside from thousands of names to randomly peruse, the books provide some helpful hints on name selection, together with some interesting naming statistics and categories. I learnt that – in the UK - “Richard” made the top 25 names for about 100 years until the 1980’s. “Richard” is also listed in a category of typical “Bad-to-the-Bone” names. Obviously. Other very useful lists of names were those likely to make “Future Truck Drivers” (e.g. Mace and Vatoya) and “Names That Get Shortened” (i.e. names with three or more syllables, surprise, surprise).  One book guides those with plain surnames – that would be us, I guess – to go for bolder first names: enter “Jinx”, “Rambo” and “Schmoopie”. This could be fun.

Pregnancy Co-ordination

Pregnancy Brain gets a lot of publicity. But there seems to be another side effect that impacts basic motor skills and spatial awareness. One day Jas stuck a fingernail into her forehead. Why? Well, she was actually trying to run her hands through her hair, but missed by a few inches. She was naturally surprised when her fingers struck skin and bone when expecting the silky softness of her hair.

Jas' belly had also grown to a noticeable size, though not huge, but she was starting to have an inordinately difficult time standing up. Sometimes it was a bit like watching a lady bug that was stuck on its back trying to return to its feet. With lady bugs I like to watch and see how they end up doing it, but naturally assistance is offered with Jas...