Much has happened since my last post. I’ve given up trying to write the perfect update that would reflect the activities during the several months’ hiatus from blogging.
In short, I’m now the mother of a precocious 5 month old boy who is just as active outside the womb as he was inside it. Life will never be the same.
I’ve come to learn that babies like to change positions while inside the womb. And sometimes, they simply like staying where they are.
For the past few days, my baby has been happily lying horizontally across my tummy, with his head on my left and his feet on my right. I can tell because the hardest kicks come from the right.
There’s now an added dimension to his behaviour. This morning in bed, I rolled onto my right side. Given that baby was still in the same position, this meant that he was effectively standing upright. Finding some solid ground (my tummy + the mattress), he started to stomp!
Stomp!
Stomp!
Stomp!
Then it became a two-footed stomp, because I could feel his other foot coming in.
Stomp-stomp!
Stomp-stomp!
Stomp-stomp!
As his stomping got harder, his head started to bump against my left side. So it became,
Stomp-stomp-bump!
Stomp-stomp-bump!
We were so amused just feeling his head and feet in action that we let him stomp away until he got tired.
Then I got out of bed.
So I'm now 4.5 months pregnant and my yet-to-be-named baby (whom I shall refer to as 'Baby' with a capital B) seems to have a mind of his own. How so? Let me count the ways...
It was delightful to receive emails from a few of you who read my blog posts recently. Thanks for your well wishes. It is all the more a relief to me as I wondered if anyone still reads blog posts - it is so much more convenient these days to log into Facebook and view friends’ status updates instead.
Also, I have written a few times about the passing of people I’ve known, or barely known, or not even known at all. This has prompted people who’ve known them to write in to me - usually to thank me and share personal experiences they’ve had with their late friend or relative. One such thing just happened, regarding a post I wrote 5 years ago. Blogging is useful as a memorial, in this sense.
May we remember the lessons from the past, even as we look to the future.
I’m writing this past the stroke of midnight. Looking back, a lot has happened in the past year. I got engaged. We looked for a new home. Last November, we got married. We renovated our new home this March and moved in, a month later.
Looking forward, I’m still on the right side of 30 - but that won’t be for long!
Which is why, I am happy to announce, that we will be expecting a baby later this year :) It wasn’t something we planned judiciously but we were happy to go along with whatever God had in store for us.
The newspapers have been writing a lot about our ageing society and shrinking local population, and it sounds very much like the fault of people not wanting to get married (which is still the expectation in our conservative society), and married couples not wanting to have children. But this is not the full picture. I know a growing number of people who are still trying to start a family, sometimes at great cost.
So I am not taking our blessings for granted. Here’s to a new year of my life, and to a little new life.