Mumbai Under Attack

I know this is supposed to be a blog about joyous memories while Nee is growing up but how can I not register this tragedy which started when he is only 18 day old. I wonder what a dangerous world he will be living in. We have been living in a constant fear of an explosion any where but this is completely new .. Instead of one or more bombings at distinct sites, the Mumbai attackers struck throughout the city using military tactics. Instead of one or more bombings carried out over a short period of time, Mumbai was under attack for 62 hours. Terrorists fired in open streets, railway terminals, entered in two prominent hotels and in a Jewish center Killing approx 150 people and injuring several hundreds.

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I am thousand miles aways here and can’t belive what is happening back home. I was completely hooked to my computer watch IBN for every second I could. Every other month a new city. Unsuspectning people are being killed for nobody’s fault. The mumbai tragedy is over which is a relief but so many people got killed for no fault of theirs. My heart goes out for the people who died and for their family. I wish nobody has pass throgh this ever in their life.

I saw some politicians trying to cash out even on this occasion tryin to blame the other party. However, I wonder why this can’t be stopped in India. Perhaps this is one place where India need to learn from US, just my opinion !!

Happy Thanksgiving

Today is thanksgiving Friday and there are a lot things to be thankful on this day to family, friends, colleagues. However, I am most thankful to my wife for providing me the most precious gift ever. I am thankful to my little sugar bubble for coming into our lives and making it complete. I am thankful to my company for providing me trusting me and providing me extraordinary opportunities. On this Thanksgiving Day, I wish everybody a happy one. Everybody please take a moment to think about the things your are grateful for and make sure you show your appreciation !!

With every thanksgiving comes a crazy shopping spree called black Friday “The day of insane deals” and “the busiest shopping day of the year”. Black Friday is a nickname for the day in which most retailers go from being red (not overall profit) in their books to black (profitable!) ..and hence the name “Black Friday”. As we all know the economy is bad but people are still going to have a holiday to celebrate. I am hearing that this year the deals are not as great as it was in other years but still fairly decent from the regular prices. I was not sure if I should go initially but I found this 640 GB External USB hard drive deal ($69.99!!!) in staples which is just two blocks aways from our home so I decided in favor of taking a trip.

I asked Vi to wake me up at 5:15 AM. I had a coffee before leaving at 5:25. Traditionally I knew that staples generally have no lines (unlike Best buy which every year would have at least 300-400 people camping out 2 days before the deal day by the time store opens at 5 AM) but to my surprise there was around 40 people already. My chances of getting the hard drive was already seemed very bleak. But I decided to stay in line any way. It was still 20 minutes before they will open the doors. It wasn’t as bad as the Target line which I could see and already had more than 150 people. I started talking to a group of guys standing next to me who told that they camped for 13 hours in front of Best Buy and didn’t get to buy the $299 laptop. Apparently they were 30th in line while the store only had 15 of them.

At 6:00 they opened the door, everybody rushed in I was able to locate the hard drive in next minute (given an odd location they put it however that was OK as few people could fine it) and picked up a box of blank DVDs also. Line at the checkout counter wasn’t that bad as people are still trying to find stuff. I paid and headed out for Toys-r-us which is on the other side of the road. I got kind of upset as Nee is still very small and none of the toys really looked appropriate at his age. So I head to the newborn accessory section where I picked up a box of 96 diapers ($10) at a great price and picked up two diaper disposal refills. The biggest problem here was the checkout line..there must have been 100 people ahead of me. Finally after waiting 1 hour in the line I got to pay and get out of the store. Subsequently, I peeped it to Burlington .which was an utter disappointment, although I did picked up a baby oil for Nee. At 7:30 I window shopped in Macy’s for 10 minutes and then went in to JCPenny where I picked few dresses for Nee. Before going to Sears I peeped into several store with no success. I did pick one very cute outfit (Hawaiian Shirt and Niker) for Nee in Old Navy. In Sears I picked a food processor ($18.99 wow !!) and few more dresses for Nee. From there I headed to Dunkin Donuts to pick up breakfast (Sandwiches, hash brown and Banana Nut Muffins). I reached home at 9:30 AM, Vi has a nice cup of tea ready !!! After all that’s what you need after a 4 hours trip in freezing weather. Nee was happy with his dresses !!

He is throwing up !!

It all started with Li’l Neev throwing up on me and yest it was not a itsy-bitsy spit my friends. It was a gush of milk with extreme force all on my face. I and Vi were sent to a state of intense shock. We just realized a completely new definition of panic. when you feel so helpless and have no idea what to do next while you are scared to death. Now all of you acute followers we are supplementing him with Formula, and doctor’s recommendation was to feed him Enfamil Lipil Iron. This formula is based on cow milk and has a blend of the nutrients DHA and ARA – found in breast milk and apparently it’s the closest to the breast milk. Seconds after our little incident we gave a call the doctor’s office and got a call back from Dr Johnson in minutes (awesome!!!). He suggested that he probably is having problem digesting cow milk and asked us to switch to Enfamil Prosobee, a soy based formula. Now that I recall back in India I don’t think they give infants cow milk ..its mostly goat milk or dilated cow milk. So I ran to the st

ore and got some Enfamil Prosobee. He seems to liking it fine and nutrients in both of them are comparable. We might try this for a month and then try and switch back to cow based, doctor permitting.

vs

College Planning for Little Nee

You guyz must think I am crazy after all Nee is only 6 days old and college planning …wait .let me explain!! With my limited understanding of the finances and the rising cost of education ( tuition continually out paces the rate of inflation for last several years), I had decided a long time ago that I will try and open a college fund as soon as the little one arrives. Mostly to take advantage of compounding!! There are many unknowns here as to where and when (and if at all) little Nee would go to college but I came across this plan where I can roll over into another 529 plan, although some states do a tax recapture. The contributions in this plan are tax free form both federal and state which is great !!. The plan I selected, Ohio, uses Vanguard and Putnum, and the expense ratio is approximately 0.30% , but have a variety of investment options. I particularly liked and selected the inflation-protected bonds. I am glad that I didn’t procrastinate on this and followed through quickly.

Doctor’s Visit

Little Neev is changing his habits and physical features daily. It is so much fun to go back and look at the pictures we have been taking every day. Saturday was our first visit to the pediatrician. The first thing was the weight measurements which recorded 6 lbs and 9 Oz, meaning little boy was able to recover all the weight he lost just after the birth. This was a proud moment for us we felt that we are taking good care of our little prince charming. I and Vi Dr Johnson than checked him for everything and gave him a super clean bill of health. Neev also grew 1 inch taller and got to 20 inches now, finally all that kicking paid off. He is still in 10th percentile for the weight and 50th percentile for the height. This is not necessarily a fair comparisons as these charts are based on American population and asian babies are smaller conventionally. So far we fell very happy.

Postpartum Stay in Hospital

After welcoming the little boy later that night I headed home to catch up on sleep. After coming home I sent an email out informing everybody about little one’s arrival. While trying to sound funny in the email I ended up creating more confusion. GENIUS !! Here is the email I sent out:

Hello,

My name is “Neev Jain”. I was born last night (11:49 PM) at Akron City Hospital. I weigh 6 pounds and 9.75 ounces and am 19 inches tall. I have two arms, two legs, one thumb, and four fingers on each of my two tiny hands. I have two big black eyes, one nose with two large cheeks either side. I have two ears, two feet, one strong heart and two very delighted parents (Nitesh and Vineeta).

Thank you for all your best wishes, I and my mom both are doing great.

Thanks

Anybody guessed what’s wrong with this mail …yeah right ..no body knew whether it was a boy or a girl. Let me just say that that there were some really funny mails were sent back to me, several thousand Google searches were performed to find whether the name belonged to a boy or a girl and My email was flooded with questions of that nature.

I woke up at 5:30, took a shower and made tea. I knew Vi would really like to have a little tea after all she went through last night. I reached hospital at 6:45 and found Vi already awake. To my surprise she looked much better that I expected, I guess it’s the feeling as if you had conquer the world last night against all odds. she already had ordered breakfast for both of us (in fact for me as she was not allowed to eat much still due to the Magnesium). The hospital photographers had left a brochure on various photo packages we can buy and promised to come back at 9. After we both had our tea and breakfast I went to the nursery to get our little prince. As I saw him through the window, my heart went bump, and shivers run all over…I need to take care of him but he is so little…Well let me tell you a little bit about the little guy. First of all he is the most beautiful boy in the world…not that I am partial or anything! He has these dark black hairs and big black eyes. He passed all his tests in the hospital…He’s already holding his head up on pretty well, and his little froggy legs are surprisingly strong. The cutest thing however is the way he hold my finger ever so nicely and tightly …we feel so blessed that all is going well so far. I brought him to our room and handed to Vi..I guess the feelings I saw on her face are hard to write on paper. At 7 AM Dr S Johnson, Neev’s pediatrician, showed up in our room to discuss Neev’s well being. Apparently he had already checked Nee before that, everything was fine and he had lost almost 5 oz that night which seemed normal. for everything and At 9 AM the photographer lady showed up and took a variety of poses. However, the photographer couldn’t be in a great rush that that. Somehow we finished the session and asked her to take few photos with me, which by the way came out great. After the photographs the nurse helped Vi breastfeed Neev and as expected he had tough time. He couldn’t understood what he was suppose to do and kept falling a sleep. After which we undressed him and he was able to latch for a little while. Later I left Neev to the nursery as Vi wanted to take some rest. I ordered lunch at 11:30 and had it at around 12:30. The hospital staff kept checking on Vi once in a while and her blood pressure was getting better with time. The room we were in was small but very comfortable. Later that evening Adi stopped by to see little Nee. At 7:30 when nurse was checking her blood pressure and it came out to be normal they decided to take off the magnesium which was originally supposed to be stopped at 11:30, this was wonderful as she can now eat and drink normally. After a little while Vi started to complain about some abdomen pain so they gave her some pain medicine (initially Motrin and later Percocite). At 8:30 Prash and Mani stopped by, however this was past the visitor hours so we had to sneak them in. By the time they left Vi was getting drowsy due to the drugs and I was sleepy too. We decided that we will request the nursery to keep Little monster there for that night (we kind of felt bad but we both needed a good night sleep) and I will head home. After dropping Neev in the nursery I went home and slept off. Boy I was tired !!!

I came back next day at 6:45 AM, Vin was almost awake. I went and got Nee and Vi tired to breast feed him. He started to get a handle on that part. Later that morning Dr McKnight came to see Nee. He was surprised to find that the little bundle of joy was able to lift his head already. Vi would complain of the pain once in a while and took the pain medicine. However, I could see that she was getting her strength back as she had normal lunch and breakfast today. At around 10:30, the lactation expert came and spent 20 minutes explaining Vi various intricacies of breastfeeding. In the afternoon we filled Neev’s birth certificate paper work. At around 4:30 we found out that we will be discharged today as everything seem to be normal with both Vi and baby. After we had our exit interview we started to pack everything and left hospital at 7:20. We put the baby in the car seat and boy I was nervous !! Infact I was even more nervous-er when I drove to the house with the baby in it. With the grace of God We reached home healthy and safely. As I was parking the car, I saw prash pull over in the drive way. He helped getting all the stuff in the house.

As we entered in the house we both (or at least I) got so scared..I had no idea what we are going to do..we knew noting ..the heat was not on and house was really cold…the baby monitor was not set…the diaper and the diaper disposer was not ready !! I felt so bad that how can we be so unready !! However slowly everything was falling in place the little guy cried for a while but we fed him and he went to sleep. Which gave us some time to keep everything else in place. I made a quick trip to Pharmacy to get Vi’s pain medication. 20 minutes after I came back Prash and Mani brought food ..what a CONCEPT !! As little monster was still sleeping we attacked on food and I swear it was delicious. We were expecting that little Neev would have tough time adjusting to the new home but he got used it fairly quickly, not that he didn’t cry but he was ok.

In hindsight, have we done anything different in last two days ..YES specially “Brining the Baby Home” part but we learned ..

Thanks to everyone for all their love and support through these past 39 weeks. We both are filled with intense feelings of love and joy that I didn’t know existed. There is no way I’ll be able to relay any of it accurately- I’ve been told there aren’t words …so please forgive !!

THE “D DAY(S)”

P.S. I apologize in advance if this post is too long however I strongly feel that it is still short to describe the surge of emotions that rushed through those two days !!!  

Many of you have heard this whole story of Neev’s borth already, but for those of you who who haven’t without further ado lets get started…

Just one thing before we get started I’m trying to give you all this in chronological order, but please understand if its get too fuzzy specially near the delivery as you would I  was a little preoccupied with the momemts than !!

Vi was complaining on this severe pain on upper part of the abdomen since Thursday and the pain was getting bad minute by minute. We all in the light of all the books we read suggested that this is some sort of Brrexton Hicks and a way of mother nature to prepare the mom for the big day. The pain was bad..really bad…somehow she survived Thursday and Friday. Friday night she couldn’t sleep until 4 in the morning and woke up at 9 AM. Right after a cup of tea, she again complained of the pain and we decided to call the doctor. Dr. Ree was on line and she asked what was the intervel between contraction. Vin replied that she had no idea what the contractions feel like but this is something else and she can’t take it any more. Doctor asked us to come to the hospital. We packed few last minute things (forgot my books to read though !!!) and drove to the hospital which is on a 10 minute drive. We reached hospital at around 1:40 PM on Saturday and gto check in. I left the begs in the car thinking this might not be the real deal and they will let us go home. Once checked they escorted us to triage for basic checks. It was a small room (241F) with few medical instruments and a TV. First thing they did was the blood pressure and it came out astonishingly high (159/94)..for medically naives ..the normal range should be 120/80. Looking at her blood pressure and the swelling the nurse suggested that she might have a condition called Preeclampsia. According to doctor preeclampsia is a serious complication of pregnancy associated with the development of high blood pressure and protein in the urine. Women who gets diagnosed with preeclampsia complain of blurred vision, headaches, extreme swelling, and experience greater than normal weight gain. In this conditions the kidneys are unable to efficiently filter the blood (as they normally do) which causes an increase in protein that is present in the urine. So the doctors did a quick blood and urin work and quickly realized that she was suffering from this condition, preeclampsia. We waited anxiously in the room until the blood and urine work results stated to come back. The staff of doctors and nurses were amazing. In particular Amy was so nice, she not only did her professional duties as best as she could but also became a good friends and stress reliever. She was like an angel in the time of distress. While we were getting bombarded with a whole new set of medical terminology, she took time to explain this to plain English and just made us felt like home. I am writing this about Amy but any of the staff in the hospital I can write equally well ..perhaps I will !!! The first reultts came back at 4:30 PM confirming preeclampsia and they decide to admit us to deliver the baby since this condition can result in lowering the blood flow to the placenta resulting in baby not getting proper nutrients. At 5:18 PM we were transferred to the maternity room 223. Amy was transferred with us to take care of Vi which was really great.

At 5:35 PM they started the magnesium drip to lower the blood pressure. Magnesium relxes all the body muscles and keeps them from cramping up. Now that I think about it ..calcium and magnesium both does a pretty similar job remember when our respective moms used to ask us to drink a glass of milk before going to sleep so the calcium in the milk help to sleep better. Anyway, once given magnesium she saterd to relax a little bit and dosed off once in a while. At 7:3 PM they gave her cervedral to thin out the cervix before inducing the labor. The plan at this time was to induce the labor next day morning at 8AM. In the mean time doctrs and nurses came and checkd her every 10-12 minutes or so …I guess they were keeping an eye. The room was great, it was much bigger than triage, had two big nice windows. It had a comfortable counhe which could be changed into a bed. The best thing however was the TV and Steelers were playing !! However, Vi had the remote control !!! Once Vi seemed to relax a bit, I decided to make a quick trip to home and pick up few snacks and a book for me to read. While on my way back to hospital I picked a subway sandwhich for me. When I got back to hospital at 8:45 PM Vi was steel feeling fairly OK. I got back and changed into something more comfertable and decided to find out what Vi wanted to eat. However to my surprize she was not supposed to eat/drink anything due to Mernesiium. Appraenrly there is a chance that with your mussles so relazed the water might get into her lungs. However, the doctor allowed her to have coulpe of crackers and a cup of water. After which she was only allowed to have one cup of water every two hours. As bed as I felt however I was very hungry and attacked my sandwhich which was awesome !! Vi passed out in a little while and I finished watching Colts vs Steelers (Colts won !!!) and read few pages in the book. Vi woke up at 11:15 and started complaing of this sever pain similar to what she had in the morning, Infact now it must have been worst than the morning as she was also having problem in breathign. Doctor orders another blood work at 12:10AM. However, the nurse had tough time finding a nerve to take blood and eventually an anestheologist was called at 12:20. whoand they gave vi some local anstheia so the can better maneuver the nerves. At 12:55 few results came but nohintg was out of ordinary but still they were wating for results on lever enzymes. In the mean time they measured her cervix which was still 1-2mm and contracations were about 8 minutes apart. At 1:30 AM all the results were out and everything was normal, lever enzyme are actually better than afternoon. For the pain they decided to give her medication at 1:45 AM after which she dosed off right away!! By Gosh…I have never felt so helpless…we still have a long long way to go ..I hope I will last..

I woke up next morning at 5:45, Vi was still sleeping or perhaps under the effect of medicine. I ordered breakfast at 7:10 AM. She was planning to have tea but had to womit before that. Once finished with tea she was give Petocin at a level of 6 mg/hr. Petocin is a mammalian hormone that acts as a neurotransmitter in the brain and causes labor. The doctor told that they will increase the level by 6 mg/hr every half an hour and she should not feel anything at least for next two hours. Petocin was increased to 18 and 24 at 10:10 AM and 10:47AM respectively. Vi started to feel the contractions at around 10:30 AM. Her water broke at 12:10PM, great ..one more step closer. However, with water all gone baby felt a little distressed and his/her heartbeat went down. So nurses maneuver Vi a little bit and until baby’s heartbeat came back to normal. They gave a oxygen mask to Vi to make sure that baby keep getting enough supply of oxygen. By the way they did blood oxygen measurement several times throughout the day and at most times at came out to be around 97-99, which is normal. At 12:25PM they inserted a sensor which touches baby’s head for accurate measurement of baby’s condition. Subsequently, the Petocin was increased to 36. I sat beside her holding her hand while she fights with the ever increasing labor pain. Every time a contraction would come I could she her focusing on breathing. After all the money spent in child birth classes was worthwhile. I remember she telling me initially that she has no idea of how a contraction pain feels like. However, now she could exactly tell me when the contraction starts goes to a peek and goes away and I would confirm this with the monitor…amazing!! At 1:15 PM the pain started to increase significantly and she was utterly uncomfortable. She requested for an Epidural to be given. At this time she was dilated by 3 cm, and the doctor accepted the request. I remember from the child birth classes that you should at least be 3 cm dilated before taking epidural. Epidural anesthesia is a regional anesthesia which provides analgesia, or pain relief, rather than complete anesthesia, which is total lack of feeling. Epidurals block the nerve impulses from the lower spinal segments resulting in decreased sensation in the lower half of the body. A small area on the back is injected with a local anesthetic to numb it and a needle will be inserted into the numbed area that surrounds the spinal cord in the lower back. A small tube or catheter is threaded through the needle into the epidural space. The needle is carefully removed leaving the catheter in place so medication can be given through periodic injections or by continuous infusion. The catheter is then taped to the back to prevent it from slipping out. Once the anestheologist was inside the room they asked me to leave for the fear of infections. So I headed out for walk to get myself a coffee…I needed it!!! I got the coffee and set down in the visitors lounge, where I heard that how somebody went from 3 to 8 cm with in 30 minutes and delivered in next 15 minutes…wow !! I felt very happy with such a positive news, hoping we might go through a similar thing. I went back to the room at 2:15 PM and Vi was already started to feel in her senses, relatively speaking. I say “relatively” as the magnesium was still on causing all sort of drowsiness for Vi. At 2:35PM the petocin was increased to 48. The contractions are still 180 seconds apart. She is now dilated to 4cm and baby is at -2 position in birth canal. Blood pressure seems to in control now..125/70. At 3:10 PM the petocin was increased to 54 which was then at 4:15 PM was increased to 60. I am trying to engage her in constant conversation and she seems to be responding just fine for somebody in her condition. At 4:25PM she is dilated to 6 cm, baby is -1 cm, contractions are 160 secs apart and blood pressure is 139/83. So far things seems to going smooth even though awfully slow, but they are going and we wait !!! We dimmed the lights and asked Vi to take a try to go to sleep as she might be needing a lot of energy, she asked for a popsicle and seems to savor it. For next 1.5 hr she went to sleep and I tried to take a nap too but couldn’t so I read few more pages of Mr. Welch’s (former GE CEO) commentary. She woke up at 6:15 PM and had another popsicle. Petocin was increased to 66 (highest) and we could clearly see a really nice contraction pattern. At 8:10 PM something happened which scared the Sh*t of me !! We realized that they lost baby’s heartbeat again and in next 1 minute there were around 10 nurses and doctors were in the room trying to maneuver Vi so they can get baby’s heartbeat back. Keep in mind with epidural, she was pretty much immobile herself. I saw these people trying to do their best to get things moving again not having any idea what I should do. I felt like crying ..Doctor Johnson probably realized my nervousness and came to me and explained what they were trying to do and How great job I and Vi both were doing. I felt relieved, It was like words from Heaven!! Its amazing how things go quickly from bad to worse: After 10 minutes of severe activity in the room they were able to get baby’s heart beat back. They again put her on oxygen and ask her to take a nap again and get her energy together as time to push might be just around the corner. I felt happy because end was in sight however I was nervous as I knew the next 2 hours are going to be the longest in my life. we’re still having trouble trying to find Baby’s heartbeat, and Nurse Wratchett says “You need to listen to me and do what I say, and do it quickly.” 

At 10:30 the doctor did another measurements and concluded the we were all clear to go, she was completely dilated and ready to push. The nurses and doctors got ready, I was sheer amazed by the amount of tools they arranged. However, the nurse was quick to explain me that this all will never be needed. Once everything was in place, the doctors gave green signal to Vineeta to Push as soon as the next contraction came. To my surprise and to doctor’s surprise mom did a great job and we could see the head. The only one issue in this was that the contraction were still 90 sec apart and those 90 seconds felt like forever. After 5 pushes the doctor thought they she might use a little vacuum to turn the head a little bit. By god ..she was right ..as soon as she did that ..the next pushes in the contraction and the baby was out !!!..GUYS THE LITTLE NEEV WAS OUT !!!…and one more thing …ITS A BOY !!!! Few days after Vi told me that she wanted baby ti be born on 9th which means he just made that 11 minutes before the deadline ..at 11:49PM. A flood of emotions were quick to rise from the heart as well as from the eyes !! Mom was eager to hold the baby and which she did. We took a quick family photograph and sent little Neev for cleaning. I followed little guy to his little bed where they took various measurement and blood tests…I recorded the whole process so mom can see later on. However…I was so dazzled by the little man that I forgot about Vi completely for next 20 minutes. Once I came back to my senses I went back to Vineeta who was under their way to recovery. I spent next hour calling everybody (that’s another story that I couldn’t find any of the Grand parents so the first one to get the news was Sandy) and taking more photos. After everything was taken care of and tying arm badges for all three us for reorganization purposes they transferred us to Mother/Baby. Later on the baby went to nursery and I head to home so mom can relax a little. We are so excited to have our little boy with us and we cannot imagine life without him…I know it will be challenge bringing up a little man to face the real world but for night we are on Cloud Nine!!!

Week 38 (Ultrasound)

So we had the ultrasound this Monday at the Hudson office. Now it is not normal to have an ultrasound this late in the pregnancy but the doc needed to figured out the size of the baby so he had to do one. It turns out that the even with a 2 lb margin in either direction our little bubble was not fat.

We were very excited that we will be able to clearly see the face of the baby and perhaps figure out whose nose or lips he/she has copied. However, the baby is “such a baby” ..whole time he/she was facing the back and never turned so we couldn’t see the face completely (unlike the first ultrasound when he/she had a photogenic smile on !! However, a lot of pushing and playing the nurse was able to show us the lips and nose. Wow the baby was frowning. can you believe that ..ATTITUDE !!!! At one point the baby did gave us a thumbs-up as if everything is perfect inside..how are you guys !!

The nurse went around measuring the rest of the kid (head, stomach, etc.), showing me Small Monster’s little heart pumping like crazy and pointing out bits and pieces, and let me know the kid was healthy, and proportional. The baby’s weight based on her measurement s were 6.7 lbs which is slightly lower than normal but not so lower that we need to worry. Not that I don’t trust the word of nurse but it will be kind of nice to hear the same from the doc. After all he Is the one who wanted the ultrasound in the first place. So Friday is the when Doctor speaks.

Week 38

Week # 38 is behind us which means Today “Vi” celebrates her 39th weeks of pregnancy, what this actually means that we are now officially in the home stretch and little one can pop any moment now. And yes …Small chunky munky is still in there. He/She’s increasingly cramped, which makes Vi’s belly dancing. I am sure Vi knows a little bit of belly dancing but in this case its her belly which is dancing. 39th week..wow, it is finally starting to hit me…. It is so hard to comprehend that in a few short weeks (hopefully) we’ll have a little person to look after – and if I had a fiver (or even a measly euro) for everyone who said that soon I’ll really know what a fun it is, I could start a college fund to send the child to Harvard ! However so far, the kid seems to be staying in, and happy about it. I am a little afraid that very soon he/she’s going to start ordering Chinese for delivery to his little house. On second thought he already is, that’s why Vi keeps having these cravings. However, there are some signs…, don’t get me wrong, there’s some very early labor stuff going on – she is crampy and all, and her back aches like Hell sometimes, so I figure her cervix is probably progressing some more, but I am not sure id he/she has dropped all the way into her pelvis. Last we checked, the baby’s head is still down..I wonder how the baby knows when to drop…. is it his choice or the gravity plays a big role in this or is it both. Perhaps a good problem to look into !!! –

All the preparation is complete but still in its most basic form. We’ve now got sterilizers, blankets, baby clothes, hats and stuff. Vi spent last weekend washing and ironing these items. The second room is still a mess and I guess we will not be able to clean it out until baby is home as we have no idea on what little bubble is going to need once he/she gets home.

Good wife keeps finding it hard every day to maneuver every day I feel more useless just watching her. I can’t do anything to make the itching stop or the swelling go down – what little I can do in the line of comforting her is, I’m sure, nothing to what she is going through. Even though, I am religiously massaging her belly with coco butter at every opportunity I can. Test results for one thing and another have all come back clear and the doctor’s, in so far as they can tell, are happy.

Oh yeah!! We went to University of Akron Deewali function Saturday. Dee and Moni was there too. I thought the student put a decent show. There were few slides describing “what india is” and few dance performances. We enjoyed it ..the food was decent but we were so hungry by that time that it didn’t matter. Guess what..I used my new camcorder to record the dance performances, it came out really nice. Towards the end they had dance floor open and I can tell baby wanted to dance. They played some really great songs.

Sunday we saw “Lakeview Terrace” at Regal Theatre. In almost every way, its is a pretty typical Sam Jackson movie. Furious ..intense !! The movie is about a young interracial couple who move to California into their first home get increasingly harassed by their next-door neighbor, a tightly wound black LAPD officer. The story basically revolves around the officer picc**ing them off until the guy finally decides to take things into his own hand and take care of the business. The acting was spot on. While driving back we were talking about what would we do if we have a annoying neighbor like him …. Probably move!!!

Baby is continuously gaining weight with increasing fat deposits to control his/her body temperature. He/She might weigh between 6 and 9 pounds now and is 18 to 22 inches in length. They say that boys do tend to weigh heavier than girls. Mom, as I said, is getting extremely uncomfortable now, as baby’s feet extend into her ribs. The weight of your baby is taking a toll on her back, legs, and bladder. There is still some swelling in the feet which I guess have something to do with blood circulation and being farther from the heart…..Can you believe it ..Just another few days and the world would change for the better. The house would look different and sound different and his/her sounds would fill the dull surroundings !!! wow ..