Merry Christmas

It's Christmas...! Of course I have no idea what Christmas is, but I sense that it's something very special. My parents have been all busy buying things, making sweets, preparing a menu and putting beautiful lights in our house. They didn't make the traditional presepe like many italians do for christmas, but my dad says that we have our own little presepe, where he plays the donkey, the bull and Jospeh, my mum is Mary and he says that even I have my part in the scene.
Or maybe the decoration of the house and all this planning is because my arrival is to happen in only few days from now! It's not exactly what I had planned, but since I insist on staying head-up my parents tell me it's the only solution. Actually they made a last attempt to get me to turn last week. My mum announced it to me last tuesday, gave me a last chance to turn by myself or else she would have to use force. I had no intention to turn, so that night I just slept as normal, kicked her uterus a lot and did the amniotic rhumba as never before. Then next morning my mum skipped breakfast and went straight to the hospital with my dad. First I thought that it was this not-eating thing that was supposed to get me to turn, for the hours passed by and nothing else happened. But she could just as well have fasted at home, so there had to be another reason. My mum gets quite irritated when she doesn't eat for a long time, and I could feel that she was not very calm that morning. Was that how she was going to get me to turn? But then she started to use the relaxing exercises that she had learnt in the prenatal class, and that improved her state of mind a lot. Finally around 3 o'clock in the afternoon the moment that my mum had been waiting for arrived (it appeared that there had been several emergencies at the hospital that delayed everything for many hours). At that moment my mum was actually hungry like a wolf and her mouth was drier than the desert of Sahara, but she was ready for whatever was to come. She entered the examination room and a doctor examined the way I am lying with an ultrasound and saw that I was still in the divers position (a complete breech)...he sighed! Then he estimated my size and said that I was about 2850 g....and he gave another sigh, said that I was a bit big. Then he measured the liquid around me and a third sigh could be heard..he said that the amount of it wouldnt help! But early in the morning the liquid had been plenty when they did the ultrasound! Maybe they should have let my mum drink something during the day...if it doesn't rain the lake will become dry! Anyway, after this examination, the doctor started to push and squeeze my mum's belly with great force. First he pushed my bottom, then he made sure to know where my head was (using the ultrasound) and started trying to push the head first to one side and when he didn't manage, he tried to push it to the other side, but there is more resistence in me than one would expect of a small boy, so he got nowhere with all this pushing. In the end the doctor was so tired that he had to make a break before continuing. To make a long story short, the doctor made several attempts to get me to turn, but I didn't move. There seems to be some kind of resistency....! So now my parents are planning something called a cesarean section to pull me out from my comfortable nest. My mum is not happy about it, she would have preferred a natural birth, but she has also started to accept the fact that I'm not turning and that modern doctors are no longer skilled in delivering breech babies and therefore a cesarean has to be planned, so she has had to surrender. Now my parents are passing the days in a sort of an emotional limbo. On one side they are extremely happy that I will soon be there with them, and on the other side the imminentness of the event causes them to think what it will be like when I'm there and if they will handle the new role. They think about whether I'm ok and if the cesarean will go ok and there are millions of other related thoughts that fly around in their heads. It seems also strange to them to know that I will be born on a certain day, rather than them having to wait for the signs of my arrival before going to the hospital. Anyway, this will probably be my last blog as a belly-dweller...but I hope that I will soon be back as a newborn boy...therefore I'll use this opportunity to send you christmas-greetings...

Merry Christmas to all of you, and a Happy New Year.

Prova generale

Last night my parents had a little trial for day X -with only three weeks to the due date I guess it was a wise thing to do. The results of the trial was that my dad passed with honours, but my panettone-mum (see picture) has to refine her part a bit before the big moment!
Well, last night my mum got a shooting pain in the fundus of the uterus (or somewhere close to it at least). She knew it wasn't a contraction, for they don't create constant pain, but not knowing what it was that caused the pain, and not being able to do simple things such as lie on the side, stand up from the bed, close the door of the car or even wipe herself at the toilet (!), she and my dad decided it would be right to have someone take a look. So they went to the gynecology & obstetrics-ER at the hospital -which is basically where I'm going to be born quite soon. The midwifes monitored me with a cardiotocograph and found out that I'm very well, then they did an ultrasound and saw that all was ok and so my mum was sent home with the words that whatever it was that caused the pain it didn't seem to have any negative effects on the pregnancy. Actually the midwife that monitored me thought that my heartbeat could be heard a bit low in the abdomen for a podalic baby, so when it came to the ultrasound part she, the other 2 midwives present and my dad betted on whether I was still podalic (the theory being that the pain that my mum was experiencing might be related to the fact that I had finally turned). But I'm more stubborn than that, and of course I was still podalic!
My mum thinks that the pain might be related with the fact that at the prenatal course earlier that day, the mums were practicing active pushing for the birth, and maybe she pushed a little too hard with slightly wrong muscles..! Anyway, after a rather sleepless night, my mum is now up and feels much better than yesterday (which makes her happy, for she was planning to make Sarah Bernhard's cookies today) and both she and my dad are happy that they've had this little prova generale of going to the hospital. As I said before my dad passed the test without problems, but my mum didn't...she managed to forget to take her pregnancy-history with her (she took an empty backpack -leaving the pregnancy folder on the kitchen table!!). But it serves her as a reminder for day X.

Speculations

Do you recognize this little baby? No-no, it's not me, I'm not born yet -and technology still doesn't allow this kind of photographing of an unborn baby...! Plus, as you may see, this little baby is dressed..! But I thought of showing you this picture to redirect all speculations about how I look -towards something plausible!
One of the most frequent comments that people make these days is that I will most certainly look like my mum, as it seems to be a common belief that whereas sons look like their mothers, daughters look like their fathers (despite millions of exceptions that people see every day). Soon another comment follows -that since I must look like my mum I'm bound to look like a true viking, with blond hair and blue eyes! Well, I don't know what genetics say about this mother-son look-a-like thing, for all that I know I might just as well look like my father! But one thing is sure that if I'm to look like my mum when she was newborn, I wont be blond-blue-eyed at all! Yes you've got it, that black-haired, black-eyed mini-troll on the picture is my mum -she only turned blond about the age of 2!
On the other hand, if I'm to look like an italian child, it is highly plausible that I will be blond at birth! Believe it or not that most babies that my mum sees being walked around Pavia in strollers seem to be blond with blue eyes...and not because there has been an invasion of barbars (like my mum..!) in Pavia, but because as my mum turned blond at the age of two, these italian cuties turn dark-haired around that age. I can't begin to imagine what nature had in mind when this was programmed into our genes, but it sure puts a lot of uncertainty into the speculations of how I look! My parents, who are also curious about how I look (and soon enough they will find out) just hope that I won't be a mosaic, or striped or something...!

The suitcase

My mum has only been pregnant in Italy and, therefore, doesn't know if being pregnant in Italy is like being pregnant somewhere else. But one thing she is sure about is that the preparation of the suitcase for the hospital is very different from what it is like in Iceland. On the website of the University hospital in Iceland, there is a list of things that mothers to be are advised to take with them: toiletries, indoor-shoos and comfortable clothes, change for the automates, some snack, cell-phone, lip-balm, drinks, something to read, nice music, camera. Basically things that the mums can throw together in a small bag when the labour starts -so practically they are always ready. More importantly, this is an ADVISE, they can even just pop by without anything, and the father can bring the lip-balm and the book to read once the baby is born.

If only it was that easy in Italy.

As we belly-dwellers don't really announce with great advance when we are going to take that important journey down the birth-channel, mothers in Italy are adviced to be ready with the hospital suitcase at least a month before the due date. It is actually less than month until I'm supposed to be born, but my mother still hasn't prepared her suitcase -the only one at the pre-natal course that hasn't done so! Last week she at least started to prepare things. So what is so difficult?
Well, let's start with the things to prepare for the mother:
1 nightgown (not pyjama..NB) for every day that the mum stays in hospital (in Italy this means 3-5 days if all is ok, and depending on whether the baby was born naturally or with a C-section ). For someone that never wears nightgowns, and that risks to have a C-section because the baby is not turning, this means having to buy 4 nightgowns (to be on the safe-side, then my mum will just throw in pyjamas in case she has to stay more days)!! Of these, 3 have to be buttoned far enough down to permit breastfeeding without having to undress and the last one has to be buttoned all the way down in the front, for this one has to be worn during the birth. I know that italians care a lot about the way the look in any moment, and they don't like to look like the person next-door (or next-bed), but would it be too much to ask the hospital to provide the gown for the birth??? At the prenatal course the mums laughed a lot of the fact that the hospital specified that the nightgowns should NOT BE TRANSPARENT! But I don't know where all these ladies went to buy this particular nightgown, for then when my mum started going around looking for one, she was shown a transparent (not completely, but one that left little to the imagination) fully-buttoned, highly embroidered nightgown specially made for birth in THREE stores! Finally she had one store order a nightgown of a thicker material so that she wouldn't be going around the hospital half-naked and offending the hospital rules while preparing for birth. The other 3 nightgowns were not less of a challange, for nightgowns in italy, those buttoned in the front (as opposed to all the sexy silk and satin dresses) are normally made for a clientale of around 80 years, that seem to prefer flowers and pastel colours. My mum was aware of the fact that she was going to buy something that probably she would wear only one day..but the thought of being dressed like an 80-year old was too oppressing, so she and my dad made a whole-day trip around the stores of Arezzo to find suitable nightgowns. In the end they found 3 that were acceptable, no flowers or pastel colours. In addition a warm dressing-gown is needed, so my mum bought one of these. She had the choice between a pink one and a blue one and -prefering something more colourful but not being able to find one- she chose the blue one, which immediately caused the shop assistant to comment:

Oh che bello, so you are expecting a boy?

Now what has my gender got to do with the way my mum wants to dress? Is there a hidden dress-code depending on the belly-dweller's sex? Are there more ways in which my mum can be wrong in the way she is doing things?
Anyway, now my parents could tick the nightgowns off the list, then what's next: single-use pants (yeah, the hospital does not provide you with these things), post-birth absorbents, breastfeeding bras and pads to absorb excessive milk, toiletries, towel and a bathrobe, toilet paper, indoor shoes AND shower shoes. Then there are the things that recall the Icelandic list: money for the automates, snack, books to read, camera.... Well, my mum can't resist thinking that it would be much easier if they just let the women give birth at home -then they could avoid bringing their home to the hospital. Actually my mum was surprised to find out that the hospital WILL be providing bed-sheets, now considering everything else that has to be brought this is almost incredible.
Do you think that the list is finished... not at all, this was only the mum's part of the list, then there's also the list of things that are needed for ME.

For the newborn baby one has to bring clothes for 3-5 days (at least one change a day), including underwear, pyjama or sweaters and trousers, a cap (that also covers the ears) and a blanket. And a set of clothes of course for bringing the baby home. Oh, and as the hospital is rather cold (they don't save enough on the things that they don't provide for the mums and the babies, so they also have to save on the heating), this has to be made of wool. Then the mothers are advised to bring also something to protect the bed from getting wet during the change of the baby (for, as you might guess, they have to change their babies on the bed)...probably because the hospital only provides one set of bed-sheet for the whole hospital staying (maybe my mum should consider bringing her own bed-sheets also, just in case...!). Of these things, my parents have only got the underwear ready (well, and the orange blanket...), but probably this weekend they will go shopping for the remaining things, so the suitcase should be ready soon. Just as good, for the clock is ticking....

crazy anyway

I guess I have to take my mum's words for it -that she and my dad haven't become additcted to some drugs. But I still have my doubts. At least my parent's behaviour isn't always as one would expect from 2 grown-ups! Take last friday night as an example. My parents were in Arezzo with my grandparents, the weather was cold (around 5 degrees and extremely humid: ergo, senzation of cold as if it was at 0 degrees), and it was late in the evening (around 11). And what do they do? Go to the cinema? Fall asleep in front of the TV? Read a good book in bed? Nothing of that sort...well, once again they sneak out into a garage (this time an open one, with no doors), without socks, and not exactly dressed for outdoor activities in late november. Soon after they get outside I start to hear a rythmic sound, as if someone was step-dancing, but then I realized that it was just the sound of my mum's teeth that where shaking from cold!! Once in the garage my mum lies down on a sun-chair then they start to burn this herb close to my mum's toes. You think that's normal? And they say they are doing it for me...! Well, do they really expect me to turn when they behave like this? They are more likely to catch a heavy cold or even pnemonia, than getting me to turn...!
Another confirmation that my mum's head isn't eaxactly where it should be, is the way she's dressing. Here's a photo my dad took last weekend down in Tuscany of my mum and her panettone-belly. Doesn't it look as if my mum was completely unaware of her growing belly when she dressed that morning? Don't get me wrong, the sweater is beautiful -just as long as it's kept unbuttoned...but worn like this it looks as if I was trying to sneak out from under the sweater -the only thing missing is my hand, waving from the gap between the sweater and the trousers!!!
This has made me seriously worried for the fact that my mum will be responsible for dressing ME for the first few years of my life. And here is where my third concern comes in. Remember that she has used a whole year's production of argentinan wool to make me strange sweaters? Now she has added a blanket to the collection. An ORANGE blanket!!! What effect will that have on my sleep in the future? She claims it is the colour of spirituality and that it will have good effect on me and my sleep. I don't know where she has that information from. Maybe she wants me to become a little buddah!!!
Or maybe she really should start eating chocolate again.......

Drug addicts...no Moxa!

Your pleads are not helping at all, my mum has been really strong-minded and has stayed away from sweets and other schifezze as if they were toxic. A part from a wonderful chocolate-cake and a chestnut-sausage she had when she went out for dinner on my parents anniversary she has stayed at large. But I'm sure she's gaining weight anyway, for I'm becoming bigger every day.
Anyway, this time I was not going to blog about my chocolate-deprivation but about the fact that I'm seriously worried about my parents.

I think they've become drug-addicts!!!!

You may think I'm crazy, but hear now. Every day my parents sneak into the garage and stay there for 15 minutes-half an hour. Only once they've been there early in the morning (but it was freezing cold so they gave up), sometimes in the afternoon, but most of the time it's late in the evening. Soon after they enter I start to smell something, I'm not sure what it is, but I think it might be some herbs they are burning -or smoking or whatever! They go on for some time, and don't stop even if I try to contest by kicking and turning and waving my arms (my movements even seem to amuse them..! That's which state they're in). I don't know what to do to stop them. Don't they know that drugs are a serious business, and when you are pregnant one should absolutely stay away from drugs, smoke and alcohol...they are much worse for the health of all the XY's and XX's (and any other combination of chromosomes) than chocolate! Someone has to give a serious lesson to my parents to get them to stop....

Hi, I'm XYs mother, and I'm afraid that even if this is XY's blogspot where he normally gets to say what he wants, I have to stop his writing and intervene at once. Not because he is revealing some secrets -me and his dad have NOT become drug addicts -but to explain what this is all about, to clear all doubts that he may have raised in your minds.
So for the facts, it is true that we go into the garage every day (not sneaking though), it is true that we are burning some herbs (not smoking it) and it is true that we are happy when it results in XY moving a lot...and that's the whole point!!! As XY still remains breech (or lying on the side when it pleases him...but he is never head-down) and although we know that many babies turn spontanelously before birth, we wanted to attempt whatever is possible to get him to turn. When the teacher at the pre-natal course suggested that we tried traditional chinese medicine we thought, why not (my chinese friends -an their newborn XY will be happy to know)! So we went to an acupuncturist that tought us to practice moxibustion. Moxa is the herb known as mugwort (Artemisia vulgaris). It is formed into a long stick that resembles a cigar when lit. The smouldering ends of the moxa-roll is held on either side of the acupuncture point ub67, located close to the nail point of each little toe. This is maintained for 15 minutes (switching foot when the toes become unbearably warm), once or twice a day. We were rather sceptical of this treatment, but the effect is incredible, XY starts to move soon after we start the treatment and continues for a long time afterwards. Still it hasn't resulted in him turning his head down, but we've only been doing this for some days...maybe it will work...or maybe there is something (short umbilical cord e.g.) that makes it difficult or impossible for him to turn. There is always the plan B -external cephalic version that we have booked just before christmas, or plan C -cesarean section, in case the moxa doesn't work...or if he doesn't just turn around by himself..!
You may be thinking, ok, that explains...but why the hell in the garage? Well, I invite you to burn a Moxa-roll for 15 minutes in a 35 square meter flat, once a day for several days. Even vacuum-packed food in the kitchen-closet will be smelling of moxa (as indeed is everything in the garage is by now!).
So rather than telling me to go on eating chocolate (and by the way..the last time I tasted Hersey's chocolate I SPIT IT OUT and threw the rest of the block...I only go for the good stuff you know) try to convince XY to turn....!

The food of the Gods

I’m going to be brief now, but I just thought of asking you to appeal to my mum not to stop eating chocolate! Remind her that chocolate is a girl’s best friend, and that it contains many healthy ingreadients that are important for an unborn baby! Last time my mum went to have a control, her doctor was about to faint (she’s a very sensitive lady) for the fact that my mum had put on too much weight the last month (3 kg). As my mum doesn’t have a scale at home, she had no idea, and was blissfully ignorant of the excessive weightgaining. She thought that it was only the belly that was growing, and not the fat-storages! The doctor interrogated my mum, asking if she had been indulging too much in chocolate, but my mum bluntly said “no way” and sustained that her consumption of the forbidden sweet had been very moderate lately. When my parents were out of the doctor’s office my dad (who had remained silent during the visit….with a smirky smile on his face) reminded my mum of

• the chocolate fondue that they’d had only few days earlier,
• the rest of the 500g chocolate block used for the fondue that had disappeared from the kitchen a few days later,
• the gianduia that they had got at Bologna and had disappeared very soon after,
• the Nesquick that finds it’s way into the milk that my mum drinks every afternoon to strenghten my bones….

and so he went on for some time (being an engineer, my dad is a very precise person), making my mum blush of shame...! In the end she realized that in fact, she might have gone slightly over the limits of what could be considered a healthy chocolate-intake lately. And as my mum has difficulty following moderate lines of chocolate intake, she decided to cut it out completely, at least until christmas (or until she makes the Sara Bernhard’s biscuits..whichever comes first). Last week, e.g. at the pregnancy-course, she was the only mum eating an apple during the coffee-break, whereas the other mum’s nibbled chocolate and sweet biscuits….! The only problem is that me, XY Sergioson, has grown to like that sweet taste of chocolate so much, and now that my mum no longer eats it, I miss it….! A lot! So please tell my mum to restart eating chocolate, or I will stay breech until the birth…!

One, two, breech...

Last week my mum went to have an ultrasound -the last of three that are scheduled in a normal pregnancy in Italy. It is called the “growth” ultrasound, because it mainly serves to check whether the belly-dweller is growing well (and I am…I’m following the normal growth-curve). Actually my parents were also looking forward to have a look at me, and in order to make them happy I decided to do something very special. At 32 weeks 85% of all belly-dwellers are turning their heads down and they keep hands and feet crossed, but that’s not original enough for me. Unfortunately I’m too big to be able to have my whole-body-ultraound-picture taken, so you’ll have to take my words for what I did.

Well, imagine someone, e.g. Alexandre Despatie that is going to do a simple reverse pike from a 3m springboard. He would start the dive with a normal forward approach where he swings his arms forward and over his head as he jumps on the board to gain extra momentum. Once of the board he lifts his legs up into the air until they point straight up, perpendicular to the water. He bends the waist and reaches forward to touch his toes with the fingertips. If you are following the sequence in your mind you will realize that his buttocks are now in the lowest point. What should follow now is that the diver should keep his legs extended upward while straightening his torso and point his head straight down toward the water, then swinging his arms with the whole body so they remain over the head and end up pointing toward the water before entering the water in a vertical position. But I want you to stop the image before, while the diver is bent over his legs with the buttocks as the lowest point, in what is called the reverse pike position. This position lasts only a fraction of a second, and it may seem very easy to do, but actually it takes years of practice to perfect and only the very best can do it flawlessly. I think it’s elegantly simple and beautiful -and for that reason this is the position I chose to show to my parents!
I looked rather graceful if I may say so myself (I even stretched out the toes for absolute perfection), but rather than hearing the cheering from my parents and the doctor, the first comment was: Ah..he’s in a breech position! Which means that I got the butt down! Well, how can you imitate a crucial moment of a gold winning diving performace and still keep your head down?

But there was no way they could concentrate on my skills and elegance, and the doctor even started talking about the necessity of a ceserean birth if I didn’t turn before the end of the pregnancy. Silly! My mum, my dad, well, everyone seemed to be a bit worried. Maybe they missed the fact that 2/3^rd of all belly-dwellers that are in a breech position at 32 weeks turn before the estimated due date.

Anyway, the next morning my mum went to her monthly appointment with the gynecologist and the midwife, both of which were equally worried about my breech position. One of the things that is normally done at these appointments is to measure my heart-beat. The midwife started looking with the probe for my heartbeat, but she couldn’t find it. After a few minutes of letting the probe slide on the gelly on my mum’s stomach she gave up, and the gyncologist took over. She pushed and moved, and added half a bottle of gel on my mum’s belly but nothing worked…they just didn’t manage to find my heartbeat. With a suspicious look on her face, the doctor started squeezing the skin on my mums belly between her fingers, checking if the underlying fat-layer had become so thick and solid that my heartbeat didn’t pass through! I don’t know which conclusion she came to, but at least she kept searching. I started kicking my mums belly from the inside trying to let them understand that they were actually looking for the heartbeat in the wrong place…something which took them more than 5 minutes to realize by themselves! Finally they found it…but not on the side of my mum’s belly where it was expected to be (based on the ultrasound the day before) but on the lower part of the belly, as I had actually turned during the night and was lying on the side, i.e. with the head to one side! Since then I have turned many times (indicating that there is still a lot of space for me to move). My mum realizes this both because she has the sensation that there is a centrifuge in her stomach when I turn, and also because she can feel the kicks on the left side of the belly one moment, then on the lower part of the belly, then on the right side, and so on. I still haven’t fixed myself with head down (why should I when it’s so much fun to turn around and well, there is still a lot of time left…isn't there?). Who knows if I will turn to the head-first position before day X! In case I don’t turn, my mum has booked a “external cephalic version” at the hospital some days before christmas! This means that the doctor (with the help of ultrasound) will intervene from the outside, turning me to the right position in order to try to avoid a cesarean birth! In addition, my mum is going to start to do all kinds of turn-the-baby-exercises to try to convince me to turn. But let’s see who is more stubborn in the end, me or my mum!

La pancia

I had promised you a new picture of my mum, and here it is. I’m 31 weeks old now, and although you cannot really see me, then you can see that I’m growing (compare this picture to the one in the blog from a few weeks back) -I’m the one pressing out my mum’s green t-shirt –and her belly! Maybe I should have put here also a picture of my dad’s belly to show you how in shape he is at the moment (running, swimming and doing abdominals has given him his youthful look back). The experts say that this is one of the paternal effects of expecting a baby-boy!! The dads start to keep in shape so that they can beat their sons in football..at least the first few years! But with my fantastic kick (read last blog) there is no doubt that no matter how much he trains I will be the one to beat the old one in football!

The pregnancy seems to be going quite well, at least my mum is very well, and next week when she has her medical controls and the last scheduled ultrasound, she will know if even me is as well. It’s only about 2 months now until the predicted date for my arrival –and if I’m anything like my dad I might even decide to arrive a month earlier than predicted, so there is not much time left. As you could see in the last blog then my parents have started to prepare for my arrival a little bit. They have not prepared a room for me -for if I was to have a room for myself then my parents would either have to sleep in the kitchen or in the garage, but they have bought the first few things that I need. In addition to the travel-trio they've also bought me a bed (and my mum has finished the 6^th sweater!!). They still need to buy a few more things, but these can be bought with calm in the next two months. Then they’ve started to try to imagine how it will be when I arrive, and what I’ll be like!

It’s difficult to predict my looks and character before I arrive (although there's a lot of speculations) -but people start to remind my parents to enjoy the last few months of calm before the thunderstorm (me!!) arrives…! and to enjoy the good night sleep before the onset of the period of sleepless nights. Obviously the second comment comes only from those who haven’t been pregnant, for although I’m not there to wake my parents up with crying and hunger in the night, there’s a lot of things that keep (particularly my mum) awake at night. I believe it’s one of the best kept secrets of pregnancy that the mum’s-to-be don’t get a good night sleep for months…for various reasons. I'll list here a few of the reasons for why my mum has not slept through a whole night since maybe june/july:

• The necessity to go to the bathroom at least once during the night -even if my mum tries not to drink anything for the last few hours before going to sleep it doesn't help...
  
• Leg cramps -now WHAT is that!! Why do pregnant women get cramps in the legs during night…and why not cramps somewhere else? My mum has found out that she mainly gets these cramps when she hasn’t been swimming or walking a lot during the day, but they don’t really make any sense! Sometimes the cramps are so painful that my mum shouts out, waking up my dad -and probably even the next-door neighbours!
  
• Difficulty to turn in bed. Now this is something that is gradually increasing during the pregnancy with the growing belly...my mum wakes up every time she needs to turn in bed
• Blocked nose! The formation of mucous increases during the pregnancy resulting in nose that is often blocked
• My movements...!
  
• Strange dreams! My mum has always had very vivid ad realistic dreams, but this has increased a lot during the pregnancy

This is not a conclusive list, there are other things as well, but it's enough that one of these things wakes up my mum and then she can stay awake even for hours, thinking about all kinds of things related to my arrival -we could call it a mid-night-meditation about XY Sergioson, or about work, or the future or whatever! But in the end she doesn't really mind...she takes it as a normal part of the pregnancy, and maybe as a training before I'll start waking her up with crying and hunger...! For once I'm around she will probably look back with nostalgia to these months of easy insomnia...!

Making a viking...!

Winter arrived to Pavia yesterday. Just like that! Until early evening there was a great autumn weather with 20 degrees and sunshine (and not even ONE mosquito around)…as it has been more or less for weeks now! As it was a holiday in Italy, my parents used the opportunity and went for a long walk in the Vernavola park in Pavia, much to my pleasure. Then came the evening and suddenly we had a strong wind blowing from the Siberian-plain (I think, or maybe it was blowing from Iceland)…! At least the temperature dropped dramatically in a short time and today is a fresh winter day. The weather is still beautiful -it’s even one of these days when you can see the Alps from Pavia- and my mum feels a bit like home! My parents just hope that it’s not going to be a typical Pavian winter, with fog and rain evey day. Especially not after I’m born, for my mum is planning to take me out for long walks in the equipment she and my dad just bought for me! Well, they actually bought me a trio (the one you can see on the picture), which is an all-in-one solution, a stroller, a car-seat (that can be attached to the frame and used as a stroller when I’m newborn, and it can even be used as a rocking-chair at home) and a carrycot (that can also be attached to the frame and used for transport while I'm tiny and as a crib for the first few weeks!). I don’t know if any of these items are going to be as comfortable as my current transport system, but at least I believe that I’ll be able to stretch a bit more than I can do now! My space has really started to be limited, and it happens that when I want to exercise, my kicks are so powerful that my mum can see her belly moving…! The other day I even lifted a heavy 400 page pregnancy-book that my mum was reading with my kick…!

Anyway, back to the long walks that my mum is planning to take me on after I’m born. Well, in Iceland, it’s a tradition to let the babies sleep outside from the time they are born, i.e. the babies are put in the carrier and left outside (on the balcony, in the garden or outside the front door if there are no other places available) where they sleep for an hour or so in the beginning, and then the time is gradually increased. It is not adviceble to sleep outsied if it’s more than -10°C cold, if there is a blowing wind and it’s snowing heavily, or if it is strikingly hot (in iceland THAT is rare), but in general this is the way icelandic babies pass their afternoons. My mum says that this is the way a viking is made! But here in Italy this is an unkown phenomenon (even my dad had never heard of such a thing and has a hard time believing it), and considering that the winters here are extremily humid, there is a lot more pollution compared to iceland, the summers are terribly hot, and baby-thefts occur once in a while, oh and not to mention the shocking effect it would have on people to know that my parents let me sleep outside –then my mum has abandoned the idea of letting me sleep outside –instead she is planning to take me out on long walks…! For she wants me to become at least a partial-viking if possible!

Knitting....

Vow, has there really passed so long time since my last blog? And how fast it has passed...!
I mainly blame my absence from the cyberworld on my mum who never finds time to write for me (it's difficult to manage a keyboard and, let's be honest, a computer, when you're still in your mum's womb!).
A part from still working as before, going swimming and walking with my dad and doing all the things that one has to do: cooking, cleaning, washing clothes, shopping..etc, the last month and a half my mum has filled her extra time with the good-housewife business of making sweaters for me. At the moment she is about to finish sweater number 6, and I must say that her production is worrying me quite a bit! And it's not because I don't like the idea of wearing home-made sweaters in this world of extreme focusing on designer-brands and fashion...!
The main reason is that my mum is improvising the knitting, the patterns, the style, and the size -with somewhat strange results at times!! One of the most peculiar things she has made is an acidgreen-fluorescentorange rice-grain-pattern sweater with accidental rugby-shoulders and a cap that would fit a monster-melone!! As regarding to the size of her products -either she is planning the way I'll be dressed for the next couple of years, or she hasn't got a clue as to which size I'll be once I'm out in the real world! The sweaters that she is making range from being so tiny that even my mum is thinking if she should buy me a small teddy-bear that could wear them, to being so big, that they might even fit my father!! There is absolutely no coherence, and I suspect that my mum suffers from an unknown geometrical syndrome that prohibits her from making things the correct size! I think it's time my mum finds herself a new hobby, something to take her mind of knitting before the disaster is complete! Maybe she should just start working on the editing of the 7 hours of videos that she took in Iceland last summer...now there is a job for the next few months for her!!!


Anyway, I'm 30 weeks old now, still growing (at an exponential rate if you ask my mum) and I'm pressing out my mum's belly as if it was made of elastic material. Soon there will be a new photo of her belly-balloon on this site.. but until then...have a great time

The keel...

As my mum's belly keeps growing, her centre of gravity is slowly moving to the belly! This is not yet a problem when she is walking (I say yet as it might get worse as me and the womb continue to grow), -but this change is particularly evident when my mum is swimming free-style in the pool. There the gravity sort of pulls her belly down, giving it a hanging shape (with the result that I feel that I'm floating in free air, which is fantastic). One might think that this causes resistance to her swimming so that she goes slower, or that her belly tends to pull her towards the bottom of the pool where she is forced to swim in apnea - causing the guards to throw themselves in the water trying to save her!!! But no such thing happens! In fact, after her last training in the pool, she was wondering if it was possible that the boat's keel was invented by a pregnant lady all those hundreds of years ago...!!! For, just as the keel gives the ship a greater directional control and stability in water, my mum's growing belly gives her stability and makes her resist to side rocking -she simply swims better! This sensation, added to the weightlessness that one feels in water, makes swimming extremely pleasant for my mum who, mind you, never really liked swimming free-style -but now she's enjoying it a lot!

Maybe my mum could become rich designing swimming costumes (for non-pregnant women), with a hydrodynamic keel* in the belly region!!!

*Orders will be taken on www.keelcostumes.it
once the patent has been obtained and the idea
sold to a big swimsuit-producer

The rising dough

One of the shocking but, in a strange way, pleasant effects of my existence is my mum's growing belly. My mum was getting quite used to having an invisible pregnancy (and a comfortable one too), when one day I decided that it was time to expand my space. Alot! In real-estate terms (for the belly is really my home now) it is like going from a rented room to a 3-room flat -with a balcony -although the sensation for me is that my room is just getting smaller all the time! Considering how much I can move around, I guess my room would be defined as small even in Tokyo-terms.

In less than 3 weeks my mum's belly has gone from normal, to definately pregnant! With the consequences that she has had to park all her old trousers as well as a big part of her shirts and T-shirts and invest in maternity clothes -expandable trousers and similar!
At the moment she feels more or less like a bread-dough. Maybe a like a slow-rising bread-dough that takes long time to start but once it begins to rise, it grows at an exponential rate! It almost seems that my mum's belly grows visibly every day and she has to get used to the new her when she comes home from work in the evening and sees herself in the mirror.
If my mum was the bread on this picture she would be more than half way to the conditions on the right. She's not yet ready to bake, but she's well on the way.

Anyway, I guess (!) that photos of bread don't really give the right idea of how my mum looks, so I thought of showing you a picture my dad took last saturday, when she was 25 weeks pregnant (and counting).
My mum has begun to apply various creams (using old supplies that she has of body-lotions and butters, almond-oil and what-not) on her belly in order to try to limit the formation of stretch-marks on the growing belly-although she's as always skeptical about the function of creams and thinks it's more up to genetics and luck whether the stretch-marks form or not. But after a colleague of her flashed her stretch-marked belly to her recently with the warning words :
be careful...this might happen to you!!!
she doesn't dare not to use a bit of creams...just in case!

Another suprising aspect about the last few weeks is what people think and say about my mum's growing belly!!!
In a world that is extremely focused on being skinny; where everyone seems to be in an eternal war against few extra kilos (even if these kilos are completely invisible to the rest of the world); where people view a second helping to a chocolate-cake as an extra centimeter around the waist-line; where showing off a chubby belly with a tight T-shirt is considered a fashion-crime; in a world where plus-size clothes (also called big woman's or generous size clothes etc.) are always designed to cover -not to show.....then it's really surprising to listen to comments about my mum's growing belly.
Che BELLA pancia...! (what a beautiful belly).
This is one of the most common comment that my mum gets -even said before the ciao or the bongiorno, confirming that people prefer talking directly to the belly and that my mum comes second to me. Some people are more geometrical in their commenting, describing the shape of the belly in mathematical terms adorned with selected superlatives.
If my mum wears a wide shirt one day, then people complain that she is hiding the belly, and demand that she puts on something tighter so that the belly can be worshipped in a proper way. As my mum is in the phase of outgrowing her wardrobe (and doesn't want to spend too much on maternity clothes), she tends to wear clothes that used to be comfortable, but now show well her growing belly, much to the pleasure of the people around her.
To my mum this is all quite surprising, but she has still about 3 months to get used to this...and truth to tell, I believe the situation will even get worse!

I want my child to be born in....

In light of what I wrote in the last blog, and in case some of you are thinking of having a baby soon -and contemporarily thinking of moving between countries, there is an interesting table in Wikipedia that compares maternity-leaves (or more correctly parental-leave) in various countries: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parental_leave


You might for example want to avoid India in case you already have two surviving children, or the USA, Australia or Papua New Guinea if you are planning to have any children at all!
If paternity-leave is what you are pointing at, then notice that the Seychelles offer four days of paid leave for "compassionate reasons", South Africa offers three days paid family responsibility leave to the father, whereas in Uganda you will have to be a Civil Servant to have the rights to three days paternity leave. In Myanmar they offer six days of "casual leave" that can be used by fathers to assist their spouses at the time of confinement
The winner however for both paternity and maternity leaves is Sweden, the real Utopia for parents to be (unless the new right-winged government starts making some radical changes).
So for those interested, here's a website with the current swedish immigration-legislation (in swedish...):
http://www.lagrummet.se/index.htm?pages/logo.htm&0

Ch-ch-ch-changes

If you had a memory that managed to go back to the time when you were in your mother's womb, maybe you would be able to recall moments when your mum was particularly sad, upset (yeah, that happens quite a few times, thanks to the hormone-coktail produced during pregnancy) or happy. I doubt that I will be different from the rest of you, but if I could remember something from my staying here, the memories of today would be filled with a pleasant nostalgia. My mother is so happy that I can almost feel how much lighter her steps are and how the happy-hormones that she is producing are affecting also my state of mind!

I feel lighter than in in the pseudo-weightlessness of the swimming-pool and sweeter than after my mum has eaten one of those delicious chocolates! I feel like inventing new movements to my amniotic rhumba!
The picture of me here on the side was taken some weeks ago, and you can see that I'm smiling! If my mum had had the chance to have another ultrasound today, I would have smiled even more to the camera :)

So what is the cause of all this you may ask?
There has been a (small) revolution in Italy!
The italian society is becoming more modern than it was only a couple of years ago and years of of my mum's (and her collegues) lamental have resulted to be based on wrong facts..or, better to say, while they were busy complaining, the law was changed and the basis for their complaining disappeared! What is strange is that the law was changed without anyone around my mum noticing -else they would have celebrated with spumante and some sweets, I guess. Maybe the state just didn't want people to know about the changes...!
Anyway, my mum is happy that the law was changed, and happy that she discovered the changes. So she's happy twice -if that's possible.
So what is this law? Well, in Italy, until very recently, only workers with permanent jobs had the rights to have maternity leave, while those, like my mum, that have renewable contracts had almost no rights at all, and therefore, no maternity leave! Simple...but not so fair. To make the situation clearer: those with permanent job, not only recieve a higher pay as compared to those with temporary contracts, but they also have a job that is almost life-time guaranteed and have all the possible benefits -whereas the low-payed temporary poverini like my mum had no benefits. Not even the rights to unemployment-benefits in case their temporary contract was not renewed one day! Huh...! I hope that when I grow up, things will have changed...alot!
But, when I came into the picture, my mum decided to check on internet if something had escaped her notice about the lack of maternity leave for people like her...and what-do-you-know. She found out that in 2004, the law was changed! Now, even the socalled CoCoCo -like my mum, have the rights to 5 months maternity leave. She found this out already some months ago, but yesterday she went to the institute where they handle these things to confirm what she had found on internet, and to present her own case...and it appears to be right!!!! Yabbadabbadoooo...!
My mum has chosen to be careful, and celebrate only when she has the check in her hand (that way she can celebrate with me also, for you can only ask for the maternity-payment after the child is born), but the fact that this really seems to be true makes her infinately happy. Of course it's not the same as the 44 weeks+10 weeks maternity +paternity leave that one of her best friends (who is also expecting a small viking) is getting in Norway, but compared to nothing, it's a victory !!!

What is it?

If there is one question that my parents get asked more frequently than any other then it's:
So...what is it...?
Before being able to give a precise answer to that question, my mother (who has the tendency to be a bit too sarcastic) thought of answering :
Well, it's actually a panda!
...or some other animal that she could think of in that moment! But then she thought better of it and just said as it was, that they still didn't know my gender!

Quite often another question followed:
But ...which do you prefer?
Prefer? She thought of reminding people of the fact that we are talking about a baby here, not the taste of an icecream or the colour of the living-room! The preferences of my parents are perfectly described on the cartoon here on the side: they just hoped (and still do) that I'm healthy!

When my parents finally knew that I was a boy, they could start to respond to the (first) question. My mum would proudly pat her growing belly and announce:
It's a boy!
But she would never have guessed the effect the answer had. There were big smiles, applauses, and cheering and people would shout out:
ma che bello.....!
My mother was a bit puzzled and started wondering what this cheering and applausing was all about. In her mind there were really only two possible answers to this question and both of them would have been just as fantastic for her! Was there something that she didn't understand? Could it be that expecting a boy was something to be cheered more than expecting a girl? Or would the reactions have been exactly the same if I had been a girl? And then, why the cheering?
My mum started suspecting that those cheering the most had cashed a fortune on betting on my gender (in which case I will ask a generous percentage in due time). Or was it possible that people were actually fearing that there were other unexpected answers to the question what is it? such as
well, it's a Panda
or
eh...hm...eh...actually it was only a question of gas in my intestines!

But then in the end she just concluded that people were happy to know that my gender was finally known to the world so they could move on to start another game, not less exciting! A game that probably will last until january next year! The have-you-decided-a-name? game ...and now here we have a game that has got MANY possible results....

Anatomy lesson

One of the strange and unsuspected things about my existence is that it has become a lightning-lesson in anatomy for my mother! We could call it a nine-month intensive course in

knowing-your-bodyparts-and-how-to-name-and-live-with-them !

It's a learn-by-experience course, where I lead the lessons by my growth and movements. Every day becomes like the hunt for the hidden anatomical treasures of my mum's body...or more correctly, these hidden anatomical treasures come seraching for her...much to her amusement! Some of the lessons can even be a little bit painful so even if my mum is quite a curious person, she doesn't always appreciate them.


One of the simplests lessons so far was the learn-to-live-with-a-small-bladder.
When my parents were getting to know eachother many years ago in London, my father used to tease my mother saying that her small bladder had forced her to make a mental map of all the public toilets in the Great-London area.... and of the pubs and restaurants where the staff was friendly enough (or distracted enough as it might happen) to let a tourist go to the bathroom without buying anything! Well and of big stores such as Mark's and Spencers where one could go for a pee between trying on clothes and choosing the kitchenware or testing the cosmetics. My mum even thought of turning a joke into profit by writing a guide book for women in her situation. The book would have been called: Peeing in London! Where beside describing where it was easy to go for a pee, there would have been a guide to the cleanliness of each place along with information on the availability and quality of the toiletpaper! I imagine that it would have been a bestseller, and soon guidebooks to other cities would have followed!!! Can't you picture the series lying between the lonely planet guides and phrasebooks and restaurant-guides in the bookstores? And don't you agree that it would be extremely useful if there was a sticker in the pub-window declaring:











In other words my mum's bladder, compared to that of my father at least, is fairly small and, during the pregnancy, living with the bladder has become even more difficult! The number of trips to the toilet as well as the urgency of each trip have increased exponentially in the last few months. My mum has also become an expert in finding the way to the bathroom during the night without turning any lights on. Just as good that my parents' flat is as tiny as my mum's bladder! As strange as it may sound, it can also happen that my mum really really has to go to the bathroom, but then she manages only to pee a few drops! Then five minutes later she has to go again! This is ok if you are at home, but more difficult when you are, say, downtown. It sort of gives a new dimension to pubcrawling ! This peculiarity happens because sometimes when I'm stretching or doing some acrobatic exercises, I press on her urinary tract -rather than the bladder itself (or, better, both at the same time), making it impossible for my mum to pee, no matter how much she needs to go! But now she has found out that by shaking her belly, much like a bellydancer, she can relief this pressure and pee like normal! So I need to find new anatomic lessons for her!

One of the most fruitful lessons for my mum so far have been the ones on the nervous system. Until I came into existence, my mum had, what we can call, a simple relationship with her nerves! You know, cut your finger -> it hurts; pass a restaurant -> you can tell what's one todays menu; you see amosquito pass -> raise your hand to hit it -that sort of things. But now it has become clear to her that the nerves can also be stimulated "from the inside".

For example, between weeks 17-21 I pressed her sciatic nerve. Not too much, because I wouldn't want my mum to suffer, but enough that she had a shooting pain in the lower back -particularly when she was walking on asphalt. She managed to ignore it most of the time, and luckily the pain didn't lead down to her feet. Then me and the placenta moved a bit in the tight space that we have, relieved the pressure on the sciatic nerve, but instead caused a brief attack of Pubalgia. Nothing serious though -it lasted only a couple of hours, but my mum was not happy! Now she stands up with great care (rather than jumping up as she is used to) to prevent that the pain comes back, and what is worse: she is no longer allowed by the principal bellyguard (my dad) to do breaststroke, but has to swim free-style, which she doesn't like so much -but I love it! After causing the pubalgia I moved on to let my mother know that she has something that is called lateral femoral cutaneous nerve! Now if she is standing for a long time she gets a strange feeling of numbness in the right thigh, a phenomena called Meralgia Paresthetica. Again nothing serious, it will go as soon as I relief the pressure, but it's a message from me to her, that I like much more when she moves around rather than standing still!
So far I haven't played with other nerves, but wouldn't it be fun if I could reach a bit further into her body to touch other nerves, or if I could play her spinal cord like a guitar to see which effect it has on her? Let's see what I can manage in these last 4 months of the pregnancy

No human experiments -please

I consider my present home as a kind of a laboratory, since I am constantly trying new things: kicking, touching, sucking my thumb, drinking, doing breathing-exercises, listening and so on. I do it mainly to pass time, but I overheard my parents the other day (now that my hearing is more or less fully developed) saying that this also stimulates the growth and development of my nerves. But I also go to the laboratory with my mother every day , where she is trying to understand which types of stress can provoke the expression of certain heterochromatin regions. Whatever that is!

But I have my doubts that a real laboratory is a safe place for a young fetus! Of course my mother does her best not to risk my health in the lab: she has not worked with radioactivity since she got pregnant, she uses a facemask even to weigh harmless chemicals, she has worked herself through a mountain of gloves in the past few months and she has stopped filling and carrying around the 25-liter water-tank that she has in the lab -to take some examples! But there are many hidden risks in a laboratory, but luckily there are many people that have voluntarily offered themselves to become some sort of bellyguards for my mother and every time she is about to carry out a dubious task in the lab the bellyguards do their best to stop her -to safeguard me. This is something for which I’m extremely thankful, for it happens to best people to forget themselves in their daily work routine. I, for an example, can get completely caught up in sucking my thumb and dancing the amniotic rumba...!

The other day my mum had to use a sonicator –an instrument made of a metal-probe that transmits ultrasound at a high frequency. It looks something like the one on the picture. When the probe is immersed in a small tube with cells or membranes in it, it will break them up in small pieces. It can even break up the DNA inside the cells! I can't understand why this didn't arise a LOUD alarm in my mother's mind, but she didn't think twice about it and prepared to use it to fluidify some samples for western blotting –imagining that the ultrasound waves would not be transmitted more than a couple of centimeters! But the bellyguards stopped her off. They told her of a girl that used to work in the institute that had used the equipment during pregnancy and noticed that the baby reacted by turning in the belly like an olympic champion of ice-dancing doing breathtaking multi-rotation turns at the end of a gold-winning performance (now that is something I wouldn't mind trying...!). This information raised my mum's curiosity, who started looking for contraindications for the use of sonicators during pregnancy, on internet. As she found none, she decided to contact the producers of such instruments and ask if it was safe for her to use it while carrying me in her belly. Well, here is what they answered:

Dear Dr. Valgardsdottir:

I cannot offer any information. Our equipment is NOT for use on human bodies.
It is only for labartory work.

Regards,

Stanley Goldberg
GLEN MILLS INC.

Well, I’m infinately glad this kind person cleared that doubt, for who knows what my mum might have been up to in case he hadn’t responded so unmistakably! And I can only imagine the terror that this affair raised in Mr. Stanley Goldberg's mind!!! Did you notice that he signed the letter only with "Regards" and not "Best regards" ? He was probably already contacting Interpol at the time that he wrote the email and if my mother hadn't sent him another email immediately to clear the misunderstanding, maybe she would have found herself in some hidden prison on a desert island in a far away ocean, having to answer to much more difficult answers than those regarding her pregnancy!

Anyway, my mum hasn't used the sonicator again and she thinks twice before using any other instrument of the lab -well and also before contacting the responsables of the producers of the equipment, for those seem to have a far too lively imagination -but are rather bad at spelling!

Introducing myself

Ciao
My temporary name -until my parents agree on something more suitable- is XY Sergioson Polselli. I'm an Italo-Vichingo, living in Pavia Italy, and I've been around for little more than 22 weeks by now. People have just started noticing my existence (which explains why even strangers cast an x-ray look upon my mother's belly when they see her), although many have known about me for 10 weeks or so. The notice of my existence coincides with the moment when my mother stopped existing as an individual and became my shelter, my carer and my supply for food and oxygen. I'll come back to that later. First I'll talk a bit about me...for after all, that's what this blog is all about!
As I've kept silent for such a long time, I've got so many things to tell you that I don't know where to begin. Maybe I'll start with a photo so you can get to know me:
You can see one of my earliest photos here on the side. It was taken when I was 6 cm long (head-to-butt) and looked more or less like any other fetus of my age. On the photo you can see that I still had a lot of space to move and exercise. In those good old days I enjoyed turning and dancing and waving my arms around. My mother sensed it as "butterflies" in the stomach when she was lying down and concentrating on the belly. Now I've more than trippled in size, but the space hasn't grown adequately, so now my movements are more restricted and I'm constantly touching the inner walls of my present home. My mother seems to be extremely happy about it (and also my father, who holds his hands over my mother's belly hours on end, waiting eagerly for me to kickbox her uterine from the inside) -but she doesn't know what is to come. My likes are known to late-night partying in the last trimester, so there will be more to keep her awake than the constant urge to urinate or the blocked nose! I will update you on this when the time comes!

As I keep growing, my mum's belly grows as well. For the first 20 weeks it was impossible for people outside my mother's body to notice that I was around. Those who knew that she was carrying me, examined my mother's belly disappointedly day after day and some even tended to touch her belly as if to look for a hidden growth on her abdomen. But there was no pregnancy visible -or touchable for a long time, only the sensation that she was putting on a little weight. My mum kept using her old clothes, and as she always runs the three flights of stairs at work (something that maybe she shouldn't be doing anymore) there were rumours of a phantom-pregnancy.
But for the last two weeks her belly has started a pizza-dough-like growth, and has in short time outgrown a large majority of her trousers. She has had to go with my father to a specialized shop to buy elastic trousers and other "comfortable" things to accomodate me and her expanding belly. All this growth also means that the pregnancy has become far more visible, although still descrete - much to the satisfaction of all the aunts at work, who eagerly follow every detail of the pregnancy. As a consequence of the growth, people have started addressing my mum's belly directly when they talk to her -taking her non-existence as an individual person a step further. When people meet her, they fix her belly and say
"How are you?".
Maybe the expect the belly to speek up, but as I still am not able to communicate directly, my mum has to answer for me
"We're fine"
she says -for that's what we are most of the time. Then people go on questioning how old I am (in weeks and days), how big I am (initially from head-to butt, but more recently it's the femur lenght and estimated weight that are of more interest), if there are any recent photos of me, when they will be able to see me in person, if I have a name, what is my sex, and so on. Some people have even assigned themselves as some kind of belly-guards, taking all measures to give me an extra protection, as if my mother was an irresponsible person that kept awake during the night trying to find out new ways to give herself problems during the pregnancy. There is a constant flood of advices from all directions, spanning everything from do's and don'ts to genetical councelling, all based on the human history of experience and problems during pregnancy.
But my mother doesn't seem to care too much about all this and happily gives answers to all questions asked and accepts any advice or order from the belly-guard volenteers. But I suspect that she has her own method to filter the information and the advices. She has always been a bit stubborn and independent.

I thought of telling you a bit about the earlier days in my life. For even if some of you have seen my parents (and maybe even the growing belly) recently, not all of you have, and maybe for some of you, this blog is the first knowledge you have of my existence!
My parents are the etruscan Sergio Polselli from Arezzo Italy and the viking Rut Valgardsdottir from Akureyri, Iceland. My mother is a biologists, and she tells me that this mix will mean that whereas my Y-chromosome is of italian origin, my mitochondrial DNA is of icelandic origin and the rest of my DNA is a mix of the two. My parents are not the only ones wondering what will come out of such a cocktail -there are many theories, but you will have to wait until the end of the year or the beginning of the next to know the real results.
My parents got married last year (you can see their photo here on the side) and already then they had been hoping for some time that I would be created. When finally my mother got a positive pregnancy test, early one morning in May, she didn't know whether to laugh or to cry! She opted for a mix of both, and not being able to express herself in any human language known to her, she completely confused my father that had to try to decifre her body language and the emotional mumble that she managed to communicate to him. But he is very good at the decifring business, and when my mother had calmed down they just sat embracing eachother in a happy blizz for what seemed eternity. They still haven't got rid of the smile that materialized on their face that morning.

For more than a month my parents kept me a secret, which was not an easy task, and didn't reveal my exisitence to the world (except to my doctor and midwife) until they had seen me in the first ultrasound by the end of June.
This first ultrasound was quite emotional for my parents. I was only 6 cm long, but was already moving alot around, turning and kicking and waving my hands as if I was trying to fly, putting on a little show for my parents. 10 days later they had another opportunity to see me, as there was another ultrasound, this time to measure the transnuchal lucency which hadn't been done the first time. This time the vision was no less emotional for my parents, and as they got the whole show that I put on, on a video-casette, they have had the chance to revisit the show many times since. Here is how I looked in 3D on this second ultrasound. I look a little bit like an alien, but you can see that I know how to dance an amniotic-rumba with style!

So far my existence has been easy for my parents. I didn't cause any nausea at all in the first trimester, and the only food that my mother couldn't eat in the beginning were pizzas, but that has long since passed. There haven't been any cravings so far, although my mother (la furba), sometimes pretends that she really really needs some chocolate/icecream/french fries or whatever she would like to have that moment, just so as to pass the control-point that my father has for her for the intake of such food.

As -so far- I take little space, my mother almost forgets that I'm there from time to time. In the very beginning of the pregnancy my mother felt a bit tired, but since then, she has felt more energetic she has for years, suprising even herself. She frequently goes swimming with my father, which for me is fantastic -probably resembles flying free in space, for those of you that have tried. It was also a good way for both of us to cool a bit down during the warmest period of the summer -when the mercury column reached 40°C and even the mosquitos didn't bother to flap their wings.
As my parents decided not to do the amniocentesi (as my TN-measure was so good, although that doesn't exclude anything), they didn't know if I was a he or a she until the 20 weeks-ultrasound, where I revealed my gender to them in an explicit way.
I'm a boy!!!
Now my parents are starting the looking-for-a-name journey, which is not so easy when the one to be named is an italo-viking! Until they have found me a name, I will call myself XY Sergioson Polselli.