Boky’s Moving!

Mommy D and I were watching an old movie last night (Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade) when Boky moved very perceptively inside her, utterly surprising Mommy D who initially felt that there was some alien species invading her very own flesh and eating her from within.

She actually felt scared and very uncomfortable. Worse was that Boky kept moving for the next 5 to 10 minutes and all that Mommy D could do was lie on her side, with her head snug on my shoulder (nyaks!), hoping that Boky would tire himself/herself out and keep still.

With Boky moving, and now at 18 weeks of gestation, the reality of fatherhood has come much earlier than I had expected. Fatherhood actually doesn’t begin the moment the child is born, but even while he’s still snug in the womb. It feels like it’s such an awesome (yet, hopefully, manageable) responsibility.

That’s what Mommy D and I have talked about many times. Life is a matter of trade-offs. You can’t have your cake and eat it, too. A child – any child – will always bring hope and light to any couple, but it also brings with it responsibility – not only in terms of giving it food to eat but also a secure future – in other words, teaching him/her how to fish.

Now, going back to Boky’s movements, here’s what the literature says:

“Fetal movements can usually be felt around 18-20 weeks. Sometimes these can be uncomfortable as the baby signals to you from within. Some babies suffer from the hiccups too!” (Robertson: Preparing for Birth, 1989)

Another source says:

As your baby grows, movements become stronger and occur quite often. Between 20 and 32 weeks of pregnancy, the fetus can move between 200 and 500 times a day, including kicking, rolling or wiggling. (Curtis: Your Pregnancy (Every Woman’s Guide, 1999))

All these movements tell us one thing: Boky is alive and literally kicking, and Mommy D and I can’t wait to see him/her in the flesh.

Daddy B at Yanaka, Tokyo

Daddy B eagerly looks forward to Boky taking the seat beside him.

(Photo by Mommy D)

Phases

From the outside, there doesn’t seem to be any changes, especially during the first trimester of pregnancy. It’s what’s boiling and bubbling inside that causes all the stir.

Blame it all on those chemical substances that produce remarkable changes at very minute concentrations. They’re called hormones, and the more you fight them, the harder they fight back. And there’s no way of winning. (Don’t even think about it.)

The so-called “morning sickness” is something that Mommy D and I never got used to and probably never will. It hit hard from around the 8th or 9th week of pregnancy and lasted until the 13th or 14th. What’s peculiar is that Mommy D’s bout with the raging hormones came not in the morning but at around 7 or 8 pm, or just after dinner.

She would just be immobilized in bed, occasionally running to the sink to vomit but with nothing coming out except saliva. She would describe to me the pain in vivid detail but it was always difficult to picture out, as if it were abstract algebra or topology. I would sometimes ask her if there’s anything I can do to help or to alleviate the pain but she would always say there’s none. What I know, however, is that all women go through this phase at this stage of pregnancy, and there’s really nothing I can do about it (except genetic engineering, hehe).

It was also at this time that her sense of smell bordered on superhuman. She could smell me like a fox from a mile away (hehe…of course, I’m exaggerating). What’s worse is that she hated my smell, even if I had just left the shower a few minutes earlier. She even hated my breath even if I had just brushed my teeth or gargled. It was at this time when I developed a liking for Lotte’s “Cool Shock”, which is some kind of film that you melt in your tongue to instantly give you that “I just brushed my teeth” feeling.

Thank goodness, those superhuman qualities are gone now. And though they may seem abnormal at that time, they were actually very normal. I always tell myself that they are part of the trade-offs that one has to face if one wants to have baby Boky (apart from stopping myself from buying more camera equipment, hehe). We had no choice but to take these matters in stride and with an oversupply of humor.

The morning sickness, the lethargy, the emotional swings: they are just phases that expectant mothers go through during the first trimester. Now that she’s on her 17th week, those phases are over….until, of course, the next pregnancy.

(Hehe…I hope she’s not listening…)

Not an Accident

Just to set things straight ab initio: Boky is not, repeat, not an accident.

Mommy D and I had been planning Boky since last year. In fact, Mommy D had visited a specialist to consult specifically on this since previous attempts had been unsuccessful. Per the doctor’s advice, she measured her temperature each morning after waking up to determine day-to-day fluctuations. (A woman’s body temperature increases just before ovulation.) After plotting two months worth of data, we found that she ovulates at roughly around the 15th or 16th of every month. That made things easier.

Next question: Is Boky most likely male or most likely female? Here’s what the literature says. “Timing of the intercourse is very important. The closer to ovulation you have sex, the greater the chances of having a boy. This is because the Y sperms are faster and get to the egg first. So having sex a day before and up to a day after ovulation is a good time to conceive a boy. Having sex much earlier, say three days or more before ovulation favors a girl since the weaker Y sperms tend to die sooner and allow the stronger X sperms to be available in a bigger quantity when the egg is released.”

Note that this is just one factor out of three. The rest are not related to the data of Mommy D’s temperature fluctuations. (If you’re interested in the other two factors, drop me a line.)

Thus, on the basis of all these, is Boky male or female? That’s our secret and that’s something that you have to guess.

The December delivery is also not an accident. It was planned --- deliberately. Unknown to many, Mommy D and I have the same zodiac sign. That further denotes that our personalities are relatively the same; thus, how we react and how we deal with situations are predictable to both of us.

Boky will also be a Sagittarian, hopefully. And hopefully, with three Sagittarians in the same family, life will be less unpredictable.

Hopefully…

Why Boky?

Why Boky? And who's Boky? Boky is a gift, God's gift.

At 16 weeks inside my wife's "tummy", I cannot say with absolute certainty if it is a he or a she. Mommy D and I have always referred to our unborn child as either "Boknoy" or "Boknay" depending on whether we're thinking of it as either male or female, respectively. Thus,the name Boky was chosen as a genderless representation of this miracle growing inside her, ready to greet us come December 2004.

Indeed, no Christmas gift can be more apt or welcome.

To all my dear family, friends and readers, join me as I chronicle Boky's Adventures on these pages. Rest assured, it will be a fun-filled adventure that will be yours as much as ours. And Boky's as well!