Yet another Bridget Jones moment

Hong Kong has got to be the only place I have ever lived where, when something is to be delivered to your home, you don't get a 12 hour delivery bracket but a two hour one, and the delivery guy actually calls you 30 minutes before arriving to make sure you are at home. You can go about your normal business and just pop back for the exact time the delivery arrives.

Or when your internet provider contract runs out, instead of just continuing to charge you until you cancel, someone comes to your home to inform you that you will now be paying less money each month...

Last night, just such as thing happened. As we were quietly watching Into the Wild, waiting for our supermarket delivery to arrive with the goodies for our early Xmas feast tomorrow night, there was a knock on the door and Krusty opened to find a representative from our cable/internet company, here with the good news about our fee going down.

And then began the most surreal evening of our lives.

At this point I should warn you that I am about to embarrass myself immensely by telling the story of what happened, but it's not like I have ever shied away from looking ridiculous on this blog. And since I found out that I only have about four readers anyway, the damage won't be too extensive...

Anyway, as the cable guy was taking quite a long time to explain and update our contract, I decided to get a head start on the cranberry sauce. That's the beauty of having an open kitchen.

As Krusty was waiting for the guy to fill in the necessary papers, he asked how the sauce was going, to which I replied "you know, I don't think I'll ever be able to cook on with electricity again, gas is awesome."

At this instant, my unborn child, who has turned my entire body into a gas machine, decided, without warning, to make me produce a very audible fart, right in front of the cable guy. That's right, after saying "gas is awesome" I managed to provide my audience with gassy bodily proof. I was mortified.

Not sure whether the guy had heard me, I ducked into the bathroom, half crying with laughter, at which point the guy asked Krusty if he had said something wrong.

I finally got over my shame and came back, at which point the door knocked again. There stood a very sweaty man, carrying the dozens of bottles of water that I had ordered. "Next time, only order half as much please," he panted. At this point, I started to think I might be in a dream.

The cable guy had almost finished, but of course now he started trying to sell us more channels. It was too late though, Krusty had already stuck his hand up the bottom of the turkey on the counter to extract the giblets in time for the stuffing. At 11pm on a Thursday night, our cable guy was negotiating with a man who had his hand inside a turkey while the supermarket delivery man continued to curse us for ordering so much water.

Then of course, as Krusty washed his hands, he realised that the shopping had come with a stack of dry ice, and so as he rinsed his fingers the sink filled with a mysterious smoke that awakened the childish scientist within.

We ended the conversation with the cable guy with me licking cranberry sauce off my fingers and Krusty holding a cup of smoking dry ice as he waved with a stupid grin on his face.

I'm guessing this particular cable guy might not come back at the end of the next contract!

(On a separate note, I think that the protagonist of Into the Wild was a selfish, ignorant idiot who did much more harm than good, and he really shouldn't be glorified in any way. Not only did he close the door on every single person who ever tried to love him, but he destroyed his life and that of his parents for no apparently justifiable reason. Just because you can quote Tolstoy, doesn't mean you're intelligent. I don't know what I'll do if I end up with a son who does the same thing. I might literally follow him into the woods and feed him poisonous berries myself...)

World of pain

Any girl who receives a coupon for a free eyebrow wax just because she is a member of the press should feel pretty lucky, and so I righteously did last week, when said freebie appeared out of nowhere.

This feeling of joy occurred, however, before I had ever had an actual eyebrow wax.

All giddiness swiftly disappeared when the first strip of hot wax was ripped from my forehead. I squealed as the beautician giggled, saying "First time?" Why, oh why do women submit themselves to this torture?!

The nice lady asked me to close my eyes as she continued (I was probably scaring her with my look of wide-eyed shock) and soon the pain and throbbing starting acting like a drug, making the room start spinning in my head. Daft Punk's Around the world came on the radio, and I sat trying not to spin away from the dominatrix's tweezers as my own world of pain went on.

And then of course I had to go back to the office and pretend nothing had happened as my colleagues pointed at my red, swollen forehead.

I'll keep the next coupon for my worst enemy.

Toys

I thought I had seen Krusty get excited before (we did get married only a few months ago, after all), but nothing could have prepared me for the 48 hours of woo-hooing and jumping up and down that our brand new kitchen appliances could have caused.

After the DIY extravaganza, now the festival of kitchen toys... My, my how we have changed. Is this what is called growing up?

Krusty Does-It-Himself

Now that we have decided to stay in our current flat, Krusty declared that we need a dishwasher, because doing the dishes made him very unhappy. He's only really ever done the dishes once or twice (and don't we remember about those times...) but who am I to say no?!

Of course getting said dishwasher entailed plumbing it in, and although I wanted to get a contractor to help, Krusty insisted on doing it himself. He actually seemed quite excited by the whole thing, and I think he saw it as a way of asserting his masculinity a bit and proving that even if I do have his balls in a box (as he likes to say), he is more than capable of claiming them back from me.

And so he got some pipe and a saw, and got down to work with a lot of "I know what I'm doing"s. Those transformed after a while into some not so reassuring groans, followed by "Ah, I know what the problem is". There is a problem? No, no, no; saw, saw, saw.

"Oh no, that was a mistake" came the follow-up. I was determined to stay zen. "Maybe the sink will be out of order for a while..." Oh really?

Ensued a series of "I just need to glue it" and "Oh what if I melt it?" swiftly joined by "it's that Cantonese man in the shop's fault" and "there's nothing on the market that fits".

Followed by dinner. By this point, I was actually rather enjoying the show. I have a bit of a cold at the moment, so I didn't have much energy for anything apart from watching Krusty at work, and remembering why I and some of our friends call him MacGyver.

"I'm working out some solutions" he said after dinner. "I'm just going to recreate everything". And so he did. Armed with some gasket, bbq gloves and a chicken madras, Krusty solved all of our problems, and sent me back down memory lane to London, when I woke up to find him doing some major drilling work in his dressing gown.

And then I had one of the those moments where you realise that you are witnessing a future memory. A life with Krusty is full of those moments. And no DIY job is small enough not to be entertaining...

Parenting without a pushchair

Winter has arrived almost overnight in Hong Kong. A few days ago we were walking through the streets in shorts and T-shirts, and today I am still shivering under my three layers of cashmere. It's not that cold in terms of temperature (18 degrees) but in contrast to what we are used to, it might as well be the ice age.

This drop in degrees, coupled with the flu vaccine I received on Saturday, is not making me want to leave the house much. I have to force myself to go to work, but if it were up to me, I would spend my days curled up under a couple of layers of blankets at home instead.

Our little tigger seems similarly lazy – actually the word that the doctor used is "uncooperative". We went on Saturday to get its nuchal translucency measured, something which apparently can determine the risk of Down syndrome, but the little nausea-inducing vegetarian was not willing to assume the correct position, instead choosing to curl up even further each time the doctor poked and prodded it. We're back tomorrow for round two in Determined Dr vs Stubborn Sprog.

In the meantime, the flat hunt continues, and in our search we might just have found the ideal abode - otherwise known as the place we are living in right now. Our landlord has offered an extension of 25% in size for only a tiny bit more money each month, so we'd have the biggest flat among the people we know, with the smallest rent to boot, which is saying something in this ridiculous real-estate mad city. Staying put comes with plenty of inconveniences of course, but then doesn't every flat?

We hashed it all out yesterday night (distracted mid-conversation by a Trivial Pursuit-off provoked by Krusty declaring that I was useless in every topic bar literature - I won) and came to the conclusion that the only actual drawback in our current flat were the stairs leading up to the lift.

Now this is a major drawback, I admit, but after extensive research, it seems doable. In fact according to numerous testimonials online, there are many, many mums climbing the same amount and many more stairs than I will be. Not to mention that climbing a few stairs each day is a recommended exercise for pregnant ladies to keep fit.

We first thought about getting a lightweight, foldable buggy which I would carry down the stairs while bub was in a Baby Bjorn-style carrier. Doable, but tiring on the old arms. Then we thought about getting a high tech buggy with wheels specially designed for stairs (yes, this exists - über-trendy Stokke has come up with an amazing buggy design, 2 of the 4 wheels of which retract at the click of a button to allow easy transit up stairs, over sand and in snow...) but that costs a small fortune (literally a month's rent).

Then I went to Mothercare, initially to test run the Stokke converter buggy. As I was practising going up and down the "stairs" of the display in store, a mum walked past with a tiny bub in a Baby Bjorn. Then another. Why weren't these ladies pushing prams? I asked one, and she unequivocally answered in favour of the baby carrier, saying that she didn't have stairs in her building, but that Hong Kong was such a stair-crammed, pushchair-unfriendly place that she found this solution the best and most adapted to her lifestyle. The second mum agreed, saying she had a pushchair, but only used it on longer excursions with her husband on the weekend, preferring the hands-free practicality of carrying bub around close to her body.

And then, as if on cue, a third mum chimed in, saying that I should look around next time I was in the street - most mums opted for the baby carrier option in Hong Kong on weekdays. For shortish, city-based activities, she was convinced it was the only way to go.

Anyway, all this to say that I spent a lot of time chatting with these ladies, and they all agreed that 2 x 15 steps to get home was very far from an obstacle to having a baby. And they added that they had lost weight much faster by carrying their babies this way! I'm tempted to agree with the mums who live here and have been through the whole process.

Speaking of Trivial Pursuit, did you know that should our progeny be a little boy (which, let's face it, its annoying behaviour seems to point towards), its testosterone is currently at the same levels as those of a 12-year-old tween. Thankfully they will drop by a fifth by birth, but still...

Testy

I have been way more tired than usual these last few days, probably from lack of sleep because of the weirdest dreams I have ever had.

In fact last night I dreamed that I was a man - does this mean that it's a boy? Krusty reckons so...

Fun facts for foreign families

The best thing about living abroad is that you get to interact on a daily basis with people who have a completely different culture and be surprised each time you learn about their rules and superstitions, which you wouldn't have thought up in your wildest dreams.

For example, in Hong Kong, working in an office full of local people, I now get to learn a new thing every day about the rules of pregnancy.

First I was told that for the first three months I should be laying down at all times, and that I should never leave the house. Strangely my boss did not agree. Then, as I mentioned to everyone our plan to move, I was told that this was really bad luck during pregnancy, and that we should wait until after the arrival of the baby. Finally I was told to avoid using a hammer and eating watermelon, or another other "cold" fruit. It's fascinating!

Of course this led me to ask more questions about what I could and could not do; here are a few choice tidbits for your cultural pleasure:

- Pregnant women should be as happy as possible at all times, as each of their emotions is passed on to the baby. Others should cater to their every whim – you can imagine how much I agree with this, although I am getting a bit tired of people in the office insisting to help me downstairs with my handbag.... I'm not handicapped!

- Light-coloured food will make your baby fair-skinned, and foods such as dark soy sauce will lead to darker skin – I'm pretty sure that with my disposition to sunburn and Krusty's Northern Irish origins, I could eat only dark chocolate for 9 months and still get a bub as white as snow...

- Absolutely no renovation work should be carried out around the house, no matter how minor, as anything that involves drilling, hammering, chopping, sawing etc could lead to miscarriage or deformities – I am a bit worried about this one, since we have a few changes planned for the flat if we stay...

- Pregnant women should place a knife under their bed to ward off evil spirits – hmmmm

- Don't use glue as it results in difficult labour – depends how you're using it I guess!

- Don't utter any swear words while pregnant, as your baby could get cursed – oops!

- Don't rub your bump if you don't want a spoiled child – but that's the best bit about having a giant bulge full of life!

Needless to say that there are many, many more. Which I will follow, I don't yet know...

Thump thump thump

Giving birth in Hong Kong is all a question of status – as is everything else. On one hand there are the wealthy families and lucky expats who can afford private hospitalisation, and then there is the rest of the population, who roam the corridors of the city's quality public hospitals.

Being a member of the latter, yesterday I made my way back to Tsan Yuk Hospital, the central registration clinic for pregnant ladies, where the first steps towards choosing a final hospital are taken for you.

After last week's experience of watching a video of babies with down syndrome and umbilical cords falling off to a backdrop of sweeping chords of heart string-tugging music, I wasn't too keen to return to Tsan Yuk. But this week there were less screaming toddlers around and more mums with ridiculous grins.

Of course the grins soon disappeared, after about three hours of hanging around and being carted from one medical student to the next – Tsan Yuk and Queen Mary (where I will give birth, hopefully) are both teaching hospitals, so that means there are plenty of students/interns/residents hanging around trying to learn.

In theory this is wonderful. I like being a part of someone's education, and helping young hopefuls become fully fledged doctors. But in practice, it means having many conversations (usually answering exactly the same questions) in back rooms, with the spotty students nervously flipping through your charts and mumbling worrying analysis that could either mean you are perfectly well or that your baby has hepatitis.

This is all very enjoyable when you're watching Grey's Anatomy and can't understand what medical jargon Izzy is using or when you laugh at O'Malley screwing up, but when it's your own health and your own time at stake, somehow if feels a lot less glamorous.

Not to mention the atmosphere it created. Scared, darting looks across the room were made even eerier by the sound of the nurses' plastic soles screeching across the plastic floor. The bleach was almost too much to bear for our heightened sense of smell, and every time someone coughed, the whole room stared to see if it could be swine flu...

Now, I'm not sure I made clear enough what happens in the private scenario of this process. For those ladies, it's all plush carpeting in the waiting room, fresh flowers in the examination rooms, and gourmet meals in the private maternity rooms after delivery. I daydreamed about this hotel experience while I zoned out the sickly pink walls and baby pictures from the 70s...

...until one of the nurses called my name, and then tugged and pushed me down on to a bed. She didn't speak any English, so I wasn't at all sure what was about to happen. But then IT happened...

The doctor came in, whipped out a little torch-like machine, placed it on my belly (from which the clothes had been rather aggressively removed by the nurse) and let me hear my baby's heartbeat.

The cacophonous plastic, the poor interior design, the nauseating smells... Nothing mattered anymore, as the little life inside lived on, and the thump thump was there to prove it.

Plus, once I had understood what was going on, the lovely doctor let me film the whole thing. Who needs carpets, flowers and gourmet food when you've got this...:

The oddest thing...

If I get too close to my desk and it presses lightly against my belly, my incredibly strong and fast heartbeat, channelled through the bump, makes my whole body bounce back and forward in my office seat... Such a strange feeling!

Nest hunting

While Spongebub Fetuspants continues to live the life aquatic in my uterus, we have been on a frantic flat search to house the bundle when it arrives.

It's a bittersweet process, as we love the flat we live in at the moment, but it has very baby-unfriendly stairs to climb, and a rather polluted environment to chill in. Not to mention the flying bags of dried seafood to dodge each time delivery day comes around...

And so we have had to ask ourselves a few questions – do we compromise and submit our little'un to the unsavoury life of our current place? Do we submit ourselves to the market's sky-high rental prices and find another tiny flat in the middle of town? Or do we move out to the middle of nowhere with no friends to get the benefit of a garden? Just thinking about it is exhausting.

And exhausted I'll be, no doubt (I googled "typical day with a newborn baby" and almost threw myself out of the window), so perhaps being a million miles from any sort of cultural or cerebral stimulation would be relaxing. Then again, maybe it would be a mistake - I'd be too tired to move myself to see my old acquaintances, and ever keep abreast of what's going on around town. Not great for an editor – it would be best for me to actually know what was going on...

In any case, we are keeping our options open. We have seen village houses in a field, with wild dogs roaming and cicadas singing; we have seen Mordor-style towers with 2,000 flats piled up high; we have seen tiny rabbit cages with lacquered floors... None of it has grabbed me yet.

How am I supposed to know what I'll want when little chickpea arrives?

Canto life continues

First we discovered that the mythical "wagon" that you can fall off actually exists!


Then we discovered that Krusty's language skills have not improved at all since we arrived - when he gave the taxi our destination in Cantonese, our driver replied "I'm sorry, my English is not so good"!

The rat, the monkey... and the tiger!

Now that the unwritten laws of motherhood have allowed me to lift the shroud of secrecy, I am pleased to announce that Krusty and I are... expecting a tiny Tiger next year!

Of course I could have blogged about a multitude of other things in the meantime, avoiding all hints, but when something this big happens, it's hard to think of anything else to write about. And in fact for some reason, all I see in the streets now is pregnant woman after pregnant woman, if they are not already carting around their bubs. Where had these ladies been hiding until now?!

So far "being up the duff" (as Krusty poetically calls it) has not been a walk in the park, and I have felt none of the glow and "ooohhh your hair is amazing" and more of the heavy eyelids, bloated belly and "ooohhh how come you still have acne at your age?" But they say it is going to get better, and as I have hit the three-month mark, I should start feeling human again soon. I hope.

Hopefully I'll be able to eat normally again, too. At the moment, every morsel of meat that comes near my mouth makes me feels retched - I think the baby is a vegetarian. Which makes sense I guess, when you consider it was conceived in Amsterdam...

But at least I am over my water revulsion - in the beginning, even my favourite brand, Evian, tasted of dust. I could smell damp and humidity and dirty water everywhere, and my mouth was always full of saliva.

I also can't STAND noise anymore, probably because I am so tired. I often give the wrong amount of money to taxi drivers, forget entire conversations and have to ask people to repeat sentences several times... I even had a daydream about standing up and leaving the office forever because of the music in the lobby... Not to mention the weird coincidence that every time I type in a website on my browser I accidentally type .vom instead of .com...

But then we go to the doctor's office, and we get a scan, and all of the bad stuff goes away. The last time we went, we even saw the little tiger's arms and legs moving really fast - it was magical. Krusty is worried that our bambino has inherited his dancing skills (brilliantly described in babymomma's babypapa's excellent wedding speech as "a carefully contrived fusion of African tribal dancing and Robotics. Or just a rare, hitherto undiscovered form of epilepsy") and that its hair will start receding as soon as the umbilical cord is cut, but I know it will be just perfect whatever happens. Thankfully we'll have our parental goggles to shield us from any of its shortcomings.

I am posting below a picture from our last scan. Bambino measured 3cm back then, but by now it has already grown to 6cm! We're going back for another in 8 days, so we'll be able to track its growth very soon. Very exciting.

Anyway, now the secret's out, perhaps I'll be able to think (and talk) about something else. Time to get my life back! What am I talking about, my life as I knew it disappeared forever three months ago... So why do I feel so happy?!

The tiny tiger: