Womb Raider II

[oloriel]

Another week, another checkup... bear with me, it'll be over soon!

Baby Stony is now (mathematically, i.e. from measuring the length of his femur in the ultrasound and then doing some calculations) about 44 cm long. His head measures around 32 cm and he weighs (again, mathematically) 3100 g. In other words, if he wants to come out now, that's ok, he's pretty much complete. (So the bump may be smallish, but the baby is still larger than average for his "age". I'm just not a big person, 'k? :P)
Fortunately he doesn't appear to be in a particular hurry, though - despite his convenient cephalic presentation, he hasn't sunk in deep enough to put sufficient pressure on the cervix yet.
As he had kindly turned to the left (he can't turn vertically any more, but he does a lot of horizontal turns to make up for it), we actually managed to see his face again. First he kept his hands in front of his mouth, but when the gyn turned away from the head and looked at other parts, he eventually took his arms down. So now I have another cute ultrasound face shot after all. Half-"shadowed" and half-obscured, but still reasonably recogniseable!



The nose rather looks like mine, alas, but he has very elegantly curved lips...


- - -
My parents have given us a CD with baby noises (and an instructive booklet) which is meant to prepare dogs or cats for the arrival of a baby unto the family. The cats are (so far) entirely unimpressed; Mr. Darcy ignored the baby sounds entirely, and 'náro just glanced around briefly before returning to whatever he was doing. But then, they are really good at differentiating between "real" and "fake" noises - or sights, for that matter - anyway. They don't react to strange dogs or cats that appear on TV anymore, for instance, and while they'll take flight when something loud (like a vacuum cleaner or power drill) is actually used in the room they're in, they'll cheerfully ignore the same loud noise when we're watching home improvement documentaries or the like. Recently I had to take a baby doll to my antenatal classes for practicing breastfeeding positions and diaper-changing. When 'náro saw the doll in my arm, he first froze in alarm, and when I set the doll down to see what would happen (would've been interesting to know his reaction in advance, after all), he only veeery cautiously came closer, but after a brief sniff decided that it wasn't alive and just walked on. (He's somewhat wary around real children, like those of our tenants or the "Pony Party" crowd: apparently the combination of "human but small" and "moving unpredictably and making lots of noise" isn't his cuppa at all.)
In short: It seems we won't be able to "train" our cats to accept the presence of a baby by playing taped baby noises or handling a dummy, as they see through the ruse. We'll have to wait for the real thing.

I, on the other hand, found the CD terribly upsetting. See, there are all these baby sounds starting at merely curious gurgles but pretty soon moving towards distress sounds and, eventually, squalling. The cats may be able to ignore it, but I, despite the knowledge that for Eru's sake, there's no real unhappy baby present, feel all itchy and distressed and longing to run and help. I could hardly force myself to sit still. THE MOMMY SIGNAL! MOMMY TO THE RESCUE! Over a damn CD!

In conclusion: I am less smart than the cats. Bloody hormones. XD

Comments

[jokergirl.livejournal.com]

Es kommt ja auch auf den Tonfall an. Ich glaube, das kann man schon irgendwie unterscheiden, ob das Baby nur gelangweilt/müde ist oder ihm wirklich was fehlt. (Was ja hoffentlich im Supermarkt nicht der Fall ist!)
Ob das jetzt die Instinkte sind oder nicht, lass ich mal qualifiziertere Leute bewerten :)

[oloriel.livejournal.com]

Im Supermarkt ist es ja meistens eher das "ICH WILL ABER UNBEDINGT!"- Frustquengeln, das man mitbekommt. Aber die Babylaute auf der CD waren (zumindest am Anfang) auch eher diese harmlosen "Ich bin wach, ist alles in Ordnung?"-Gluckser, die dann mangels Rückmeldung in "Ich bin allein und verlassen, keiner kümmert sich, wilde Tiere werden mich fressen, Hilfe Hilfe HIIILFEEEE" umschlagen. Was vielleicht natürlich genau das Problem ist: Man KÖNNTE ja Rückmeldung geben... aber das beeinflusst die Tonspur halt überhaupt nicht! Man ist also genau wie das Soundfile-Baby der Situation hilflos ausgeliefert... blödes Gefühl, jedenfalls.

Naja, Empathie ist ja auch was Schönes :)

[jokergirl.livejournal.com]

Blödes Gefühl allerdings.
Tröste dich mit dem Gedanken, dass du die CD ja nicht mehr spielen musst, wenn die Katzen das sowieso ignorieren *grins*

Ich musste das "Hilfe, mir tut was weh, man misshandelt mich und ich hab soooo Angst!"-Gekreische von der Medi-Puppe wochenlang aushalten. (Die ich dir als werdender Mutter besser nicht linke. Von der habe ich nämlich noch immer Alpträume.) :/

[oloriel.livejournal.com]

In der Tat!

Und nee, lieber nicht. *schauder*