OK, I learned my lessen and there are no fake surprises this post!
Today is the final day of week 35. Tomorrow is Expected Day minus four weeks. We went in for a routine exam today. Ultrasound measures her at 2280 g, just about 5 lbs. Even if Beta-chan were born today, for which she’s far too sticky, she’s be fine. All systems go, missing not even a toe, we wait and wait.
Less bored than at 25 weeks, less scared than at 15, the routine, boring, average , grey pregnancy has given way to the growing reality that soon, really soon, we will be feeding, clothing, changing, bathing, holding, rocking and all the other 'ings a little girl.
Past Big and Uncomfortable, my wife has hit HUGE and MISERABLE(at times). Cute kicks succeeded by an athlete in training. I fake my best sympathy for my wife while secretly cheering on my daughter. “Yeah Beta-chan! Go! Beta Go! Grow strong!”
We have seen the future and the past. Close friends had a baby girl a few weeks after Pough-chan was born. A multicultural family, with the wife Lithuanian, the husband Argentinean and a button-cute almost two-year-old moved from Japan last year.
They came back for a visit and the wife and daughter stayed for a couple of days. They speak Spanish in their house, so we couldn’t talk much to the daughter, but she still lovedbeing read to, even in English.
A visit last year would have been a little bitterer and less sweet than this visit with our own daughter coming soon. A look into the past – this is the age Pough would be. This would be how he would sit on my lap.
A peak into the future. In time, my own daughter will be flipping the pages and saying “Quack” at all the pages.
All is well in the Tokyo Family.
Peace for all.
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