Prologue

For 9 months, or to be more thruthful, around 7.5, we had been watching this stomach growing and growing, and at some point it became evident that there was life in there. It started bulging out at random intervals when the baby would be kicking, and also respond to things happening on the outside. There was somebody in there!

At the ultrasound in week 18 it became evident that it was a boy that was expected. Oh yes, the first thing you learn when dealing with babies-to-come is that time is now measured in weeks. It is very nice to know the sex in advance, but mama Muna was the most eager to learn what it was. The little guy-in-the-tummy got a temporary working name while we waded through possibilities. It should be a name that could not be messed up by foreign tongues in neither norwegian, english nor indonesian.

Mama Muna went through the typical pregnancy problems; starting out with nausea and throwing up during the first 3-4 months, including XMas ! She suddenly could not eat fish -her previous favorite- and got lactose intolerant (no milk product). Her feet started swelling, she got heartburns, breasts grew to incredible size and became very tender, and towards the end she started getting high blood pressure, and we needed to step up the frequency of our checkups with the midwife. Twice we were sent to further checkup at the hospital due to high blood pressure, but both times we were sent home again.

At each checkup we were told that the baby's head was still not sufficiently "stuck", only almost. But baby was doing great. We participated in a birthclass where we learned that the baby's head is supposed to be stuck in most cases before the birth starts, sort of lined up in front of the entrance to the big world out there. Birth class behind us we were now ready for birth; we had collected some clothes, were given a stroller and other baby items by friends, assembled the changing station and the baby bed, painted the baby room. Now all we could do was settle down and wait. Our expected due date was July 17 2006.