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COURT RULING: Wellington NZ. July 24, 2006
A seven year old boy was at the centre of a courtroom drama yesterday when
he challenged a court ruling over who should have custody of him.

The boy has a history of being beaten by his parents and the judge
initially awarded custody to his aunt, in keeping with the child custody
law and regulations requiring that family unity be maintained to the degree
possible.

The boy surprised the court when he proclaimed that his aunt beat him more
than his parents and he adamantly refused to live with her. When the
judge suggested that he live with his grandparents, the boy cried out that
they also beat him.

After considering the remainder of the immediate family and learning that
domestic violence was apparently a way of life among them, the Judge took
the unprecedented step of allowing the boy to propose who should have
custody of him.

After two recesses to check legal references and confer with child welfare
officials, the judge granted temporary custody to the Springbok rugby team,
who the boy firmly believes are not capable of beating anyone.

PS: This was sent to me by my South African friend Adam :o)

So after seeing the doctor today, she is predicting a sooner rather than later delivery.... she has odds on that I am gonna go in the next week eeek! There are some subtle signs I just may not hold out to scheduled c-section for the 12th, so I guess we'll see. I would be absolutely thrilled to have him a week today on my sweethearts birthday, that would be something special for everyone.

Stay tuned for updates.........

So if things go to schedule I could be waking up this time two weeks from now and heading off to hospital to have our baby... still feels a little odd knowing the *due date* for certain. Of course, in saying that anything could happen and I could really go into labour anytime so it's not a done deal for sure.

The past couple of nights I have had a pretty good sleep and actually managed to stay in bed all night last night without having to sit in the recliner or rocking chair for a while in the wee hours of the morning.

Is everything ready? I think so, although I keep going over things on my list and in my mind to make sure. We got the bathroom painting done last weekend which was great. Have some curtains to wash this weekend, but that's no biggy.... I hope. The room is basically ready for baby, although there is still some computer *stuff* I think to be organised. The crib is good to go, but we won't require that right away as we have loan of a bassinet for the early stages. How long he will last in that depends on his size of course, and right now we are looking at a possible 8 pound + at birth according to my doctors estimates, time will tell I guess.

This weekend is the last long weekend of the summer with Monday being Labour Day so that will give my sweetheart an extra day off from the busy environment of his workplace. It's been just over two months since I stopped working and I have to admit I don't miss it!! Of course still being paid by them plays a huge part of that.... I dare say once I go on my maternity $$$ come November I won't like the budgeting adjustment quite so much. However, none of that will matter in comparison to spending every moment with our new baby, no matter how hard and how tired I will feel, I can't wait to hold this little life I have been nurturing for the last 9 months.

My due date is one month today, yikes! Of course if his positioning has not changed my scheduled c-section is before that to avoid what would be deemed as an emergency one should I go into labour just before or on the 16th.

Physically I am ready to have my body back in regards to being able to walk up hill without effort, sleep on my back and not have carpel tunnel syndrome all the time not to mention shedding the pounds I currently have in order to wear my skinny clothes again lol!

Mentally I'm almost there.... I guess as a first time Mum you just cannot prepare yourself totally for *that moment*. No matter how many Mums tell you what you will think, feel and experience, it will be a unique experience for both of us. Seeing our little boy take his first breaths, hearing his cry and counting his fingers and toes are what I look forward to the most.

On a totally unrelated note, training camp starts in a month for the new NHL season, yay!! hockey is almost back..... see, babies are not the only thing on my mind lol.

PS: New photo in the baby album of my ever growing tummy....

So what has everyone else been up to this summer? Can't believe we are already mid August, it seems to be flying by.

I of course, have been cooking up a baby and it's really coming down to the wire now. I am 35 weeks and counting... 37 weeks is actually considered full term. The little man remains breach and is actually really starting to cause me some discomfort. His head for the most part is pushing rather hard up under my right rib cage and feels like it could burst through. What I find worse though is the numbness and somewhat rather painful feelings I now get in my hands, predominately the right hand. It is most painful in the night and first thing in the morning, but the tingling sensations can last all day. Early this morning around 3am I had to retreat to my rocking chair with a cold washcloth wrapped around my hand to relieve the pain. It actually feels like my hand is swollen to the size of a football (although visually it doesn't look it) and I can barely bend the fingers at times. This can be a common thing in pregnancy and is to do with the carpel tunnel area having an excess build up of fluid. I for one, will be much relieved when it is all over.

So my Mum and Dads vacation is almost at an end and they are flying home to NZ tomorrow. Of course with the latest terrorist threat in London, that has caused much chaos and could make for a long and arduous journey for them with lineups and extra security. They will have to pack alot of their things they would normally carry onto the plane into their checked luggage now to avoid it being confiscated. No cleaning the teeth on this trip home ;o)

The weather in Vancouver has been much cooler of late, no complaints here! However it is supposed to get a little warmer over the weekend. My parents do not relish going back to Christchurch where it is about -2 right now. I keep reminding them though that it will soon be the other way around and we will be shivering in the cold again. Mum will be back here later in October to see the baby so she has not to much winter to get through.

Well I should go get organised for the day I suppose, as we are heading out a little later on to do some errands.....

So I don't know if our little boy is going to end up with a name resembling food... but apparently his positioning at the moment would suggest he should ;o).

What do I mean? Well, the ultrasound confirmed he is back facing breach, which also meant we could not get any pictures of his face :o(. The surgeon yesterday said he is not straight up and down breach, but rather across in a halfmoon or watermelon shape, but the head is predominately higher. Can he still turn? possibly... will he? possibly.

The long and short of it is that I have decided not to have anyone attempt to turn him. The odds of this being successful, coupled with the fact that a) he might turn back, or b) should something go wrong we would end up with an emergency c-section resulting in about a 3 week prem baby (as they would want to do this next week) has just made me feel that really, at the end of the day it does not matter so much how he comes out, but that he comes out safe and as developed as he can possibly be.

So should he turn himself between now and when the c-section is scheduled, we will just go with the flow and let things happen naturally, other wise we are all scheduled to go for a date in September. I am not going to post that, as I would like to keep that personal for now. Should it definately be a go, then I'll share his arrival date.

My right hand side ribs are feeling quite sore lately as his little head keeps pushing up on them and I have to think they are kinda bruised or something, so I would appreciate him moving just to give them a break. I also find it funny sometimes when I can only assume he is arching his back like a cat and it makes my abdomen go incredibly tight I feel like my skin can't possibly stretch any futher. Speaking of stretching I have also (so far) avoided stretch marks and continue to plaster on lots of cream in the morning in the hopes that this is helping.

Anyway... the shower calls

What I want to know is... those people who blog casually - how do they get the time to write, it seems, so much and so often? I'd love to do things like rant or praise life or whatever, but I often don't care enough to do it.

However, to all those folks that do keep up with what Donna and I are doing, a big "Hi!" goes out to you. I'm not dead, I just sysadmin more than I write. heheh.

Speaking of which - I figured that I would mention that there's been a bunch of changes with our website, and it all came about mostly due to these asshats who think that guestbook spam is cool, or even the slightest bit useful. Not here, buddies.

So I went to try and make the guestbook not allow spam, and, since I don't code, had to go looking for improvements that other people have made... say, in the form of a new version, or some add-in spam control, a captcha, whatever... anything to cut down on the automated bull#@!&$ that arrives at kiwicanuck.ca daily.

I quickly learned that the best thing to do was to upgrade to the latest version of the software that powers this site, Drupal. So, I did that. And found that the theme broke. I then found that the theme wasn't upgradeable. I found a bunch of things were broken.

So, I went into 'fix' mode, had to update a whole pile of other stuff, and, long story short, had to give the site a new look. I had to spend a pile of time debugging why other things broke when they were updated. It took awhile, during which time parts of the site were unseemingly ugly.

However, I'm happy to say that it's all been completed.

This was a very important process, you see, just so I could spend less time blasting spam... and now I can spend more time saying things like "I have a baby on the way and I'm so excited I could puke!" I'm not sure why I'm so excited, other than I've now read a book that suggests it's a good thing. ;-)

Heheh... I'll have to write more on that topic later. Dinner's buzzing...

So I went for my bi-weekly check last Thursday, quite excited as my Parents are visiting from NZ and I was looking forward to Mum hearing her grandsons heatbeat. All was going well till we discovered he is breech :o(. I don't think I need to tell anyone out there what this means, but just in case, it means he has not turned and is still feet down instead of head down. At this stage in my pregnancy he should of turned so they are concerned now that he may not be able.

Now we have a couple of decisions/choices to make. Firstly, if I can't turn him by doing an exercise that my doctor gave me (which by the way is kinda funny, but not comfortable) which involves being on my hands and knees 3-4 times a day with my head down and letting gravity do it's thing, I have to see a surgeon who will explain to us the pros and cons of them trying to do it. Pros being obvious, cons being something may happen to him in the process to distress him and they would have to do an emergency c-section on the spot.

Secondly, if they can't turn him or we decide it's not worth trying, it will be a c-section regardless at about 37-38 weeks (about 4 weeks from now)

I have an ultrasound tomorrow to confirm what my doctor suspects and feels is a head up under my ribs and little feet down where they should not be. We'll know for sure then what the next course of action will be. Either way, I know Mum and baby will be ok with all the help and support around us.

On a another note, we took my parents down to their cruise ship yesterday and last night went down to the water as their ship sailed off into the sunset for 7 glorious and fun filled days. I'll put some pictures up of it in the gallery soon. Bon Voyage! and we'll see you next Saturday.

So we are about to get hit by a mini heatwave here on the lower mainland with temperatures heading to the mid to high 30's. Now this may not seem hot in comparison for some countries or even other parts of Canada, but this is certainly above what we are used to receiving and with most people not having airconditioning in their homes on the coast it's going to get rather uncomfortable.

So how does a 7 month pregnant woman keep cool in these conditions?, I dare say I am about to find out. At the moment it is quite lovely in our apartment, mind you it is 9.15am in the morning. I would think I will be closing the doors and windows in the next couple of hours and keeping what cool air we have in here inside. I am still feeling pretty good for the most part, and despite the increasing discomfort with sleeping, I am finding ways to deal with it and have become quite accustomed to sleeping sitting propped up on the sofa with lots of cushions and pillows. Baby is very active these days and kicks and moves alot, this will however start to decrease as he takes up more room and doesn't have quite the freedom to *swim* around.

Things are coming along well as far as preparing for our little one. We have the crib assembled, bassinet almost ready to go and the change table assembled. Once my Mum arrives next week we plan to have a serious *baby shopping* day, I can hardly wait. Not to mention that she has been knitting furiously and is bringing over a bunch of stuff which I am really looking forward to seeing. One of our large department stores here in Canada is having a *Baby Days* sale starting on July 22nd so that should be fun fun fun.

This weekend is our annual Charity ball tournament that our team enters, and we *always* have hot sunny weather for it, although I think this year is going to be hotter than the last. Our first game is at 10am so that should be not to bad. I am kinda bummed not to be playing for the first time in 4 years, but I think I will actually enjoy sitting in the shade drinking loads of water come the afternoon games while my hubby and the rest of the team are dying out there in the sun. Lots of fluids and sunscreen required. Fortunately there is a lovely covered beer garden for everyone to flock to after each game, and seating will be at a premium this year to escape the heat.

My Mum and Dad are currently on route to Canada via a 2 week stop in Australia visiting with my sister and other friends and family. They are due to arrive here Sunday evening and will welcome these temperatures as they have left behind one of the nastiest, coldest winters on record and are both suffering from nasty colds. I hope they have managed to shake them off by the time they reach Canadian shores. This trip they are doing a 7 day cruise to Alaska during the 3 weeks they are here and that should be just spectacular. Now that I am not working I am still trying to figure out how they could smuggle me on board and take me with them for the week ;o)

Right time for some more food.... again... seriously!

.....or lack there of. So I found myself up at 3am again for the second night/morning in a row. It becomes increasingly more difficult to get comfortable these days, and although the purchase of my new wedge pillow and a normal pillow supporting the back does feel quite cosy it's the wide awakeness that I suddenly feel at this time of the day that is the biggest pain in the rear end.

So rather than lie there hopelessly till 5am like I did the previous night, I felt getting up right away and having some milk and a little reading time might put me back to sleep a little earlier.

On a good note, the last two days have been extremely fun and productive. With my Mum-in-law in town for a few days and my Sis-in-law living half a block away we have been doing some serious errands and baby shopping! Yesterday saw us come home with the change table, yay! and also have lined up the purchase of car and stroller. Shelves are being varnished and finished off today, and progress is being made on making this office/nursery look like we can accommodate a baby, not to mention the purchase of some ever so cute clothes, yay!

I have to admit that I don't miss working for one second right now, however I do miss my co-workers and the daily interaction with them. I plan to phone my friend Gina and make lunch plans, as I am definately craving our weekly sushi date. I hope everyone else is doing well and has managed to find a new direction in which to travel.

Ok, well I'll try doing some more reading and then see if sleep comes a little easier soon....