Like the huge blowup pumpkin, decorated like a Christmas tree at one of Phnom Penh’s local bookstores last Christmas.

Like the bunnies, traditionally associated with Easter, which seem to take center stage in every Christmas Season set in Bangkok (here’s one at the Emporium on Sukhumvit). Edited to note: Asia is about to welcome the Year of the Rabbit in a few weeks, so this is the reason for all the bunnies in the Christmas sets :-) With Christmas over, the bunnies’ costumes and sets are being adjusted for Valentine’s Day marketing.

Photo by Keith Kelly

We spent a week in Jom Tien, Thailand, to check out a hospital and the ob-gyn there. Loved the doc. Loved the seafood – here we’re at a fisherman’s village gorging ourselves on the fresh catch.

About four weeks ago I started looking sufficiently femme fertile where people feel my tummy is public property and they can just reach out and touch the bump. Go away. This trimester’s more interesting than the first. The little rambutan’s stretching my tummy skin like a drum, he’s growing so fast! I’m starting to waddle, I need help turning over in bed, and did you ever notice those tailbone muscles? I didn’t til they hurt all day.

Sometimes we just sit back and marvel at this little tenant taking first dibs on my blood and nutrient supply. And I just have to poke at it a little bit hehe. Keith has been very supportive and indulgent, and my go-to griping board :-)

19 weeks

20 weeks

We spent a week in Bangkok too to check out another hospital. Samitivej Hospital is rated a baby-friendly hospital by WHO and UNICEF, meaning significant breastfeeding support with limited or no bottles allowed in the nursery. The hospital doesn’t accept for distribution to new mothers any free or low-cost formula.

Do you know there’s around a 70% caesarian rate at these hospitals out here?! Parents ask for it. They want an auspicious date and time for the birth. Seems like you’d screw up your kid’s astrological alignment doing that. Anyway I LOVED the birthing suites at this one hospital which is where many foreigners who work in SE Asia beeline for to have their baby. They have dim lighting, music, birthing pools, ladders, ropes and swings, aromatherapy oils, diffusers and candles, etc. Maybe I just haven’t visited a real hospital in a long time. Sure is the first time I have an intimate engagement with a health care system from the patient side. The docs at this hospital have a 3% caesarian rate [two thumbs up!].

20 weeks

20 weeks

21 weeks

22 weeks

So we’re planning for the delivery now. Going the natural birth route was a great idea before I got pregnant. It gets lousy the more you think about how big the sperm donor is, haha, although that supposedly isn’t a contributing factor (by size he’s already 1 1/2 weeks larger than the average). Diet? Low birthweight is the way to go? Induce early? Sigh. My own concerns, like the sneeze-and-pee side effect of a shattered pelvic floor, are suddenly so much less important now. I guess the joy of parenting is about beating these silly narcissisms out of you.

We’re also starting to look at baby things. Poor little guy have the most minimalist parents (maybe we’ve been working out here too long). I don’t understand why it needs a crib, a baby bathtub, baby shampoo, bibs, pacifiers etc…?

But I do notice the recent meltdowns savvied up this niche’s purchasing experience. It’s feel-good shopping on a gratuitous new scale.

An ergonomically awesome baby carrier created by a good ol’ mom-n-pop American shop? Gotta have it. Designer breast pumps and glass bottles, fashioned by professional moms using the latest evidence-based clinical specs, materials and sense? Click – BUY! And check out these adorable little haute couture ensembles for all his potty needs! I can just see the trendy little multi-cultured, fair-labor-, eco-geared, breastmilk-fed bambino being slung about the paddies in organic fitted sherpa (dip-dyed deep sultan!) and matching hand-knit sustainably harvested hemp/bamboo terry blend cover.

The more the buzzwords defy definition the better for you, your baby, the exploited 90% of the world, and the beleaguered planet.

(That narcissistic nimrod will go down fighting.)

So things are progressing quite well for us, thanks for all the emails! Hope everyone’s well! We miss you all!

Below are some links for keeping up with what’s happening:

Here’s a good collection of stills, maps and footage of the carnage this past weekend, on Media140, where the death toll has today risen to 23.

@nkoleszar has a great twitter list to watch for Thailand developments.

At least overall it seems armed repressions are in check, with a more solid consensus for non-violence. Both sides seem to have distanced themselves from the weekend’s clashes, with many observers now reporting a deeply divided military, unwilling any longer to take drastic measures to protect its military-installed Abhisit government.

The monarchy’s inability to reign in the situation, as it has successfully done so in previous political turmoils, seems to contribute to significantly diminishing its position. The Economist had a great backgrounder on the monarchy in Dec 2008, A Right Royal Mess (downloadable pdf as you need a subscription to access the archives). Severe lèse-majesté laws ensures that critical dialogue of the monarchy is restricted. So this radical call for monarchy reform by Thailand’s FM Kasit while on his trip to Washington DC for a landmark nuclear summit has surprised all observers (he being a PAD yellow shirt supporter, normally associated with the elites). Needless to say there is little coverage of this bombshell announcement by Kasit in the Thai presses.

Commercial interests are currently taking a hit, especially the crucial tourism industry, which makes up 7 percent of GDP. The SET index dropped 6.5% since the government declared a state of emergency last Wednesday, and more than 40 countries have issued advisories against traveling to Thailand. The protestors have largely kept away from the tourist-populated sites like commercial districts, shopping malls, the sky train. But these are the main hubs for demonstrations, as seen in these maps.

Christmas Eve 2010

2 days old

 Above is Tristan’s passport photo, taken by the hospital’s photographer at about a day old.

We flew to Bangkok at 35 weeks, since the airlines don’t let you travel any later into the pregnancy than that as a precaution against having to deal with a woman in labor on board. Other mothers in Phnom Penh have driven either down to the border at Koh Kong (via a road that goes off the grid for a solid hour, as of 2010), or else up north through Poipet into Aranyaprathet, Thailand, and then bus/train it to Bangkok. But I just didn’t think I could handle that! The road to Poipet border crossing has much improved since I’ve been through it last, but decreasing the number of uncertainties while I’m heavily pregnant is a good thing!

My first groggy thought after waking up out of anesthesia and meeting Tristan was a dismal, “they mixed ours up with this cross-eyed Chinese baby”, but Keith reassured me that from the time they took him out the Chinese-looking baby hasn’t left his sight. Tristan’s filling out his features now, so my mixup worries are going away :-)

We had an unplanned c-section. First contractions were at 8am and by 1030am when we arrived at the hospital I was already 6cm. Between the pelvic girdle problem I’ve been having in the last trimester and the contractions, there was no respite from the pain so I asked for an epidural. Three hours later I was fully dilated but he wasn’t coming down fast enough and his vital signs were rapidly dropping, so I was wheeled into the OR. Apparently the cord had wrapped around his neck and arm, and he was losing oxygen rapidly. WHEW!

He came with big lungs and a small stomach – they say this is normal :-\ Thankfully he doesn’t use his lung power much :-) except when he’s getting his BCG shot :-(

Here he is in his bassinet :-)

THE government took control of the Thai-owned aviation firm Cambodia Air Traffic Services (CATS) on Thursday and banned its Thai employees from the offices after the arrest of one of their co-workers on suspicion of stealing the flight schedule of fugitive Thai former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra during his visit to Cambodia last week.

The move, which is likely to further damage diplomatic relations between the two countries, comes amid accusations by a Thai opposition leader that Thailand’s foreign minister ordered the theft.

from the Phnom Penh Post

So CATS is now in the “caretakership of a Cambodian government official”. I might just have to delay my flight back into the country.