This page is an archive of entries leading up to her birth.

Baby Veer's homepage

Due date - October 17, 2003

September 25, 2003: Alles gute mit den Baby. Not much news. 3 weeks away. We have the latest picture: Ultrasound week 36. The baby's head is currently 329 millimeters around, making it on average 10cm in diameter. Kelley is feeling good, although a bit more tired, and is looking pregnant. Imagine that! We had a baby shower and we got lots of very nice gifts - thank you very much everyone!

July 23, 2003: (by Kelley) So we had our appointment on Monday. All is good. The baby is already head down and the Dr. said it would stay that way. Only 5% don't. We got a new ultrasound photo and it is the worse one yet. The Dr. is no photographer. While I was getting dressed again he and Morry were looking at it and the Dr. said he thought it looked more like Morry. (sentence removed due to reference to gender) Anyway Morry never made it to work on Monday after the appointment which was nice for me to have him around. Yesterday he was quite busy so he hasn't gotten the photo scanned in yet. Don't worry we will send it as soon as he does. The latest statistics on the baby are: Weight 1kg (2.2 lbs), Length 36cm/14inches, Head circumference 260mm which is about 7.5cm wide. Hopefully since the baby seems to look like Morry it won't have a big head like him in both meanings. :-) I am doing fine as well. Having just started the third trimester I am starting to get uncomfortable with my belly size and have a bit of discomfort walking. The Dr. says this is all normal pregnancy complaints and there is nothing to be done about it. I swear if men had babies that everything would be looked into to relieve their pain. I think women are tougher because they have to be. Anyway that is all the latest news.
(side comment from the male peanut gallery) I think if men had babies it'd turn into a macho thing. For example:
"Yours was 12 pounds? Pansy! Mine was 14 if not more! Head was huge! And I worked at the construction site up to the last day! Yeah. But man I can't wait to get back to drinking beer."
"I hear ya man. I was in labour though for 48 straight hours. The guy next to me had triplets in that time. And he was sobbing like a baby. I just gritted my teeth and said common is that the best you can do? Huh huh huh!?!?!? They didn't want to feed me but I said fuck that bring me a steak! And put some A1 sause on it!"
"You all are wimps. I ate the f****n umbilical cord. Did any of you?"
"I would've if they'd remembered the A1."

June 30, 2003: We've been asked, for the sake of several people to NOT reveal what the gender of our baby is. Quite yet. This may be difficult in the long run, but for now, I'll give it a try. If you are interested in that, click here for the baby's sex. I've removed references to it's sex / gender from the following text. Anne and Wanda are certain that it's a boy. Stan wants twins. Merlin is quite adamant that it is a dog, but he's like that. Sandra wants a girl but doesn't want a girl. Kelley and I don't care either way as long as it's healthy wealthy and wise. Well, 1 out of 3 ain't bad.
It is very hot here these days 30-35 Celcius and there is little end in sight. The creek is dry and the grass is brown. Normal (or at least not abnormal) for Calgary and Denver, but for Switzerland this is dry. Tonight we are enjoying the smell of cow manure spread over a nearby field. Note to self - there are sacrifices involved in living near a farm. Our allergies and hayfever are still around. I am no-where near as bad as I was when I was young (I would be using ventolin every 2 hours if I was like I was when I was 14 - due to asthma) but luckily I grew out of it and it's only a minor effect.

June 23, 2003: Several things have happened. We had a verbal confirmation of our baby's sex. Click the link to learn more. Secondly we went on a tour of the hospital (Spital, in German) to see the maternity ward. This is not a big production like the Foothills hospital in Calgary or other hospitals in America. This place is small and cozy. We saw a waiting room (wartezimmer) a birthing room (I forget what that is in German) and the room for if the baby is a premie. I don't recall seeing any special maternity wards in Canada or America but this was not anywhere near as "clinical" as I had been led to believe was the norm. There's a nice view of the woods outside the window, radios, soft lighting, colors in the room - not cold white. Clean but not clinical. Hard to describe. Perhaps I'll go back and take pictures. It seemed kind of tacky at the time. Anywhere there's some pictures below and some links to other pictures. Also, we have collected a lot of plush toys for the baby already due to a shipment from Anne and ones we've gathered already.

Here's a picture of all the toys ready for the baby to play with:

Hospital Bülach front entrance
Hospital Bülach front entrance
Hospital Bülach side building
Hospital Bülach distant view of front entrance (behind the trees)
Kelley at Hospital Bülach
A church near Hospital Bülach
A nicer framed view of that church near Hospital Bülach
Toys awaiting arrival of the baby
A picture of the entire crib

June 17, 2003: Our confusion over the the baby's sex begins. Other than that, the baby has progressed in size to a 1 pound (450 g, to be exact), 11 inch banana. First a cashew, then a shrimp, now a banana. Why are babys associated with food? Is there still a lot of confusion between uterus and stomach? What's next? Peking duck size? Zuchinni size? Squash? Eggplant? Celery? Anyway you all will be happy to know it is doing very well, is perfectly within the average size for a 22 week old baby. You can see a nice profile in our 22 week ultrasound (below). Kelley is doing well also, although we are both suffering a bit of hayfever or allergies. We have some homeopathic (homeo... heh heh you said homeo) stuff that helps. It is also hot here (25-30 celcius per day) with little wind or rain to quench the heat. Our fans are blowing constantly in the bedroom. We have started on the bradley method exercises which means lots of squatting and stretching for Kelley to make it easy for babies to "pop" out. Our motto is like my exercise motto: "No pain, No pain".

June 6, 2003: The baby is regularly kicking now. Normally when it is tired and wants to go to sleep, or if it is hungry. It is already running our lives and its not even fricken born yet. Excuse my german. We have started accumulating baby stuff from friend, family and neighbors and it's already overwhelming. We already had a crib which we got free - it was lying on the street. We had had it for over a year now. I had tried to argue Kelley out of taking it - since I figured she'd try to drag it back across the ocean. Little did I know. We started to put it together and found out why it was free - the little plugs in the ikea-like furniture were plastic, and all were shredded in the holes. We contacted the company that was on the tag on the bed, Schieder, a german furniture manufacturer and asked for help finding replacements. We couldn't find the bed on their website, so we sent pictures. These people were so helpful! They quickly emailed us back, asked for our address, and mailed us replacements for every screw and bolt. And the replacements were metal. We are so impressed, and I would highly recommend this company. They didn't ask for a receipt or anything.
So after we had the crib together we re-arranged our room. Instead of me pushing furniture around the room and busting my back, we first thought of measuring the room and cutting out those little pieces of paper to scale labeled with "bed", "crib" and so on. Well, we found something better. You still have to measure the room and stuff, but why cut out paper when you can do it on your computer with Room Arranger (for free!). Another excellent product and company. If you download the program, you can see our bedroom. Room Arranger is very good, and it will even show a 3 dimensional image, but that requires a VRML browser which you can get for internet explorer, I think, but I'm too lazy. And considering you're probably too lazy too, here's a picture of our bedroom:

May 20, 2003: We went and saw Xmen-2 this evening, with our friend Jack Reeves and felt the baby kick for the first time! We have since decided this is a movie baby. It was conceived just after we saw Lord of the rings part 2 - the two towers, and its first kick was during a movie. Popcorn and coke is good for babies. Remember that. Anyway we figure it was so excited by all the action scenes that it was doing kung-fu moves too. Hija! Take that! and that! and that!

May 9, 2003: I've been a lot remiss in updating this website. Below is the ultrasound pictures from 16 weeks. Kelley is doing very much better and the morning sickness (which lasts all day) has subsided. Thanks everyone for your well wishes.

April 11, 2003: Well, I've just filed our US taxes, and it's time to upload a couple more pictures. Imagine this, it's February 16th, 2003. Morry and Dwayne have just enjoyed a hockey game (Kloten Flyers vs Davos Doorknobs or something. Kloten lost), after imbibing a miniscule quantity of beer, they ride their bicycles home (arena is about 2 km away? maybe 3?) to find the women excitedly chattering about baby tests. Morry is quickly ushered into the bathroom where he's supposed to wait to see if the (do it yourself stick) test was positive. Kelley is so positive that the 2nd line has appeared on the test before she even has a chance to urinate on it. When she does, the stick bursts into flames. Because of that we're certain the child will be an immortal, like Duncan Macleod of the clan Macleod (there can be only one). Ok, I'm exaggerating slightly. only slightly. Not only is our baby smarter than your baby but it's immortal too. And good looking. Anne says the ultrasound shows the baby looks like Kelley already. But I digress. So, even though everyone in the house knows the test is positive we wait the "suggested" amount of time in the bathroom just in case the 2nd line decides to disappear. We leave the bathroom to find our hosts with Camera in hand, Champagne in the other, and huge grins on their faces. Sandra is so excited she bounces around like Tigger of Winney the Pooh fame. (Oh... the wonderful thing about babies, is babies are wonderful things...) Lights flash, corks pop, and pictures are taken of the obviously stunned new parents: Positive pregancy test number 1 and Positive pregancy test number 2. Kelley and I looking our finest.

April 4, 2003 : Kelley informs me it's spelled Malachi, but pronounced Malakey.

April 3, 2003 : Now online, pictures of the baby at 8 weeks and at 12 weeks. These are large files (300+ kb) so it may take a while to download. I've also created some maps for those who aren't used to ultrasounds: a 8 week map and a 12 week map. On the 12 week one it shows two crosses, and a measurement on the bottom of 59.9 mm. That's the size from head to tail. So it's about 10 cm long, including legs. It was moving around a lot in the womb when the ultrasound was done - was "looking right at us" at one point which was kind of weird. But we almost got the giggles in the doctors office because it was so ... I dunno... whatever it was. Cute. I saw it opening and closing its mouth and it clearly said Daddy, so my baby is smarter than your baby nah nah nah nah nah nah.Still no update on the name front. Oh yeah. The ultrasound tested for "mongoloid" tendencies (as the swiss translate it) of downs syndrome and other genetic disorders. The neck was measured at 1.8 cm. If it was around 2.5, it would be a much higher chance of genetic abnormalities. We've decided (thus far) not to have amniocentisis nor the other test. We might still have the blood test.

March 28, 2003
Kelley is getting a bit better with the nausea. I'm getting a bit better with doing the housework. Tomorrow is Keagen's (godbaby) 1st birthday so that'll be fun. I've been reading the baby name books. Kelley likes Malokie (no idea how to spell it) for a middle name. She got it from Fame Academy from BBC. Hmmm.. have to think about that one.
I found this online - very interesting name analysis. Plus they had Giric and Morry so I thought that was cool. Says I'm a good manager but people think I'm a smart ass. I haven't tried the manager thing yet but they've hit the nail on the head with smart ass.

What's in YOUR name?

March 8, 2003
Kelley is STILL nauseous (sp?) and is now getting sinus headaches. She's in bed and I'm investigating baby names. The dishes are piled up to the ceiling by this point. Anyway, some interesting sites I've come up with so far are:

Reading the Norse one reminds me - Thor is not Greek it's a Norse name. I knew that (I used to read Thor comic books so I know my mythology - one use for comic books. Do you know the name of the rainbow bridge to Asgard? I thought not. It's Bifrost). When I think mythology the first thing through my mind and off my fingers is Greek. So perhaps Odin would be a good name. :-)

Update: March 7, 2003
Kelley has the link to The bradley birth method which is the method by-which she was delivered. By Doctor Bradley himself.

March 3, 2003:
There's not much to say - yet. We are officially pregnant as of March 3, 2003. Having conceived the child on January 14, it is due on October 17, 2003. We're debating the risk of amniocentisis (sp?) versus genetic defects... don't send us your opinions because you are wrong. Kelley is very nauseous, for most of the day every day. I have thus had to take over most of the household functions. Which is why I am typing this into the computer instead of washing dishes.

Andromeda is the name Kelley has had for a girl for a long time. Kelley picked it out when she was, like 3 or something. I was a little uncertain at first, but it has grown on me a lot. But since she got to pick a girls name, I get to pick the boy's name. My working name is Potroast. Got any better suggestions? send them to me! Perhaps Zeus to "one-up" my 2nd cousin Thor. I read an joke recently that a guy wanted to call his dog "stains". I'll let you figure it out from there.

I'm weird in that I don't really want the boy's name to have the same (first) name as any (living) relatives. I've always believed that a person's personality matches their name a lot. Yes I know your personality is perfect and thus I should use your name. Well I agree, I'll call him Morry. You see my problem. I may dig back into the former family tree, and I do like the male family names for a middle name (Stanley, Walter, Murray, William, Thomas, Steve, Morry, Curtis, George, Esso, Sam). Or, change my mind: Send in your donations now. (Back to first names again) One name I liked was the name of a King of Scotland: Giric (878-889) (See The Scottish Royal Dynasties). I saw it in Edinburgh Castle, if I recall correctly. But the choice of names has not yet even begun.

I will be uploading some pictures soon, but for now you'll have to live with the baby countdown o-meter: Countdown clock for the baby - uses Java so may crash.