Monday, September 25, 2006

Week 17 - Haera ra Aoteroa!



My body:
•There is thin line across my tummy from up to top now! They call it linea nigrea, though who knows why it’s there. The only thing they explained about it is, again, this is because of the changes of hormones in my body.
•I had severe headaches at the beginning of the week for a few days. This might relate to something that I eat but also the temperature had been hot so there was a chance that I was dehydrated.


My baby:
is approximately 4.8 inches long and weighs about 3.5 ounces, and he or she should weigh more than the placenta from this point on. Since your baby's hearing has become more finely tuned, he or she may respond to loud noises and supposedly I can feel movement at the sound of large trucks passing or a slamming door (of course I haven't - maybe it's just me that is insensitive). Epidermal (skin) and fatty tissue are developing all over the baby's body to protect it after it is born and a substance called vernix is beginning to form on the skin tissue to protect it from the long exposure to amniotic fluid.


This is it. Our last week in New Zealand. It finally sank it that we are moving OUT of this country, might never come back (but hopefully we will!) and all the goodbyes to friends and places that we have become familiar with.

Monday:
My last day of working! For another 2 years!!! WOOO HOOOOOOO. Scott said if that wouldn't make me happy then he wouldn't know how to make me happy - I said I am worried about having to justify buying another pair of shoes for my self for another 2 years.
(Might try to see if I can get a contracting job in Melbourne before baby pops out but doubt it as I will start be showing.)
Had a terrible headache in the evening. It might be because of the chocolate brownie that I ate in the afternoon.
Went to pick up the car at the mechanic – it cost a fortune! I was pretty upset because with that amount of money, we really should have sold the car and get a newer one in Melbourne. But at this stage we couldn’t do anything but go ahead with the plan and ship the car with the rest of the furniture (which initially shouldn’t cost us anything since the company is paying for the shipment and the tax)

Tuesday:
I was into the (spring) cleaning and de cluttering all morning – done a big job sorting out books and little tidbits that we want to throw away. The problem was that we didn’t really know where to throw away 3 boxes of old text books (not that we feel right to throw away books as well). I rang secondhand bookshops but none of them do textbooks so Scott decided to throw them away at the waste paper bin at his work.

Farewell dinner at Non Solo Pizza in Parnell with Scott’s work. They gave Scott a kiwi with All Black costume photo holder to be put at his desk. The story behind it was that Scott had always lost betting Australia to the All Black during the rugby season and always ended up buying bottles of wine for the other who backed All Black. They said if Scott put that All Black photo holder on his desk in Melbourne people will think that he’s backing All Black and can get all the wine back from them.
As for me, I got a little cute teddy bear with All Black costume for my little peanut so he will know that he has a bit of Kiwi in his blood.


Wednesday:
I still had the biggest headache ever that I rang the midwife. She said chances are everything is ok –have a lot of water and if it still didn’t fix it, see a GP.

The weather has been gorgeous (sunny and not a cloud in the sky). Isn’t that typical, just when we are about to leave, rain finally stopped and was replaced with warm weather - spring has finally sprung!


Thursday:
I was going to get the car washed through the drive-through carwash but it was closed so I had to wash it myself – big mistake. I shouldn’t have been allowed to wash my car! What a waste of money – I spent so much coins to make sure that I did proper job, but once I got home I could see all the patches on the car that I missed cleaning.
Scott said it definitely needed to be cleaned again because it needed to be spotless for the immigration! Grrrrh… Waste of time and my energy.

Friday

Removalist arrived today – lovely hubby happened to forget to tell me about this change of plan! (They were going to come tomorrow). All went well though all they left us were the bed and the set of drawers – packed the rest of the things. They left the table where they put our laptop but then packed the chair!!
This poor pregnant woman had to sit on the floor for the rest of the night not able to do anything else but browsing internet! We couldn’t even watch TV since they packed both of them. Had to go out for dinner at Mission Bay – for the last time, sniff sniff. We chose the Italian restaurant that we had never been, and it was terrible. Food was not very nice and incredibly expensive.

During the day Scott came and picked me up so we can drive my car off at the Depot. The trip took forever since it was on the other side of the city, and the customer service made us fill in the immigration form at the last minute (Scott was getting nervous at that time since he’s been away from work more than 1.5 hours). To make things worse, we also had to return the number plate to the testing station and get de-register, but they couldn’t take off the plates from the car! We decided to go back there tomorrow morning to pick them up.


Saturday

Moving day! We were up by 8am but the removalist didn’t come until before 10am. We both got a bid edgy because we needed to drive all the way to the Depot to pick up the number plates and get registered. Fortunately it all worked out fine and when we got home they had almost finished with the moving. We still had to wait for the cleaners to come in though to clean the house thoroughly, and to say goodbye. Thought the job is over? Well, not really. The real estate agent said that we need to see her to sign on the bond release form this afternoon. All this never-ending little jobs that they only tell you at the last minute!

It was really hard packing clothes for the first 4 weeks in Melbourne when you pregnant, as you don’t know how big you are going to end up in a few weeks.

Anyhow, we went to see Birgit, Stefan and little Daniel before taking off to say our goodbyes (hate goodbyes!).

Checked in at Heritage hotel. This was the hotel that we stayed at the first time we went to Auckland almost 2 years ago. Very posh and expensive house but our room was crap! Maybe all are just signs that we really need to get out of this country! :P


Our last night was spent at Bombay Hill, for Phil’s 40th birthday party. Good weather, good companies, big bon fire, we even had hangi (traditional Maori feast) for dinner making it a nice way to spend the last night. Everyone had promised to come so it’s not like goodbye.

We’ll miss this place – and promised ourselves that we will be back here with the little one!

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