* THE COUNTDOWN
* THE ULTIMATE ULTRASOUND
* VISITORS

MORE PHOTOS IN THE NEW ALBUM HERE: www.matt-ad.com/photos/baby39wks

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THE COUNTDOWN
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Due date: 9th September (or thereabouts) Current gestation: 39 weeks You read last week of our durian-loving security guard, whose personal mission is to provide our baby with hearty nourishing food while in the womb. He continues to give us fruit and bread, saying that he is very concerned about our lifestyle here at Crossroads, since we don't earn a salary and can't possibly be eating enough to survive!!

It made us think about how incredibly we have been looked after during this pregnancy, despite our guard's dire warnings. It has been a remarkably 'easy' pregnancy so far, and made even easier by huge support from family and friends back home, as well as some amazing support up here in Hong Kong. So, as we count down to Baby Gow's appearance, here's a top10 countdown of some of the things we've been particularly grateful for over the past 9 months:

10. A certain man named "Willis Haviland Carrier" who lived in the early 1900's. Why? He's known as the Father of Cool - inventor of air conditioning! Not a day goes by in these stifling summer months that we don't give thanks for Ole Daddy Cool!!

9. A large donation from a charitable group in Hong Kong who, back when we moved into our new site, supplied funds for all of us full time staff to have Willis Carrier's patented icy air piped directly into our homes. We have great air conditioning in our bedroom and living room. Life would be.....stinky... without it!

8. A personal lactation consultant to help with feeding after the baby is born. A lovely lady from Australia named Jill happens to be visiting to spend time with Crossroads right when the baby is born, staying for some weeks. She is an expert in breastfeeding, often giving one-on-one support to new mothers in Australia, and delighted to be available helping us through this sometimes tricky patch with a newborn. What a great gift!

7. PLUS a group of friends in Hong Kong who have given us a present of 5 home visits from a professional midwife after the baby's born! (The HK system doesn't provide this service as the norm) This will surely be a life saver since at this point anything we know about babies has pretty much come out of books - we will definitely need a lot of help!

6. Sisters who respond to urgent Fruit Tingles cravings from afar.

5. An excellent public hospital that will cost just AUD$20 a day to deliver our baby.

4. Countless treats and teeny tiny cute baby things sent from all over the world to make Baby Gow rival Baby Posh/Beckham in the fashion stakes.

3. Excellent, free antenatal classes given by a Chinese midwife that provided interesting advice dotted with much humorous 'Chinglish' to get us through the boring bits. (A brief example - amniotic fluid is referred to as liquor in all English hospital material here. But pronounced 'Ly-kwor'. It took us quite a while to figure out what she was talking about there!) Also a few entertaining stories about 'bad parents' such as the woman who brought her tiny newborn in for a checkup at the hospital's clinic, and presented the baby dressed in a little jumpsuit with a whopping department store security tag still nailed to the outfit! The kind that spurts ink all over you if you try to take it off.. 'Bad parents!'

2. A good pair of sandals that expand to make room for the fattest swollen cankles ever seen (if you don't know what cankles are, be grateful).

1. A healthy, textbook pregnancy. Let's just see about the birth..

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THE ULTIMATE ULTRASOUND - A match for Lesotho
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An ultrasound is an amazing thing. Even though you're watching it in blurry black and green, there is something mind-blowing about seeing those tiny hands waving and a tiny heart beating. You know that it is your own precious, unique, dear little baby. It's sometimes hard to remember that yours is just one of hundreds of thousands of precious, unique dear little babies, also at 38 weeks' gestation all round the world! Many are being eagerly awaited in very different circumstances to our own.

It was brought home to us this month when Crossroads got a request from a group running a small hospital in Lesotho for an ultrasound machine. Lesotho is such a tiny country that most of us have never heard of it. It lies 'inside' South Africa and has terrible problems with AIDS and an average life expectancy of less than 35 years.

The hot item on the 'wishlist' for this Lesotho hospital was an ultrasound machine, but at the time they requested it, we didn't have an ultrasound in stock. Amazingly, a couple of weeks before our loading guys were set to pack the container of other goods that the group wanted, there was a call from a Hong Kong city doctor wanting to donate an ultrasound machine in perfect condition! We have a medical technician on our staff, who checked and tested the machine and it was packed up just in time for the container loading.

There is no way this Lesotho community could afford the luxury of an ultrasound at their local hospital - a thing that we take as our right as pregnant women these days, not to mention many other injuries, diseases and conditions that can be picked up by ultrasound, including some cancers.

This container, including the ultrasound, is sailing off to Lesotho as we speak! (PICTURE LEFT SHOWS THE MACHINE PACKED, LABELLED AND READY TO GO INTO THE CONTAINER)

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VISITORS
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A quick mention of the exciting visits we've had recently - Bea Ferrier came for 2 weeks and worked very hard with Ad to set up the nursery, as well as having some fun quality time together.

Thanks to Jackie Mock and Tam Jonker for a Hong Kong catch-up over the city's cheapest yum cha!!

Next time you hear from us, there will likely be three of us!

MORE PHOTOS IN THE NEW ALBUM HERE: www.matt-ad.com/photos/baby39wks

Matt & Ad