Chapter 5
Another Month Closer to the Goal
Another month has passed and I am now officially in a first week of the 6th month. Many things have happened since the last update. First of all, it looks like we are going to have a baby girl. During the ultrasound the technician thought that it might be a girl but could not be certain. I asked her to put a special note for the radiologist to write the gender of a baby if he can identify it. Well, few weeks later we received that report and the gender of our baby is identified as female. My physician is a bit cautious about this identification. The probability of a baby identified as a girl actually being born a girl is approximately 80 percent. With this level of misidentification we still might have a baby boy. But for now we started to think that we have a baby girl.
Choosing a Name
The names have been chosen some time ago. The choice of a name has not been too easy as it had to comfort three conditions: it had to bee short (up to 5 letters in English), it had to be pronounceable in English and in Russian, and it had to be culturally acceptable for both sides – Russian and India - of our family. The idea of a short name comes from the fact that most south Indians have very long and totally unpronounceable names. As a result they end up having nicknames that have nothing in common with their real names. To avoid this situation the idea of a very short name was introduced.
At the end of a five-year deliberation a girl’s name was agreed upon quite easily. It is my grandmother’s name - *****. Choosing a boy’s name has not been that easy. My husband’s first choice was Agastya, after a legendary Indian saint. The name is too long in violation of my husband’s own condition of a 5-letter name and it is absolutely unpronounceable in Russian. My choice was Alexander, which in turn was even longer and unpronounceable in Malayalam (my husband’s language). Suggestion of having a double name Agastya Alexander was eliminated, as it would clearly lead to our baby getting a nickname.
Among the finalists for the boy’s name was Sashi. It is a variant of another Indian name - Shashi, which is a name of Shashi Tharoor, an author and the UN’s Under-Secretary-General for Communications and Public Information, whom I respect. It is a traditional name for the moon and literally means "having a hare" in Sanskrit. It is also very similar to Sasha, which is a short form of Alexander in Russian. I was still hesitant about this name until a saw a dream in which I had a baby boy whom I called Sachi. It solved all hesitations. If I am calling my baby boy by this name in my dream, it should be his name. So, if our current baby’s gender was misidentified, we might have a little Sachi instead of a little *****. If not, there is always the next time.
There is Something Alive Down There
Another amazing thing that began happening in the past couple of weeks is that my little ***** started kicking. It is a very strange feeling – somebody moving inside your belly. She is still too small for me to actually feel strong kicks. But I do feel flutters, movements and little pushes. It usually happens after I have some orange or mango juice and lay down. I’ve read that walking rocks the baby inside to sleep. So, she is asleep a lot during the day, but when I am going to sleep she wakes up and goes to play. Sometimes she wakes me up in the middle of the night when she gets hungry. It is very difficult to explain, but sometimes you wake up with this feeling of utter starvation as if you haven’t eaten for a week. It is a kind of feeling no one can ignore. I assume that is a way of little ***** letting me know that she wants her nightly snack. It usually happens in between 3 and 4 a.m. and I have to go I have a glass of milk or a glass of juice or a fruit.
Babies Cost Money
We finally did our first baby shopping. We did not buy much, just a few pieces of clothing. Right now we just are trying to see what and where we need to buy. Everything is just so expensive. Little baby’s gowns go for 12 to 20 dollars. Tiny little shoes can go for up to 40 dollars. Good quality bed can cost up to a thousand. The cheapest poor quality one still does not go below 250 dollars. Babies cost money. We haven’t begun to buy any of the big things, as we still have to move to a bigger apartment. But I foresee few thousands of dollars being spend on all sorts of baby related things.
Yesterday my aunt told me that it does not matter whether I have one or four kids. She could not understand my counter argument that I don’t think we can afford more than two. I tried to explain that having a baby involves not only cost of basic clothing, but also cost of future school (preferably private), cost of a house big enough to accommodate all the kids, cost of classes, vacations, university, etc. She just could not see it that way. View on having children from a Ukrainian village seem to be very different that from downtown Toronto. I want to give the best possible chance in life to my kids not just bring them to life and let them to fend to themselves. After little ***** is born, we are planning to have another baby. But this is it. Two babies is the maximum we can afford.
Another Month Closer to the Goal
Another month has passed and I am now officially in a first week of the 6th month. Many things have happened since the last update. First of all, it looks like we are going to have a baby girl. During the ultrasound the technician thought that it might be a girl but could not be certain. I asked her to put a special note for the radiologist to write the gender of a baby if he can identify it. Well, few weeks later we received that report and the gender of our baby is identified as female. My physician is a bit cautious about this identification. The probability of a baby identified as a girl actually being born a girl is approximately 80 percent. With this level of misidentification we still might have a baby boy. But for now we started to think that we have a baby girl.
Choosing a Name
The names have been chosen some time ago. The choice of a name has not been too easy as it had to comfort three conditions: it had to bee short (up to 5 letters in English), it had to be pronounceable in English and in Russian, and it had to be culturally acceptable for both sides – Russian and India - of our family. The idea of a short name comes from the fact that most south Indians have very long and totally unpronounceable names. As a result they end up having nicknames that have nothing in common with their real names. To avoid this situation the idea of a very short name was introduced.
At the end of a five-year deliberation a girl’s name was agreed upon quite easily. It is my grandmother’s name - *****. Choosing a boy’s name has not been that easy. My husband’s first choice was Agastya, after a legendary Indian saint. The name is too long in violation of my husband’s own condition of a 5-letter name and it is absolutely unpronounceable in Russian. My choice was Alexander, which in turn was even longer and unpronounceable in Malayalam (my husband’s language). Suggestion of having a double name Agastya Alexander was eliminated, as it would clearly lead to our baby getting a nickname.
Among the finalists for the boy’s name was Sashi. It is a variant of another Indian name - Shashi, which is a name of Shashi Tharoor, an author and the UN’s Under-Secretary-General for Communications and Public Information, whom I respect. It is a traditional name for the moon and literally means "having a hare" in Sanskrit. It is also very similar to Sasha, which is a short form of Alexander in Russian. I was still hesitant about this name until a saw a dream in which I had a baby boy whom I called Sachi. It solved all hesitations. If I am calling my baby boy by this name in my dream, it should be his name. So, if our current baby’s gender was misidentified, we might have a little Sachi instead of a little *****. If not, there is always the next time.
There is Something Alive Down There
Another amazing thing that began happening in the past couple of weeks is that my little ***** started kicking. It is a very strange feeling – somebody moving inside your belly. She is still too small for me to actually feel strong kicks. But I do feel flutters, movements and little pushes. It usually happens after I have some orange or mango juice and lay down. I’ve read that walking rocks the baby inside to sleep. So, she is asleep a lot during the day, but when I am going to sleep she wakes up and goes to play. Sometimes she wakes me up in the middle of the night when she gets hungry. It is very difficult to explain, but sometimes you wake up with this feeling of utter starvation as if you haven’t eaten for a week. It is a kind of feeling no one can ignore. I assume that is a way of little ***** letting me know that she wants her nightly snack. It usually happens in between 3 and 4 a.m. and I have to go I have a glass of milk or a glass of juice or a fruit.
Babies Cost Money
We finally did our first baby shopping. We did not buy much, just a few pieces of clothing. Right now we just are trying to see what and where we need to buy. Everything is just so expensive. Little baby’s gowns go for 12 to 20 dollars. Tiny little shoes can go for up to 40 dollars. Good quality bed can cost up to a thousand. The cheapest poor quality one still does not go below 250 dollars. Babies cost money. We haven’t begun to buy any of the big things, as we still have to move to a bigger apartment. But I foresee few thousands of dollars being spend on all sorts of baby related things.
Yesterday my aunt told me that it does not matter whether I have one or four kids. She could not understand my counter argument that I don’t think we can afford more than two. I tried to explain that having a baby involves not only cost of basic clothing, but also cost of future school (preferably private), cost of a house big enough to accommodate all the kids, cost of classes, vacations, university, etc. She just could not see it that way. View on having children from a Ukrainian village seem to be very different that from downtown Toronto. I want to give the best possible chance in life to my kids not just bring them to life and let them to fend to themselves. After little ***** is born, we are planning to have another baby. But this is it. Two babies is the maximum we can afford.
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