It’s only me inside

No, I don’t have a twin brother or a twin sister.

It’s only me inside mom’s belly.


So please stop asking her if she carries twins. She is not. And no, there is no chance the doctors have mistaken.


Thank you.

My name is Gala Takovski

So now it is official. My name will be Gala. Gala Takovska. I like it. Do you?

Gala (Гала) is a girl’s name of Greek and Russian origin, meaning ‘Calm’; it is also a Russian and Slavic name, short from Galina or Galena. Variant of Hebrew Gal, meaning ‘mound’,’ wave’.

The world’s most famous Gala was Gala Dalí, muse and inspiration, a model, a great love and a wife of Salvador Dalí, a Spanish Catalan surrealist painter.

Gala was born Elena Ivanovna Diakonova in Kazan, Tatarstan, Russia, to a family of intellectuals. Among her childhood friends was the poet Marina Tsvetaeva. As a young woman, living in Moscow, she graduated as a schoolteacher in 1915.

Dalí met Gala in August 1929. She was a Russian immigrant eleven years his senior, who at that time was married to surrealist poet Paul Éluard. Dalí and Gala, having lived together since 1929, were married in 1934 in a civil ceremony. They later remarried in a Catholic ceremony in 1958.

In the early 1930s, Dalí started to sign his paintings with his and her name as "it is mostly with your blood, Gala, that I paint my pictures". Gala was also a frequent model in Dalí's work, often in religious roles such as the Blessed Virgin Mary in the painting The Madonna of Port Lligat. Dalí's numerous paintings of her show his great love for her, and some are perhaps the most affectionate and sensual depictions of a middle-aged woman in Western art.

“Gala asomada a la ventana” (“Gala at the window”), a sculpture by Salvador Dalí, in Marbella, Spain.

“Dream Caused by the Flight of a Bumblebee around a Pomegranate a Second Before Awakening”, painting by Salvador Dalí, 1944.

Well… I know for most of you it will be difficult to get used to my new name, since you have addressed me as Mogly for almost nine months. So although I will be Gala when I am born, I won’t be mad if some of you still call me Mogly. I kind of started to like it as well :)

Poll on my name is now closed!

As you already know, my mom and dad made a short list out of all your proposals for my name. The short list was made based on the 110 different name proposals that you have been sending to my e-mail address little.mogly@gmail.com. Out of these 110 proposals, 67 (61%) were girls’ names and 43 (39%) were proposals for boys’ names. After that you could vote the short list for the name you liked most.

That was a competition for the 1st, 2nd and 3rd prize. Votes so far: 109. The poll is now closed, it is time to announce the winners:

Since no. 1 is my dad’s proposal, and no. 3 is my mom’s proposal, the main prize will go to the one who proposed the name no. 2 (17 votes). The prize goes to… aunt Marche (Marija Dimitrijevic)!!!! Yupiiiiiii!!!! Congratulations and thanks for the beautiful name!!!

There is also a special prize that will go to my cousin Ina, for her great dedication and involvement in this project. Thanks you Ina, and I can hardly wait to come out and meet you in person!

However, mom and dad will have ME as a reward, for the rest of their lives!

Once again, I thank all my friends that have sent all these beautiful name proposals and that follow my blog.

39 weeks down, 1 to go!

I have a great position and I am ready to get out of my mom’s belly. Oh, I am so anxious to greet the world as soon as possible!

I continue to build a layer of fat to help control my body temperature after birth, although it's likely I already measure about 50 cm and weigh a bit over 3.2 kilos, like a small watermelon. The outer layers of my skin are sloughing off as new skin forms underneath.

Today is day number 274 and I am weeks pregnant. I have 6 days or 1 week left, and I am 97.9% of the way there. In other words: 39 weeks down, and (according to mom’s doctor, not less than) one week to go…

I decided to listen to the doctor. If not a week, I will for sure try not to come out for two more days, because tomorrow is a big day for my parents and especially for my dad: he will become a Master tomorrow!!! And not just any kind of master, but Master of Arts, i.e. he will (I know for sure) successfully defend his master thesis in the field of communications.

The title of the thesis (although very long and at first look a bit confusing) is “Semiotic as an adequate theoretical-methodological model in the research of processes of creating of meaning at advertisements, focused on advertising teasers”. In simpler words, it is a pretty interesting research of teasers in advertising, something that no one has made before my dad. Which makes me even more proud!

Thumbs up, dad!!!

38 weeks down, 2 to go! Or less…

This is day number 268 and I am 38 weeks! I have 12 days or less than 2 weeks left, and I am 95.7% of the way there. Although I am full term already, my mom’s doctor believes that I will probably not be born before the due date, which is March 4.

I am now really plumped up. I weigh over 3 kilos now and I am over 50 cm long. I have a firm grasp, which my parents will soon be able to test when they hold my hand for the first time! My organs have matured and are ready for life outside the womb.

Wondering what color my eyes will be? Well, you may not be able to tell right away. If I am born with brown eyes, they'll likely stay brown. If I am born with steel gray or dark blue eyes, they may stay gray or blue or turn green, hazel, or brown by the time I am 9 months old. That's because a child's irises (the colored part of the eye) may gain more pigment in the months after she's born, but they usually won't get "lighter" or more blue. Green, hazel, and brown eyes have more pigment than gray or blue eyes.

For my mom it is getting harder and harder to carry her heavy stomach, it's getting even harder to breath while she talks, cause her stomach is pushing her lungs up. She also has a trouble sleeping: sometimes she wakes up in the middle of the night and can't go back to sleep till the morning. During these night hours, I am keeping her awake and amused with my active stretching, kicking and dancing, and most of all – moving down and getting ready to come out. But she says she generally feels fine – she is still active, going to work every day and trying to walk as much as she can… or as much as I let her to.

For my mom and dad, the next days and weeks are a waiting game. They are using the time to prepare my nursery or to take care of necessary tasks they may not get around to for a while after I am born. My dad made new furniture for me in the bedroom, as well as in the rest of the home. Tomorrow they will take me to pick up a bed for me, and a stroller....which is not an easy task at all!

We are all a bit excited as the day is near...

I am full term!

This is day number 260 and I am 37 weeks! I have 20 days or 3 weeks left, and I am 92.9% of the way there. This means that I am full term and that I arrive now, my lungs should be fully mature and ready to adjust to life outside the womb, even though my due date is still three weeks away.

I now weigh around 3 kg and measure a bit over 48 cm, head to heel. I think I also have full head of hair at birth, with locks from 1-4 cm long. My mom and dad heard my heart work on a strange device at my doctor’s, called CTG, and according to that my heart works just fine, although I sometimes feel excited, especially when my mom and dad decide to take me to a R’n’R’ band gig, an exhibition, somewhere “на гости” or some social event in town.

For my mom, it is getting harder and harder than ever to get comfortable enough to sleep well at night. She tries to take it easy through the day — for this may be her last chance to do so for quite a while. She now looks as she has a huge Pilates ball under her blouse, which is growing bigger and bigger every day.

Happy Birthday, Dad!

This is day number 254 and I am 36 weeks! My due date is 4th of March, I have 26 days or 4 weeks left, and I am 90.7% of the way there.

I am still packing on the pounds — at the rate of about an ounce a day. Theoretically I now weigh almost 2.7 kgs, like a Crenshaw melon. God, my dad is anxiously desperate for the summer to come and we to gorge ourselves on his favorite fruit – her sweetness the Melon.

However, as the day before yesterday we went to the doctor whose face shall be one of the first I am to see upon birth, his own diagnosis surmounted the limit of three kilograms, him being even confident that I am almost 3.2 kg! This got my dad upset a bit as he is still doing exercises (popularly known as 'се билда') with funny 30 kgs, since my current weight is promising one leading to me being healthy even 4kg baby, the birth weight of my both parents combined.

I am now 46 cm long. And I am shedding most of the downy covering of hair that covered my body as well as the vernix caseosa ("Que?!?"), the waxy substance that covered and protected her skin during her nine-month amniotic bath. ("Oh, thaaat!") I swallow both of these substances ("Ghaaagh!'), along with other secretions, resulting in a blackish mixture, called meconium, will form the contents of her first bowel movement. In other simpler words that we all can understand: "It's getting shitty tight and anticipating in here".

At the end of this week, I will be considered full-term. (Full-term is 37 to 42 weeks; babies born before 37 weeks are pre-term and those born after 42 are post-term.) I am definitely in a head-down position. Thus spoke our doctor and his instrument two days ago.

Otherwise I had great weekend hanging around with my dad's guests and friends, and my own buddies: Kalin, Marko, Prohor, aaandd Jakov, who's much older. It was my dad's 31st birthday. However, it is a pity Jana did not show up. I know it was with good reason. Although I shall not treat such an absence on my own birthdays! :)

I hope to see my cousins this weekend I spend some time with them. Tomorrow my aunt Hrisitina is coming from faaar away – Austria. Can't wait to chat with her as I have not done so for some 4-5 months now. She only knows me as veeery small. :)

Well, guys, 4 weeks to go. Fasten ye patience, and …