39 weeks: last pregnancy post!!

yes, you read that right. i am 100% sure this is my last pregnancy post! sh and i went to the doctor yesterday. i am 2cm dilated (active labor starts at 4cm) but have not really felt much in terms of real contractions (just what seems to be a lot of braxton hicks, which is maddening because it's such a tease this late in the game!).

the doc said that based on the baby's estimated weight of 6 pounds 10 oz 2.5 weeks ago, the baby could very well be 8 pounds already, or even bigger. my jaw dropped when she told me this. considering my size, she doesn't want lana getting much bigger because then it'll make it harder for me to deliver her naturally. so...if i don't go into labor on my own by tomorrow night, i'm scheduled to go to the hospital thurs morning at 6am to be induced. it's not ideal to be induced, but i'd rather be induced and deliver naturally than let lana go way overdue and get huge and then have to get a c-section. i was holding out hope that i'd go into labor today (so we could share birthdays) but that ship has sailed. i'm still hoping i'll go into labor naturally between now and thursday morning though. anyway, it's just such a relief to know that regardless of how it happens, after what feels like years of being pregnant lana will be here by the end of this week!

thanks everyone for all your encouragement and support! please pray for a quick and easy labor and delivery (well, as quick and easy as l&d can get!). oh, and pray that she is long and lean (and in particular, has a nice and small head). :D hopefully the next blog post will have pictures of a very tired but happy mommy and daddy with lana pants. :)

last bump!

38 weeks (+1 day): no baby yet.

note: i wrote this on tuesday morning, thinking it'd be ready to go tuesday night (after sh took my bump picture) but i'm just putting it up now because i seriously thought i was going into labor last night! i had back pain coming and going so i thought it was the beginning of contractions but nope. oh well.
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a girl can dream, but alas, lana is not here yet. although there was one day last week where i really thought i was going into labor and my heart started racing at the prospect that the day was finally here...but no. not yet. i had my weekly dr appt yesterday. i am now 131 pounds. no dilation yet. -_-

the silver lining of lana's no-show is that it allowed sh and me to go on a little getaway to the poconos last weekend - our last hurrah, if you will. today is our 3rd year anniversary (which i just realized a few days ago because i am so preoccupied with getting baby out of me) so it also doubled as an anniversary getaway. we went fri evening to sun morning and it was such a great time to unwind and relax. i think in this day and age, esp. as new yorkers (or living-in-nj-but-still-acting-like-new-yorkers), we don't know how to rest. it's hard to just...be. and now, esp. because we live with family, it's pretty much impossible to get rest living with my 10 year old cousin who never leaves us alone. so we ran away (from my cousin) to the poconos to a little b&b called the nest.

we highly recommend it! the owners have lived in the house for a long time but only recently renovated it to be a b&b. they are great hosts, great cooks and great to just sit and chat with. it's a modern b&b so no doilies/smell of mothballs and/or feeling like you're staying in someone else's grandma's house (unlike every single b&b i researched at the jersey shore). there's a pool, a hot tub and a basement with a game room, but otherwise, it's really a retreat - it's in the middle of nowhere and there's nothing but nature surrounding you. on sat it poured all day so i didn't get to go swimming but sh and i did relax in the hot tub for a long time which was sooo nice, even with the rain.

this pic is of our room at the b&b. sh is obsessed with the game of thrones series so his goal for the weekend was to be able to read it in peace.

anyway, i'm really excited to finally show some nursery pics! we aren't done yet but this is what we have so far.

this is a pic of the nursery from the doorway. sh did such an awesome job painting the room and fulfilling his wife's dreams of having a striped accent wall.

this is the room and board crib, with the bird mobile i made hanging above.

close-up of bird mobile.

some of lana's friends-to-be, hanging out in her crib (eagerly awaiting her arrival).

this is the before pic of the dresser i bought for $40 on craigslist.

this is the after pic - i sanded, primed and painted it and then added new drawer knobs from anthropologie.

we still need to get a bookcase for lana's toys/books as well as a floating shelf to put her name blocks, but at this point it's not a rush so we'll get to it sometime after she's born.

my full-time job these days is googling "ways to naturally induce labor." -_-

bump! i am hoping this is my last bump picture!

37 weeks: FULL TERM!!!

ok lana, you've been baking long enough to come out now! i'm full term today. i feel full term. women sometimes talk about how they didn't even realize they were starting to have contractions because the contractions were really mild in the beginning or they felt pain only in their back or they felt no pain, just pressure. every time i have an ache in my back or pressure in my lower abdomen i get excited and hope it's a contraction but alas it just eventually goes away and then that's that.

i was supposed to have a dr appt yesterday but she got called in for FIVE deliveries so it got rescheduled to today. stats: 130 pounds. didn't gain since last week. fundal height (size of uterus) is 36 cm. i unfortunately have not dilated at all yet. dr is going on vacation aug 29, so i said to her, "i hope she comes before you go on vacation!" and she said "i really don't think you'll go 6 days past." i'm not sure why she thinks that but i was glad to hear it. we had an ultrasound last thursday and the baby's estimated weight is 6lbs 10oz which sounds nice and small, so hopefully they're right! it was so awesome to see her on the screen again, even though she was so big it was hard to make out what was what. when the tech tried to get a profile pic of her face it was pretty impossible because, as usual, our little lana was putting on a little number and constantly moving around. at one point we could make out that one arm was on top of her forehead and the other one was curled up next to her cheek. so cute.

i'm done with work now. it was glorious to sleep till 9am this morning. and while i feel like i might get cabin fever sitting at home until lana comes out, i also really appreciate this time off to take care of random stuff and also prepare for lana. sh and i finished the last coat of paint on the dresser finally, and i ordered really pretty drawer knobs from anthropologie. i hope to be able to post somewhat finished pictures of the nursery soon.

i'm gonna be a mom soon! holy crap!

bump!

36 weeks: 4 weeks left!

4 weeks left till lana's due date and one week till full term/maternity leave starts. i'm trying my best to enjoy these last few weeks before lana's here, despite the bodily challenges i am constantly faced with. as my mom keeps saying to me, "you think it's hard now? wait till she's out...and then you'll want her to crawl back in." is the "she" in that sentence referring to lana or me? hmph. and i know i've said this before, but sometimes i forget that being pregnant necessarily means that i'll soon become a mom and have a baby to take care of. or maybe it's not that i forgot, but that i never really got it in the first place. maybe it finally sinks in once you're up at 3am trying to shove your boob into a crying baby's mouth. at least that's how i imagine it. but seriously, once lana's born, i (and sh) will never not be a parent again. sheer craziness. i hope God knows what he's doing! haha.

body is heavier, baby is lower. stretching pains have morphed into stinging pains - the lower side of my belly feels like it's sunburnt and it's super sensitive to the touch. i went to the OB yesterday. i have officially broken the 130 pound threshold - i am now 130.8 pounds (but with clothes on!). holy moly. i know i haven't gained much weight but it's still crazy to see numbers on the scale you've never seen before in your life. i have an ultrasound thursday to estimate the weight of the baby (let's keep it low lana!) and from now on, i go to the doctor once a week so she can check on the progress of my dilation.

i have a question for moms - did your own moms (and maybe MILs) impose a lot of restrictions on you when you had the baby? i'm a little tired of hearing all these old wives' tales (mostly from my aunts) about what you can and can't do after having a baby. i'm trying to be open-minded but there's no freakin' way that i am not showering for up to a month afterwards. i've also heard: don't open the fridge, don't drink cold drinks, don't read, don't sit for too long, eat iron-rich foods 3x a day for a month, don't go outside for a month, don't take baby out for several weeks, etc. i'm not saying all of them are crazy, but it's hard to know what is crap and what might have some truth to it. the pediatrician in our childbirth class did say to keep baby away from crowded public places until 6-8 weeks of age, so that i'm ok with. but moms, if you know from personal experience either way, i'd be glad to hear it. and seriously, koreans can't be the only crazy ones when it comes to this stuff right? right? o_O

bump!

35 weeks (+1 day): 5 weeks to go.

i know i'm super antsy for lana to come out, but i am somewhat appeased that i am now close enough to do a countdown - when people ask "when are you due?" or "how far along are you?" it makes me feel better that i can say "i have 5 weeks left" instead of "35 weeks." it doesn't work quite as well when you're like "oh well i have 18 weeks left."

still, with that said, physically everything is getting harder and harder. i feel ginormous, my hips, back, legs and belly ache and pull, i don't sleep as well, i'm constipated, i can't stand or sit for long periods, etc. as mom friends tell me, this is nature's way of making you totally ready for whatever it takes to get the baby out.

i think what's surprised me the most about pregnancy (in terms of the way my body feels) is how much the legs suffer. you always figure that the belly area and torso will have a lot of the burden to bear, but i didn't realize how hard it is on the legs. i keep thinking of those pre-pregnancy days when i could run around and do whatever i felt like without having to consider my body. i had a freakout moment last night - i came home from work, sat down for dinner, and just stayed seated at the dinner table for a couple hours. after dinner, i chatted with my mom and then played blokus with my cousin. my mom kept telling me to stop playing and go lie down on the couch so i finally did. my legs felt funny once i got to the couch so i looked down and holy moly my legs had swelled up like balloons! my right leg was way worse than my left - i couldn't believe it was my own leg. and my toes looked like little sausages. :( i propped my feet up and my mom massaged my legs and feet for a good hour to help the swelling go down. it's much better today but i'm still wary of sitting or standing for too long. pregnancy makes you sympathize with all sorts of ailments out there that you never really thought about - obesity, water retention, shortness of breath, a "bad hip," etc.. i sound like a 70 year old.

overall i don't think i've been too bad with mood swings during the pregnancy. i was super exhausted and thus super irritable during the first trimester, but besides that i don't think i've been crazy pregnant lady. (and i haven't ever made unreasonable requests for the hubs to go out and get [name the sweet] for me in the middle of the night. then again i haven't had any weird cravings at all during the pregnancy.) but. i think the aforementioned physical ailments + the heat + the "just get her out of me!" feeling are contributing to the making of a sort of "preggzilla." i suppose sh could give a more objective view on this matter but you know, no need to bother him. :)

while we're talking about pregnancy, i came across this video and...well, just watch it. it's a clip from the show "i didn't know i was pregnant." it boggles the mind, i tell you.
http://jezebel.com/5821307/there-was-a-baby-in-my-sweatpants

bump!

34 weeks: are we there yet?

ok. 6 weeks to go. six! one two three four five six! i don't think i can last...! just when i think i can't get any bigger, i do. just when i feel like i can't become less mobile or more uncomfortable, i do. it's kind of unbelievable, how my body tops itself every week. i mean, i have a few more blog entries to go before lana's out. what else can i write about? it'll be a lot of different ways of saying "i want her out!" o_O

in other news, my nightly ritual goes something like this: i go up to the bedroom and just collapse on the bed in a random position. but then when i want to actually go to sleep, i look at the less than two feet i have to move over and it looks miles away. it really feels impossible. i say to sh, "i have to go...there" and point to my side of the bed. so then sh performs a variety of strategic moves to scooch me over to where i want to go. then it's another few moves to get me in sleeping position - on my side cuddled up with my body pillow. then i wake up in the middle of the night to pee (now a nightly occurrence) so then it's more moves to get me out of bed, and then back into bed. o_O in my mind i've analogized my lack of mobility to wearing one of those inflatable sumo suits. you know how funny it looks when people get knocked over in those suits and then roll back and forth but can't get back up on their feet? that's exactly how it feels.

i went to the OB yesterday. i now weigh 128 pounds (i had some stomach issues recently so i only gained one pound in two weeks - which means the weight gain is pretty much all lana). my OB is pretty sure the butt's up top, which is a good thing. she's in ready position. people have been telling me that it looks like my belly is starting to drop, which is also a good thing. despite the fact that i feel huge and everything aches, i try to move around a lot because walking moves the baby down. baby down = closer to baby out.

we had our first of two childbirth classes this past weekend. the nurse who leads it is a good teacher. and it's easier to watch someone 'show&tell' the labor and delivery process rather than read it in a book. we went through the stages of labor, practiced breathing, watched a video and also got a tour of the hospital. one of the awesome perks of delivering in nj (read: not nyc) is that all the rooms are private, and there's a couch in each room for the dad to sleep on if he wants to stay overnight. the facilities look amazing since the hospital was renovated not that long ago. we stopped by the nursery which got me super excited because we saw several cute little newborns in there. you forget how little they are when they first come out! i think it made everything more real, to see those newborns in person.

as for the nursery, jeanne came over to help prime and paint the dresser on saturday (she will work for food) - one more coat of paint, some new knobs and it'll be ready to go. i just hope the finished product looks ok and not too...homemade. i also finished the crib mobile, so we just need to figure out how to hang it from the ceiling (so it doesn't end up falling on lana). daddy's done painting the nursery walls too, so we're making progress. i'll post pics once everything's done. the piece that i hope pulls the whole nursery together is this really cute rug i scored for 1/3 price on hautelook. i can't wait for it to come.

bump! (my "waist" now measures 40.5 inches. holy. beached. whale.)

33 weeks (+ 2 days): daddy post

Hi guys, it's me, SH. After the craziness of the fourth of July weekend (we grilled 3 times over a 4-day span), I decided to give mommy a break. So as you can read from the title, we are less than 2 months away from Lana's arrival. Mommy's doing great, although she is getting to the point where sleeping is starting to get a bit difficult and moving around is becoming more and more cumbersome. So your prayers would be appreciated. We're really grateful that she's able to start her maternity leave 2 weeks before her due date. We know that most women don't get that, so we are definitely blessed. Praise God!

As I said in my last post, I had mentioned that we would tell you Lana's Korean name. For those of you who don't know, traditionally in Korea, the naming of a child goes to her paternal grandfather. So once we told my parents that we were expecting, I know my dad probably went to work immediately. :)

Funny side-story about that...
Since my dad is a believer, I knew that his first choice would be to either pick a name out of the Bible or a name that has some Christian meaning rather than use traditional Korean names (not that there's anything wrong with that). So naturally he started by thumbing through the bible. One day when we met up with my parents (while he was still pondering different names), he tells us that for some reason only the female names kept jumping out at him. The guy names didn't even catch his eye. Therefore, he told us that he suspects that our baby was gonna be a girl. Keep in mind that this was weeks before we had our ultrasound to find out the sex and sure enough, when the time came, it was a girl! There's a whole other story about how my parents and I all thought that it was gonna be a girl and Carol thought the baby was gonna be a boy, I think Carol mentioned that in a previous post. :)

So after lots of prayer and thought on his part, he came up with the name of his first granddaughter: "HaYoung."

Her name is a combination of the Korean words for "God" and "glory/glorify"... to be a little more specific, he derived it from the Korean translation of the first question/answer of the Westminster Catechism.

<little bit of reformed doctrine>
Q. What is the chief end of man?
A. Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever.
</little bit of reformed doctrine>

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Hmmm, I actually wanted to write a little bit about living in our new place in Jersey as well as my thoughts on becoming a dad and maybe respond a little on Carol's previous post about how I'm already whipped for Lana. :) But, this post is already getting way too long. Maybe next time...

Good night!
-SH


bump!

32 weeks: nesting phase, labor dreams, begin.

i feel like it's time to start the countdown. 5 weeks till full term, 8 weeks till 40 weeks. lana, feel free to come out a little early.

two topics for today...

1. nesting. my officemate keeps teasing me that i am all about nesting these days. i think it's more mentally true than actually true. in my mind i am amazing - effortlessly handling all these creative endeavors to make lana's nursery a dream. in reality i am heavy and not very crafty. so we'll see how this goes, but i have two projects right now that i hope i can bring to fruition.

project 1 is repainting a used baby dresser i found on craigslist. sh took me to lowe's so i could buy all the supplies: sandpaper, wood filler, primer, brushes and paint. i figured that, with less money than it costs for a 3-dresser drawer from ikea, i could save a used piece of furniture and make something special and customized just for lana. i'm still in the sanding phase, and i've gotten a good amount done but man - it's not easy. it wiped me out last night. i'm hoping to put my 10-year-old cousin to work to help finish the sanding. she loves doing things with us (sh let her help paint the nursery until we said no more because we were redoing all the areas she was painting), so i said, "do you want to sand the dresser with me?" she goes "ok...what's sanding?" i said "it's something super fun." haha. i'll post before/after pics when i'm done (if they're presentable...).

project 2 is creating a mobile for the crib. i was browsing etsy to buy one when i realized that i could maybe make one for way less money. i don't have a sewing machine and i'm not very good at hand sewing so i looked for and found a very cute and simple bird template. the goal as of now is to sew 3 little birds, and then hang them from either a round wooden hoop or a branch. then i'll have to figure out a way to fasten it to either the crib or the wall/ceiling so that it hangs over the crib.

2. labor dreams. i had my first two nights ago. i had what i thought was a contraction, so i told sh and we headed to the hospital. i got admitted only to be told that it was a little too early to be there so i should go back home. i was like no! please don't kick me out! now that we're 8 weeks away, i've been thinking about the fact that i actually have to get this little booger out of me. i don't think i'm scared as much as just preoccupied with that thought - wondering how it'll go and what my experience will be. i'm trying not to read -too- much because i can get a little crazy when i over-research things, but i do want to be prepared and know what to expect. i think my biggest fear (besides the general level of pain) is...tearing. or getting an episiotomy. yikes. a question for moms - did you have a birth plan? was it oral or written out? i'm a little confused about this and how it actually plays out, but i found a good template online that has a bunch of topics that can be covered. i'm thinking of filling it out and giving it to my OB as well as the hospital.

in other pregnancy news, i saw the OB on monday and i now weigh 127 pounds! i can't believe i'll be entering the 130s territory soon - sounds scary. o_O lana weighs about 4 pounds now. she hiccups after every meal - without fail. she kicked so forcefully yesterday that i felt like my skin was going to rip and her foot was going to come out. i have major back pain and i can't sit or stand for long stretches, which makes the couch in the empty office next door to mine tempting.. i have outgrown maternity pants that "can be worn till the end of pregnancy!" i still don't eat crazy amounts but i had 3 chocolate chip cookies today and regretted it. and, i love our new place but i am NOT feelin' the stairs. not at all.

BUMP! (i feel like it's so big i need to use caps.)

31 weeks: dads rock

since sunday was fathers' day, i thought it'd be a good topic for this week's post. esp. bc i'm thinking a lot more about what it means to be a parent (mother or father) with lana coming soon.

my dad is in china all by his lonesome right now - my mom had visa issues so she had to come back in late april. and naturally, once she's here, she doesn't really want to go back. she hired my dad a housekeeper to clean, do the dishes, do the laundry, etc., put some easy-to-heat meals in the freezer, and basically said, peace!  i can't imagine being by myself in a foreign country (and not for vacation). i think sometimes he pretends to like it more than he actually does, just so we don't worry about him. but i think it helps that his employees have become his pseudo-family over there. he seems to really like them and vice versa. he talks about them fondly. for his birthday, they chipped in to buy him a really nice pen and he seemed really touched by it. in true asian style, they hang out after work together - they go out to eat, drink a lot (though my dad has the tolerance of a 10 year old girl so he said he pretends to drink by putting beer bottles up to his mouth and then not really drinking haha), play pool (apparently, he's the reigning champion) and sing karaoke. even though i'm sure it's fun sometimes, i know that he's really sacrificing a lot to provide for the family, in a country halfway across the world, where the culture can be completely bewildering, where he can barely speak the language and where, as my dad laments, "there are no peanut m&ms."

so i thought i'd just write a little about my dad. and instead of writing a long-winded tale, i like lists, so here's a list of random things about why my dad rocks:

-- when i was born, my dad was on an extended business trip in saudi arabia. apparently, my mom called him to say, "i just gave birth to our daughter," at which point he walked into his boss' office, quit, and flew home on the next flight.
-- as kids, my mom was the disciplinarian and my dad was the fun one, esp. since my mom was a stay-at-home mom. my dad hated the sound of us practicing violins since we sucked so he always let us (made us) stop practicing when he got home from work (much to my mom's chagrin and our delight).
-- until the day i graduated high school, every morning after i left for school my dad would make my bed, fold my pajamas, clean my desk and pick the lint off my carpet (on his hands and knees). i think i may get my analness from him.
-- my dad used to go on business trips a lot when we were kids. he always made sure to find time in his schedule to go shopping and buy us the coolest presents. i remember him arriving home and andy and me saying, "hi dad! where are our presents??"
-- my dad (and mom) never uttered a complaint when our hockey games were at 6am in eastern long island, which meant we'd have to wake up by 3:30am. i thought this was normal. but then i remember very clearly a conversation i had in 6th grade at lunch with my friends. it was one of those "what are you doing this wknd?" conversations and when i told them about the hockey game, they gasped and said, "wait, your parents are driving you at 3:30am to a hockey game on saturday morning?" i didn't know what the big deal was so i said, "yeah, so what?" and they responded with "uh, my parents would never EVER do that." hm, really. that's weird.
-- on the rare occasion my dad would go food shopping with us, he would let us buy whatever we wanted (sugary cereals, chocolate, candy, etc.). again, to my mom's chagrin and our delight. i get my sweet tooth from him, definitely. i should send him some peanut m&ms.
-- one thing i really appreciate about both my parents is that they aren't what many would call "typical" asian parents, in that they were always super affectionate with us and with each other. i don't think the lack of affection of other parents means they love their family any less, but i think it's important to show it and my parents really did that (even though when we were kids and saw my parents kiss, we'd go "EWWW GROSS STOP IT!!!").

and now that sh is gonna be a dad, i know he'll be awesome, just like my dad is. i'm really excited to see him with lana. he's already whipped now (and she's not even out yet) so i can only imagine what he'll be like once he sees her and gets to hold her and interact with her. i know it's going to be the hardest thing we've ever done, but it's also mind-boggling how awesome a gift from God it is to be able to have kids of our own to love, raise, drive us crazy, etc. let's just hope we don't screw it up too bad. maybe once you do it for a while it becomes natural, and you wouldn't even think twice about doing drastic things for your family, things like going to live in china.

in baby news, there's not much to say besides...i am very uncomfortable and i want her to come out. oh and our crib came today! it's so cute, i love it. also, for better or for worse, i have gone into diy mode full-force. we will see what the outcome is. o_O

bump!

30 weeks: omg 30 weeks sounds crazy

it's only one week after 29 but it feels like a major milestone, even more so than entering the third trimester. for some reason, the number scares me. maybe it's because i'm also turning 30 this year, a week before lana's due date - i am secretly hoping she comes more than a week early so that i can say i had my first baby at 29, not 30. -_-

on one hand, more and more i'm realizing that lana will be here soon, so my thoughts are slowly transitioning from being pregnant with her...to delivering her. which excites me, but also terrifies me. i mean, i want to see her so badly, but let's be honest, it's not going to be fun getting her here. but then on the other hand, i'm like, wait i still have 10 weeks left?? 10 more weeks for lana to grow bigger and bigger and bigger, whom i then have to push out?? in reality, she's not that big yet (only 2-3 pounds) but it feels like she's huge already because I'M huge. all the major growth happens in the last trimester (with the baby gaining about half a pound a week and the mom gaining about a pound a week), and i definitely can attest to that - i'm getting bigger (and feeling bigger) by leaps and bounds every couple days. it was harder sitting at work today than it was even last week. the weight and downward pressure from my belly onto my hips and back is getting progressively harder to manage. i have regular si joint pain on my right side, and my left hip clicks a lot when i walk. i had an OB appt yesterday - i am now at 125.5 pounds, and my belly measures 39 inches. o_O i stand in front of the mirror every night looking at my naked belly. it's half awe and half horror. then i say to sh, "holy crap. i'm huge!" and he's like, "yes, well, there's a lana pants in there." well, thanks for the info. my friend and i were saying, pregnancy makes you feel like you had the hottest body before you got pregnant, which is by no stretch of the imagination true, but you know, it's all relative. i am really scared that i won't fit into my old clothes. luckily, so far i haven't really gained any weight in my upper half so i'm not as worried about tops, but i'm scared that i won't fit into my suit pants or skirts again - they are pretty tight around the waist and fit just right. i will have to do the kate hudson training regimen after lana is born, because i too can afford to have someone watch the baby all the time while i work out 5 hours a day. yes.

speaking of working out, i've been neglecting to do it these days. i kept saying i'd be a yoga machine while pregnant but it's SO hard when all you want to do is sleep when you get home from work. so i've been trying to at least get a decent amount of walking in here and there (which is usually in the form of shopping) as well as stretching every night, esp. my legs, which always feel so stiff and weak. i'm also trying to do kegels regularly but i keep forgetting to. and i hate how every book you read says, "breathe normally as you do your kegels." um, i don't think that's physically possible. i can't breathe and do them at the same time. i end up just holding my breath and my head feels like it's going to explode. does anyone else have this problem? it can't just be me. but my fear of a bad labor and delivery keeps me trucking along and doing them, breathing or not.

bump!

29 weeks (+1 day): i think it's finally hitting me that i'm having a baby

i feel like it was just yesterday that i was saying "woe is me this winter is so cold!" and now it's 95 degrees. luckily, i walk a total of maybe 3 blocks on my new commute (since the bus stops about 2 blocks away from my house and i work across the street from port authority) so hopefully i won't have to suffer too much in this heat wave and the upcoming summer. women (including my mom) keep telling me their war stories of being 9 months pregnant in august...which will be me. o_O and i really don't do well in heat as it is. but i hope to be as graceful as a 9-month-pregnant woman can be in 90+ degrees and nasty humidity. one of my secret weapons is watermelon. i love watermelon normally but since i've gotten pregnant i can't get enough of it. which also causes middle-of-the-night peeing but i think that becomes a given regardless of what i'm eating so...i will keep enjoying my watermelon. from costco. i love costco.

i've finally gotten around to looking at my maternity leave forms for work and my last day at work will be august 9 (2 weeks before due date), which also happens to be our 3rd wedding anniversary. i guess we can go out somewhere nice for dinner that night and it'll be a double hurrah. :) it's really hitting me now that lana will be here soon. august 9 is less than 9 weeks away. i can't believe it. i definitely feel like i've crossed some sort of...threshold this past week as i entered the third trimester. all of a sudden it's gotten way harder to sit, breathe, move around (especially in bed at night). sometimes i'll wake sh up in the middle of the night if i need to switch sides because i really cannot roll over without causing myself some sort of abdominal pinching/stretching pain. so i'll hit him and he'll be like, "huh? what? oh ok" and then gently push me over to the other side. it's kind of sad but super helpful. i also would not be able to sleep without my body pillow. i HIGHLY recommend it - it's specially designed for pregnant women. it's weird-looking but really thoughtfully and well-designed. here's the link to it. since buybuybaby sells it, you can get it 20% off with one of their coupons. and it says you can use it for feeding once the baby's here too so it double-duties.

something funny that i've noticed the past few weeks is that lana almost exclusively prefers hanging out in the upper right side of my belly. she'll roll up there and nestle in around my ribcage until i push her back down but inevitably she'll mosey on back up. i have no idea what body part of hers it is, but sometimes it feels rock hard - maybe head? shoulder? though it can be extremely uncomfortable sometimes, i find it hilarious that even in the womb, she has her preferences. it's fun to imagine her as this little rambunctious baby with her own personality, stubbornly sticking to my right side. it's easy to forget that she's a real human being because we can't see her but it's almost like she's reminding me when she does this. sometimes, i can't believe at the end of all this there's going to be a new...person. i mean, if you think about it, making a baby is a lot easier than making...a lot of other things. -_-

bump!

28 weeks (+3 days): third trimester! thank jesus

it's the third trimester!! but that milestone was overshadowed by the move this week. we moved on tuesday to cliffside park nj. it's going well but it's absolutely exhausting. in my mind, i'm super productive - an unpacking and organizing machine. but my body does not follow suit (and it drives my ocd side crazy because i want to get it all done right away). i get so tired so quickly and my FEET KILL. add to that the fact that our brand new duplex's air conditioning wasn't working when it was an unseasonable 90 degrees out and i was pretty much useless. i woke up this morning and was like, why am i so itchy? i looked and i had basically broken out in a heat rash all over my torso. attractive, i know. i hadn't gotten a heat rash since i was 7 so i was like, why now? but when i talked to my mom about it, she said she was the same when she was pregnant with me - she developed heat rashes after not having gotten them since she was a child. (since i was born a week before lana's due date, our pregnancies are basically the same season-wise.) anyway - i can't believe how much there is to do still. sh and i took the whole week off to move but the week flew by and i can't believe it's already friday. but it'll be so nice once we're all settled in. i'm really enjoying the extra space, the driveway, the jacuzzi tub. tomorrow we're going to grill in our backyard. :)

yesterday i had my first appointment with my new OB. since we moved to nj i had to say bye to my OB in brooklyn which was sad because i really liked her. but i'm feeling much better now because my new OB is pretty awesome too. she was so thorough and had a whole shpiel prepared for me. her office is right next to hackensack medical center which, at least from the outside, looks amazing. the wonder of the suburbs - i've been living in the city for so long i forgot how medical complexes can look so clean and fresh.

so i have less than 12 weeks to go now. it sounds like a long time but i know she'll be here before i know it. i'm excited and scared at the same time (not scared of her coming - scared of labor - i made it very clear to my OB yesterday that i want all the drugs she got). lana is making her presence known more and more each day. it feels like she is constantly moving. she has her signature move - the double kick (punch?). i feel jabs on both sides of my belly at the same time. i love feeling her move, and i really feel like it's such an important part of the mother-daughter bonding experience. in other news - i am eating pretty well (but still not a fan of too much meat) but i definitely feel myself slowing down. my body feels sluggish, heavy and if i move too fast i feel stabbing and stretching pains. overall though, i feel pretty good, pains and aches aside. can't wait for lana pants to come. :)

bump!

27 weeks (+3 days): busy busy

just a few days away from the third trimester! sometimes it felt like it went fast, but mostly it felt like i crawled my way here. monday marked exactly 3 months to go (due date aug 23). when i say to sh "i've been pregnant forever!" he goes "be thankful you're not an elephant." -_-

work was pretty crazy the past couple weeks, but the deal closed wednesday so...hallelujah. good timing too because i'm taking off all next week for the move.

so we are full swing in packing mode. actually, let me rephrase. my mom's been in full swing in packing mode. what would we have done without her for this move? she has cleared out the fridge and freezer by cooking us random but yummy combinations of food (hot and ready to eat the second we walk in the door), she packs a few boxes every day (she even brought "work" gloves with her from china for the express purpose of packing for us), she takes care of sammie and she gives me foot massages at the end of the day when i'm totally spent. i don't want to imagine how we would've gotten through this whole process without her. she left for georgia on wednesday to visit my aunt and sh and i are like, "wait, we have to finish packing this ourselves now?" haha. we are only in a one bedroom and we don't have that much furniture but it feels like we have SO much stuff. we are moving on tuesday. so only a few more days before we say goodbye to brooklyn and hello to nj. i'm going to miss brooklyn a lot but i gotta say, the garage, the jacuzzi tub, the backyard, the deck, the convenience of driving wherever i want to go (hello mitsuwa!) - they'll help me get used to nj. :)

so now that i'm approaching the third trimester, the aches and pains are getting worse. foot and back pain are pretty regular, and my legs are always aching. they feel really weak. i'm constantly stretching them but they don't feel stretched. i've also experienced a couple blackouts (one monday actually) and that's no fun. they both happened at the subway platform, but thank god i didn't get on the subway. on monday i was standing there waiting for the train when my heart started racing all of a sudden. then i got chills, then i felt sweaty (like a hot flash). because it'd happened once before, i knew the blackout was coming. i talked to my OB about this and she said it's common for pregnant women to experience this because so much of our blood gets diverted to the baby. she said the best thing to do is lie down and elevate the legs and also eat something if my blood sugar is low. so i basically left the subway station and went straight back home. i lied down on the couch with my legs elevated and took a quick nap. a dull headache and some dizziness stayed with me all day but the blackout was averted. she's like a little vampire in there, taking all my blood!

so many people around us are having babies, and when i see the pictures of the babies in the delivery room, i'm like, aww how nice, but it doesn't really hit me that that'll actually happen to us. there's still so much of a reality gap between me right now (despite feeling big and heavy and achy) and me post-delivery holding a baby. it hasn't sunk in yet, but maybe it will once we move and set up the nursery. everything's going really great though, and i'm just so so thankful to God for the smooth pregnancy so far. it's so exciting to see our families so eager for her arrival - she's going to be one spoiled baby being the first grandchild on both sides. o_O

bump! gah i feel so big!

26 weeks: nursery dreams

i hesitate to say it because...being a lawyer you learn quickly that nothing is really a done deal until you hold the executed contract in your hands...but it seems like we found a place to live. lana may not be homeless after all. :) thank jesus! after a lot of heartache and anxiety and waiting, we've signed a lease for a duplex in cliffside park. we're just waiting for the landlord to sign (who, of course, is away in florida this week and "doesn't do email"). so you know then that i have nightmarish daydreams of her backing out a week before june 1 rolls around. anyway, the place is big, new (and therefore, CLEAN), bright...has a washer/dryer, a garage, a backyard! things i took for granted growing up but which have become unfathomable amenities for the NYer version of me. the landlord made a huge stink about sammie but we've been able to negotiate around it (read: we paid more money...that little mutt rules the show and she knows it).

since the house hunting process is now (hopefully) done, my thoughts have presently drifted over to the nursery. :D i am so excited to set it up, esp. now that i know what the room looks like. i am a complete design blog junkie. i am on apartmenttherapy.com every day, and nowadays, also ohdeedoh.com, which is dedicated to kid-related design.

as of now, i am envisioning the nursery colors to be white, natural wood, gray, with lime green accents.

this is what i have lined up to buy for the nursery in terms of the essential furniture items:

crib - "nest crib" from room and board. it was really important for me to buy a solid wood american-made crib that i knew would be sturdy and last for subsequent baby/ies.

dresser - "hemnes" from ikea. i figured we don't need an expensive dresser for the baby. we can place a changing pad on top of this so it double duties as a changing table. i may change out the knobs for cuter ones.

rocking chair - "empire rocker" from nurseryworks. this was my splurge...i actually already bought it. i saw it on gilt for way cheaper than the list price, so i jumped on it. it fits the gray color scheme perfectly. :)

as i continue shopping for nursery items i'll post them and it'll be awesome to post pictures of the full nursery once it's all set up!

bump!

25 weeks (+ 4 days): alien!

i tried blogging yesterday but blogspot was down. it's been a busy week. i don't have time to blog much (read: i completely veg out and pass out when i get home in the evenings) so here's a quick summary of the things i want to get down:

1. we have not found a place to live yet in nj. we are 2 weekends away from the weekend we need to move. i am sort of freaking out. we have a few appointments this morning. please pray that we get a place! or lana will be homeless. no i'm not a drama queen.

2. lana is SO active. i can now see parts of her body stick out of my belly. it's so crazy. sometimes i'll feel all this wriggling and moving and all of a sudden there's a lump sticking out the side of my belly. (she prefers the right side.) if i poke it, it usually goes back in. haha. it's like a little game between us. :)

3. sometimes i forget that being pregnant means i will be a parent soon. that sounds weird. that sounds not right. sometimes i feel bad for lana.

4. i have gained a total of 6 pounds since i got pregnant. it feels like WAY more than that. the doc said my goal should be to hit 130 by the end.

bump! (what i wear changes the appearance of how big my belly is. but trust me, i'm growing)

24 weeks: o_O

i skipped a week, i know. last week was pretty busy - the first half of the week was busy at work so i came home and crashed. wednesday, sh and i went to pick up my mom from the airport. we didn't get back till after 11pm (is there ever a time when jfk doesn't have arrival delays?). my mom was on a plane for over 18 hours, came into our apartment and started cleaning the kitchen. i was like, "mom! you'll have plenty of time to do that later. relax!" "i'm not tired at all!" seriously, moms are the best. i thought to myself, will i love lana enough to do that? i don't know! i hate cleaning the kitchen! i'll pay for a housekeeper. :) my excuse for not blogging for the rest of the week is i was hanging out with my mom. saturday was sammie's bday party (pictures will be up on fb soon, thanks to andy rhee, doggy photographer!) and saturday night to sunday night we went down to nj to visit my aunt.

there are a lot of things running through my mind lately. april has been a hard month professionally, physically, emotionally and mentally. my body is starting to feel heavier, more tired, more achy. back pain and foot pain are regular parts of my day now. but the physical hardships are manageable so far because i'm prepared for them and know that they're a normal part of pregnancy - a part of pregnancy i would gladly go through to have a healthy baby at the end. and i think a lot of what i'm struggling with are normal struggles, ones that have nothing to do with being pregnant, but being pregnant and tired and achy and hormonal exacerbates those struggles. but at the same time, the anticipation of being able to see lana soon makes things easier too. i guess it's give and take.

i have a lot of things i want to get on paper but don't have the time right now. i think i need to process my thoughts and take some time to put decent words to them instead of creating an all-out unedited stream-of-consciousness mess. until then, i saw this recently and both laughed out loud and cried within a 2 minute span. it's so awesome. it's called 'a mother's prayer for her child' by tina fey.

“First, Lord: No tattoos. May neither Chinese symbol for truth nor Winnie-the-Pooh holding the FSU logo stain her tender haunches.

May she be Beautiful but not Damaged, for it’s the Damage that draws the creepy soccer coach’s eye, not the Beauty.

When the Crystal Meth is offered, may she remember the parents who cut her grapes in half And stick with Beer.

Guide her, protect her when crossing the street, stepping onto boats, swimming in the ocean, swimming in pools, walking near pools, standing on the subway platform, crossing 86th Street, stepping off of boats, using mall restrooms, getting on and off escalators, driving on country roads while arguing, leaning on large windows, walking in parking lots, riding Ferris wheels, roller-coasters, log flumes, or anything called “Hell Drop,” “Tower of Torture,” or “The Death Spiral Rock ‘N Zero G Roll featuring Aerosmith,” and standing on any kind of balcony ever, anywhere, at any age.

Lead her away from Acting but not all the way to Finance. Something where she can make her own hours but still feel intellectually fulfilled and get outside sometimes And not have to wear high heels. What would that be, Lord? Architecture? Midwifery? Golf course design? I’m asking You, because if I knew, I’d be doing it, Youdammit.

May she play the Drums to the fiery rhythm of her Own Heart with the sinewy strength of her Own Arms, so she need Not Lie With Drummers.

Grant her a Rough Patch from twelve to seventeen.Let her draw horses and be interested in Barbies for much too long, For childhood is short – a Tiger Flower blooming Magenta for one day – And adulthood is long and dry-humping in cars will wait.

O Lord, break the Internet forever, that she may be spared the misspelled invective of her peers And the online marketing campaign for Rape Hostel V: Girls Just Wanna Get Stabbed.

And when she one day turns on me and calls me a Bitch in front of Hollister, Give me the strength, Lord, to yank her directly into a cab in front of her friends, For I will not have that Shit. I will not have it.

And should she choose to be a Mother one day, be my eyes, Lord, that I may see her, lying on a blanket on the floor at 4:50 A.M., all-at-once exhausted, bored, and in love with the little creature whose poop is leaking up its back. “My mother did this for me once,” she will realize as she cleans feces off her baby’s neck. “My mother did this for me.” And the delayed gratitude will wash over her as it does each generation and she will make a Mental Note to call me. And she will forget. But I’ll know, because I peeped it with Your God eyes.
Amen.”

bump! (i don't post for a week and i practically double in size! i can't believe that's me. but do keep in mind i just ate a big dinner and some more cold stone. oh, and i measured my waist - 37 inches. holy crap.)

22 weeks: give mom a break

Hi, this is Seung Ho (or 'sh' as Carol puts it). Carol has wanted me to do a guest post for some time now. Since she is busy with work today, I guess this would be the perfect opportunity to jump in. I only hope that I won't disappoint her faithful followers.

First off, we give all glory to God for blessing us with this precious gift. I'm going to trust in His all-knowing wisdom and plan for all of this because if I was in His shoes, I wouldn't trust me with a tiny new human being. hahaha. In all seriousness, we're just in awe of His love and care for us during the whole process. He's been providing for us every step of the way.

Needless to say, it's been a crazy journey. I can't believe she's already 22 weeks pregnant. Has it really been 15-16 weeks since she took the test? It's been a blur, although for Carol it might seem a lot longer since she's the one that actually has to carry the little booger. Speaking of which, I can't even begin to imagine what women go through in carrying a baby for 9 months (props to all you moms out there!). It definitely hasn't been easy for her with all of the symptoms that she had, but through it all, she's been great.

So as you guys already know, we're going to be having a little girl. I'm totally excited about it. I really had no preference. It's not like I was sitting there wanting 5 boys. I always wanted at least one of each (Lord willing, of course). Carol and I both come from families that have both sons and daughters and that's what we wanted as well. The only "request" that I have is that the baby will grow healthy and that the baby will come to know Jesus as his/her personal savior. The only one reason I wanted a son first (if we were gonna have at least one of each) was that, let's face it, I'm no spring chicken. AND... I have a jacked up back to boot. I always had the typical dream that fathers have of teaching their little boys how to play catch and hit a baseball. So if I was going to have a son, I wanted him first so that I can still be somewhat "young" enough to run around with him. Not that I can't do that with a daughter (I still might) and I'm not being sexist, but you know... it's just different.

Anyways, I guess I'll wrap this up since I can go on forever talking about our future little one (I'll jump in on future posts if Carol lets me). I'll end with revealing the name that we picked out for our daughter:

"Lana Choe"
(korean name to come later)

Oh, here's her bump!!

21 weeks: congrats, it's a basketball!

it's always hardest coming back to reality after a vacation, and work always seems to be at its worst after a vacation (but maybe it's not objectively worse, just subjectively because you're comparing real life to the awesomeness of vacation, which, obviously, is completely unfair to real life). i'm still recovering from this past weekend where i worked most of my waking hours, and it made me realize how different my energy level is now compared to pre-pregnancy. also, my belly has grown a lot this past week which has made things interesting. the belly growth is not steady, as i've realized, but more spurt-like. it'll seem to be the same size for a while, then within a couple days, it'll grow all of a sudden. if you compare this week's bump picture to last week, you'll see that the top of my belly has filled out a lot, almost as if a basketball's in there. before, it was bigger more in the lower ab area but she's creeping up. this makes it hard to sit for long periods of time. i'm feeling a lot more pressure and sometimes breathing gets hard too. i feel HUGE but i can't believe i still have 19 more weeks to go until the due date. i am scared about how big i'll get. i measured my belly the other day and i was 36 inches. 36!! i regularly pray for baby to be tiny (but healthy of course) at birth but grow to be much taller than her mommy (like her daddy). :)

so in anticipation of our growing family, sh and i have decided to move to nj. we've started the hunt but it's been stressful already (we found a place we loved but lost it to someone with a may 1 move-in date - we're june 1). i know we'll find something right for us but it's been a bit overwhelming dealing with househunting on top of work and baby stuff. i am such a control freak and feel antsy whenever i don't feel completely on top of every situation i'm in. i suppose i should start learning now how to be ok with not feeling in control, since i'm sure baby will be very good at taking that control away from me. o_O

bump!!

20 weeks (+ 1 day): halftime!

i am officially halfway through my pregnancy. sometimes it feels like it went fast, sometimes i'm like, "i still have 20 weeks to go??" either way, when i do a little retrospection, i'm so thankful for how well the pregnancy's gone so far. yes the morning sickness, nausea and exhaustion were no fun. and yes i'm still not eating completely normally and yes i see grandmas pass me when walking up the stairs, but whenever i feel cranky about it, i try to remind myself that it's normal and expected. also, health-wise for me and baby, everything's been going really well, whether it's blood tests or ultrasounds. my OB said "everything looks perfect perfect perfect." so many things can go wrong in a pregnancy that it's just such a relief that everything has gone so well so far. let's hope and pray the second 20 weeks are as good (or better!) than the first 20. and please let me have a painless labor and delivery ok thanks much.

we went to florida this past weekend for sh's sister's wedding. the whole trip was amazing. the weather was perfect, the wedding was beautiful and it was great to just relax with family and friends. i should go on vacation all the time because i eat so much better when i'm on vacation. all for the baby, of course. i'm not sure what it is, but it's definitely true. i think it's just the relaxed timeline - we have time to consider what we want and then go eat it. which is so unlike real life where we're always rushed and eating on the go. the good news is...my mom's coming back in three weeks! (mom = food.) she can't last more than 4 months at a time in china. actually, she has visa issues but she's not exactly torn up about having to leave the country. she bought a one-way ticket so she has the option of staying until the baby's here. my poor dad. always gets shafted.

speaking of dads, my father-in-law has come up a suggestion for baby's korean name (which will be her legal middle name). we told him we'd think about it. but he's so sneaky. why? two reasons: 1) first, he says, "this name was given to me by God so if you don't like it, you'll just have to come up with another name. i'm sticking to the one name." major guilt trip! 2) but then, while we're driving to the wedding, he says, "ok. maybe i have one more suggestion" and gives us another name to consider. but this second name is pretty ugly. i wonder if it's a strategy to make the first name look better! so it begins...o_O

and speaking of grandparents, my mom is looking high and low in china for a chi pao (the traditional chinese dress) for the baby...and also one for sammie. can't forget about the first grandchild. :)

bump! (was already in my pjs and too lazy to change into the usual tshirt i wear, so i pulled the shirt back so you can see the bump better)

19 weeks: IT'S A GIRL!

ok. i hate being wrong, and i hate admitting i'm wrong even more. but...it's true. i was totally wrong. i was so convinced our baby was a boy, but the ultrasound image shows that, according to our sonographer, our baby is indisputably a girl. (even though we could barely tell what we were looking at sometimes. our sonographer was a little socially awkward. "oh, what is that gray hole in the body?" "um, that's not a hole. that's the stomach." oh well how could i have made that mistake?!)

so we're having a girl! we are so excited. ok, let me rephrase. we are so excited but sh is also terrified. he knows he's going to be completely whipped. looks like i'm gonna have to be the disciplinarian with this one (why is the mom always bad cop?). the day we found out, i had fun changing everything yellow and green on the baby registry to pink. :D i don't know how parents wait till the birth to find out the sex. besides the agony of waiting, the majority of baby clothes is still very pink or blue.

this weekend is baby's second plane trip in utero and second time in florida. sh's sister is getting married in boca this saturday. we are so excited for the wedding, but i ain't gonna lie. i am maybe equally excited for the warm weather. this weather is just WHACK. really. i am usually good with the cold but this winter has overstayed its welcome. plus, how will people know to give up their seat for me on the subway if my bump is hidden under a bulky coat? seriously.

baby fun facts: she has been extremely active the past week. they say that if you're in a position baby doesn't like, baby will make sure you know it. when i sit indian style or bent over, she seems to kick more, as if to say, "um, you're squishing me. change positions please." she's kicked about 10 times during the course of writing this post.

bump! i'm huge!

18 weeks: netipot is my friend. snot is not.

so yes. the netipot is as amazing as everyone says. all this snot just starts draining out after you use it - i used it for the first time sunday night and it was the first time i slept without waking up every hour or couple hours from being congested since i got sick. it is a little weird to have liquid go in one nostril and out the other (the reason for my hesitation to use it in the beginning) but once you get over that, it's actually very nice. the warm saline solution feels wonderful in your nose. it was really a godsend since i can't take any medication to fight this cold. sometimes, all i wanted was a couple gulps of nyquil. but what we do for babies.

the baby is moving like crazy. sh and i joke that it's practicing dance moves in my belly. i feel it more and more, which is really fun. it's like our little secret. and today for the first time, i was sitting on the couch with my hand on my belly and felt the kick from the outside. it'll probably be a while before sh can actually feel it, but i'm looking forward to when we can feel the movement together. what was interesting is that the baby kicked especially a lot at church on sunday while the band was playing. when i told my mom, she said it's definitely true that babies move more when they hear music or loud noises. she said when she was pregnant with ernie, he used to kick up a storm when she took andy and me to violin lessons.

the big day is coming soon - we find out the sex of the baby on friday! we talk about it literally every 5 minutes because we can't wait to know what IT is. sh said he's posting the results on fb as soon as we find out, from the ultrasound room. so look for the news to hit fb on friday morning around 9am. :)

bump time - (don't judge, yes i'm wearing the same tshirt as last week. i have a limited wardrobe!)

17 weeks: sick mommy. gymnast baby.

i am sick. i've had a slight cold the past week but nothing serious. then i woke up yesterday and felt like i slammed into a ton of bricks. super-sore throat, extreme sinus pressure all over, congestion, achy. it's worse because you can't take anything when you're pregnant (friends have suggested the netipot - is this thing really as amazing as everyone says?). i didn't even realize today was blog day until the hubs asked, "isn't it bump day today?" because he takes the picture every week.

i'm going to keep it short because i need to drink some tea and go to bed early. the big news this week is that i felt the baby move for the first time saturday. it feels like someone is poking you from the inside. i wasn't sure if it was the baby at first, but since saturday i feel it pretty frequently and now i'm certain it's the baby. it's not like anything i've felt before, and it's in the area where i know the baby is (very low in the belly). it's been such a nice development in my otherwise not-so-nice week. i think this morning the baby was doing some acrobatics in there because i felt a whole lot of movement. i know three days isn't enough to establish a trend but i feel like the baby moves more right when i'm waking up. or maybe it's just that i can feel it better when i'm lying down.

the bump: it might look smaller than usual because i'm wearing a tshirt (read: pjs i never changed out of today) instead of the tighter shirt i usually wear for the picture - but trust me, it has grown a lot this past week.

16 weeks: i want to want food

16 weeks! 4 weeks till the halfway point. generally, things are moving along ok. but my main struggle is still not being able to, not wanting to, eat normally. i really hope my appetite comes back soon. i need to start gaining weight. it's weird - my face, arms and legs keep getting skinnier but my belly keeps growing.

also, i've been experiencing a lot of heartburn, indigestion and gas lately (but mostly the last one). i stayed up till 2am yesterday, sitting in bed next to a passed out sh and sammiepants waiting for things to calm down in the tummy (read: burp out all the gas). thank goodness i had angry birds to keep me company. :)

i'm pretty tired today so i'll end it here and leave you with my bump picture and a few baby fun facts:
baby is almost 6 inches long and is moving around like crazy, though i probably won't be able to feel it for another couple weeks. i read that baby can feel touch through the belly so sh's been massaging the belly at night and talking to baby (since it can hear us too). it's a nice nighttime ritual and it helps us feel more connected to a baby that sometimes seems imaginary since we can't see it yet.

bump!

15 weeks: feeling bipolar + maybe hormones can be a good thing

sometimes, i complain to sh that we are still so far away from august 23. but i have to admit that each week does go by pretty quickly. 5 more weeks and i'll be halfway through the pregnancy (and we'll know if the baby is a mini-sh or a mini-carol). well, hopefully by then i'll be liking food and sh can take me out to eat somewhere yummy. not being able to eat normally has been the biggest frustration for me during this pregnancy. it's really hard to think of something i can eat that's not cereal, fruit, yogurt or bacon.

so i've been feeling very up and down this week - bipolar not in my attitude towards the baby, but in how i feel about this world into which the baby will be born. i think it's hard sometimes to wrap my head around the fact that this world is so dichoto...mous? (is that a word?) sometimes, life is good. saturday morning was chilly but super sunny, so sh, sammie and i took a nice walk to fort greene (which did wonders for my SAD-ness) to pick up muffins and coffee from a small coffee shop. i thought to myself how excited i am that soon we'll have a baby that can join us in morning walks like these.

but at other times, life really just sucks. i've recently gotten into the tv show bones. i know it's been on for a while but the first time i saw the show was only a few weeks ago. it seems like it's on at least 3 times every evening, so i've been watching it incessantly. (it doesn't hurt that i had a crush on david boreanaz during the buffy years and now he's back as a hunky fbi agent.) obviously, there's always a dead person involved in the plot since dr. brennan + team are now investigating said dead person's bones to solve the mystery of the death. and almost always, there's a murderer involved in the plot as well. i started crying during one episode where the murderer was particularly callous and horrible and demented.

when sh got home later that night, i started tearing up again. when he asked me what was wrong, i told him how it's scary to think of bringing a baby into this crappy world. just the thought of the baby experiencing any hurt, sadness or fear makes me want to cry, but i know it's inevitable. how can a parent raise a child to have some understanding that this world is flawed while also adequately protecting the child from those flaws until it's ready to tackle them on its own? i know this is probably one of THE questions of parenthood and i probably won't have to battle it until a little later, but it's there, floating around in my mind. the lens with which i look at everything has changed since i got pregnant. if i weren't pregnant, i would've watched that episode of bones and gone, "ugh. what a nutjob" and moved on. now, it's "omg, nutjobs like that live in the same world as our soon-to-be born baby." freak out ensues. i'm sure hormones have something (maybe a lot) to do this with these emotions and thought processes. at first i would blame hormones for overreacting or being oversensitive or just feeling miserable. but now i'm not so sure. maybe hormones can be a good thing. maybe it's preparing me now for the emotions and thought processes i'll go through a million times over as a mom.

ultimately, all these emotions and thought processes i'm going through as i progress through pregnancy are showing me a little more about how God feels about us. if i can love the baby this much and i haven't even seen it yet (minus the little show it put on for us during the ultrasound), how much more does he love us? after i calmed down from the freak out over bones, sh responded that we don't have to worry. he reminded me that this world sucks but God is good.

this week's baby bump picture:

14 weeks (+1 day): still cold, and mama's always right

i am a day late again, but my excuse is that since i had monday off, yesterday was really like a monday, making today really like a tuesday. so here is my weekly tuesday post.

it's still cold. really cold. i don't remember ever being so upset with the (cold) weather. if you know me, you know i generally like the cold and prefer it over sweltering heat. i swear, all those years living in a rink and walking around in only a sports bra + hockey pants do something for your immunity to the frigid air. but alas, i am no longer playing hockey, i am getting older, and most importantly, i'm pregnant. my mom said two things to me the day i got pregnant: "be ready to be super tired and super cold." true, and true. if she added, "and be ready to hate food," that sentence would sum up my pregnancy so far.

if you've talked to me about giving birth, you know that i want all the drugs. i know natural birth has become very popular these days, and i think if you can do it, you are 1) crazy and 2) amazing. but me, i know my pain threshold. it is low. give me all the drugs you got. ever watch the movie waitress? when keri russell is about to have the baby and she says, "i want the maximum legal limit of drugs"...? that's me. the end goal is a happy and healthy baby. i don't need to feel the process of getting said happy and healthy baby out. you never really think about these things until it becomes a reality for you. which is why i never thought about asking my mom how her three labor experiences were, and i never thought about the fact that epidurals are a pretty new thing. when you hear your mom tell you that she gave birth to three kids completely naturally, you want to hug her. like, bear hug her. of course, she then goes on and on about how i was the hardest and how after being in labor for hours and hours and days and days, when i finally came out, she fainted and slept for 24 hours. i think maybe she was laying it on thick at the end there, but still, i get it. i really get it. remember when you were a kid and you were being a brat and your mom says to you, "do you know how much i went through to bring you into this world?" and you go "psh" and she replies (if you're a girl), "just wait till you have a baby. you'll know. you'll know when you're a mom."...? ugh. i hate when they're right.

in other news, the next sonogram is scheduled for march 25. that's when we find out the sex of the baby and can finally stop calling the baby an "it" (although sh is already calling the baby "she").

fast facts about baby: it is now about the size of an apple. it can sense light even though its eyelids are closed.

bump picture:

13 weeks (+ 1 day): it's too cold.

i go up a week in the pregnancy every tuesday so i'm trying to blog every tuesday but yesterday i was suffering from the "omg how is vacation over already and why is new york so freakin' cold" syndrome. florida was fantastic. the cold + being pregnant = a very cranky and tired me. the vacation was exactly what i needed - some sun, some warmth, no work, no stress, and just time to rest.

i have to keep this short because i'm at work and i have a ton of things to do before i head out to my doctor's appointment at 4:30 (seriously, that is the life, my doctor never seems to work before 11 or after 5...but do all OBs have to go to the hospital at like 2am if their patient goes into labor? then that sucks).

before i go, two observations: it's a good thing i don't know the sex of the baby yet. i would be on a shopping rampage. we went to the mall in florida and there was THE CUTEST baby clothes store. sh had to rip me away from it but i didn't put up too much of a fight since i don't know if the baby is a boy or girl. moral of the story: after i know the sex of the baby, all hell breaks loose.

observation two: i was getting really frustrated with my ever-diminishing work attire as my belly grows. even the M/L forever21 leggings are getting tight. enter mommy friends who recommend the bella band which i wore for the first time to work today. awesome. so awesome.

here is the bump, which seems to have grown exponentially within a few days. kinda freaky.








*edit* - sh said my counting convention is wrong because i'm counting the week i'm entering instead of the week i just finished. i am at my 14th week (which is the way i was counting) but he said i should say i'm 13 weeks in. so fiiine - i am 13 weeks + 1 day.

week 13: second trimester!

welcome, second trimester (aka, supposedly, the "golden stage" of pregnancy). i just have a few little requests: 1) please kick morning sickness to the curb. 2) please give me my energy back (so i'm not wheezing after climbing one flight of stairs). 3) and for my most desperate request: please bring back my normally beastly appetite. i am sick of the food aversions. i want to love food again. in theory, all i want is a big burger. but then as soon as i actually see a burger, i want to puke. -_- the separation of the mind and body is a little disconcerting.

the biggest development so far (literally) is my growing belly. for a while i thought, am i showing or am i just REALLY bloated? well for a while the answer was just REALLY bloated. but now, i am definitely showing. i don't think it's particularly noticeable with the loose sweater dresses i've been wearing to work. but if you took a good look, as sh says, you'd go, "is she pregnant or just fat?" :(

but it's not about me anymore. when i think about this baby, sometimes i'm really immature and start thinking about gremlins. but more often, i am completely floored by how i can love something so much that i haven't even seen yet. well, besides in the ultrasound. speaking of ultrasound our next one is tomorrow! i am SO EXCITED. :D

quick baby stats:
he/she is now almost 3 inches long, has fingernails and toenails and is able to stick its thumb in its mouth!

so here is my first "bump" picture (but bear in mind i just inhaled an entire "love it" with waffle bowl from cold stone 5 min before the picture).

i look like:

but i feel like: