31 weeks.

today marks 31 weeks. exactly 8 weeks to go till 7/7/14. i am starting to wonder if there is much more to write on this blog because i sound like a broken record about my pelvic pain. but i guess a part of the reason i like to write is to keep records for myself (i'm so glad i blogged when i was pregnant with lana, bc i don't remember a thing) and also just in case it proves to be helpful for other pregnant mama friends.

some things to note from the past two weeks:

- OB said i passed my glucose test. i basically eat sugar like it's the only food group that exists so this is a huge relief. my appetite was getting pretty good but the past few weeks, it's gotten pretty bad again. i'm back to not wanting rice or most normal foods. dinner tonight was cereal (waffle crisp, to be exact) and a banana. in the past 3 weeks, i gained 1.5 pounds. i am now at +8.5 pounds total.
- we went to my 30 week ultrasound. stello is still big. doc said he looks perfect, so we are so thankful for that. he is wayyyy more active than lana was in the belly (and lana was pretty active herself). this scares me. i am pretty sure he will be a hyperactive child.
- lana is potty trained as of a couple months ago, but this means she wakes up in the middle of the night to go pee, then insists on sleeping in our bed the rest of the night. tips from parents with 2+ kids on getting your first to sleep alone, please! we can't help her waking up to pee, so that's fine, but we need to try to get her to fall back asleep in her room afterwards, with minimal help from us. we can't keep doing this when stello's here. keep in mind lana is utterly not sleep-trained - she doesn't fall asleep alone either. but now that she's almost 3, i'm hoping we can reason with her (read: bribe) so that she'll sleep alone. we're not expecting miracles - but even if she can fall asleep half the time on her own that'd be a huge help.

and now back to the main theme of my pregnancy - the pelvic pain. i've been going to the chiropractor for a while just to help with general back/neck pain, and he recently hired a PT to join his practice so i've seen him twice now. he has me doing various stretches and exercises to try to strengthen the muscles in my pelvis/back/thighs to support the pelvis. i hope it helps but to be honest, i'm skeptical as to how effective it will really be bc of the fact that this pain is rapidly getting worse. today has been terrible - i couldn't get out of bed or really walk this morning, and usually i'm much better in the mornings and am worse at night bc i'm fatigued by the end of the day. the pain was also just soreness/achiness and now it's becoming a lot sharper and harder to deal with. i think my days of going into the office, even the 1-2 days a week i do now, are numbered. i've also gotten to a point where i can't sleep well on my side - i think the position makes the pelvic pain worse. problem is, when you're in this later stage of pregnancy, you can't really sleep on your back anymore either. a friend suggested trying a foam wedge so i'm going to see if that helps. i'm constantly googling and researching ways to manage this pain, but you know, i don't know if there's much i can do other than having the baby. i really hope the next 8 weeks pass quickly, but if this pain keeps getting worse, i think by the end i will be on bedrest. i think i'd go crazy so i really hope that's not the case. i am not good at staying still. i get restless very very quickly. but i am trying to not think about it for now and take it a day at a time.

today was mother's day, and honestly, i keep forgetting that i'm a beneficiary of this holiday. bc i just think of my own mom. we would be an absolute MESS without her right now! she is basically doing everything for us these days, esp. as i become more immobile and less useful. i sat on the couch about 10 hours today watching tv and playing on my phone. the hubs brought me snacks and flowers from whole foods. the rangers won for me, so that helped a bit too. lana's gift for me was a painting…

…on her face. i was on the computer for literally 2 minutes and then this happens. -_-

happy mother's day to all the mommies out there. it is seriously the craziest but best job in the world. one thing i keep thinking about these days is how oblivious we were to what our moms did for us when we were kids. i mean, it never once occurred to me that it's hard to raise three kids, clean the house, cook for the whole family, drive us all to violin/piano/hockey/friends' houses/etc., break up fights and maintain some sort of peace in the house, keep us relatively clean and healthy, etc. etc. etc. the list just goes on and on. it's overwhelming, if you think about it. but i took it for granted. i mean, that's just what she did, so, that's cool, i guess. but as i get older, i realize more and more how unbelievable an advantage it is in life to have moms (and dads) who pour their lives out for you in this way, who make you feel secure and loved, who give you the tools to be prepared for life. sometimes i feel like a fake mom in comparison, but i hope that i will rely on God to be a good mom to lana and stello (who is still nameless, btw).

EIGHT MORE WEEKS. 56 days. (and bc of pregnancy brain, i literally whipped out the calculator to do 8x7. don't judge.)

29 weeks.

today marks 29 weeks. i think i forgot to post last week. lana is all better now, thank goodness. my pelvic situation (never thought i'd have a "situation" with my pelvis but that's the deal right now) - it is gradually getting worse. it doesn't seem to have much chance of getting better, so i just need to endure till stello comes. i went to the OB last week and she recommended that i keep physical activity, including commuting, to a minimum. what she said (and i've noticed) is that there's a threshold. if i pass that threshold, the pain flares up and it lasts for hours. so i need to keep my activity to a minimum to stay under that line. the problem is that line keeps moving lower and lower. i talked to my boss last week, told her what the doc said, and said i think i'll try to come in 1-2 days a week when i have meetings and then work from home the other days and she agreed that makes sense. she is so understanding, i am so so grateful. this past week i worked from home mon, thurs and fri. 

i took the glucose test last OB appt - hopefully i pass that despite the fact that i eat ungodly amounts of sugar on a daily basis. my appetite (for normal food) hasn't been great again the past two weeks, and it seems that whenever that's the case my appetite for junk and sweets goes up. i also gained 3 pounds in the past month! so i am now +7 pounds. 

doc and i also talked about c-section date. unless stello comes earlier, i will go in to deliver him on 7/7/14 which is a nice birthday. so exactly 10 weeks left to get him out. i know i'm just trading one hardship for another when i wish this pain to end and for the baby to come out, but since he has to come out eventually anyway...i'm really so over this pelvic pain. it's been really rough but i'm so thankful that my mom is here, job is understanding, SH is doing everything, lana is a pretty easy kid...so i'm just trying to not get too depressed about the pain and my lack of mobility. the result is a lot of time watching TV, playing on my phone and googling stupid things, eating ice cream and sewing. -_- this past week, i finished my first quilt (mini size) and sewed nursing clips for friends w newborns. i just realized i had posted a while ago about spring cleaning/organizing. yeah well that's not really going to happen the way i had planned. poor daddy is going to have to do most of it with me barking orders at him. :(

in related news, if the rangers don't beat the flyers i might go into a rage that will induce early labor so they better win game 6. 

27 weeks: NG :(

i'm 27 weeks today. i think today marks the beginning of the third trimester. it's been a rough week. tues night, lana got sick and none of us got sleep. i had to leave early wed morning for a work conference in toronto and i felt terrible leaving her. i heard from sh that she was getting worse and worse. so he took her to the doctor who said she has pneumonia. i couldn't believe it. i've never had and don't know much about it so it sounds so scary. poor sh and my mom had to take care of a very sick kid without me (and she often gets upset when she's sick and i'm not around). i got back fri afternoon and was so glad to be back to see my baby. pneumonia is seriously the worst. even when lana's sick, she's generally pretty happy and plays well. i'd never seen her like this. i got home fri and she was in and out of sleep and so lethargic. from that point on, till we went to bed, she never fully woke up. she was so sleep-deprived and energy-less it was so sad. she's finally playing a little today now that the antibiotics have kicked in, and the fever is gone (she hit 105 on fri!!) but her lungs still sound terrible and congested and she barely eats. hope my baby gets better soon. and unfortunately, sh caught lana's cold so he's not feeling too hot now either. we thought we were getting through this terrible winter relatively unscathed...spoke too soon.

my pelvic issue is getting worse. i think i'm going to have to talk to my boss soon about working from home most days. i feel terrible about it but i don't think i have much choice at this point, since regular activity like walking and moving around is getting difficult. i'm starting to feel really exasperated with this pregnancy. the next 13 weeks need to go quickly. i know it's no easier with a newborn but this constant pain is starting to wear on me. i'm praying that the pain will go away as soon as stello is born. no bump pic bc i am lying on the couch and have no desire to get up. but i am large. and in charge (not really). a big thanks to everyone who's been checking in on me and praying for us (esp. the past few days with lana being sick). my posts are becoming more and more debbie downer. :( hopefully next week's post will be a little better. 

i should actually mention that the week before last (for which i didn't put up a post) lana's uncle andy got married. and lana was a great flower girl! she even walked down the aisle herself which we never thought would happen. the below pic is a side-by-side comparison of her walking down the aisle in july for uncle ernie's wedding (left) and just a week or so ago for uncle andy's wedding (right). 8 months makes a big difference when it's 1/4 of your life! :)

25 weeks.

i was 25 weeks pregnant yesterday. this post is going to be shorter than usual because i am not feeling so hot. i think i complained a couple weeks ago about feeling pain in my pelvic area. well this past week the pain, which was more localized right under the belly (in the pubic bone area), started radiating out towards the hips (where legs meet torso) and even down the thighs. it also got more intense. i went to the OB on friday and she said i have "pubis symphysis diastasis"…or something like that. essentially, when your body gets ready to have a baby, it releases extra hormones so that the ligaments loosen and the pelvic bones separate to make room for the baby to come out. in some lucky women, the hormones go into overdrive prematurely. they're not sure why but they think it may have something to do with the size/position of the baby (and they've been saying from the beginning that the baby is big). i also think i'm carrying this baby lower than i was carrying lana. anyway, so basically the two sides of my pelvic bones have already separated even though i have 15 weeks to go (and when i don't even need them to separate since i'm having a c-section -__-). the OB said there isn't much we can do since i can't take any real painkillers while pregnant. she said "don't walk or stand much." um, ok. she said if it gets super serious the only real options are either steroid injections, which are obviously not recommended during pregnancy, or bedrest. i'd go crazy on bedrest. generally, mornings are better, but by evening, i am in a lot of pain and the pain spreads to even my tailbone and butt. it's been pretty rough the past few days, so prayers would be appreciated! not sure how i'm going to last 15 weeks like this. the other really hard part is i'm so new at my job, and i hate to already be missing work. everyone is so understanding and so awesome, but i still feel so bad. i'm hoping it is just a phase right now and that it'll start hurting less really soon.

bump (is killing me)!

24 weeks. spring! just kidding.

today i am 24 weeks pregnant. i am getting tired. really tired. so i will be employing bullet point lists more and more. by week 35 i expect i will not be writing anything coherent at all. it'll be something like:
- ice cream.
- beached whale.
- get out.

this week's highlights:
- i am still eating pretty well - i'm getting less and less picky, but still no pork or chicken. i did eat 5 guys on fri night though and it was pretty dang good. i don't think i'm eating quite as much as i normally do (when not pregnant) but at least there's steady improvement.

- my dessert eating is out of control. i should probably scale back but i have zero desire to have self-control in that area.

- i went to the OB this past friday and i finally broke the pre-pregnancy weight barrier! i am now +2 pounds. but the OB was like, your baby's big! so the baby is over a pound and you've gained less than a pound. -_- it kind of boggles my mind that my babies end up big because of how little i eat throughout my pregnancies. lana was 7 lbs 11 oz and she was almost a week early, and i ate even less during that pregnancy than this one. i guess it's genetic? and with this one being a boy i'm scared that he'll be even bigger.

- breathing this past week has not been very good. may be time to make another appointment with my pulmonary doc, but as i've been using my inhaler as needed, i'm a little skeptical about what they can do for me. my concern is that as i get bigger and baby pushes up more and more, i feel like the breathing will only get worse.

- even though i've only gained 2 pounds, my belly is getting really big, and i think it's way bigger than it was at this point with lana. i should do a side-by-side pic comparison...someday. the back pain has started and i'm starting to feel myself waddle. i'm really scared about the fact that i still have 16 weeks to go...i am bracing myself to hear "omg are you pregnant with twins??" near the end of this pregnancy.

- my dad is coming this friday!

- they say spring is here but other than yesterday, it don't feel like it yet. but nevertheless, spring cleaning has started in the choe household. i've decided to break it up into manageable chunks by focusing on one room/area every week or two - that way we should be done by summer! -_- i love organizing though, so despite the fact that my body is not being very cooperative and spring cleaning always means running up and down our steep flight of stairs over and over, i'm excited to clear out the crap (there's so much crap!) and get this house organized, clean and ready for stello. this week's room is lana's. i've pulled out all her clothes from 0-1yrs and divided them up into three piles: 1) garbage, 2) donation and 3) lend to friends. the 1-2yrs clothing is divided up by age in stackable bins in her closet. there's a separate bin filled with clothing/blankets/etc. that we can reuse for stello (aka are not screaming hot pink). it also helps when grandmama is here to help with all this.

i still want to do a deep clean to get all the dust out of lana's room, but since it's getting cold again this week (UGH) and i don't want to open the windows when it's 35 degrees out, that'll probably (hopefully, maybe) happen next weekend.

BUMP. this poor t-shirt should be retired.

23 weeks

sunday marked 23 weeks. funemployment officially ended this past week for me, sad to say. but my first week at the new job was really good, if not, eye-opening. it was basically a lot of "whoa, this place is so different from a law firm!" going on in my head. it makes me realize how conditioned (brainwashed) i was the past four years working at a law firm. some key points that i wanted to mention (in no particular order, though i suspect it will be clear which ones are more important to me): 

- no gmail. :( :( :( :( :( 

- the floor clears out by 5:30. i was asked by random people why i was still here at 6:30. i mean, the night is young at 6:30! 

- i was put on a project, and when i asked the compliance person what the timing was, he chuckled and said "just keep it on your radar." ??? does. not. compute. 

- i don't have a secretary anymore. there's an admin in our department but the poor guy supports 30 people so no more "please print this for me thx" emails. i know, boo hoo. leave me alone. it's very annoying when you have to print dozens of documents and figure out where one ends and the next begins!  

- every friday is casual day. i came in last friday and noticed it wasn't just jeans day, it was a legit casual day. i mean, people in t-shirts and sneakers. i'm so excited! not that i have anything to wear. i hate maternity clothes. so much. 

- the corporate lingo is so new to me. thank goodness i have HR guru jane cha to help me figure it out. but orientation is called "onboarding" and conferences are called "offsites" and all these other confusing words i've never really heard of? 

- my office has a glass wall. no more naps, random stretching/yoga and changing clothes in the secrecy of my office. :( i'm guessing this also means i won't be able to pump here, so that's kind of sucky. but i think the pumping room is across the hall so i'll have to check it out (that is, if i even end up pumping - with lana, i lasted 3 days...). 

- I. DON'T. HAVE. TO BILL. i keep wanting to write down the time i spent on things and then catch myself with a stupid grin on my face because I DON'T HAVE TO! 

- i'm the CLIENT. :D we had an internal meeting to discuss a project, and we barely even looked at the document outside counsel prepared. while on the conf call, my boss mouthed to me "i didn't even read this." afterwards, she said "ok we'll call outside counsel next week, tell them to tell us what's next." it's so weird to not be the one who's drafting all these docs...and so awesome. 

- the business folks want answers quickly and, as my coworker said, "you don't have time to be perfect." that sounds a little scary, coming from a firm where you are expected to be perfect, find the answers and anticipate the client's follow-up questions and have those answers as well. i suspect it involves a lot of getting context and disclaimer/cautious language so the business folks don't run off and say "the lawyer said i can do this!" -_-

i'm sure these revelations will keep happening for a while before i settle in, but overall things have been good. learning a lot about the company, the business, refreshing my memory about capital markets deals since it's been a while since i've worked on them. 

another big event to happen this week is lana is potty training. after hawaii, grandmama park has revved up the potty training efforts and i think lana is almost trained now. she still has accidents here and there (usually we just don't get to the potty fast enough) but the past two nights, she didn't pee once in her diaper and woke up in the middle of the night to go. we even went to church diaperless this past sunday. we tried to put on a diaper but she refused, so we went to the potty once upon arriving at church and once before leaving to go home, and she was completely accident-free the whole time. i am SO relieved to get even 3-4 months of diaper freedom before the onslaught of 12-20 diapers a day starts again for stello. i've noticed this past week that i'm eating a lot better. i'm still picky, but a little less so, and i actually want to eat sometimes. and my appetite for desserts/sweets has skyrocketed. -_- my next OB appointment is wednesday and i suspect i am definitely in the positive weight gain range now, so that's good. 

no bump pic bc i am typing this up on my phone...but i am feeling huge. i can't believe I am this big already - i have 17 weeks to go!!! the worst right now is that pain right below the belly, where the legs meet the torso. i don't remember that well but i do feel like this sorta pain is happening earlier than it did with lana. -_- is this baby gonna come out ginormous? 

21.5 weeks - hawaii recap!

this past sunday marked 21 weeks into the pregnancy (confirmed at the ultrasound this morning - more about that later). we just got back yesterday from hawaii and had a really awesome time. a little recap:

we flew direct from newark to honolulu, and then flew a small plane from honolulu to kauai. it felt like forever. lana was so good the whole way and barely even whined, which is pretty impressive for a 2.5 yr old since even i was whining by the end of the trip. from the time we stepped out of our house to the time we checked into the hotel was 19 hours. it probably could've taken 17 but you know how it is in hawaii - everything's on island time. like why does it take an hour to get a rental car when there is barely a line?? -_-

we spent 5 nights in princeville at the westin resort. i was worried bc they say princeville rains a lot in the winter, but it stayed away for the most part and only rained at night when we were sleeping. the weather was awesome and the high was around 80 degrees every day. kauai was just what i needed - away from people/civilization, quiet (except for the damn chickens), tranquil, warm, and an amazing view of both the mountains and the ocean. i haven't been on a vacation like this since our honeymoon - one where you're supposed to just sit back and do nothing. i didn't realize how much i missed it till i did it again. i obviously love all the trips i've been on since our honeymoon but this time i really needed a vacation where we had no plans and spent the whole day just vegging around the resort. the icing on the cake was not having a job! out of habit i kept checking my phone for emails and then remembered oh wait, i have no work emails to check. :D

i had a list of things that you're supposed to do on kauai, but we ended up not doing most of them bc 1) we were too lazy to and 2) being in the car a lot felt like such a waste of precious time. everyone says waimea canyon is a must-see, but it is also a 4 hour round trip from princeville. lana was also not a very happy camper in the car (for some reason, she's so good in our car but hates cars that aren't ours) so it wasn't worth the stress. the most we did was drive to kapaa twice for food, which was about a 30 min ride from princeville.

after 5 nights, we flew back to honolulu. we stayed 4 nights (was supposed to be 3, but ended up staying another night because of the "storm" that was supposed to hit the east coast) in waikiki. it was a nice constrast from the seclusion of kauai - it was city but not too city, and had a fun hustle and bustle to it. again, we barely left waikiki. i had the usual list of places to go to like pearl harbor, dole plantation, north shore, etc. but like in kauai, we were content to just stay close to the hotel, walk around waikiki and swim at the pool. lana hates (more like, is terrified of) sand so we didn't go to the beach other than to just look at it. the food was so good - i'm going to miss all the fresh pineapple and the desserts in particular (lapperts, leonards, waiola shave ice, the coconut pudding, halo-halo, etc. etc.). did i tell you how much i ate on this trip? it's like i never had a problem eating this whole pregnancy. i think it's safe to say i hit my pre-pregnancy weight and then some. i doubt it'll be the same now that i'm home but it was nice to be able to eat well for a week and a half. i also felt really great overall - maybe it was bc i was outside getting vitamin D (usually i'm really deficient), breathing good air, getting some exercise. maybe it's a sign i need to move to hawaii. -_- unfortunately, there are probably all of 2 corporate law openings there.

the trip was not really a babymoon since sh and i didn't get much alone time, but bc my mom was there we got help with lana and didn't feel the need to really get away on our own. we had so much fun seeing lana have a blast swimming and seeing new things. my mom also had a great time (maybe the best out of all of us haha). so we're home now and i am freezing. it's not even really that cold today but i really feel like it's taking me some time to adjust back to these temperatures. i'm also super jetlagged but luckily i have 5 more days before i start my new job. this morning, i went to my 20 week ultrasound. the doctor confirmed my due date of 7/13 - she said the baby is on the big side (about 3 days ahead of schedule), but it's not enough to change my due date to 7/6. she also confirmed the last ultrasound tech's hunch that the baby is a boy. :) sh was convinced since before i even got pregnant that #2 would be a girl, so we even had a girl named picked out and everything (stella). but after the 12 week ultrasound tech said she was pretty sure the baby was a boy, we just started calling him...stello. but we have no idea what his real name is going to be - why are boy names so much harder to pick out than girl names? i could seriously name the next five (hypothetical) baby girls in 10 minutes but i cannot be 100% sure of one boy name.

below is the baby's profile pic:

and my 21.5 week bump pic (and looks like someone snuck into the pic just as i took it):