Crunch Time. Or…More Waiting

Less than two weeks to go and all is well in Babyland. The baby is fine so far and according to the ultrasound weighs in at about 6.9 pounds. He’s definitely not going to be the 8 lb, 10 oz newborn that Noah was and I’m happy about that. He also doesn’t seem to be showing any signs of wanting out — no effacement or anything and he still seems to be lodged pretty high — and, with Dr. Doo leaving the country tomorrow for 10 days for a conference, I’m also ok with that. Although carrying a baby around in your stomach can get pretty old…or at least the constant tiredness, occasional and sudden assaults on my bladder and little feet jammed into my ribs is getting old. On the other hand, I was going through some of our old pictures and saw some that Mark took while I was in labor and man, I looked so miserable, so I’m not really looking forward to going through all that again. See? Misery:

I’m glad my sister at least was enjoying herself:

So, as I inch closer and closer to my due date, my anxiety level is start to climb as well. For sure I’m still excited but there’s also that nagging feeling that I’m completely unprepared and have no idea what I’m doing. I’m sure everything will be fine once the baby is actually physically here but being anxious doesn’t make the waiting any easier. Also, I tend to deal with anxiety by getting nostalgic which means my embarrassing 80′s hairband music has been in heavy rotation on my iPod. Which means I hear Starship’s We Built This City pretty much every day which makes me homesick for a karaoke duet with my sister:

At the same time, there is a weird calm-before-the-storm feeling — of wanting to do as much as we possibly can now before a new baby turns our lives upside down again. So far this has translated into catching up on past seasons of Ultimate Fighter and Top Chef and watching a lot of movies. Nevermind that I have a hospital bag to pack or baby clothes to put away. Who wants to do that when Star Trek has finally come to Hong Kong (which, by the way, is probably one of the best movies that we’ve seen all year…which either means we watch a lot of bad movies — *cough* Night at the Museum 2 *cough* — or that Star Trek was just a really awesome movie)? For me, this has also meant knitting like crazy. I finally got around to going to a weekly knitting group on Fridays — something I’ve been meaning to do for close to two years but naturally I waited until a month before popping out a baby to actually do — and I’ve managed to knock out a few projects in the last few weeks:

A bag made out of hemp yarn (which is still waiting for me to sew on the handles but I’m all sewed out right now from having to hand-sew the lining):

A mohair wrap which I’m not sure why I knit since 1) I don’t wear wraps and 2) apparently I’m currently impervious to cold air in my overheated pregnant state:

And now I’m working on this tank top which, again, I’m not sure why I’m knitting since I won’t be in any shape (literally) to even try it on for a few months. Oh well.

Anyway, if you made it this far through my post, congratulations and thanks for bearing through all my mindless rambling. And as a bonus, here’s the baby’s latest ultrasound picture:

When Mark and I saw this, we both thought he looks just like Noah when he’s sleeping. Of course when we showed Noah the picture, he disagreed, saying, “I think he looks too orange.” You gotta love literal-minded 3-year-olds.

Baby Stuff

At this point in my pregnancy (32 weeks) I’m going in to see the doctor every two weeks instead of every four so I’ll probably not update as much because it’ll just get redundant. Everything so far is progressing normally, although Dr. Doo has decided to subject me to random blood tests to check on my sugar levels. It’s a little funny and makes me feel like some kind of weird sugar/crack addict, but so far I’ve had two random tests and my glucose levels have been normal both times. Gestational diabetes, shmiabetes…and that’s with me cheating and sneaking in a smoothie, a cookie or some ice cream almost every day. I feel like I’m cheating the system and winning. Ha HA!

On the other hand, Dr. Doo has also warned me that because of my predisposition to GD, he’s unlikely to let me go past my due date (July 8th) because there are increased risks to the baby’s health otherwise. So for anyone making bets on when I’m going to pop this little guy out, at least you have a firm end date. Anyway, here is another picture of baby #2 (and yes, we do finally have a name for him but I’m not telling quite yet). Mark is usually the one who scans the pictures but since he’s not around I did it the old-fashioned way and snapped a picture of the picture. Lame, I know, but it’s the best I can do until I have access to Mark’s work scanner:

On another note, realizing that I’m 32 weeks along made me additionally realize that we’ve only got two more months before this little guy comes out and joins us. We put off doing/buying a bunch of things because we felt we had so much time left but with 8 weeks to go we’re kicking things into high gear. Last week we finally got around to ordering a new stroller, car seat and an awesome high chair for the baby and next week Mark and I are taking a tour of the hospital where I’ll be delivering (you must check out Matilda International’s maternity video in that link. If only for that one scene of the guy in the chef’s uniform cooking something in the kitchen. I’m slightly embarrassed to say this, but I’ve heard the food at Matilda is excellent…not that I would base something as important as where I have the baby on how the food is…but it sure helps).

With Mark out of town and me being super tired and extra lazy with limited mobility, I’ve kept the baby prep down to a minimum this week.  However I did manage to arrange to have all of Noah’s old baby furniture repainted from white to black:

On top of that, I also finished the blanket I was working on for the baby:

And as an added bonus (read: boredom killer) I also knit up a stuffed rabbit for him as well:

This is Sophie with Elijah, the elephant that I knit up for Noah that he refuses to play with:

Of course I still feel horribly unprepared and there’s a ton of stuff that we still need to get before the baby comes, but at least starting to get the nursery together is a start.

Pregnancy Update — 26 weeks

I had my 26 week doctor’s appointment on Wednesday (that’ 6 1/2 months for those of you who are bad at math.  Jae.) and again, everything so far is coming along great.  No problems or complications (besides the usual pregnancy gripes), we discussed our upcoming trip to the U.S. and the precautions I need to take for the flight and of course Mark and I got to see the baby again:

I also went back yesterday for my glucose tolerance test to check for gestational diabetes. With Noah I was borderline and Dr. Doo said I’d probably be the same way again this time around. And three blood drawings later, it’s confirmed — I’m on the high end of the gestational diabetes scale and have to cut back my sugar intake. Boo. Dr. Doo summed up what my diet should be from now on in this way, “Basically, if it tastes good then you can’t eat it.”  But at least he’s honest.

By the way, this is how Noah thinks the baby is going to come:
Noah: Mommy, how long until my baby comes?
Me: Three more months.
Noah: And after three months, two months. And after two months, one month. And after one month your tummy will CRACK and then my baby comes!
Which is a little weird to think that Noah thinks my stomach is a giant egg, but there you go…the mind of a three-year-old.

On another note, forget about anything I ever said about preggo brain not being so bad this time around. Lies! All lies! Lately I’ve just had the hardest time understanding people. I can recognize the words that people say to me but my brain is having trouble piecing together what they’re saying. It’s like people speak to me in English but with holes in it. I feel so bad for anyone who has to deal with me lately — having to repeat everything they tell me two or three times and needing to speak slowly like to a child. If I was not pregnant right now and had to speak to the pregnant version of me, not-pregnant Cathy would be rolling her eyes till they popped our of her skull. It’s terrible. So, to the people that I’m going to be seeing in the next few weeks — consider yourselves warned.

Weekend Update

Cold Turkey

I recently came to the conclusion that I have a very bad internet addiction.  More specifically, a Facebook addiction.  I’ve always known that I’ve had a horrible obsession with being online but last week I picked up on some clues that it’s become more than just a charming and quirky habit.  For instance, spending three days in a row playing games that I don’t even enjoy on Facebook almost non-stop just to have something to do while I’m online…that can’t be normal.  Nor is the fact that my running mental dialogue now takes the form of continuous status updates, such as “Cathy is debating whether or not to buy the season pass to ANTM on iTunes” or “Cathy is trying to resist the 20 devil’s food cupcakes calling out her name from the kitchen.”  Back when I was blogging more often, my brain always processed events in terms of “What’s the best way to write about this on my blog?”  Annoying, yes.  But this constant mental status updating is way more annoying.  And who even thinks about themselves in the third person anyway?!

So for now, I’m giving up Facebook.  Unfortunately, knowing my inability to do/eat/watch things in moderation, this has meant just not being online.  At all.  The couple of instances that I’ve had to go online this weekend — to look up movie showtimes, catch up on some news — I inevitably made a side visit to Facebook (for which I can assure you I mentally excoriated myself for) so cold turkey it is for me until I manage to wean myself off of those damn games.

Hellooooo Preggo Brain

So after five months, my brain has finally succumbed to my pregnancy hormones.  And as someone who normally prides herself on her memory and being able to remember really random things about people, this is a huge blow to my ego.  If there’s any consolation, at least my vocabulary has mostly been left intact this time around.  With Noah, my everyday vocabulary took a huge hit and I still feel bad for Mark who had to endure my constant refrains of, “Hey Mark, can you get me…uh, that thing.  You know, it’s…uh…that thing you use to do that thing…and…stuff…” or “Can you stop by the grocery store and pick up some…uh, dammit.  What’s it called?  You eat it and it’s green.  You know?”  This time around, it’s random facts and information that I can’t seem to get a grip on.  For example, my cell phone number and Mark’s cell phone number have apparently been stricken from my memory.  Thank goodness Mark’s number is stored in my phone but it’s kind of embarrassing when you try to give out your cell phone number and end up saying something like, “It’s 9-8-2.  Oh wait.  No.  9-8…hmmmm.  You know, I might have it written down somewhere…no, I don’t.  I’ll just text it to you when I remember it ok?”  Stupid stupid stupid.

Birthday Things

Mark and I took Noah to his classmate, Eshaal’s, birthday party on Saturday.  Which means one party down and two more to go.  It’s a little sad that my three-year-old has a more active social life than I do, but at least I can drink.  Ha HA!  Oh wait…  Eshaal had a magic themed party and her parent’s had hired a pretty decent magician who kept 20 or so kiddos entertained for 30 minutes.  Afterwards I realized that he had actually only performed maybe two bad magic tricks at the most, which makes me think that in order to qualify as a successful children’s magician you really only need to be able shout over the children, have a lot of patience, and be able to make balloon animals.  This week, Noah’s got Ruby’s princess party to go to and next week it’s Charlie’s party at an indoor children’s playground nearby.  Just thinking about having to put on a happy face and pretend that I’m a normal, confident, socially well-adjusted parent two more times in a week is just exhausting.  Paradoxically, all this birthday party stuff has also given me a bad case of party-planning envy.  I seriously want to throw someone a party right now.  This on top of my anxiety over having to throw a birthday party for Noah in September (apparently the whole “what if you threw a party and nobody came?” thing still applies to preschooler parties).  So it’s weird.  But I’m sure going to two more children’s parties will cure me of my party envy.

Five Month Appointment and Other Random Things

I had my five month appointment today and really, nothing much to report except the baby is looking good so far.  Right now the baby is exactly 20 weeks.  I find it rather amazing that besides gender, the doctor can tell from an ultrasound how many fingers and toes the baby has (10 fingers, 10 toes), whether or not he looks like he’s got spina bifida (nope), and whether he’s got a club foot or cleft palate (no on both).  Based on the length of his thigh bone, Dr. Doo says the baby is going to be on the tallish side — which after Noah doesn’t surprise me anymore.  He also says baby #2′s stomach is a little small which means he’ll be tall and thin — again, just like Noah — but then again, I’ve still got about four more months to fatten the little guy up.

After the doctor’s appointment, I finally got around to doing something I’d been putting off for weeks — maternity clothes shopping.  I don’t know why but there’s just something patently ugly about most maternity clothes.  Either that or the cute stuff costs an arm and a leg and who wants to blow US$150 on a pair of jeans that you’ll only wear for four months?  Fortunately H&M has a maternity line so I went there as soon as they opened this morning.  After picking up three pairs of pants, I had to ask myself, “Why on earth did I put off buying maternity clothes for so long?!”  I know part of it was the ugly clothes factor and another part was maternity pants make me feel fat, but holy cow!  I forgot how awesomely convenient they are — no buttons, no zippers, just an elastic waistband you pull on.  It’s like getting to wear sweats every day!  Now I’m just sad that I didn’t buy some pants sooner and can only wear the pull up pants for four months.

Because I’d been cooped up in the house all week, I didn’t go home right away.  Which was kind of a mistake because then I naturally started seeing a bunch of things that I wanted to buy but couldn’t justify spending the money on.  I did give in though when I saw the most awesome tie at Baby Monster.  I saw it in the display, talked myself out of buying it, left the building…and then promptly walked back in, marched straight into the store and told the woman at the counter, “I want that tie!!”  So much for self-restraint.  But just look how cute it is!

After buying it, I realized that Noah doesn’t actually have any occasion to wear it and in fact doesn’t have any shirts to wear with it. So now I have to go buy the boy a dress shirt so he can wear his cool new pirate tie (although something tells me “dress shirt” and “pirate tie” don’t really belong in the same sentence). In the meantime though, Noah’s found a way to improvise:

A Big, Huge Pregnancy Rant

For anyone reading this who hasn’t had babies yet, if anybody tells you that pregnancy is an incredibly wonderful time of a woman’s life, that person is either a) male and therefore doesn’t know what the hell he’s talking about, b) a liar (feel free to disregard anything this person has ever said to you in your life) and/or c) the Duggar family matriarch and is trying to justify having spent the last 14 years or so of her life preggers. Obviously, I disagree.

COMPLAINT #1 — Mood Swings
If you happen to catch my facebook status from time to time, you’ve probably noticed that I’m one angry pregnant lady these days — from yelling at the pizza guys to the lighting guys to barely being able to conceal my irritation at the slightest thing gone wrong. And when I’m not chewing someone out for whatever minor infraction they happen to have committed, then the rest of the time I’m usually just completely bored, disinterested and apathetic to whatever’s going on around me. Fun. Especially for everyone who has to live around me. It’s a little weird to experience such extreme shifts in my mood especially since they don’t follow any particular kind of pattern. At the very least it would be helpful if I knew that this week I would be an angry, raging lunatic and next week indifferent and unmotivated but as it stands, it’s completely unpredictable — to Mark’s, Noah’s and Clarita’s displeasure.

I think to a large degree the mood swings are also exacerbated by my homesickness. The first time around, if I got too homesick I could always just make the seven hour drive up from Orange County to the Bay Area and instantly my mood would be lifted. Alas, no chance for a similar moodbooster all the way out here. But we’re going back to the US for three weeks in April so I’m really looking forward to that. We’re spending a week out on the East Coast with Mark’s family — plus a side trip for me to visit a friend in Virginia (uh…that is, if that’s alright with you Cristina…) — and then two weeks with my family in CA. Just thinking about it makes me breathe easier (and makes me a teensy bit weepy — damn you pregnancy hormones!). I only wish we could stay longer but we really can’t pull the boy out of school for too long.

COMPLAINT #2 — Food Issues
I think most people are familiar with a lot of stuff that becomes off-limits once you’re pregnant so I won’t go over that list. But being pregnant has kind of ruined eating for me. I know I say that I’m a picky eater, but really, I do like to eat. I miss steaks that aren’t dried out and tasteless because I have to eat them well-done. I miss runny egg yolks on my sunny side up eggs in the morning. I miss foie gras. And sushi — oh, how I miss you! There are days when I would kill for some brie and I’ve been craving seared duck breast forever but don’t want to bother since mine will need to be well-done, and really, what’s the point of that? And let’s not even get started on how some days I could just really use a glass of wine or beer. And is a mimosa at Sunday brunch too much to ask for? Apparently so.

On the other hand, since I’m kind of a pro at this pregnancy thing (ha!), this time around I’ve taken the time to learn a bit more about nutrition and the best foods to eat for each trimester. It really is seriously interesting stuff — the best food combinations to help maximize absorption of certain vitamins and minerals, how the baby is developing and what nutrients he’ll need at what point in time, that sort of thing — and I’m hoping the knowledge will come in handy even after the baby factory is shut down for good. While I definitely feel more informed, there are some days when it’s just overwhelming and something as small as deciding on a good afternoon snack feels like a huge weight on my shoulders. And you can’t even begin to imagine the amount of grocery shopping it takes to sustain all of my daily snacking.

Then there are the family meals and trying to strike a balance at dinnertime while taking into account my food restrictions, mine and baby #2′s dietary priorities, what picky-eater Noah will possibly eat, and something different each night for Mark. Tough times — quite possibly blown out of proportion — but still, enough to make me dread mealtimes some days.

COMPLAINT #3 — Bathroom Stuff
Not really much to say here except, holy cow — sometimes I wish this baby would find a different spot to recline on besides the spot directly on top of my bladder. I seriously don’t drink enough fluids to justify the amount of bathroom breaks I take on a daily basis.

COMPLAINT #4 — God, I’m Big
Have I complained about how huge I am yet? Because I am. Which, I know I’m pregnant and I’m supposed to get big and fat, but knowing that still doesn’t make me feel any more attractive.  And seriously, I thought the preggo belly would hide my love handles, but they’re still there.  How is that fair?  And have I mentioned that I’m starting to waddle now?  Yeah…sexy.  But it’s just a much more comfortable way to walk these days.

FUTURE COMPLAINTS
I’m not big enough yet to complain about these but here are some future gripes that I just want to get out of the way now while I still remember:

• Cankles — ewwww!  Gross.  And related to this is my shoe size going up and not being able to wear any of my cute shoes anymore.
• Bloating and swelling so much that I won’t be able to wear my wedding ring on my finger anymore.
• People feeling like they can touch my stomach.  Yeah…no — don’t do that.
• Being in my third trimester when summer in Hong Kong (and typhoon season!) really kicks in.
• Not being able to see my feet.  (Or my cankles — which I guess is a good thing)
• Having to sleep on my side all the time.  My neck is already aching in anticipation.

ON A GOOD NOTE…
One of the coolest things this second time around is knowing my body and the baby better. With Noah, I don’t remember feeling him kick until close to my third trimester. But now that I know what it feels like, I felt this little guy first kicking two weeks ago. I’d been feeling him shift around a little for a while but a couple of weeks ago I felt him kick — or perhaps it was a karate chop…who knows. It was very subtle and quite easy to mistake for something like gas or indigestion, but I know it was him. And he’s only gotten stronger and more kicky every day. It’s a nice feeling to feel so in tune with the baby. I love just laying in bed, putting my hand on the part of my stomach where I know he’s hanging out at, and feeling him kick and move and say “wassup?”  Because his kicks are so tiny and subtle at this point, it almost feels like a secret that just the two of us share.

While this pregnancy has definitely been the tougher of the two, I feel so connected to this baby sometimes — in a way that I didn’t feel with Noah. Not that I didn’t feel any connection with Noah when I was pregnant with him, but this time around it’s just different. And it’s reassuring to know that you can share different experiences with your babies and at the same time still feel so bonded with them. It sounds silly, I know, but for a long time it was a concern of mine — that I loved Noah so much that I wasn’t sure I could love another baby as much. But as I’m learning every day, I can. Somehow you just make room for it.