A much belated update (from Paul)

Pablito is 23 days away from birth (give or take a few weeks), and it is about time to dust off the blog. Sorry it has taken so long, someday I will learn to sit down and regularly write something more extensive than a facebook post.

We are nearly there, and happy to say that the room is pretty much set, a bag is packed and ready to go, and Jona really wishes the baby would just come out and be done with it. He has learned many new skills, such as kicking and hitting, and thanks to months of practice is turning them into -combo moves. I'm pretty sure I recognize one from Street Fighter 2 (Spinning Bird Kick: Down-Up-A). We are told this means he is getting along well, he is also head-down and we hope this means that he wants to come out soon.

When he comes, we will be ready. In my earlier days, I would look at the huge Babies R Us store (right next to a Carters for Kids), and wonder how they stayed in business. I would shake my head, and pick-up a six pack of beer or the like. I now no longer wonder - they do it through insanely clever combination of cuteness and guilt. Something like: You want your baby to have a nice life, right? One where he will be able to bounce in a bouncy thing and swing in a swingy thing and play with little animals that float above his head? It could be the difference between happiness and sadness, a positive outlook or a negative one, a normal development and the Ivy league school or dropping out of high-school for a life of petty crime. So you give up the beer and buy the stuff.

Clothes are where the cuteness comes in. You know that he has many hats, you know that he is likely to have only one head, but it has a frog on it. He does not have one with a frog on it. Wouldn't it be cute?? So he ends up with the hat with the frog on it. Chances are he will pull it off and chew on it. But this will also be cute (babies can do no wrong).

But in the end, we're really excited. I'm still weirded out by the whole life-stage change thing. I'm pretty sure I'll miss sleeping in and being able to just go out to a movie or do whatever without worrying about childcare, but in the end it will be good. Worse come to worse, we now have toys to play with.

Graduation and GD

Hello! I'm back for more updates and to post some pics. Two weekends ago we finally got to celebrate my graduation and I finally got proof that I'm done. Here are some pics from the grad party held the evening before commencement and from the commencement ceremonies itself.

there was cake, barbecue and for some reason, lots of babies

what you hopefully could not tell from these photos is that the robe is actually a sauna.

In other not-so celebratory news, the day after these celebrations I took my second, much more fun glucose tolerance test. It was promptly revealed that I do have gestationational diabetes or GD. It shouldn't have been much of a surprise since I

actually had 3 out of 4 common risk factors (>25 yo at first pregnancy, family history of diabetes, pacific islander) in addition to having been previously diagnosed with insulin resistance due to my PCOS. However, I was still pretty upset with this diagnosis since I know that this could affect the baby to some extent (high birth weight, hypoglycemia at birth among other things). I've started feeling more confident about dealing with GD since taking a class (with Paul) with a dietitian and a maternal and fetal medicine nurse. Basically, we're trying to control my blood glucose levels with a combination of diet, exercise and glucose monitoring. The diet is not as strict as I feared it be since I'm still supposed to be taking in 2300 calories per day. The main changes I need to make is in the proportions of the types of food I eat (carbs, protein, veggies, fruits, etc) and also surprisingly enough, when I can eat them. For example, I need to eat less carbs in general especially in the morning but the amount of protein I can have is actual quite a lot. I could also squeeze in dessert once in a while if I cut back on other carbs. Another change is that I ought to be eating 6 meals a day which consists of the 3 main meals and 3 snacks (morning, afternoon and bedtime). This would prevent my blood sugar from spiking too much. Anyway, I could go on and on about this but suffice it to say, I feel pretty confident we could control this with just diet and exercise and hopefully not having to take medications or insulin.

That's my update for now. Before I end though I probably owe you a belly pic. Here's a couple of pics including one with Paul's graduation present for me.

wowza!

my new crafty friend!

27 weeks

Our apologies for not updating. We've been much busier than we anticipated. Will try to be better from now on :)

Since the last entry I've gotten way bigger and our li'l one has gotten much more active. At my last appointment Dr. Goist couldn't hear his heartbeat through the doppler for a while since all we could hear was this glug-glug sound which is apparently him flipping around i

n there. He also responds to sounds now. Once he even moved when Paul started talking to him!

As for preparedness, we've kind of started outfitting the nursery. We went on a big Ikea trip a couple weekends ago and got the crib along with the matching chest of drawers/changing table and shelf. Since it was Ikea, we also ended up with quite a lot of odds and ends like baby mobiles, a bunny sock puppet and doilies.

this crib is much cuter in person. I promise :)

Other than the Ikea items we also had one good garage sale purchase. We got this glider for pretty cheap!

ignore the weird person on the glider

As for other things that were keeping us busy, Heather came up to visit and spend time with us as well as to meet new friends

Work has also been quite a struggle for me as being pregnant has made a lot of the things I normally do quite uncomfortable. Who'd have thought swollen hands would be a pain when doing micromanipulation work?

Anyway, that's it for now. I'm marching in commencement this coming Sunday which should be interesting (big red robe in 90 deg F weather anyone?) and we're also hosting a graduation party this weekend. So you'll hear about that on the next update and hopefully a picture of the nursery!

halfway mark

I figured now is a good a time as any to actually get this blog going. We're at 21 weeks now which is just a week ahead of the halfway mark to 40 weeks. This is what I look like now:



So many things have happened since we found out our little one is coming. Here's a quick rundown.

1) I wrote my dissertation, defended and passed!

This was not made any easier by the little one what with the getting sick while writing but knowing what was on the way was a great motivator and inspiration to finish. I also have to give it to Paul for being so wonderful while dealing with a sick, cranky, stressed out wife for three whole months. I was pretty much useless around the house for that whole time and Paul was so endlessly patient. I know I'm a lucky girl.

2) Trip to the Philippines

27 hour travel time and 100 deg F temperatures did not keep us from coming back after more than 2 years. I went a week earlier than Paul for a total of 3 weeks home while Paul was there for two weeks. We had our "babymoon" in Bohol, celebrated Sarah and Gabs' wedding and spend lots of quality time with the family (in traffic and otherwise. hehe). Will probably post about this trip more later.

3) We're having a boy!

We had our big OB ultrasound appointment yesterday and here's confirmation :) We are thrilled with our little guy (aka Pablito) and we're very excited to meet him. We're also happy to recycle a lot of Leeron's, Zeth's and even Brian's baby clothes. In addition to identifying the sex, we were also happy to hear that little boy here is developing well and as expected. I actually started to feel him moving about three weeks ago. 3 am happens to be his favorite time to do somersaults. I could already foresee all the fun we have ahead!

That's it for now. We have a lot to do in the months ahead. After we're both recovered fully from this jet lag we'll start serious preparations for the coming of Pablito (this still makes me giggle!). I'll try not to get too crazy 'til then.

Here are the rest of the u/s photos:

isn't that the sweetest profile?

then he turns and apparently I'm giving birth to skeletor. . . I'm kidding. I hope.

Welcome!

Glad you made it here!

If you're here, then you've heard the great news! We've pro-created! The earth is doomed! Run!

Kidding aside, we just wanted to share this brand new experience for us with all our friends and family. It could also be a place for y'all moms out there to give tips and advice. Or yell out in all caps "YOU'RE DOING IT ALL WRONG!!!". At which case we'll have to block you. Kidding (mostly).

Anyway, feel free to nag us if we don't update because my blogger dashboard is now an obituary for dead blogs so we'll try to not let that happen to this one. Have patience with us though through the month of March because Jona is delivering another baby then, her first actually, namely her dissertation.

Looking forward to fun times! And a bouncy, baby _______ !