Mr. Nosey

I was going through some pictures of BabyL when he was just a newborn. BabyL was such a wee little thing. And with all newborns, he only expressed emotions through crying. I remember saying that wouldn't it be neat if he could at least smile so that I had some idea if I was doing things okay with him.

Well, BabyL's been smiling since after his 1 month birthday, and within the last month, has learned how to laugh. He also babbles a lot, and will give a very huffy sigh when he's bored. I also have a pretty good sense when he's frustrated with something. He still cries though, and with the crying, there are tears. He didn't have tears when he was born.

BabyL is also a very curious little boy. He likes to look at EVERYTHING, and I mean EVERYTHING. He will get distracted when he's feeding, when I'm trying to put him to sleep, when we're out and about. He's been like that since day one, but now that he's able to hold his head up pretty well, he will spin left and right and left again to look at EVERYTHING. He will tilt his head at the most uncomfortable positions (well, uncomfortable-looking to us) to see his world.

Sometimes we try to figure out what he's looking at. It could be a brightly-coloured object. It could be some interesting pattern. It could be the way that light shines on something. The other day, Hubby and my mom went for a quick walk before BabyL's bath. They noticed at one point that he kept on looking up, up, up. It turns out that he was looking at the tall trees that lined the trail where they were walking. Like I said, he looks at EVERYTHING!

(I would have entitled this Mr. Curious, but apparently the Little Men Series only has a Miss Curious, go figure. Mr. Nosey was the next best thing!)

Thoughts on Pregnancy - Part 2

If you know me in real life, you know that I never once enjoyed being pregnant. Well, here is a list of things that I went through in my pregnancy. This is more to remind myself than anything else. Everyone tells me that you will "forget" afterwords. I don't know if I will forget a lot of this.

• 1st trimester nausea. It started at about week 8-9 and lasted until about week 15. I was turned off by anything that was animal flesh: chicken, beef, seafood. One night, Hubby had made salmon, and the moment I smelled it, which was at the kitchen door, I felt a wall go up. I couldn't even step into the kitchen. It was frustrating for both Hubby and myself because I literally didn't know what I could and couldn't eat until it was placed in front of me. My only saving grace was that the pregnancy sickness didn't kick in until later afternoon/early evening, so I was at least able to eat something during the day. The nausea took time to subside however, it didn't go away instantaneously overnight. I also developed a phobia for the foods I couldn't eat, and it was some time before I could re-introduce those foods back into my diet. Thank goodness I never threw up once.
  
• There are certain things that I wasn't allowed to eat during pregnancy, mostly either uncooked foods, unpasteurized foods, or foods that had the potential for being contaminated by bacteria, like deli meats. Fortunately for me, I hate sushi, but I did miss eating some foods.
  
• The constant tiredness. This is something that I've always had to deal with, pre-pregnancy. I operate best with 9 hours of deep, uninterrupted, tension-free sleep. If I don't get all three elements, I don't function well the next day. The fatigue during the first trimester was also very hard. Going to bed at 7pm was not fun, and despite the fact that I got tons of sleep, I was still tired the next day. Please don't tell me that this is to prepare me for the sleepless nights afterwords, I've heard it enough times from everyone.
  
• Right SI joint pain from month 3 onward. My chiropractor tried his best to fix it, but nothing he could do would make the pain go away. It went away on it's on at about week 30 when I noticed the Relaxin hormone kick in (it's the hormone that loosens the joints, to prepare your body for labour).
  
• Peeing 4 times during the night. Not only does this interrupt my sleep, but it was frustrating when you only pee just a little bit out, despite the feeling that your bladder's about to burst
• Constant kicking from the kid. Baby kicks really only had so much novelty for me. The baby was most active at night, which also didn't help with the sleep. What was worse though was when the baby wasn't kicking. I was worried that something had happened, which meant even less sleep. The best part is when the baby was pushing a foot into my diaphragm. Apparently, I didn't need to breathe.
  
• Constant neck, shoulder, upper, middle, lower back and hip pain. This is something that I've dealt with for 4 years prior to being pregnant. I was really hoping that I would have some time to fix my back problems after finishing school and before becoming pregnant, but God apparently has a sense of humour and had other ideas for me. Getting pregnant while trying to finish up a paper was not fun. Anyways, the back pain I experience normally, I need to keep under control by exercise, regular stretching and taking hot baths, otherwise, I sleep very tensely, even if it's a 9 hour sleep, and I looked totally bagged the next day.
  
• The fact that I couldn't sleep on my back after a certain stage. I'm a back sleeper, and my back pain is diminished when I sleep on my back. I was told that sleeping on my back while pregnant wasn't good for me as it could cut circulation off to the lower half of my body. Also side sleeping is better as it encourages the baby to be bettered position for birth, which is what I am equally paranoid about. No breeching or back labour please!
  
• Constipation and hemorrhoids. I've backed up the toilet many, many times. Nuff said.
  
• Constant indigestion, acid reflux and heartburn. It mild to moderate most of the time, and Tums is my saviour for the most part, but still not fun. I've dealt with indigestion most of my life, so this is something I won't forget the feeling of quickly.
  
• I couldn't take hot baths. I did take baths, but not hot, hot baths like I normally do. It's not good for the baby to raise my core temperature so high. I needed the hot baths for my back pains, so it was hard not being able to treat my back pains properly
  
• Constantly aching feet. Every time the baby grows, I know because I can feel my feet aching and adjusting to the weight. It was worse in the third trimester as that's when the baby puts on the most weight.
  
• The skin on my belly being stretched to death. I'm carrying completely in the front, and my belly looks like a basketball right now. Every time I got bigger, my tummy grew. Every time my tummy grew, my skin, tendons and muscles on my stomach had to stretch to accommodate. There were days when I thought my belly button was going to spit into two. It was a lot of discomfort bordering on me wanting to cry or rip my skin off from the pain. I really hope that my tummy will eventually flatten out. I'm still aiming to have that bikini body.
  
• Not being able to bend down or bend over properly. I couldn't clip my toenails after a while, and one finds very creative ways to putting on shoes or picking something off of the floor. Sometimes I'd just leave the thing on the floor.
• Night leg cramps. I had a few of them, and they hurt like the mofo. I've had them many times before, since I was a teenager, but adding a belly into the mix didn't make it any easier for me to deal with it.
  

I think that what kept my sanity was the fact that I went to the massage therapist and chiropractor regularly. They both helped me manage my pain with all my body changes. I also continued going to Pilate's until about week 33 and going to the gym until week 38. I feel that it really staved off a lot of other pregnancy symptoms, like water retention. My wedding rings are a bit tight, but that due more to the bit of body fat I've gained over the last month. I thankfully don't have swollen feet, or swollen anything. I suppose that I should be thankful that my pregnancy for the most part has been fairly uneventful.

I also have to thank my long-suffering Hubby for putting up with all my whining, cooking for me, and doing all the toilet unplugging. I don't think I would have survived this far without his help and understanding.

But pregnancy still isn't fun.

Thoughts on Pregnancy - Part 1

So sorry, I haven't been updating my blog. March was a very busy month for me.

My last day of work was actually yesterday. I had to interview, hire and train my replacement, which takes time. During that process, I was frantically trying to get as much done at work (I was working evenings and weekends), and doing a mind-meld with a newbie is time consuming. Yesterday, things were blowing up left, right and centre, but my replacement seemed to handle it well. At least he took it in stride, so I was pretty confident that he could handle the job. I could only sit back and watch in amusement at all the drama everyone else was causing my staff. Ah, I will miss all the work drama.

That coupled with trying to finish off the baby room, it was pretty hectic. Hubby had to put together the crib, the dresser and hang the curtains. But the baby's room is finally ready! At least the baby finally has a place to sleep. I couldn't say that even just two weeks ago. It was nice though, we received a lot of gifts from friends, so that help a bit, especially the clothing.

For a while there, I was worried that the kid wouldn't have enough clothing. While many people have been promising to give us hand-me-downs, I hadn't seen anything come our way. I'm certain that those people will hold true to their promise, but the kid actually needs some clothing as soon as he's born, and not 2 months down the road. Up until the point where I bit the bullet and bought a few more items, I think the kid had a grand total of three outfits. Any parent will tell you that I would have probably gone through that many outfits in one day! I also bought a whole whack load of cloth diapers. Someone gave me a little stuffed animal as a gift, and I'll be using it to practice swaddling, diapering, putting the kid in the infant carrier and into the car seat. So much to get a handle of!

A part of me was a little loathe to be spending so much money in the last three months, and we've probably spent a little more than we should have on some baby stuff, but we're new at this, and I had to keep reminding myself that start up costs always tend to put a dent into any bank accounts financially, no matter how much you try to plan. The trick for me was to figure out what was a need and what was a want. Plus, a lot of experienced moms told me not to buy too much before the baby was born, because things like clothing sizes, colour, and whether or not the baby will like certain toys like swings, will depend on the baby's preferences/fussiness. So it's been really tough trying to figure these things out, but I think we've done okay and haven't overspent too much.

Around my birthday, which was last week, I discovered the one, and only, thing that I found cool about pregnancy: baby hiccups.

Now I knew about the baby's ability to hiccup while in the womb, and it doesn't hurt the baby. However, it didn't even occur to me that my baby was hiccupping until someone asked me last week. Then, that very night, at about 1.30 am, I realised that the rhythmic kicking was actually the baby hiccuping, and not just the baby actively kicking and doing it's darnedest to keeping me awake. I had felt it before, but never had put two and two together until someone pointed it out to me.

I knew where the head and the rest of the body was, and I could actually feel the body jump up and down inside, like most people do when they hiccup. It was actually a neat experience, and I had to wake Hubby up so he can feel too. I think this was the one time that Hubby didn't mind me waking him up.

Prenatal Classes

Last weekend, we attended a 3-day weekend prenatal session. On the recommendation of our midwife, instead of going to one put on by the hospitals, we opted to go with a private company. We were told that it would cover the normal stuff -- "plus more", whatever that meant.

I was a little skeptical at first on the first session. The approach was quite different than just a pure clinical "this is what happens in labour and this is what you should expect" approach. It definitely was a little more granola than I expected, particularly as by the end of the evening, we had produced some artwork. But I kept an opened mind throughout the weekend.

The approach that was used was called "Birthing from Within". I will let you readers read the website for a better idea of what it's all about, but I've listed a few points of what I found valuable from the sessions:

• We (mothers and fathers) went through some pain coping techniques. I really appreciated it because it gave me something right away to use, and is something that won't be too hard to forget.
  
• They taught the fathers how to help the mothers to with the pain, different labour positions, etc. In other words, the fathers were just as much a part of the whole birthing process. I think Hubby liked that aspect as he has tools help me through the labour process instead just sitting at the sideline not knowing what to do.
• The fathers in the class were very much involved with the discussions as much as the mothers were. I think they also felt like they were a part of the the birthing experience.
  
• They took a different approach to explaining cesareans to us, while still covering all the basics. I think this different point of view was great because it makes it less of a clinical approach to giving birth, and strangely, made it less scary sounding for me, even if I still don't want to go through with a cesarean.
  
• While they talked about epidurals and other drugs you could use, they gave different things to think about regard drugs and how it may affect the baby's bonding process with the mother. One thing I learned is that epidurals do affect the baby, even though the effects are temporary.
• I like the fact that they emphasized on how important it was for the baby to bond with both mother and father. They also spoke briefly about co-sleeping, while I'm not a big fan of it, a lot of what they said did make sense to me.
  
• Most importantly, I didn't realise how absolutely scare I was about the whole labour thing until we went to the prenatal class. I actually was petrified, and at some level refused to acknowledge it to myself. After the class, I felt more prepared, and a lot more at peace with the whole labouring processes. Sure, things will still happen which I may not want to happen, and there really is no way to predict what will happen, and a part of me is still apprehensive, but I'm in a better place for it.
  

Despite the granola aspects, I really recommend Birthing From Within classes, so if you can find one in your area, I encourage you to go.

8 more weeks!

I won't post too much today, as I had a pretty hellish week at work (more like month), which ended up me crying myself to sleep last night, and waking up in the middle of the night praying and reflecting on things. Nonetheless, I must keep moving forward. I was hoping to take a belly pic tonight, but I'm just not in the mood for it. Happy 32 weeks to me!

I just wanted to post this article about the importance of children's play more so that I don't lose the article than for anything else, although parents out there may find it interesting too.

10 more weeks to go!

Today I am exactly 30 weeks. I have 10 weeks left to go. I seriously can't wait for this bebe to come out. I never enjoyed being pregnant, and now that I'm getting to the point where I'm supposed to be gaining a bit more weight, I'm definitely feeling like a beached whale, and feeling more uncomfortable by the day. Lying on my stomach seems to be a distant memory. My back and hips are constantly hurting, despite the fact that I see my chiropractor and massage therapist on a regular basis, stretch and try to maintain good posture. I have mild to medium heartburn and acid reflux, which is not a pleasant thing to deal with already. My stomach seems to be sore all the time from all the stretching and growing my baby does.

Life has been quite busy for me. Every weekend (and many days during the week), I'm still trying to figure this whole baby thing out. I still don't complete have my head wrapped around the basics of changing a dirty diaper, and that I mean from the time you take a diaper off to the time you put a new one on. I may be just making things more confusing for myself by over thinking about it. I also don't know how to clothe a baby properly (although I bought a few cute clothing), and it never occurred to me that the you can layer clothing on a baby until a few days ago. I worry that the breastfeeding thing may not work out for me. I pretty much don't know anything!

The baby's been kicking quite a bit, definitely when I want to sleep or if I wake in the middle of the night, but it's doing more karate chops during the day as well. We went to the midwife's today and I asked how big my uterus is. Apparently everything that's sticking out, which is pretty amazing. And the kid's only taking up half the space still, so the rest is filled with amniotic fluid I imagine. I definitely notice sometimes when the kid does somersaults because I feel kicking going around in a circle.

I notice that my appetite has increase, and I want to eat more stuff. I'm trying to stay away from eating junk, but it's really hard sometimes! Never mind the foods that I'm not supposed to eat! I really miss those foods too. There is also a misconception that I should be eating for two. Technically, I only need an extra 300 calories per day, and that really amounts to one or two healthy snacks, not three extra meals. I definitely don't want pregnancy as a license to eat whatever I want and whenever I want. It's not healthy for me or the bebe. Yet my family insists that I'm not eating enough. Sigh.

I get stared at quite a bit at the gym. People wonder if I should still be exercising, and sometimes they ask. Today at my step class, the substitute instructor that I had was 5 months pregnant with her second one, and while she had to take frequent breaks, she was still able to jump around like crazy (I think was able to be as energetic as her when I was 5 months along, not anymore though). I'm also still doing weight training (at a much, much lower intensity and weights) to keep my body strong, and I have to say that I'm probably stronger now because I'm going to the gym more often, than I was even a year ago. Some women in some countries work hard labour in fields up until the time they give birth, I certainly think that my body can withstand a bit of exercise. By the way, I'm still doing Pilates, but that'll probably end by the end of February. I definitely have much less control over my ab muscles as I get bigger. If you watch me trying to do a roll up, it's, well, pretty much comical.

People also tell me the oddest things, and I feel there is so much misconception about the fragility of pregnant women and babies that I almost think people make it up. For instance:

• I shouldn't be moving so fast, the jiggling may hurt the baby.
• I shouldn't bounce up and down when doing step class or going up stairs, the bouncing motion may hurt the baby.
  
• I normally wear a set of keys around my neck at work, and the key chain is long enough so that the keys constantly hit my tummy. I shouldn't be doing that as that may hurt the baby. You should see how hard the midwife presses her fingers into my tummy when she's checking me out, and that doesn't hurt the baby one bit, so I don't think a bit of tapping against the stomach will affect it in any way.
• I've been told that I should stop exercising, I may hurt the baby. This was from someone who doesn't exercise.
  
• My favourite from my 95 year old grandmother: I shouldn't be wearing constricting clothing (I was wearing maternity clothing at the time), I may harm the baby by squeezing it too much: I shouldn't be wearing looser clothing and let everything hang, you know so the baby has more room to move. Gee, I wonder how my baby likes it every time I cough or sneeze, because my stomach muscles squeezes the baby like crazy. I'm definitely not telling her that I still do crunches.
  

My other biggest headache right now is figuring out my maternity leave. I wanted to give myself the flexibility of returning to work early if I wanted to, but which ended up complicating things. That turned out to be a lot of emails back and forth between myself and the HR lady. I'd managed to corner my boss today so that he can check over my job description, and in his typical fashion, he rearranged, added and chopped the entire thing, which means another edit. I need to submit it soon as HR has go through it's own rigmarole before it's even posted. Hiring at work is at least a 6 week process, if I'm lucky, so I need to get on this pronto!

My other headache is trying to figure out daycare, but that's another post unto itself. Sigh.

Third Trimester!

So today is the start of my Third Trimester! Yes, I'm finally 28 weeks and can hardly believe that I've made it this far!. I'm starting to get a little heavier, and starting to feel a little more miserable. My back hurts more, and I can never find a comfortable enough of a position to sleep in, although I'm still able to sleep on my back. I'm also back in the routine of stretching before going to bed, I need it to ward off the back pain somehow. The SI joint pain, I've given up on ages ago. I really look forward to my massage therapy and chiropractor visits.

I've caught a cold, and was very unhappy that I wasn't able to take anything for it. Fortunately, I hydrated like crazy and tried to sleep as much as I could, that seemed to do the trick. But this perpetual dry cough that I've had for about a month just won't quite go away. Sigh. I'm still going to my doctor's for my flu shot sometime soon.

I'm definitely huffing and puffing going up stairs. Apparently from this point onwards, I'm going to gain about 1/2 pound a week. I'm really hoping I don't go above 20 lbs, last I weighed myself, I was about 12-13 lbs over my pre-pregnancy weight. I already feel like a beached whale.

Nonetheless, we had moved my due date, I am now due April 9th. But anything can still happen between now and when the bebe decides to finally pop out. A lady at my gym today told me that her second child came about a month early. We still haven't moved out the old furniture from the bedroom, I've hardly bought anything that we need, and I just don't feel ready yet. I'm hoping by this time next month we'd be a little closer to being prepared for this kid.

Frankly, while I'm grudgingly getting used to the changes in my body, it still hasn't hit me yet that I'm going to have a baby. Or that my life is forever going to change. Overall, I still go about doing my own thing, and albeit my life is taken over by planning, doing and buying baby stuff, I still treat it as another hobby, or just another thing to do. And of course, there is that lingering resentment that I'm going to be giving up a lot of my independence for a good long time. Hey, I'm just being honest. I know I am not the only parent-to-be to feel this way.

Yes, I know I'm in for quite a shock.