What Came Next – Top 5

Just a quick follow-up on my last post with a Top 5…don’t worry, I have some fresh new material coming up in the next week or so…for those familiar with my struggle with postpartum depression and also of late, sleep training the little one, you’re gonna love it.

TOP 5 THINGS I LEARNED/WISHED I HAD
KNOWN ABOUT LABOR, DELIVERY AND BEYOND

1. Contractions – If you haven’t experienced them, there is just no possible way to describe them. I know I have a high pain tolerance, but I have never felt pain like that in my entire life. It was so bad that while it’s happening, the world around you dims away and you can’t focus on anything but the pain. I don’t even know how to describe the experience, like having your lower body in a vice and have it clamp down on your belly, paralyzing your whole being. And then relief. And then you kind of forget about how much it hurt until the next one…and the next one…so on and so forth. GET THE EPIDURAL. It’s a miracle drug, trust me you’ll want it. Well, you don’t HAVE to but I could not do it, (and luckily, I will never have to experience contractions/vaginal birth as I will be having scheduled c-sections – EFF the VBAC, I’ve already been cut open so might as well keep my vajayjay in tact) so for the mamas who had natural birth experiences/waited ’til the last moment possible to get the epidural – y’all are beasts! Major MAJOR props…For any guy reading this, the pain is something along the lines of getting punched in the balls. And then just as you’re recovering, you get punched again. Now imagine that happening for hours on end followed by a watermelon exiting your body through an impossibly small hole. YEP, now go kiss your wives/girlfriends/baby mamas.
2. Constipation – so yes, constipation/poop problems just seems to be a reoccurring theme with pregnancy. Well, let me tell you, it doesn’t stop until you have THE poo following delivery. I’m not sure exactly what it is but women from both camps (natural and c-sections) experience THE WORST constipation following delivery. For those who delivery naturally, your nether regions experience quite the trauma – from excessive pressure to perineal tears (I dare you to click the link). I can only imagine how uncomfortable and painful it must be to have to make a number 2, I’ve heard it’s not fun at all. As for those who have c-sections, I’m not sure why we experience such horrible constipation. Maybe from all the meds they pump into your body during and after delivery…I have no clue. However, I do know that it felt like I was trying to birth a giant 50 lb boulder made of granite. And once I was done, I had to make sure my intestines weren’t in the toilet. Yea, it was that bad. I also made the mistake of taking Dulcolax to try and coax the waste out of my body…but you know how you need to get rid of the plug first? Well after that granite boulder was evacuated, water with glass shards followed. So awful. So so so awful. Like having the type of poo you get after eating a lot of spicy food but 100x worse. Never again will I take Dulcolax.
3. Visitors – not to sound ungrateful, but when I have baby number 2, I do not want any guests coming to visit me. Okay, family is obviously a yes, but maybe have guests at certain hours that I set aside, but ONLY during those hours OR just have them come visit once I’m discharged and at home. Between taking care of a newborn, nurses checking up on me every hour, and visitors coming throughout the day, I found it impossible to get the rest my body and brain were screaming for. Whenever I was ready to catch some shut eye, the baby needed to be fed…or the nurse would come in to check my vitals…or a friend would come to coo over the baby. It was a lot for a new mom. Maybe it will be different with the second. I don’t know…but for me it was very overwhelming and utterly exhausting. Sadly, not as many visitors came to visit after I was discharged which would’ve been amazing and incredibly helpful. Now I know what to offer new moms/moms with newborns…go to their home and watch the baby so they can shower/eat/get some sleep. It’s of course different for everyone so just ask the new mama if she’s okay with hospital visitors 🙂
4. BLOATING – bloating took on a whole new meaning for me. Remember how I was poking fun at Kim K’s feet during pregnancy? Well, it looked like someone had chopped off my feet and sewed her’s on. My Shrek feet could probably be attributed to being on an IV for 48 some odd hours, but wow, I did not know that my body could bloat like that. Took almost a full month for the bloat to go away. I was worried that maybe my blood pressure was too high and actually went to the doctor to have her check and make sure everything was fine! Please take a look at my lovely cankles below – see I’m not exaggerating!

5. Breastfeeding – this will be a short one because I can write MULTIPLE entries on the woes and joys of breastfeeding (and I will!) but let me just tell you this, get ready new mamas. Don’t get me wrong, I am 100% a breastfeeding advocate (and I will admit, I might even be a snob about it) and I highly encourage mothers-to-be to read Breastfeeding Made Simple by Nancy Mohrbacher (the book encouraged me to keep going as I was contemplating whether to quit or supplement with formula). Not only is it a necessity for your baby, but breastfeeding your child is also a beautiful bonding experience. But like most everything else associated with post partum experiences, breastfeeding is a BITCH. Cracked and bloody nipples, milk blebs, nipple ulcers, mastitis, engorgement…sounds like a party you want to crash, right? NOT!

The learning curve as a new mother is exponential and no matter how much you “study” beforehand, it won’t prepare you for the real deal. I mean, you’ll have an idea of what to expect, but really, every baby is different so everyone’s experience is very different and nothing that a book can truly prepare you for. Honestly, other than the breastfeeding book, I probably wouldn’t recommend reading anything else. Unless there’s a book that warns you about postpartum constipation, that would be a fun read. I would recommend that but otherwise it’s just all a journey.

What Came Next

The longest gestation period in the animal kingdom belongs to the ELEPHANT…approximately 95 weeks (almost TWO YEARS)!! It probably looks like a gruesome murder scene after elephants deliver their calves and I’m curious what an elephant giving birth looks like, but I don’t even dare google that. Speaking of googling, once I made a horrible mistake of googling a medical term and those images stuck with me for far too long (more on this later when we get to the joys of nursing). Could you imagine if humans were pregnant for almost 2 years – what would our babies even look like…they might be so big and developed that they just might crawl straight out of the womb! *shudder*

ANYWAY, luckily, we humans are only pregnant for 40 weeks and 40 weeks is long enough, thankyouverymuch. But of course, as much as my luck would have it, the little man decided that he wasn’t quite ready to meet his mama and papa and waited it out for an extra week – the longest week of my life!

As you can see, I was thrilled to be overdue

As I watched my due date approach and then pass, it was extremely disappointing and so anticlimactic…as much as I was so over being pregnant and so incredibly uncomfortable, my husband and I had been anxiously awaiting his arrival since the day we saw him in peanut form to shower him with love and kisses! It was as if Christmas morning had arrived and Santa decided that he would deliver presents on Boxing Day instead. Yea, it was THAT disappointing. Every morning after June 17th, I would wake up hoping that I would experience contractions, wait all day long hoping to feel contractions (by the way, no one WANTS to feel contractions because they hurt, A LOT), and then go to bed at night praying that I would go to labor in the middle of the night. And so it was, for a week, day in and day out.

Finally, on the morning of June 24th, I woke up as my husband got ready to leave for work to what I could only assume were contractions…sharp pains that radiated from my back forward to my belly. My contractions came probably 10 minutes apart all day long, but as the day progressed, the contractions intensified and started to feel as if someone was putting my lower body in a vice. All I could do was lay down in the fetal position until each contraction passed. I like to think that I have a high pain tolerance, but wow, these were something else. Finally, after the insistence of my father, my mother, my husband, and my grandmother (yes we were all living in the same house at the time, I know, how Asian of us), I called my doctor. I explained to her that although the contractions were still about 7 – 10 minutes apart, the intensity level was close to a 7/8 (FOR PAIN REFERENCE ON A SCALE OF 1 – 10: 1 = easy to carry a conversation, like normal and 10 = cannot talk, much less breath through them). She said to come in to get checked, but as I had two other friends sent home for being only in early labor, I insisted that my husband and my sister finish his dinner before we finally left for the hospital around 7:30pm.

on the way out the door

driving away

Funny enough, as we drove to the hospital, my contractions started to come closer and closer together and as we pulled up to the hospital, they were coming about every 2 – 3 minutes apart! By the time I checked in, changed into the hospital gown, and had a nurse examine me, I was already 5 cm dilated – success, I wouldn’t be sent home!

Once the epidural was administered (oh my god, the epidural was HEAVEN – pain went from a 10 to a 0 in a matter of minutes), the final waiting game began…

To make a long story short, I ended up having a c-section because the little man was actually breech (butt down rather than head down)…a little detail that my L&D nurse COMPLETELY missed. IDIOT. In fact, when she came in to check me at 7 cm, she said she could clearly see his head. My husband asked her how much hair the baby had and she told us he was bald (FYI, Asian babies are rarely bald)…which we thought was strange since both of us had a full head of hair when we were born. ANYWAY, when I was 9 cm and ready to push, the doctor came in and as soon as she looked down below, she asked the nurse if she hadn’t noticed that she was looking at the baby’s butt and said I needed a c-section right away. My sister said she actually heard the doctor say “Help, emergency! We need to get this baby out right now, he’s crowning his own butt!” as I was rushed into the OR. Thank God for my doctor…without her, who knows what could’ve happened!

Thankfully though, we welcomed our healthy baby boy, Ezra Zane Yehjoon Lee at 4:49 AM, June 25, 2013 weighing in at 7 lbs 6 oz and measuring 21 inches long!

 

our first family photo minutes after his debut!

looks at that sweet little face!

Seriously, it was love at first sight…41 long weeks of waiting to meet this little guy and he was finally here. I was in awe of every little detail – his fingers, his toenails, his ears, the little hairs on his arms and back (yes, he was a hairy little one when he was born haha!), his little raspy cry, his mongolian birthmark on his thigh…it was worth every single second of every single minute of every single hour of waiting. He was perfect in every way and everything that I could’ve ever imagined and prayed for.

*SIGH* Now I understand why people say that they miss the newborn stage…although the Ez is only 9 months old, I have to agree, I do miss the newborn stage, enough to want another one, hee hee! (I know, to all my Facebook followers reading this, I sound crazy because most of my FB statuses indicate no more future children haha!) Or maybe I miss the naivete of being a new mom, not knowing what was in store for me, just fueled by the excitement of becoming a mama.

Silly me…I never knew what it really meant to be a mom, I now realize. Nor did I even fathom what it meant to have postpartum depression. Sure, I had heard about it and acknowledged that I might get PPD since I had battled depression before, but I was not ready for it at all. These past 9 months have been the most challenging times I have ever faced in my life. As many ups the little man brought to our life, I probably had just as many downs thanks to that bitch PPD. These are the happiest moments of my life, but then I feel like shit sometimes and then I feel guilty for feeling like shit because I know I should be happy and then I feel sad. And cry. And then get angry. And then I feel hopeless. And then guilty again because there are people dealing with way more serious problems than I am. And then I feel selfish. And then I feel like nothing. And then the cloud lifts and I can BREATHE and see things the way they are – perfect. And then things are good for a spell until another trigger and there I go again, hurtling into the darkness. And then back up…then back down…up…down.

It’s been a hellish roller coaster ride, but I would not change a single thing. Okay, that’s a lie because really, I wish my brain would just chemically fix itself already, but I would not change the having a baby part and being a mama because I can’t imagine my life without my sweet, silly, happy little baby…I love him so. His existence alone has taught me what love truly is and that is the greatest gift he could ever give me. Even after he grows up and gives his heart to his future wife and has his own little babies to shower with his love…he will always hold a special place in mine, just for you, my darling Ezra.

“I’ll love you forever, I’ll love you for always, As long as I’m living, My baby you’ll be.” -Robert Munsch

 

 

And I’m Baaaccckkkk

HOLY GEE WHIZ SHOOT

It’s taken me almost a FULL YEAR to have the energy to put “pen to paper” and re-start up this silly little blog of mine…I’ve been wanting to share the (mis)adventures of Mama Lee, but have been so physically and mentally drained that any second I have to myself, I like to turn my brain off and  try to recharge whatever battery power I have left. Or stress eat…mmmmm, stress eating – everything tastes so good! Even better than when you’re pregnant…drroooolllll

So anyway, my last post “Kim Kardashian’s Butt” was from last MAY, so apologies to those readers who may have enjoyed reading my pregnancy rants. And lucky you, my new mama rants are even better! Most of you, I’m sure, have stumbled upon this blog via my Facebook page – so most of you also know the struggles I’ve had as a new mom. Being a new mom in itself is hard, but throw in postpartum depression and on some days, everyday tasks become daunting mountains to climb.

Don’t get me wrong though, I do love being a mom and I love our baby with all my heart and all my soul and my husband is my rock and a perfect hands on daddy. The Ez has been a true blessing and he completes our little family of three…he is the physical manifestation of our love, it’s incredible and I cannot imagine our lives without him. I hate that it’s so hard sometimes to separate the PPD from everything else and I don’t think other people really understand how hard dealing with postpartum depression has been, I mean, for crying out loud, I’ve threatened to kill myself (several times), my poor dear husband. Sadly society has given PPD a cute little label “the baby blues” and it sounds like, oh, she has a cold – it’ll go away…total bullshit (but more on this later!)

ANYWAY, with that, welcome back! Get ready to read the real truth about all the joys and woes of parenthood!

less than 1 week old

Our first family photo session

me and the Ez

Kim Kardashian’s Butt

My husband and I attended a work function about 3 weeks ago…a work function which required me to dress up a little. I haven’t had to get fancy since a wedding in March and my body has most definitely undergone a drastic change in the last couple months. My belly ballooned out of nowhere in the past few weeks and I have also gained the most weight in my last trimester. At one point, I had gained 17 pounds in a matter of only 6 weeks haha…almost half my total weight gain to date, oops! So I added more veggies and fruit to my diet to offset the rapid weight gain and haven’t gained any weight in the past 2 weeks. Whew!

Anyway, I have refused to buy maternity clothes for the most part and have opted to buy flowy maxi dresses instead in order to not waste money on clothes I’ll only wear for a couple months. So, the only fancy dress that I still fit in, was the same one I actually wore to the wedding…and the same one I wore for my engagement party. Due to the stretching magic of jersey and spandex, the dress miraculously fit my 35 week pregnant body…albeit a little clingy. Okay maybe a lot clingy…when my dad saw me in the dress he jokingly quipped: “Don’t forget to take out those butt pads before you go to the party, you’ll attract a lot of attention.” When my husband came home to pick me up for the party, he asked “When did you eat Kim Kardashian?” 😀 My butt was always on the rounder side especially for an Asian girl, but now I have a full blown badunkadunk, like Kim Kardashian’s, pre-pregnancy (I don’t think anyone but pregnant Kim could have that kind of ass unless it’s surgically enhanced). I’m serious – my butt has gotten so big, when I lie down on my back on the floor, the small of my back doesn’t touch the ground, LOL!

But don’t get me wrong, I kinda like my big butt right now and my husband definitely loves my big butt…and my big belly (I think he secretly high fives his penis every time he sees my belly actually). He also showers me with so many compliments on a daily basis, my head has gotten fat too 😉

But seriously, poor Kim Kardashian…the media is obsessed with her weight gain during her pregnancy and the paparazzi have definitely done their job of capturing as many unflattering photos of her as possible. I will have to admit though, she has gone through quite a transformation…but how can you blame her? If you’re in the public eye and it’s your job to look good, then shiet, I would probably eat like a rabbit AND be an exercise freak to maintain my best figure. So why not give yourself a few (or more) liberties when you’re pregnant? Even with my non-celebrity pregnant status, I have totally allowed myself to eat more bread, more ice cream, use butter liberally, have noodles more than once a week, eat a cookie at lunch, and always have candy in my car…all of which I do not do as a non-preggo. I definitely like good food, but I still try to be healthy…now, I just eat what I want to eat. If a cupcake is calling my name, I will get one and enjoy every last bite, down to the itty bitty crumbs. So, I’m going to assume that Kim Kardashian is just binging on all the foods she normally abstains from…and given her naturally curvy figure, she probably abstains from most foods to maintain a curvy, but skinny frame. You go girl, enjoy your pregnancy and eat your heart out. But just one suggestion…wear some comfortable shoes, you’re Kim Kardashian, you ain’t got nothing to prove so you can let your poor swollen feet take a break.

your feet need some circulation girl…the ankle strap is gonna cause more swelling!

 

need i say anything at all?

 

if her feet could talk: “help us, heeeelllppppp usssss”

I’ve had some swelling in my lower extremities and even wearing flats and sneakers can be uncomfortable. It’s time to retire those heels, Kim and shackle like ankle straps.

Anyway, less than 3 weeks before our little man arrives and I am feeling large and in charge!

3 more weeks to go!

Excited, a little nervous, but so so soooo ready to see his cute little face.

who will he look like??

In his honor, here are mommy’s top 5 cravings during pregnancy:
1. Big Mac – this was at the very very verrrryyyy beginning, but I woke up in the middle of the night needing to eat a Big Mac. The husband told me I actually rolled over and woke him up telling him I wanted one and went back to sleep. I’ve only eaten one during my pregnancy and that one was enough. It was delicious, but now I have no desire to eat one ever again.
2. Doritos Locos Cool Ranch Doritos Taco – Watching TV one day a couple months back and a commercial airs for the reveal of the new COOL RANCH DORITOS LOCOS TACO! And I needed to have it at that moment. I had already had dinner. It was 10:00pm. But I needed it…so the husband and I drove to the nearest Taco Bell and got some for the whole family. I’ve only had it that one time and it was good, but again, I don’t think I will ever need to eat one ever again. Funny enough, my dad really likes them and gets them on occasion since that night 🙂
3. Crawfish – My friend (pregnant at the time) had posted a picture of herself and her siblings feasting on crawfish on Facebook and it looked SO DELICIOUS. And then I needed to have crawfish. Instead of instant gratification though, I waited a few weeks before trekking out to JoLynn’s Crawfish and OHMYGAH, heaven in my mouth, I think the husband and I feasted on almost 10 lbs of crawfish that day and it was oh so good. Garlicky, spicy, buttery and orgasmic all rolled into each bite. And then I had crawfish 6 more times after that, hee hee. WHAT? It’s crawfish season right now 😉 Or maybe the delayed gratification resulted in overindulgence…oh well, I’m pregnant, I can do whatever I want 😛
4. Greek Yogurt and Granola – I woke up one morning craving greek yogurt with granola, berries, and honey and it has now become a daily staple for breakfast for the past month. And sometimes as a snack too 😀 Hey, it’s healthier than ice cream isn’t it??
5. Lavender Milk Tea with Boba – Ever since I had lavender flavored creme brulee back in college, I LOVE all things lavender flavored. But it’s hard to find things that are perfectly lavender flavored…sometimes the floral taste is way overpowering and other times there just isn’t enough of it. Luckily, one day, as the husband and I were adventuring out in Chinatown, we came across a milk tea shop that makes THE BEST lavender flavored milk tea. Ever since that day, I will drive out of my way to treat myself to one. Luckily, our new house (currently under renovation – a whole post of it’s own to come), is kinda sorta close to Chinatown so every time I drive by to check on the progress of the house, I drive out to Boba Zone afterwards to get me some lavender milk tea with boba, YUM!

That is all for now. I know I haven’t been the best with posts in the past few months, but I will try to entertain you all with a few more musings before the baby arrives. But you know that once he’s here, I’ll have a whole lot more to write about…like projectile vomiting, explosive poop, how a woman’s belly still look pregnant after birth…labor…delivery…oh my, the list of candid moments to come can go on and on and on. 🙂

Last Lap Around the Track

Well hello there week 30! Only 10 more weeks to go before welcoming our baby to this world…and it can’t go by fast enough. Of course I do not want the baby to come right now because he needs to bake in the oven as long as possible, but I am SO over being pregnant. Who in their right mind actually enjoys being pregnant? Now, I just feel uncomfortable with random aches and pains everywhere, fatigue is relentless, the swamp ass is getting WORSE and I want to eat everything I see on TV.

So anyway, I’ve been talking to other pregnant women/new moms/seasoned mommies and listening to their stories/advice has been really helpful! However, the one thing I am still a little anxious about is the labor and delivery. I feel like no matter how much you read about/listen to labor stories, yours is always going to be different. I stopped reading pregnancy books in my first trimester because some of the stuff kinda freaked me out, especially the parts about labor. I REALLY don’t like reading up on labor, but I was navigating www.babycenter.com and came across an interesting article about how to prevent tearing during labor (yes, for you men reading this, I am referring to tearing down there)…the secret to that is…*drum roll please*…MASSAGING YOUR GRUNDLE (aka perineum aka that area of skin between your vagina and anus).  First of all, I would like to know who discovered this little gem. I mean you have to make a serious effort to be like, “Hey, I think I should try massaging that area between my vagina and anus and see if that will help me during labor.” Second of all, YOU ARE MASSAGING THAT AREA BETWEEN YOUR VAGINA AND ANUS! WHO DOES THAT?? Needless to say, I will leave that up to someone else to test that theory. I can only pray that my labor will be as easy as my friend who just had her baby this Tuesday (omg, he is so cute and so little and eek, I am in love) – she got to the hospital at 2am and had the baby by 8:30am AND this was her first! Lucky girl!

So anyway, 10 weeks to go…all the preggos at church are starting to deliver and I am falling in love with each and every one of them. I am so so so anxious to meet our little Ezra…if I love everyone else’s babies so much, I mean, how much will I love my own??

To conclude, here are some little gems to hold you over until my next post:

week 27!

Week 29!

TOP 5 THINGS I WILL NOT MISS ABOUT BEING PREGNANT:
1. Dimples – and I don’t mean those cute face dimples some people are blessed with…I mean orange peel like cellulite dimples on my butt, my thighs, my arms…EVERYWHERE. At 30 weeks I am up 23 pounds…if I gain the 1 lb/week that my doctor predicted, I will be up 33 pounds which puts me on the higher end of the healthy weight gain range (25 – 35). The weight thing doesn’t bother me (that much) because yes, you are supposed to gain weight, but I’m pretty sure cellulite doesn’t go away…I am hoping though, the arm dimpling is just because my arms seem to have gained the most weight. I can’t bear to leave the house without a cardigan/covering up my arms ! I know, SO vain. But I’ve always had long and lanky limbs (fact: a boy in high school used to call me orangutan in Polish – DICK, he probably had a crush on me). Once that Houston heat and humidity hits, I don’t know how I’ll be able to hide these huge meat sticks hanging off my shoulders. On the other hand, the butt and thigh dimples, well – not like I’m into wearing daisy dukes or short shorts so I can live and all the sitting at a desk job really contributed to dimpling over the years – so pregnancy is not all to blame. But now when I sit Indian style, my legs look like overstuffed sausages ready to explode out of their casing. Ugh, pregnancy.
2. Discharge – I think I will leave this at that. You preggos know what I’m talking about. Blech. I will definitely not miss this part of pregnancy AT ALL.
3. Aches and pains – Because of the growing belly (I think), I am having a relapse of some nerve pain from an old snowboarding injury (I hit a tree, taking the full impact with my left hip – luckily nothing broke, strong like ox). So anyway, I dunno if my sciatic nerve is strained because of the bulging belly or if I have permanent nerve damage from that snowboarding accident, but my body definitely is feeling out of whack. My tailbone feels like it’s either broken or bruised – it’s such a weird feeling, feels uncomfortable to sit for too long and it hurts whenever I sit down or get up from a sitting position. Sometimes, if I walk around for more than a couple hours, I get sharp pains in my left hip – to the point, I need to limp. My pubic bone also gets sharp pains from time to time, as if someone has taken a chisel and hammer to that bone. AWESOME! Not.
4. Suffering through allergies – Not a big fan of taking any sort of medicine, but my life depended on functioning normally during allergy season with the help of Zyrtec. When you’re pregnant, your list of approved medications is quite limited and unfortunately, all allergy medication is banned. Allergy season has just started in Houston…and remember what I said in my last entry about sneezing and peeing? Womp womp.
5. Misplacing my phone – I lose my phone about 10 times a day. No joke…I put it down and I can’t remember where. Half the time, my phone is on silent so calling it doesn’t even help…I have to case the house and try to remember where I might have put it down last. At least I haven’t put it in the refrigerator or something…it’s usually in the crack of the couch, or on the bed or in the bathroom…it just takes me awhile to remember. I’m sure pregnancy brain has something to with this, but if I have a mischievous toddler, I may lose my phone more often because he wants to play with it and hide it from mommy. But that’s okay 🙂

The Final Countdown

OMG – only 13 more weeks to go until I pop this baby out…where has all this time gone? It felt like it was only yesterday I was waiting for husband to come home from basketball to share the news! The weeks when I was overwhelmed with morning sickness dragged on and on and on, but all of a sudden, BAM, third trimester! I’m so excited to meet our little one, but really nervous about all the events preceding and proceeding his arrival (i.e. labor, birthing, excruciating pain, episiotomy, breast feeding, protecting Ezra from all the evil things in the world etc).

The past few weeks since my last entry have been for the most part uneventful…minus getting contractions (not the Braxton Hicks kind) a little bit on the early side – that was a couple of days of high anxiety, but all’s well that ends well. Doctor has formerly grounded me from my jetsetting lifestyle and has instructed me to take it easy.  No more flying for the next who knows how long is a very depressing thought, but oh first world problems, haha.  So other than that little bump in the road, we’re back on our way!

To commemorate the beginning of the third trimester, here are a few top five moments of pregnancy so far:

Top 5 Things I Have Missed While Pregnant:
1. Sleeping on my stomach – have always been a stomach sleeper since I was a baby, and boy do I miss being able to sleep on my stomach. I had the absolute delight the other week of being able to lay comfortably on my engorged stomach during a prenatal massage thanks to some special cushions. It was so heavenly…50 minutes of pure bliss.
2. TUNA AND YELLOWTAIL – Pregnancy hasn’t really stopped me from eating sushi, but I have at least had the proper sense to abstain from high mercury fish. Sadly, these two are my absolute two favorite fish – raw, cooked, however it’s presented, I will devour it in one bite! I have instructed Husband to have tuna and yellowtail at the hospital as soon as I give birth. What I would kill for even a tuna fish sandwich or grilled yellowtail collarbone…DROOL
3. A solid night of sleep – sleeping is starting to get quite difficult with a growing belly. Also, with the growing baby dancing elaborate jigs on my bladder, I wake up at least 2 times a night to go pee pee. I’m pretty sure though that my solid nights of sleep are pretty much over for the next two years…unless we decide to add another member of the family so my sleepless nights may be a way of life for the next 4 or 5 years. I’m sure it will be worth the sacrifice.
4. Pad Thai – everyone and their mother now knows how much I loved and adored Pad Thai…sadly, this relationship badly soured with the onset of morning sickness and we are now mortal enemies. I missed it dearly and awaited for the time of morning sickness to pass and for us to renew our relationship…but even though I am now able to eat everything grown/raised/cultured under the sun, Pad Thai and I cannot seem to make amends. Since then, I am guilty of having found a suitable replacement, Pad Thai’s spicy little brother, Pad Kee Mao.
5. BEER – OH MAH GAH, what I would do for a tall glass of brew…a pilsner, a heifeweisen, a pale ale, the list goes on…anything but stout really. Although I’ve probably broken every “do not eat” rule, there have been enough studies of how alcohol effects the fetus that I have stayed clear from any form of alcohol. For the most part, I do not think about drinking vodka or wine or the likes, but I REALLY WANT SOME BEER!! Like right now with my brunch would be divine. Cold, crisp, bubbles tickling my nose, the buzz after my first beer (LIGHTWEIGHT, I know)…the more I write about it, the more I want to crack open a tall Delirium Tremens and get a little tipsy, hee hee. I might need to add beer to my last of things to have Husband bring me while still in the hospital after delivery!

Top 5 Annoying Things About Pregnancy
1. Swamp ass – not sure what it is about being pregnant, maybe higher blood volume or something, but I get SO HOT…down there. I mean swamp ass doesn’t even fully describe how hot and sweaty it can get down there. The other day, I was in a meeting with our contractor and it was so freaking hot in his office. When I got up to leave, I was mortified to see that I had left a sweaty butt print on the leather seat. AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA, oh well. Trust me, I’m not the only one in this predicament – just probably one of the few audacious enough to admit that I have a sweaty, swampy nether region.
2. Peeing a little when you sneeze or cough or laugh – I don’t mean like fully let go of your bladder, but a little squirt here and there. Now don’t go thinking whenever you hear me sneeze, guffaw uncontrollably, or cough that I just pee pee’d a little…it doesn’t happen every time, but it definitely happens more than I would like to admit. Again, there is a direct correlation of baby bouncing on the bladder and pee pee’ing unexpectedly. Also, I hear it gets worse after you give birth because of the strain and trauma your underparts have to endure (elective cesarean anyone??) However, I have heard doing your Kegels helps this situation out, and although I have been working on my Kegels, it’s hard to elevate the thought of exercising your vagina to a certain plane of consciousness.
3. PrEgNaNcY BrAiN – I am not a forgetful person…however, pregnancy brain fogs up my mind so much I forget simple things like how to work the espresso machine or what day of the week it is. I hate HATE hate becoming so forgetful, huge pet peeve of mine.
4. Emotional roller coasters – you know how PMS comes with waves of emotions? Well, at least that happens only once a month…since about week 20 or so, I have been on an up and down scale of emotions. One second, I can go from being normal and happy to angry and annoyed. This simple video (Adam and Dog – a 2013 Oscar nominated animated short) had me in tears at the end. I was deeply disturbed/moved when I drove by a thoughtlessly run over duck in my neighborhood being mourned by two other ducks.  I mean the list goes on of what causes the tears and the elevated blood pressure. I’m hoping that this doesn’t mean I will have some crazy postpartum depression, fingers crossed.
5. BO – Never had it, but damn, I don’t know if having a boy in my body has elevated my testosterone production or what, but wow, I smell so bad. And it doesn’t take much to make me sweat these days, so my fight with BO is pretty much an all day battle…one which I am losing. I use deodorant, but due to pregnancy brain, I forget sometimes, hee hee hee. Sorry in advance!

Anyway, I think from now until the end of pregnancy, I will be posting more Top 5’s of pregnancy – the good, the bad and the ugly! Until then, my belly at week 26…rockin’ out in a bikini. Oh yes, yes I did – and felt damn sexy!

Homeward Bound

Sorry for the long overdue post, folks! The past few weeks have hurled past me and just realized today it’s been nearly a month since my last post!

Big, big changes since the last post though:

a) NO MORE NAUSEA!! – well, okay so ALMOST no more nausea…but I don’t get sick anymore. Okay that’s a lie too, I’ve gotten sick twice; once after a hearty breakfast, I was brushing my tongue, gagged and then threw up and then the second time was yesterday at lunch – had some left over thai noodles and it just didn’t sit well in my stomach. Although no nausea, I do get major major acid reflux. Oh well, I’d rather have that then be getting sick.

b) I am HUNGRY all the time! But of course there is a caveat to that as well…if I eat to the point of satisfaction, then I’ve eaten too much and I feel way too full and so so sooooo uncomfortable. My fellow pregnant friends have told me to enjoy it now because you’ll get full even quicker in the advance months…awesome. So eat in moderation – got it. But food tastes SO good now, SO SO SOOOOOOOOOO good, sometimes I can’t stop myself. And being too full comes with a wicked case of acid reflux…and I’m pretty sure I’ve weakened whatever valve is between my esophagus and stomach from all the throwing up because I feel like half the time I’m burping up whatever I ate for a few hours after my meals.

c) WE FOUND OUT THE GENDER!!! Went in for the 20 week anatomy scan but asked the technician to withhold the sex from as as we were going to have a little reveal party. She wrote it down on a piece of paper and sealed it in an envelope. I miraculously was able to deliver the envelope to the baker without opening it before I got there. I love love the image of the feet and hand waving hello…can’t wait to kiss those in 17 weeks!

Unfortunately, doctor couldn’t get a clearer image of our little one because apparently, Baby is a mover!

Of course, me being a freak and liking to ruin my own surprises I thought I caught a little glimpse of a pee pee (having seen other boy ultrasounds). I think the technician was a little shocked so she promptly moved the screen so I couldn’t look anymore hahahaha. So when I cut open the cake:

“Twinkle twinkle little star, how we wonder what you are”

I wasn’t completely surprised, but I was absolutely delighted to confirm that I did in fact see his little penis.  IT’S A BOY!!! We’ve decided to name him Ezra Zane (Korean name somewhat TBD). Both are strong names with great meanings. Ezra = Helper and Zane = God is gracious. We hope to raise him to honor, love and serve God. 

Can’t wait to welcome our little Ezra

But yea, I don’t know if it’s because he’s a boy or what, but wow he is the active one! I feel him moving throughout the day…a kick here, a punch there, a squiggle or two in between (yes, I dunno if he’s swimming or dancing, but it feels like what a squiggle would be). And the hubby has finally felt him move too! These feels are altogether quite alien, but the weirdest is when he kicks inwards towards my bowels, I swear he is trying to stick his foot out my butthole. 

D) My belly is finally starting to show…I think it started around week 21/22 actually and exploded out of nowhere for sure. Funny thing…in the first 20 weeks, I only had a net weight gain of 6 pounds. Since week 20, I have gained another 7 – oops! I will need to monitor it a bit and make sure to gain no more than 1 pound a week until I deliver otherwise I will be uncomfortably huge. But here you go, belly at week 22:

It’s finally starting to come out! And I’m pretty sure there’s a vast difference from 22 to 23 too!

Well, that’s all for now…we are now in the home stretch or just short of the third trimester. At 23 weeks, I am more than half way done with pregnancy! I am so excited to meet our little Ezra…I feel like these next 17 weeks will fly by. I promise promise PROMISE to do a better job of updating in the weeks to come!

Body Con

Pregnancy is a bitch…on top of nausea, there’s excessive gas (emitted from both ends, sometimes uncontrollably and without warning), vomiting, gagging while brushing your teeth, headaches, diarrhea/constipation, heartburn, food aversions, headaches, mood swings, fatigue…and that’s only in the first 19 weeks. I’m not even sure what lies ahead in the next 21 weeks, but I can guarantee that it’s probably not a bag of fun…well, other than the end product, our beautiful baby boy/girl. Now THAT part of pregnancy I am totally looking forward to, holding a cooing/smiling/crying/pooping mini me/mini hubby in my arms. Can’t wait! Speaking of which, we will find out the sex Feb. 9 via a gender reveal cake cutting…exciteddddd~~

But anyway, on top of all these side effects, I am struggling with similar prepubescent body image issues I dealt with when I was younger. All the throwing up kind of gives me flashbacks of when I used to make myself throw up…voluntarily. Yes, sadly, I was a bulimic, sometimes an anorexic. Never so severe that I needed help, but it did get bad enough that I toyed with the idea of getting help for my own sake. At the end, preparing for/being part of a pageant after college helped me get over all my body image issues and helped me to become the confident person I am now. (Ironic, no?) In fact, I felt the sexiest when I weighed my heaviest in my adult years.

However, as a young girl, I suffered from some grossly distorted images of myself and was very, very insecure of the way I looked. I was always taller and bigger than most of my peers, including the boys before they hit puberty. This didn’t bother me until I was on the swim team the summer before 6th grade…I specifically remember feeling “uncomfortable” during swim team because I couldn’t see the bones in my feet like the “skinny” girls, my thighs rubbed together, and I had a rounder tummy. I longed to be like them…and the insecurities really started there. During the 6th grade I experienced a major growth spurt and started shedding the baby fat, but I was constantly comparing myself to “skinny” girls. It wasn’t until the summer before the 8th grade that I decided to deal with my body image issues…by starving myself. Luckily, it wasn’t severe, but when I look at pictures from that summer, my head looks oddly large on my lanky body. From then on, it was a constant roller coaster ride…I never thought I was slender enough…if I wasn’t obsessively counting calories, then I was on some extreme diet. I tried everything from diet pills to SlimFast to Chinese laxative teas. These habits lasted for several years (at least a decade), sometimes making me feel like a prisoner in my own body. I had a friend who almost lost her life during my junior year of college because of a very similar struggle…yet it didn’t deter me from my own ways, I always thought, “It’s not that bad. That will never happen to me.” Luckily, she fully recovered and is now a mommy of three very cute, sometimes rambunctious brood of boys!

And now, I am also a fully recovered mommy to be of a mystery being growing in my belly. BUT as I mentioned before, the throwing up was giving me flashbacks of when I wasn’t healthy about my body image. At first, when the nausea first kicked in, my body refused to let me throw up…maybe some mental mechanism, who knows. So I was constantly fighting the urge to throw up and when I needed to I couldn’t…but that quickly changed and I was throwing up after almost every meal for a few weeks. And I will admit, when I started losing weight because I couldn’t keep anything down/in, I secretly reveled at the the diminishing numbers on the scale and needed to remind myself, “Girl, you’re pregnant! You shouldn’t be rejoicing over your weight loss!” And now that I AM starting to put on weight, I have to again remind myself that I’m pregnant and that it’s normal and it’s okay to be gaining weight.

Some days, I feel so fat and disgusting, that I can’t even bear to look at myself so I need to remind myself “YOU’RE PREGNANT!!” But I also totally do not feel pregnant because my belly has yet to really look like a pregnant belly, although as of week 19, it is starting to jut out way more. I’m concerned that strangers will just think that I’m out of shape – why do I even care about what strangers think?? My husband always tells me I am beautiful (I love when he rubs and kisses my little belly) so that’s all that should really matter. He knows I struggled with body image issues so he also reminds me that I’m pregnant too when I complain that I feel fat. (Side note: I love him, trulydeeply, no one has ever made me feel as beautiful and as special and loved as him.)

I’m not sure if other pregnant women that had similar body image issues when they were younger felt them return during pregnancy, if you did, I feel you. Now that I am starting to get over the nastiest bits of pregnancy, hopefully I will stop having prepubescent mental flashbacks and start enjoying this very special induction into womanhood. But I will have to say, the 2 best reminders that I’m pregnant are: 1) when the hubs rubs my belly so adoringly and 2) when the baby makes his/her presence known with a little kick or two.

End note: if you know of anyone struggling with an eating disorder, please encourage them to get help. Anorexia and bulimia are real conditions that effect both men and women and can become life threatening. Let them know that they can find their happy endings.

Korean Vegetarian

It seems for the most part that the nausea is slowly starting to go away…or at least lessen in severity. Sometimes car ride can trigger it, but it usually comes with a vengeance out of the blue, as it did last night, but the constant 24/7 nausea is going away.

Last night, I was craving fried chicken, but ended up throwing it all up only moments after dinner. It was an interesting vomiting session…I had been drinking an Ocean Water (a blue coconut soda from Sonic), so when the food came out, it was this cool electric blue color. I kind of wanted to take and post a picture, but that is just plain disgusting and is sure to drive away my whole 5 readers if my TMI hasn’t already.

So it seems that the baby growing in my belly is definitely Korean and there are strong indications that s/he is a vegetarian. The following three cravings have no adverse effects on mommy (so far):

1. Veggies (almost all veggies…but need to be careful with potatoes, onions, avocados and mushrooms – it’s a toss up with those for some reason – probably all PSYCHOlogical haha)
2. Cheese – omahgah, I love cheese…particularly in the form of grilled cheese sandwiches. Nom nom nom
3. KOREAN FOOD, the SPICY variety – I particularly am enjoying bibimbap, ddukboki, and kimchi jigae…my intestines punish me later, but diarrhea is way better than constipation so I’m okay with that…unless I have a sudden urge to evacuate my bowels when no bathroom
is in sight – a fun story for later, maybe hahahaha. Anyway, I jokingly told my husband that there is no doubt the baby is Korean to which he replied, “Should there be any reason WHY the baby wouldn’t be Korean?” Hee hee hee, funny guy.

However, I still can’t fully enjoy the following…but still get cravings for them, grrrr:

1. Meat of most kinds – i.e fried chicken…sounded like a good idea, it was not. I DO love Spam in my kimchi jigae though hee hee…And lamb, but only when I want it
2. Seafood is a hit or miss – Hubby took me to a fantastic steakhouse for my birthday but my meal and appetite were destroyed by a lobster bisque…I can enjoy an occasional shrimp and the other day I really wanted sushi!
3. Espresso – I used to live on this stuff, but nowadays, the smallest sip of a latte makes me jittery to the point of feeling sick, which cannot be good for the baby! But of course sometimes I really really want a latte, but only to feel like shit afterwards.

I am also still experiencing daily headaches, hormones are making my armpit skin dark (WTF??), my farts are still awesomely loud and rank, and the b00bies are still growing – although extremely full now, still no under boobage, gah! I bet they would look awesome in a corset though, full tops of breasts spilling out all over the place.

The nausea I am feeling however, is nothing compared to this one poor girl. A friend at church shared with me how her sister-in-law has such severe hyperemesis gravidarum (extreme morning sickness, the kind that put Princess Kate in the hospital – when one suffers from this, even clear liquids won’t stay down, yikes!), she needs to be on a continuous Zofran (med for nausea) drip and will probably need to be induced because both mother and baby are suffering…ugh, I can’t even imagine how that must feel! I probably would have struggled with wanting to terminate the pregnancy. My thoughts and prayers for her and the baby…after hearing that, it really put things into perspective!

Also, my belly is taking its sweet ass time to grow…currently it just looks like I have developed a fupa.

What Dreams May Come (REISSUE)

I was somehow able to retrieve my lost entry (minus the pictures), YAHOO! Have had many more dreams since then, but so happy that I was able to save this entry!

I’ve always been fascinated by dreams…they are always vivid – so vivid in fact, I can taste and smell things in my dreams sometimes. Sometimes I’m lucid in my dreams…when I was little, I used to have scary dreams…I taught myself to wake up from them and I still can. When I sleep in other people’s beds (at hotels or at a friend’s house etc), I have some of the weirdest dreams…I swear I am dreaming dreams of whoever was the previous occupant of the bed. Other times my dreams are like premonitions…like the one time I dreamt the the pastor’s wife was pregnant – well it ended up that SHE wasn’t pregnant, but 8 of the ladies at my church were, including myself! Not like fortune teller style, but sometimes I think there might be some divine guidance behind them. Like the time Jesus appeared to me in my dream – scary, but healing and inspiring (this was really an awesome dream, message me if you want to hear about it.)

Anyways, I diverge…so yea, I love dreams and the dreamworld…but now that I am pregnant, my dreams are even MORE VIVID and MORE FANTASTICAL than ever before. Apparently, it has something to do with all the frequent urination at night so you’re constantly interrupting your sleep cycle. Or something like that. Some of the dreams are awesome and so fun (like when I was a wizard at Hogwarts and was flying around on my broom), and others are sad or creepy (like the time I stepped into a room of snakes…but I’m pretty sure it was because I watched a clip from Killer Karaoke where a girl gets dunked into a tank full of snakes before going to bed).

Here, in more detail, are a few of my favorite ones:

ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE:
Last night, my brain was so desperately trying to process my much forgotten Polish. In my dream, I was in some sort of zombie apocalypse and I had to go into a Polish bar that was selling EB and Zywiec beers (czas na piwo anyone?) decorated top to bottom with the Polish flag and their national emblem to get some crucial information on the next zombie attack. I kept mixing my Polish with my Spanish and it was incredibly frustrating – there was a lot of “nie rozumiem” (“I don’t understand), but alas, I was able to get the information needed and went running off with my zombie defense group to penetrate zombie headquarters before they could attack the last human outpost.

UNDERWATER ADVENTURE WITH SCOOBY DOO:
A couple weeks ago, Scooby Doo took me, my husband and a couple of our friends on an underwater adventure across the ocean floor. And it was all animated…except Scooby Doo. Except it wasn’t the real Scooby Doo, but Bo the White House dog.

So anyway, we have to cross the ocean floor to get to a house to baby sit a house full of puppies so Scooby/Bo leads us into the water were we enter a world much like Sponge Bob’s and walk to the other side of the ocean. Along the way, we encounter a very crudely drawn octopus who gives us a slimy high five. Once we reach our destination, we’re no longer animated and then we enter a house full of baby animals of all types, but mostly a lot of puppies.

THE SNORE:
My husband is a snorer and normally it doesn’t bother me or wake me up, but these days, because I am constantly getting up to pee (damn you, growing uterus squishing my bladder!), his snoring has actually taken on a role in my sleep in the form of a sound effect! For example, in one dream, I was talking to my friend’s sister but for the life of me I could not hear a single word he was saying because there was a leaf blower or a lawn mower in the background. I ended up waking up to my husband’s snoring. In another dream, his snoring was the sound of a tidal wave that was roaring towards my high school and I needed to run to the top floor of the school for safety which ended up being connected to a mall where my car was parked and I drove away just in the nick of time. Whew! Another time his snoring just woke me up so I pinched his nose to make him stop, hee hee hee.

At least he doesn’t talk in his sleep because who knows what role that may play in my dreams!