discomforts

when i was young, not pregnant, and didn't know any better, i thought i could use pregnancy as an excuse to pig out. that's sooo wrong! last week, i took Jon out to dinner at Amigos (Chilean) and enjoyed our food. prior to that though i had some good amount of potato chips (or crisps as English people call it) during a late afternoon meeting. i even had half a glass of white wine!

so after having dinner, i could not walk my self faster than a tortoise. not only did i feel heavy, i felt that my skin and muscles were struggling to hold me together! i had an annoying pain in my left side, just right above the waistline (or where it used to be). it was difficult! i vowed not to subject myself to that anymore and so far i've been good. i'm not really a fan of snacking every hour or so. i like my meal hours but from this point on until i give birth, i can't really have meals. they're too hearty right now.

my lovely jon picked up my Bio Oil from the post yesterday. i started putting it on my belly skin last night. it's to help me with stretch marks, which i don't have (yet). i truly hope i don't get them please. i'm allowed some form of vanity still no?

as i blog this my legs have been uncomfortable for a couple hours now. they seem to feel restless and require me to move about. i still have not figured how to manage my legs yet. i prop them up when they start "sleeping". i try to walk often but working in front of a computer all day is not really helping me achieve that without effort eh?

i have another midwife appointment next week. i think when i reach my 28 weeks then i'll start a weekly visit. unfortunately our midwife maintains her office location in Karori, our old neighborhood. oh well... going back to our last week's dinner date, we noticed how "active" our new town is compared to old Karori. it's got more food choices, more people, more noise... just a little reminder of where both Jon and I came from.

when i think about how diverse our family is gonna be, it excites me! Liam will get to learn 2 languages naturally. our son will grow up in an environment that is unique to either of his parents, but will also be exposed to ours no matter how little of that we can get to do for him. i wonder what accent he'll pick up as he gets older. i wonder what he looks like! despite my initial concerns about labor, i'm now starting to feel that i wanna go through it just so i could have my son out. i'm also considering having a water birth. in the few videos i've seen of it, it looked easier for babies to go out. we'll talk to our midwife about our options next week.

halfway there

I’m 21 weeks today! 19 more weeks to go! It gives me a relief to know that I’ve crossed over half of my pregnancy. Almost every night now, right before we sleep, I get Jon to put his hand on my baby belly to feel Liam move. Jon now recognizes the movements and they battle each other by Jon pushing and Liam kicking! I love that! It seems that Liam likes the play too!

I read 2 weeks ago that at 19 weeks the baby starts to develop his sleeping patterns. Last night I just realized that Liam already has one and it took me 2 weeks to recognize it. He is “awake” for nearly an hour when he does, wakes up and moves about at 9-10am, 1-2pm, 5-6pm, and at 9-10pm. If only he follows through that schedule and sleep through the night! I know that’s not nearly close to reality but one can hope :-P

I’ve been more pleasant to live with these days. I cook almost daily now. I prepare our breakfast sandwiches in the mornings like I used to. I do chores now! Jon complained about my laziness and lack of motivation, and I’m not sure if moving to the new house helped in getting my motivation back.

Over the weekend we paid a visit to Jon’s ex-coworker Guy to see their newborn. He was beautiful. He made me impatient to have my boy out in this world. After our visit, we went to Cuba to purchase our coffee table and entertainment system sideboard. I think those 2 things are about the last ones we want/need to sort our lounge area out. We are still in the middle of our area rugs talks.

We are planning to have our housewarming party in mid-October. I’m looking forward to that as well. We’ve not planned any of our upcoming trips yet! So much to do these days…

take a peek

here are a couple of ultrasound scan images of Peanut (who is now called Liam Conor).


can you see his nose and pouting lips? turn your head 90 degrees to the left :) this is my favorite image!

it's a boy!

since my last post, the baby has been active everyday especially in the morning! it can get uncomfortable but the flutters make me feel confident about his health.

yes, yes! today we had the anatomy scan and it's a healthy boy! he was surprisingly still most of the scanning but he had one of his hands on his mouth. the technician was very patient to capture so much details like the heart, bladder, kidney, spine, etc. it was also different, in a good way, to see the movements AND feeling them! she also made me see my boy's penis just so i could really believe that i was having a boy! it was a very awesome experience. jon and i had a beautiful time watching our son on the monitor.

we celebrated the experience by having yummy pizza in Newtown (beside The Mediterranean Warehouse) and yummy gelato! we wanted to get some med grocery but had to postpone it cuz we had to get back to work. it's so nice to be closer to CBD though. yup, we moved to Mornington from Karori. it's a tiny suburb that's between Vogeltown and Kingston that it's almost insignificant compared to the 2.

the new place fits just perfectly for our family size. we have enough space where Samson can run and play around. at this time we're looking at finishing off unpacking our bags and boxes full of clothes, look for the perfect centre coffee table, and other things to make our new home pretty :)

but really, the excitement of the day is finding out that we're having a boy. jon was overwhelmed by the excitement and all of the recent life changes, but there's such a lot of happiness in him that i can see. he's just worried our son would turn out as bratty as he was!

news bits

my peanut has been active and makes a point to let me know! since i turned 15 weeks i've been feeling some movements every now and then. it's not daily yet, and i've read that won't happen until the 22nd or something week.

the last big movement was right after i laid myself to bed after all day being in upright position. she (now it's a she because i've been having girl dreams) must've stretched herself because i felt 2 areas of discomfort - the left and right sides of my abdomen. the left was stronger (must be the legs) and the right was less intense (so must be the arms). movements take me by surprise and i find it uncomfortable being poked from inside. i like the movements though, because they tell me how active and healthy she is! although i've been spotting every weekend for the last 3 weeks! they don't last for long and i immediately listen to my baby's heartbeat using my fetal doppler and i'm back to feeling calm about it all.

i've been having girl dreams like i mentioned. last one was of this cute little munchkin who had a mix of blonde and red hair! once again she looked more like jon. all my baby dreams mostly show jon's features! maybe it's going to be the opposite?

we're moving again this month, and hopefully stay there for a few years until we decide (and afford) to get our own place. it has got awesome views and wooden floors :) it has 3 rooms, the smallest of which would just fit perfectly for a nursery. our bedroom still has enough space should we decide to put the cot in it. i think it's a nice place all in all. it's perched on a hill, which makes me a bit nervous about quakes, and has a path with stairs going up to the house. with that i think it will be quite a daily work out for me to go up and down the house.

we also got cheap tix to sydney! we'll be spending a week from end of november to early december. a month before that is our trip to auckland! travels! just gotta try to squeeze those in before the baby comes.