The beginnings of Manic Mondays (and sometimes Wild Wednesdays, Thirsty Thursdays, Fun Fridays and Silly Saturdays) with Kat and The Circle - Juan, Too, Tree, sometimes Foah and Pibe. Drawing words in the snow. Job change number one hundred million. Teri burgers fried noodles malassadas and funnel cake. Drawing words in black sand. Alex's first flight. A superhero walk around the park. Combining homes combining lives. Learning to fire a canon. The hardest goodbye to the best worst dog in the world. Operation Birthday Week. More new friends. Family trip of a lifetime. Biggest news of my life, the beginning of our most important journey together. Nausea insomnia fatigue like never before. The most incredible sound we may ever hear. Enjoying being kicked and punched every day. Celebrating a year of incredible fast forward. Learning that life knows better than you what you need and what you're ready for. A month of genuine thanks. Moving into a real home. Beginning family traditions. A circle to make us complete.
The best year ever.
Friday, December 31, 2010
Thursday, December 30, 2010
What a Christmas!!!
Christmas this year was so amazing - beyond words! Alex gave me a brand new MacBook (which should make it a lot easier to keep this blog more up-to-date since I won't have to struggle for half an hour just to turn it on!)... We both got a silly amount of gifts from our loving and extremely generous family - and we spent both Christmas Eve and Christmas day together at night.
The night before Christmas Eve we went into downtown to see the Honolulu Christmas lights - I love Christmas lights and decorations! Hopefully we can make it a tradition to bring Isabella to see them, though the crowd can be daunting; it's so easy to lose a little one in the blink of an eye.
On Christmas Eve we both worked during the day and had the night time off, so we went to Morton's Steakhouse for dinner. It was so delicious! (A little frustrating that I have this whole, can't-stuff-myself-silly-or-I-really-do-make-myself-sick thing going on - I wanted to eat so much!) We shared an enormous porterhouse steak (why not - it's two steaks in one!) with bernaise sauce, garlic mashed potatoes, asparagus with hollandaise sauce, and a molten chocolate cake a la mode for dessert. Mmmm!...
The night before Christmas Eve we went into downtown to see the Honolulu Christmas lights - I love Christmas lights and decorations! Hopefully we can make it a tradition to bring Isabella to see them, though the crowd can be daunting; it's so easy to lose a little one in the blink of an eye.
On Christmas Eve we both worked during the day and had the night time off, so we went to Morton's Steakhouse for dinner. It was so delicious! (A little frustrating that I have this whole, can't-stuff-myself-silly-or-I-really-do-make-myself-sick thing going on - I wanted to eat so much!) We shared an enormous porterhouse steak (why not - it's two steaks in one!) with bernaise sauce, garlic mashed potatoes, asparagus with hollandaise sauce, and a molten chocolate cake a la mode for dessert. Mmmm!...
On Christmas day we both worked during the day. We went to my Mom's house for dinner when we both finally finished work, and it was fun to sit around, open presents, talk and laugh, and of course we ate dinner. We also talked about the fact that earlier, before I left for work, Alex woke up early with me to open a couple of our presents and...
He proposed!!! Alex asked me to marry him and of course I said YES! He gave me the most beautiful, sparkly, shiny diamond in a white gold (temporary) setting. (We'll choose a permanent setting and have it sized when my sausage fingers return to normal, haha!) At first I couldn't believe it! I told him I had to leave for work and he was like, "Can we just open one more present?" When I said okay, he reached into the Christmas tree and I was thinking - what the heck is he doing?! He pulled out a black jewelry box from deep among the branches and when I saw that I froze. He opened it up and said, "Babe, do you want to marry me?" I started to smile but I was so thrown off, I said, "Are you serious?"
"Yes!" he said.
"Is this for real??" I asked.
"Yes!" he said.
"Yes! Of course!" I whispered and I forget if I hugged him first or if he put the ring on my finger or if I kissed him or what happened next! It was so surreal! He said later he was waiting for me to cry but I think I was so surprised that I sort of floated away for a little while. What a bummer I had to go to work right after this - I was already late!
Of course I told my Mom right away and I also called my Dad during a lull at work. Then I told all my best friends and immediately asked my best friend Sari to be my maid of honor. I also asked my close friend Jon to be a bridesmaid, but he decided to just be a guest. Haha!
We haven't chosen a date yet, but that announcement will come. All of our friends were thrilled for us and gave us tons and tons of congratulations. And our parents and families (with the exception of one person) are excited and happy for us, of course.
It's funny, because getting married was already part of the plan, even if it wasn't official and we hadn't set a time frame yet and we weren't in a rush just because of the baby, but now that we're engaged it sure feels different. It feels more real, more committed but in a comforting way, not in a scary way. We're both still getting used to calling each other our fiance's instead of boyfriend or girlfriend. It's fun!
So..what a Christmas! What a year! New year's is coming and oh my gosh, looking back on this past year...but that's another story.
Tuesday, December 21, 2010
Getting huge - and new symptoms...
I'm including pictures of myself and I have to admit - they're a little misleading. When I look in the mirror, I sort of feel like I'm much more enormous than these photos portray. Perhaps it's the black top I'm wearing. Either way, included are photos from Week 23. We have been taking photos of my growing middle almost every week since we found out we were pregnant but alas, until this week we were using my Sony Cybershot, whose memory card appears to have become corrupt. My middle isn't the only thing that's growing - thighs and butt are filling out (oh joy, as if they weren't full to begin with), my feet have gone up a whole shoe size (another "side effect" they don't tell you about until it's happening - and it apparently is most likely a permanent size increase - goodbye one million pairs of shoes I have!), and my bras don't fit anymore (the ONE good thing that's happening to my body image!). My doctor is zeroing in on whether my hands, feet and ankles are swelling - this is how he will know I'm O.D.ing on sugar - and so far I am still slender in these areas. Even if these are the only areas...
As Isabella grows, she pushes all my other organs sort of out of the way - to the sides (there goes my waist), down (there goes that bladder), up (here comes the stomach) - wherever they will smoosh. The fun part of this is the acid indigestion that results from not only her tendency to make room for herself, but also some stupid hormone that relaxes all my tendons, ligaments and muscles to make expansion possible. This hormone that apparently is smart enough to make pregnancy growth possible, has not found the intelligence in the millions of years of evolution to localize its "relaxation" effects. So as Isabella shoves my stomach up into my chest cavity to reside next to my heart (there has to be some clever thing I can say about the way to my heart is my stomach, but I can't figure it out right now), this dumb hormone makes sure that the valve connecting my esophagus to my stomach is pretty much defunct.
So all my stomach contents are free to roam back up, including that insanely corrosive stomach acid (I'm surprised they haven't invented a chemical or biological weapon using this as the main ingredient). I thought I had experienced debilitating heartburn the one night I woke up in the middle of the night and indulged in a slice of plain wheat bread - only to suffer the most excruciating pain that I had ever felt, for hours. I think pregnancy teaches you to take each bout of mind-boggling pain and think to yourself, "No, it could get ten times worse. You can't imagine it now, but you'll figure it out shortly." Because that heartburn session that lasted a few hours and disappeared as suddenly as it had appeared was nothing.
On a Wednesday night I ate dinner, well, at dinner time. A bajillion hours later, I went to bed (okay at like midnight), feeling full which was something I was becoming used to - feeling absurdly full hours longer than logically necessary until in a split second I was suddenly ravenous. Somewhere in the wee hours of the night I was woken up by - prepare to be grossed out - vomit coming up my throat of its own accord. No retching, no clenching of my stomach to push that half-digested substance up the wrong way. Just a slow oozing feeling, complimented by a sharp feeling that my throat was being burned from the inside out. I went to the bathroom and allowed this mass to complete its backwards journey. The rest of the night found me in and out of bed.
The following night, I had a meeting for work followed by a baby shower for a coworker. I got home about 11pm, and fell asleep almost right away. Oh no, sleep was not to be had. I was in and out of bed again just like the night before, awakened in the same manner, until 4am. After the fourth or fifth journey from the couch (I migrated to spare Alex the disturbance), I had to wonder - what is possibly even left in there? Water, it turns out, didn't help either. That was violently rejected as well.
On the Friday of this particular week, by 9pm I was feeling this familiar sensation of my insides having a life of their own. I knew that occassional vomiting is normal even past the first trimester, and that heartburn was something I was supposed to expect as Isabella claims more and more space in my insides, but this was getting a little ridiculous. After some internet searching, I found the excuse to call my doctor (I hate calling my doctor). "What do you think?" I asked him, at 10pm (he was clearly sleeping prior to this) after describing my experience to him. "I don't know," he replied. "Go to Kapiolani. You probably at least need fluids." I suppose expecting a diagnosis over the phone was a little bit of a stretch.
Alex was at work, so Mom and Nick took me to Kapiolani Medical Center. We arrived at 11pm. Nick went to sleep in the car - a wise idea since we weren't seen till 2:30am. Gosh, good thing it wasn't anything serious. When you're pregnant, they don't even deal with you in the E.R. at all - they send you straight up to labor and delivery, just in case. I think there were about four women who came in in labor, and went straight to delivery, while I was there. My friend Kat was there, had been there since Thursday in fact, and was in labor. I wondered where her room was.
When we were finally seen, they immediately hooked me up to monitors, and we got to listen to Isabella's heartbeat for a while, as well as listen to the sounds of her jumping around inside me. Boy was she active! Bumps and jumps and turns and twirls, all over the place! Clearly, she was unphased by my gastric activities. Finally they hooked me up to an I.V. at about 3am (it took them one very painful failed attempt, followed by a second very painful successful attempt - my veins were collapsing a little, indicating that indeed I was dehydrated) and administered one liter of fluid. It was the weirdest sensation I have ever felt. I could literally feel the water going into my body - room temperature water in an air conditioned hospital is considerably colder than body temperature, especially when your body is stressed. I got cold and shivery - but if you touched me, you would think I was warm. In fact, my body was still warm. But I felt cold. After much coaxing from my Mom, I accepted a warmed blanket and quit shivering. After the I.V. was finished (very quickly - less than an hour), I was instructed to drink another liter (I still hadn't peed, another indication that I was definitely dehydrated), and then given crackers to eat to see if I could keep them down.
After I got discharged at sunrise on Saturday morning, Mom and Nick took me and Alex home (Alex had come right after work), and I went to bed shortly after. I didn't throw up but I could definitely feel those crackers trying to worm their way up. What gives? I thought.
Luckily at my regular appointment the following Tuesday my doctor confirmed - it seems I have serious acid reflux. She pointed me in the direction of an over the counter remedy called Gaviscon, since Maalox had proven to be ineffective. So far the Gaviscon is pretty amazing (tastes awful), as long as I don't eat after 9pm or eat more than perhaps one and a half cups of food at a time.
My theory is that this is nature's way of making sure I don't get carried away "eating for two." What a rip off. :P
As Isabella grows, she pushes all my other organs sort of out of the way - to the sides (there goes my waist), down (there goes that bladder), up (here comes the stomach) - wherever they will smoosh. The fun part of this is the acid indigestion that results from not only her tendency to make room for herself, but also some stupid hormone that relaxes all my tendons, ligaments and muscles to make expansion possible. This hormone that apparently is smart enough to make pregnancy growth possible, has not found the intelligence in the millions of years of evolution to localize its "relaxation" effects. So as Isabella shoves my stomach up into my chest cavity to reside next to my heart (there has to be some clever thing I can say about the way to my heart is my stomach, but I can't figure it out right now), this dumb hormone makes sure that the valve connecting my esophagus to my stomach is pretty much defunct.
So all my stomach contents are free to roam back up, including that insanely corrosive stomach acid (I'm surprised they haven't invented a chemical or biological weapon using this as the main ingredient). I thought I had experienced debilitating heartburn the one night I woke up in the middle of the night and indulged in a slice of plain wheat bread - only to suffer the most excruciating pain that I had ever felt, for hours. I think pregnancy teaches you to take each bout of mind-boggling pain and think to yourself, "No, it could get ten times worse. You can't imagine it now, but you'll figure it out shortly." Because that heartburn session that lasted a few hours and disappeared as suddenly as it had appeared was nothing.
On a Wednesday night I ate dinner, well, at dinner time. A bajillion hours later, I went to bed (okay at like midnight), feeling full which was something I was becoming used to - feeling absurdly full hours longer than logically necessary until in a split second I was suddenly ravenous. Somewhere in the wee hours of the night I was woken up by - prepare to be grossed out - vomit coming up my throat of its own accord. No retching, no clenching of my stomach to push that half-digested substance up the wrong way. Just a slow oozing feeling, complimented by a sharp feeling that my throat was being burned from the inside out. I went to the bathroom and allowed this mass to complete its backwards journey. The rest of the night found me in and out of bed.
The following night, I had a meeting for work followed by a baby shower for a coworker. I got home about 11pm, and fell asleep almost right away. Oh no, sleep was not to be had. I was in and out of bed again just like the night before, awakened in the same manner, until 4am. After the fourth or fifth journey from the couch (I migrated to spare Alex the disturbance), I had to wonder - what is possibly even left in there? Water, it turns out, didn't help either. That was violently rejected as well.
On the Friday of this particular week, by 9pm I was feeling this familiar sensation of my insides having a life of their own. I knew that occassional vomiting is normal even past the first trimester, and that heartburn was something I was supposed to expect as Isabella claims more and more space in my insides, but this was getting a little ridiculous. After some internet searching, I found the excuse to call my doctor (I hate calling my doctor). "What do you think?" I asked him, at 10pm (he was clearly sleeping prior to this) after describing my experience to him. "I don't know," he replied. "Go to Kapiolani. You probably at least need fluids." I suppose expecting a diagnosis over the phone was a little bit of a stretch.
Alex was at work, so Mom and Nick took me to Kapiolani Medical Center. We arrived at 11pm. Nick went to sleep in the car - a wise idea since we weren't seen till 2:30am. Gosh, good thing it wasn't anything serious. When you're pregnant, they don't even deal with you in the E.R. at all - they send you straight up to labor and delivery, just in case. I think there were about four women who came in in labor, and went straight to delivery, while I was there. My friend Kat was there, had been there since Thursday in fact, and was in labor. I wondered where her room was.
When we were finally seen, they immediately hooked me up to monitors, and we got to listen to Isabella's heartbeat for a while, as well as listen to the sounds of her jumping around inside me. Boy was she active! Bumps and jumps and turns and twirls, all over the place! Clearly, she was unphased by my gastric activities. Finally they hooked me up to an I.V. at about 3am (it took them one very painful failed attempt, followed by a second very painful successful attempt - my veins were collapsing a little, indicating that indeed I was dehydrated) and administered one liter of fluid. It was the weirdest sensation I have ever felt. I could literally feel the water going into my body - room temperature water in an air conditioned hospital is considerably colder than body temperature, especially when your body is stressed. I got cold and shivery - but if you touched me, you would think I was warm. In fact, my body was still warm. But I felt cold. After much coaxing from my Mom, I accepted a warmed blanket and quit shivering. After the I.V. was finished (very quickly - less than an hour), I was instructed to drink another liter (I still hadn't peed, another indication that I was definitely dehydrated), and then given crackers to eat to see if I could keep them down.
After I got discharged at sunrise on Saturday morning, Mom and Nick took me and Alex home (Alex had come right after work), and I went to bed shortly after. I didn't throw up but I could definitely feel those crackers trying to worm their way up. What gives? I thought.
Luckily at my regular appointment the following Tuesday my doctor confirmed - it seems I have serious acid reflux. She pointed me in the direction of an over the counter remedy called Gaviscon, since Maalox had proven to be ineffective. So far the Gaviscon is pretty amazing (tastes awful), as long as I don't eat after 9pm or eat more than perhaps one and a half cups of food at a time.
My theory is that this is nature's way of making sure I don't get carried away "eating for two." What a rip off. :P
Christmas decorating!
First order of business once we got moved in and settled was decorating for the season - we were running out of time! We got our very first real Christmas tree and trimmed it with festive lights and our three (haha!) family ornaments. I bought cheap shatter-proof ornaments at Longs to fill in the spaces until we can increase our collection over the years. :) Outside we lined our lanai railing with more colorful lights and put our little tiny miniature Christmas tree in the middle corner - that was our first Christmas tree from last year. I hung our stockings on the wall in the dining area (you can see them in the pictures of the apartment in the previous entry), and I must point out that my stocking with my name on it is the one my Mom made for me when she was pregnant with me. It's a beautiful stocking! Hopefully she can find time to make one for Isabella as well, because mine is something I will treasure forever! I love Christmas...
Photos of the new place!
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| The living room |
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| More living room |
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| Living room/Dining area from the other end |
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| Kitchen (tiny!) |
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| "Master" bedroom |
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| Isabella's (mostly unfurnished) bedroom |
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| More of Isabella's room |
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| The lanai from our end of the unit |
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| Lanai from Isabella's end of the unit |
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| Sunset view from our lanai. |
New apartment, Christmas, Getting Bigger - so many changes!
Oh goodness it's been a while since I've posted. We've been so busy moving and getting ready for Christmas that time has flown by. The quickest recap of December that I can manage: We started off the month moving apartments - what an adventure! As soon as we got moved in we started decorating for Christmas - my favorite time of year! I'm becoming the size of a small car - one that is increasingly difficult to maneuver! First trimester nausea is long gone, but just as I was learning to enjoy second trimester return of energy and appetite, a whole host of new "symptoms" has surfaced - one of them sending me to the E.R. (don't worry, Isabella and I were completely fine)! Because there was so much going on, I'll be spliting up this update into a few different posts.
Moving to a bigger place was in the plans from the moment we found out we were pregnant, but it was supposed to happen in January when our lease was up. After looking on Craigslist out of curiosity, we found a newly renovated, two bedroom apartment in a secured building more or less in our price range - and after looking at it we knew that even though it was early, we had to apply. A week after contacting the property manager to take a look, we had a new lease! Life in general is moving so quickly for us. Luckily, our landlord at the old place was ultra supportive and happy for us, and since we found him a tenant to take over the unit, Alex didn't lose any of his deposit for terminating early. Moving is stressful to begin with - add to it that one person in the equation is fairly useless when it comes to reaching the top shelves to pack, lifting boxes and furniture, and getting into tight spaces to deep clean, and the stress multiplies. Alex was wonderful - I would come home from work and find several new boxes packed each day. This in itself caused a bit of an emotional struggle for me - I was happy that he was being so considerate and trying to leave nothing for me to do (i.e. worry about), but I already felt like I was contributing so little, so packing the little things was all I had left to bolster my sense of usefulness. That, and I'd go to use something of ours (spatula, book, oh maybe the T.V.) and find it packed. The last several nights in our old apartment were certainly boring. Alex was a saint, dealing with my crabbiness.
The move itself was pretty quick. Poor Orange was completely freaked out. The first several nights, he would walk around the new apartment in the dark, meowing to the walls. "Where am I?" he seemed to be lamenting, "When are we going home?" It didn't help that the weather was a little stormy and a lot cold, and his little paws weren't used to cold tile. We also didn't have a rug for the living room yet, and his old hiding places (closet, under the bed) were also cold and tiled. Like a mommy worries about her babies, I worried about my little kitten and thought, "Oh I've made him so unhappy - AGAIN!" (This is his third move in two years.) But once we got the rug for the living room, he seemed to find pleasure in looking out our giant sliding doors onto the lanai, or curling up on the back of the much-fluffier new (used) couch we bought. He has returned to the habit he developed at my old apartment of hiding or sleeping in our bed under the covers when we're not home. Weirdo. But he's happy now, so that's good.
It was surprisingly hard for Alex and I to say goodbye to the old place. I cried - I had the excuse of hormones. But I think a part of Alex wanted to cry too as we drove away for the last time - Orange's crazy sad meows from his hated carrying cage vocalized I think part of what we were both feeling. That apartment was the first that Alex had all by himself; prior to that he'd always had roommates. We found that apartment for him right at the beginning of our relationship, as we were learning about each other, the way each other lived in the most private moments of daily life. We had our first huge, relationship-changing argument there. It was the first place we lived together (and learned even more about intimate details of daily life). That was where we began our journey, basically, of learning how to work not only as a couple but as a true team. A lot of firsts in that apartment.
Of course, we're totally excited about the future and the direction we're going, and all that the new place represents for us. We almost doubled our living space, and this apartment isn't so big for us that it's absurd, but it's big enough that we can stay here for years as Isabella grows - we won't be moving again in another year saying, "God, we are bursting at the seams here!" Everyone who came to our old place and also came here (well, just my Mom, Nick, and three of my closest friends) say this place feels much more like a home. Alex and I agree. It already looks like a family lives here. (I told him, if it was that hard to leave the first apartment, it's going to be even more difficult to leave this one - imagine all the "firsts" that we'll have here! I said, I don't want to move again until we are buying our "forever house." Dream big...)
We're proud of our new place and we both know that as a family, we'll be really happy here.
Moving to a bigger place was in the plans from the moment we found out we were pregnant, but it was supposed to happen in January when our lease was up. After looking on Craigslist out of curiosity, we found a newly renovated, two bedroom apartment in a secured building more or less in our price range - and after looking at it we knew that even though it was early, we had to apply. A week after contacting the property manager to take a look, we had a new lease! Life in general is moving so quickly for us. Luckily, our landlord at the old place was ultra supportive and happy for us, and since we found him a tenant to take over the unit, Alex didn't lose any of his deposit for terminating early. Moving is stressful to begin with - add to it that one person in the equation is fairly useless when it comes to reaching the top shelves to pack, lifting boxes and furniture, and getting into tight spaces to deep clean, and the stress multiplies. Alex was wonderful - I would come home from work and find several new boxes packed each day. This in itself caused a bit of an emotional struggle for me - I was happy that he was being so considerate and trying to leave nothing for me to do (i.e. worry about), but I already felt like I was contributing so little, so packing the little things was all I had left to bolster my sense of usefulness. That, and I'd go to use something of ours (spatula, book, oh maybe the T.V.) and find it packed. The last several nights in our old apartment were certainly boring. Alex was a saint, dealing with my crabbiness.
The move itself was pretty quick. Poor Orange was completely freaked out. The first several nights, he would walk around the new apartment in the dark, meowing to the walls. "Where am I?" he seemed to be lamenting, "When are we going home?" It didn't help that the weather was a little stormy and a lot cold, and his little paws weren't used to cold tile. We also didn't have a rug for the living room yet, and his old hiding places (closet, under the bed) were also cold and tiled. Like a mommy worries about her babies, I worried about my little kitten and thought, "Oh I've made him so unhappy - AGAIN!" (This is his third move in two years.) But once we got the rug for the living room, he seemed to find pleasure in looking out our giant sliding doors onto the lanai, or curling up on the back of the much-fluffier new (used) couch we bought. He has returned to the habit he developed at my old apartment of hiding or sleeping in our bed under the covers when we're not home. Weirdo. But he's happy now, so that's good.
It was surprisingly hard for Alex and I to say goodbye to the old place. I cried - I had the excuse of hormones. But I think a part of Alex wanted to cry too as we drove away for the last time - Orange's crazy sad meows from his hated carrying cage vocalized I think part of what we were both feeling. That apartment was the first that Alex had all by himself; prior to that he'd always had roommates. We found that apartment for him right at the beginning of our relationship, as we were learning about each other, the way each other lived in the most private moments of daily life. We had our first huge, relationship-changing argument there. It was the first place we lived together (and learned even more about intimate details of daily life). That was where we began our journey, basically, of learning how to work not only as a couple but as a true team. A lot of firsts in that apartment.
Of course, we're totally excited about the future and the direction we're going, and all that the new place represents for us. We almost doubled our living space, and this apartment isn't so big for us that it's absurd, but it's big enough that we can stay here for years as Isabella grows - we won't be moving again in another year saying, "God, we are bursting at the seams here!" Everyone who came to our old place and also came here (well, just my Mom, Nick, and three of my closest friends) say this place feels much more like a home. Alex and I agree. It already looks like a family lives here. (I told him, if it was that hard to leave the first apartment, it's going to be even more difficult to leave this one - imagine all the "firsts" that we'll have here! I said, I don't want to move again until we are buying our "forever house." Dream big...)
We're proud of our new place and we both know that as a family, we'll be really happy here.
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