8 Week Update!

Just as I was starting to worry that Everett wasn't meeting his milestones, I went to go get him from the crib yesterday morning and the little guy waited until exactly on his 8 week birthday to start smiling at us. He normally doesn't like waking up to find himself swaddled tightly, but this morning was different - he was cooing, laughing and smiling like crazy. Up until now, his smiles have been random (and probably gas related) but for sure this was the real deal. See exhibit A below:


Everett's neck is definitely getting strong so his head isn't flopping all over the place anymore, and he's been holding his head up for longer periods of time when you put him on his tummy. He'll reach out occasionally to grab at the toys on his mat when you put him on his back, but still would rather stare and talk to them.

Some more pictures and a couple short videos (I don't have any really good videos yet of him "talking" with us, so I'll just have to keep trying and remember to keep the recorder handy!)

update 09/18/10

Everett's 2-month appointment is a little late, Oct 6th - that'll be our next update. Not looking forward to his first big round of vaccinations...

Love,
Kristine

1 month update

Everett had his 1-month birthday on Thursday. Looking back through pictures, I can't believe how different he already looks! He had a doctor's visit and is weighing in now at 9 lbs 12 oz... we knew he was gaining a lot of weight since his newborn clothes no longer fit him and we had to bump him up to the next size and diapers, but I was not expecting to hear that he had gained almost 3 lbs from his last doctor visit (he started at 7 lbs 1 oz and then lost some weight to 6 lbs 14 oz, as expected, the next couple days after leaving the hospital). Then again, I guess I shouldn't have been that surprised, the little guy sure does like his milk, and he likes to drink it often!

Milestone-wise, his neck is getting stronger - he can carry his head a little better and if he lays on our chests, he likes to push himself up and look around. He's just started to focus on things, and likes to look in mirrors. Every once in a while, he will coo at you when you talk to him... all little things, but all really exciting to us!

Everett feeds about every 1.5-2 hrs during the daytime, and every 3-4 hours at night. I've been pumping once daily so that Eric can help out with one nighttime feeding. It took a couple trial runs with different bottles, but we finally found one that works (ie, the nipple flow isn't too fast, so the baby isn't sputtering or dribbling when too much milk comes out). From the bottle, Everett drinks about 3 oz in 25 minutes. Eric's glad he gets to share in the feeding-bonding time, and I'm thankful that I can get a little extra rest at night.

My mom was here for 12 days, she just went back to Chicago this morning. Boy, was it awesome having her here! Everett loved being carried around by Grandma Elsie, she learned the secret of soothing him to sleep by stroking the hair by his ear, and calming a fussy baby by carrying him while doing her physical therapy leg strengthening exercises :). And, in addition to being super-grandma, she helped replant our garden and also made all my favorite Filipino foods - my freezer is nicely stocked in case I crave some more homemade cooking in the months to come. I'm a little afraid of how I'm going to take care of everything now that she's not here to help me out... we'll have to find a way to manage. We all miss her already, especially Everett.

Uncle Mark is also here. Little Everett amuses him with his funny faces and noises, and will only let his Uncle carry him when he's sleeping :). Don't worry Mark, the next time you visit us, your nephew will be a whole lot more fun!

While my mom was here, we also went to go visit Great-grandma Prisca a couple times. My grandma is having a hard time remembering our names these days, but she seemed to remember me and was very excited by the baby. All the ladies in the care home were happy when Everett came by to visit and eat lunch with them. By the last day, Great-grandma felt strong enough to carry Everett for a short while and she kept commenting "nadagsén!" or "he's heavy!" while she cuddled with him and kissed his head.

Next week, Grandma Heesook, Grandpa Sungbae, and Gomo Anne (I can't remember the long Korean names for Grandma/Grandpa!) will be here to visit us - Everett is excited to finally meet all of you :)

Here is a picture of Everett sleeping peacefully with Daddy from the beginning of August, it's amazing how much he's grown up already!


And here's a link to a couple more photos:

update 8/27/10

38 Weeks and Nursery

Hi Everyone!

I know I've been lazy at updating the blog. Aside from wishing I had taken weekly, or at least monthly, pictures to keep track of how huge I'm getting - there really hasn't been much to update.

The pregnancy has been going smoothly, the little baby boy regularly kicks like a soccer champ, I've been gaining weight and measuring at the doctor specified rates, and we've been trying to get the house cleaned and reorganized for the arrival of the little one and all the family to follow. Baby-wise,

I don't get anymore full ultrasounds for the remainder of the pregnancy. They check the baby's heartbeat every week, and then I did get scanned very quickly the past couple visits to make sure the levels of amniotic fluid are where they should be, and also to confirm that the baby is head down - which he is, and happily reminds me whenever I get punched in the bladder! I get kicked in the ribs a lot... actually the baby makes me have better posture since I have to sit up straight to avoid getting kicked hard.

At the latest doctor visit, I was measuring at 3 cm dilated, and supposedly my belly has dropped. I was excited and thought that I'd be going into labor early, but then when I went to read up on the subject, being dilated early doesn't always equal early delivery or faster labor (which I was . I still think I'm carrying high, but Eric and others have commented that my belly definitely looks different. Supposedly I look tiny for 38 weeks... but I think that's just a polite thing to say to pregnant woman, because I definitely don't feel tiny! I've gained about 33 lbs and haven't had any weight gain the past couple weeks (and I've been going to the doctor weekly now for the past 3 weeks) I'll let you judge for yourselves: I'm still pretty mobile, haven't had too many issues with swelling or any other pregnant discomforts. I think it helps out a lot that I'm still exercising, though really low intensity. My back gets sore occasionally, and I can't stay away from salt for too long - so when I indulge (yum, pizza!) I pay for it in the evenings, but is solved easily enough with propping my feet up and drinking tons of water.

It's hard to believe my last day at work is going to be tomorrow. I almost feel a little guilty taking off before my due date since I've been able to manage pretty well at my desk all day, just feel a little bit tired towards the end of the day - but who doesn't feel like that? For the most part I'll be spending my last couple free days straightening up around the house and relaxing, although work has already asked if I could call in for a couple meetings over the next week.

We've pretty much finished working on the nursery and we wanted to show you the final product - even though you'll see the room for yourselves in the next month or so. So I'll stop blabbering for now, enjoy the rest of the pictures.

We're getting close, take care for now!

Love, Kristine

3-D Ultrasound

I had my follow-up ultrasound scan on Monday. The EIF (echogenic intracardiac focus) was still visible, but the referral doctor that we saw assured us that this finding was nothing to be concerned about - especially given the stellar numbers that I had gotten for my first and second trimester screen. It's hard sometimes not to worry, especially because I'm a constant worrier, but since there's nothing that we can do at this point - just have to hope for the best!

The ultrasound tech was using a new instrument when we went in. Downside, I had to lay there for almost an hour while the tech played with her new toy, figuring out contrast, etc. Upside , we got some 3-D shots of our baby - most of them are strange looking because the baby wouldn't stop moving or hiding his face. I'm jealous of all those people who have pristine ultrasound pictures, our baby is just plain uncooperative when you try and take pictures... he's going to have to get used to the attention because I'm already snap-happy with my camera as it is! Okay, here are the pictures:

Here's our boy already showing off his biceps. You can see his arm flexed in the center of the picture, and it looks like he's resting his forehead on his fist. You can also make out a little pout on his face if you look close enough.


And here's a picture of his legs crossed, you can see the outline of one leg and one foot pretty clearly. There's also an arm reaching down and it looks like his hand is resting on his knee:


Put the two pictures together, and it our baby probably resembles Rodan's Thinking Man in the womb. Haha (again, we can see that the Munar humor gene skipped me somehow).



The baby was sitting breach during the ultrasound, which I could have told everyone that before they even looked for the baby. I get some really strong kicks regularly through the day about 4 inches below my belly button. The tech was trying to get the baby to move to a more favorable position by jiggling my tummy with the wand, and instead of moving, the baby would just kick me in retaliation. Eric likes this trick, and has now taken to shaking my tummy and then quickly putting his hand on my tummy to see if he can get rewarded with a kick. Our baby's definitely inherited soccer genes from his dad.



I think this will probably be the last of the ultrasounds that I will have pictures to post from. The rest of the posts will probably be related to boring stuff like getting the nursery ready and of my growing tummy - until our baby makes his grand appearance.



Until next time, take care!

20 weeks!

Today was the 20-week ultrasound, the big anatomy scan... and the big news that everyone has been waiting for: it's a BOY! :-) Our little boy was shy about showing his face, but definitely not shy in letting us know that we are definitely carrying a male!

Here are some of the ultrasound pics, not the best quality since ultrasound tech was having a hard time trying to catch pictures in between the baby moving his hands to hide his face and stretching out to grab his toes.

The first one is a profile shot, top of the head to the left, the nose and chin juts out a little, and you can see a tiny clenched fist floating in the middle:

The second scan shows the baby's face straight on, though there isn't much too see... just the roundness of the top of the skull off to the right, the baby's chin and some shadows where the facial features are. You can also see the round spot near the top is another clenched fist:


For the most part, everything in the scan read normally. The baby weighs approximately 12 ounces, and according to Babycenter.com. measures the length of a banana. The doctor did point out a echogenic focus in the heart, which showed up as a tiny white spot in one of the scans. She referred to the spot as a "soft" marker which may indicate a potential for an chromosomal abnormality, but she stressed very strongly that it was likely nothing - especially in the absence of any other "hard" or "soft" markers, and also this marker looks to be the most frequently spotted - and usually non-indicative of any further issues. Since she's a conservative doctor, I am going in for another comprehensive ultrasound in 2 weeks at another facility, and I'll provide an update then.

Other baby news, we finally felt our first kicks yesterday. Supposedly women are able to feel their baby around 18 weeks, so I've been waiting and waiting and mistaking gas (haha) and stomach rumbling as a kick. Yesterday though, I was getting some strong, solid jabs from the baby in my lower abdomen that Eric could feel as well. I'm looking forward to being able to feel the baby more as the weeks go by.

We're starting now to plan out the nursery and other home improvement jobs that we'll need to do before the baby comes. Also looming on our "to do" list includes figuring out what to do about daycare... I'm definitely starting to feel time go by faster, though only panicking slightly - I promise!

There's not much to update on my front, I feel great aside from the occasionally bouts of heart burn. I'll leave you with a picture of my 5-month belly, taken this morning. I'm in full on maternity pants now, but am still in denial about wearing my "tent"-like maternity tops...


Take care everyone! I'll update again in a couple weeks after my follow-up ultrasound.

Kristine

16 Weeks!

Hi Everyone!

We've hit the 16 week mark :-). I had another appointment this morning and thought that we had an ultrasound planned today, so I made Eric take the morning off of work to accompany me... turns out that we were just doing another cervical measurement and a regular, boring exam. BUT the tech was kind enough to do a scan of the baby for us (probably also because she felt bad that Eric got dragged along).

The baby was being shy, and the only really good view we got was of the baby's back/spine. A little maneuvering and we got part of the baby's head (off to the left below), an arm (white line in the center), and an upper thigh. The white band at the bottom is the baby's spine.


We have the big 20 week anatomy scan at our next visit, and we're definitely going to find out the sex of the baby. Based on old wives' tales, all signs point to a girl. These are sayings like "if you're craving sugar instead of salt, you're having a girl." There are a whole bunch of them, and majority favor a girl (soft hands vs. dry, favoring your right side to sleep vs. left side, extreme nausea vs. morning sickness free, heart rate > 150 bpm, etc). Guess we'll just have to wait and find out for sure in a month! In the meantime, we're busy thinking up names - but nothing for sure yet, obviously.

I haven't noticed the baby kicking yet, I've been told it might be a little too early. Every once in a while I think I feel something, but it's probably just gas. :-O

We went around last weekend to start looking at baby furniture. We're probably going to get a majority of it from Ikea. The nursery will be in what's currently the office, so the plan is to move the computer to our bedroom and bookshelves and television into the guest room. The work that needs to be done to the room is fairly minimal, probably just an accent wall of paint, some new wall shelves, and a ceiling fan (calling an electrician for that one!).

Updates for me: the fatigue and nausea have definitely tapered off - hooray! I'm still not feeling as energetic as I was pre-pregnancy, but at least I can make it through the work day without nodding off at my desk and can exercise fairly regularly. The doctor looked at the cervical measurements and said we probably won't have to worry about any cervical shortening for the rest of the pregnancy, another hooray! I'm having some issues getting a good night's sleep due to aching shoulders and hips from having to sleep on my side - I'm used to sleeping on my stomach or back. Oh well, at least I'm finally able to sleep on the bed again... I had resorted to sleeping on the sofa because the bed was so uncomfortable to me (i.e. felt like I was sleeping on a slag of rock). We ended up having to buy a memory foam pad which definitely improved things, but Eric is now suspecting that it may be causing him to wake up with a stiff neck - which I hope is not the case. We're a definite candidate for a Sleep Number bed in the future, haha.

Weight-wise, I've put on about 8-10 lbs. They say a woman should gain 5 lbs in the first 12 weeks, and then a pound every week until the end of pregnancy, so I'm pretty much right on target. When I hit 15 weeks, it was instantaneous that I was no longer able to fit into any of my pants - I had officially "popped". We did a quick run to Old Navy and got some jeans for me a size up from what I normally wear, and this last weekend we did some shopping at Target to expand my maternity wardrobe. Shopping for maternity clothes is not fun, especially when you have to evaluate every piece of clothing and think "is this going to fit me in a couple months when I'm the size of a house?" Anyways, here's a belly shot of me from this morning. I've got a little pot belly and people can tell now that I'm pregnant when I wear form fitting clothing.


Those are all my updates for now. The next post at 20 weeks will definitely be much more exciting. Until then, everyone take care!

First post... we've arrived at 12 weeks!

Hi Everyone!

I hope y'all don't find the feel of this blog to be too impersonal - I just figured it would be the best way to share as much baby progress information with all our family and friends. I've noticed as I tell a story over and over again, I begin to forget bits and pieces - which I've been told will get worse (dreaded pregnancy brain!) so to get all the details down in one go seemed like a good idea. I hope to update once a week and I'll send an e-mail reminder to family to check the blog after each update - let me know if you'd like to be added onto the list.

Anyways - onto the good stuff! Here's a close up of the baby's face profile:

And here's a zoomed out head to toe picture of the baby:

Baby Kimbap was moving around and waving at us all throughout the ultrasound. The baby's heartbeat was nice and strong (156 beats/min) and is right on target for growth rate. According to www.babycenter.com, the baby is about the size of a lime, 2 inches long and weighing about 1/2 oz. :-)

The doctor visit went pretty well... it looks like I've gained about 3 lbs so far, and while my waist is getting a little thicker - I'm not really showing yet and all my clothes still fit okay. We went over family medical histories, and then both Eric and I had our blood drawn - me for some additional screening and Eric to make sure he's not a carrier for thalassemia (which I've already tested negative for), a blood disorder that is prevalent in the Asian population. At my first visit at 8 weeks, there had been some earlier concern about cervical shortening for me - which if it does occur throughout a pregnancy can lead to 2nd trimester miscarriage and a doctor will try to circumvent the complication by putting in a safety stitch to close the cervix (cerclage). I had some measurements taken during the ultrasound, and everything came back A-OK! No need for safety stitches - big sigh of relief!

The doctor also reminded us that Eric is responsible for cleaning up after Sydney cat since cat litter is hands off for pregnant ladies. Side note: Sydney will give the most affection to whoever feeds her, and she has already learned to follow Eric around and yell at him if her meals are ever delayed. haha.

Other Kristine updates outside the doctor's visit... I am feeling a lot less fatigue and nausea these past couple weeks. I still go to bed a lot earlier than I used to (usually pretty tired by 9pm) but at least I'm not falling asleep as soon as I get in from work anymore. The nausea still cycles between light and intense, but it's no longer happening every single night. Thankfully my aversion to chicken has ended, but my craving for really sweet food hasn't stopped yet. Hopefully these baby cravings don't lead to any new cavities. Eric had been doing most of the cooking (and cleaning) these past couple weeks - and I'm sure he's excited that I'm getting some energy back to be able to start helping with meal preparation. He was shocked the other day when I actually made him lunch. Granted, because I'm usually starving, I end up eating as I'm cooking and then he ends up having to eat by himself. More energy also means that I'm also finally going to be able to start exercising regularly again. The doc cautioned that I need to keep my heart rate under 140 beats/min, which is a little tough since it doesn't take too much exertion to get my heart rate up, and it doesn't really feel like I'm doing any exercising at that point - but at least it's something, right?

Aside from those of you reading this post, we haven't told any other family or friends that we're expecting yet. We will probably wait another week before we make the big announcement to everyone.

Alright, that's all for now. I bet all this information was all you ever wanted to know, and probably a little too much more on top of that - I told you I was wordy!

Take care all you future grandparents, aunts and uncles [and "fake" aunts and uncles:-)]!