Meter

I just wanted to make a post with this meter because ONE day when I print a nice blog-book (like my sister did), I want to remember this cool meter I've had on the side of my blog...

Dinner with friends

Here are a few pix from us hanging out (aka eating dinner) with friends.

With the McQuays at Barnaby's Cafe.


They brought us a cute little outfit for the baby.

At a Mardis Gras Grill with some friends...

Our friend Matt enjoying his raw oysters. :P

Clothing Update

I finally got around to making some size-dividing tags...

And put them to use. I love 'em! We really don't have any clothes that are hanging after the 9-12 month tag...should we just wait till after she's born? Or should we ask people to help us stock-up in that size area?

And THIS was cool... did I mention this in a previous post? So after hanging and organizing all the baby clothes, I discovered that my sister and Tim's sister had given us the exact same outfit! Well, not "exact", I guess. The new one on the left is size 3-6 months, and the older one on the left is 6-12 months (or maybe it's the other way around). Regardless, notice how the dresses look to be the EXACT same size! (I bet washing and drying the "new" one will shrink it down).

We are SO lucky that our sisters have given us SO MUCH CLOTHES! (and other stuff, too)!

Heartburn...

Recently I've been starting to feel some heartburn. I'm trying to determine if it's related to WHAT I eat, WHEN I eat, or HOW MUCH I eat.

So far... it doesn't seem to matter WHAT I eat. I could eat a piece of bread, and I'll feel some heartburn. Fruit, pasta, rice, chicken... doesn't matter.

I don't get it all the time...it seems to fall upon me during dinner hours. I'm usually fine at work, but if I eat something just before I leave work, or when I get home, I usually find that I have some heartburn. Does this happen every day? Hmmm... I don't know. I guess I haven't had bad enough to take notice.

The quantity of the foods I put into my shrinking stomach does not seem to affect the heartburn, either. I could eat a small piece of fruit, or a big bowl of rice...I'll still get it (or not get it, for that matter).

27 Week Appointment

This morning I went in for my 27 week appointment. What a zoo! My appointments were scheduled for 8:30am (Glucose Test) and 9:10am (meet with Doctor).

Here's what happened...
8:20am - Got to the clinic early. Checked into the blood testing area. Lady took me back, gave me a bottle of orange "soda". Drank it within 5 minutes. She told me to return at 9:27am to get my blood drawn.

8:30am - Checked in upstairs at the doctor's office. The receptionist gal was in training, so it took about 10 minutes longer for her to get me checked in. Finally get to the waiting room.

8:50am - Finally get called back into the office. Give my urine sample. Weight, blood pressure--check, check. (120 lbs!) I tell the nurse that the blood-peeps told me to come back at 9:27am. She says no problem, the doctor will be in shortly. Wait for the doctor...wait for the doctor.

9:20am - Nurse comes in. Doctor isn't in yet...was okay seeing the other nurse practioner (or whatever her exact title is). Sure! She comes in, measures my uterus. I ask her about being sick this weekend, and she said things should be fine (but takes note of it). I guess my uterus is measuring a little smaller than 27, so she wants to schedule me to come back in two weeks for another ultrasound. She grabs the other nurse and tells her to help me setup an appointment, then they rush me back downstairs to get my blood drawn. They tell me to come back upstairs afterwards to finish making the appointment.

9:28am - FINALLY make it back downstairs. Wait for a bit. The lady that gave me the orange soda in the morning opens the side door and calls, "Ms. Zhang?" She looks at me. I say my first and last name. She exclaims, "The last girl had the same first name as you!" She shuts the door, and I hear her rushing around. So there was another asian girl ahead of me (that she thought was ME...so she got HER blood drawn a few minutes early, and I would be getting my blood drawn a few minutes late). After scrambling for a little while, she pulls me to the back room, reprints my tube labels, draws my blood, and says that she just needs to re-label the other gal's blood. Niiice.

9:35am - Run back upstairs. The door to my doctor's area/office is locked, so I head over to the main office/entry/appointment area. They help me check the system and let me know that the nurse did indeed setup an ultrasound and doc. apt. for me in 2 weeks, so I'm good to go.

10:15am - Driving through small roads and medium traffic, I finally make it to work. Phew! Told Tim all about my morning on the cell. He freaked out a little that the baby is a little small (I'm actually a little more excited!) and said that he wants to go with me to the rest of my appointments. (How cute...he just called me and said that he's going to make sure I get enough to eat to make sure the baby is getting enough nutrition).

Pictures from this past week

Here I am on a "cute day" (last Friday). I LOVE LOVE LOVE that shirt! And skirt! Oooh! AND a clean house! :)

This was a Tuesday... we went to eat Hot Pot with some friends before they moved out to California. :( But it was gooood hot pot! At a GREAT price, too!

This is me two Sundays ago...Stake Conference (but really felt like Regional Conference b/c it was a broadcast from SLC).

How much longer must I keep it in???

Oh how I WISH Tim would let me tell everyone what our baby's name is! I'm currently a bit green with envy that we all knew my cousin's "Jacob" before he was born. .

It's SO CUTE to hear Tim use her name. In fact, he'll use it more often than I will!
I still call her "baby", "baby girl", "the baby", and occasionally, "it"... but he'll call her by her name! SO WEIRD! And cool at the same time!

Where's the weight?

So I'm quite curious to find out where all the pounds are going.

After being sick for a couple days (and measuring my weight just BEFORE I got sick to just before I started feeling better), I lost 9 pounds. 9 POUNDS! Is that all water weight?! Can it be? That's a TON of water!!

Though the measuring tape may not (for some reason) be picking up extra "stuffing" around my rump, hips, and thighs (how do I know? because some of my low-rider pants that should not be affected by my belly are becoming too-tight-to-wear), there's definately slight growthage on general areas of my body (did I mention the back fat? ugh. Again, I'll post my measuring chart soon...this whole sick-and-dropping-weight thing is throwing it off).

I did find this little tidbit online:

Where Does All This Weight Gain Go?
Here is a breakdown of where you can expect the extra pounds to go:
Baby ... 7-8 pounds
Placenta ... 1-2 pounds
Amniotic fluid ... 2 pounds
Uterus ... 2 pounds
Maternal breast tissue ... 2 pounds
Maternal blood ... 4 pounds
Fluids in maternal tissue ... 4 pounds
Maternal fat and nutrient stores ... 7 pounds

So I really don't mind gaining this weight... I'm just starting to freak out that it's all going to the BABY! How big is she going to be?!? 10? 12 POUNDS?!?!? Oh please no!

Stomach Flu

I guess if you don't go see a doctor and have them diagnose you with something, then you might not have had it (as opposed to something else). But for me, I'm just gonna say it: Tim and I had a stomach flu this past weekend.

Tim went to a business lunch on Thursday and became sick soon after (so we thought it was food poisoning). He stayed home sick on Friday, and was still a bit queasy on Saturday. Sunday he was feeling good, Monday he was alright, and Tuesday (today) he felt a little gross again. His symptoms: nausea, vomiting (3 times), and diarrhea.

I started feeling gross Saturday afternoon/evening. Sunday morning--ugh ugh!! All Sunday my body felt SOOO sore! Had some slight stomach cramps (vomited a total of 3 times), slight nausea, no diarrhea. Peed a lot though. Food didn't sound good to me, so I just tried to drink as much water as I could (which wasn't a whole lot).

Monday I stayed home from work and slept all day. I'm happy that I was able to sleep (this weekend) as much as I did...it was hard to get comfortable with my back and joints hurting. It was NOT fun rolling out of bed to go to the bathroom or to get a drink. It was NOT fun sitting on the toilet to pee. Even walking was a pain! There were moments where I really started to feel claustrophobic and thought, "I seriously can NOT get pregnant again."

Luckily, by Monday afternoon I was feeling MUCH better. Aches and pains started to go away. Today, I'm feeling good again (except for having to wake up EARLY...REALLY early b/c of the time change! We should move to Arizona or Hawaii...) Oh yeah! And BECAUSE I'm no longer AS sore as I had been, I definately feel SO MUCH MORE GREATFUL that I'm (normally) not THAT sore. Blessing in disguise--without that EXTRA soreness, I feel like I can handle this whole pregnancy thing again...at least for now...

Things that helped during the flu: Yoga stretches, Body Pillow, Tim's massages, and an electronic back massager that I "borrowed" from my parents. :)

Nesting for the Baby!

This weekend (before I got sick) I spent a TON of time preparing for baby. I cleaned. I rearranged the 2nd walk-in closet/storage room. I cleaned and rearranged OUR closet. Phew! Got SO much done! It felt great! (And at first, I thought maybe I had done too much b/c my body started getting sore...but it was the stomach flu).

Not only that, but I pulled out all the baby clothes/stuff that we've been given and threw them in the wash (as per my sister's suggestion).

Bought a few things from Target to help keep things organized, and oila!

Here's a pic of a HUGE bag of girl clothes from Tim's sister. My sister had said, "Just throw all the baby clothes in the washer, that way you know for sure they're all clean and if she gets an allergic reaction, yada yada yada..." Well, I TRIED to fit them all in the wash. I fit about 3/4 of the bag in, but then discovered that I had to rinse THAT load (half and half) to get the soap out! :P hahaha! It was good that I had more than one load, though, b/c there were some more baby (and maternity) clothes from my sis that needed a washing.


Tada! After some slight rearranging of my clothes, all the clothes fit! Next step: Organize the clothes by 0-3 months, 3-6 months, etc. Got some hangers from Target for a decent price...just wish they were in white!

Bit Sterilite storage bin from Target. Holds shoes, socks, pants, bloomers, onesies, burp clothes, blankets, etc.

I don't think we'll need anymore clothes for this little girl for a little while. :)

Pregnancy Weight Gain Calculator 2

Your Pregnancy Weight Gain Calculator Results
Pre - Pregnancy Weight Stats
Weight
104 lbs.

Height
5 ft. 2 in.

BMI (Body Mass Index)
19

Weight Status
underweight

Current Weight Stats
Weight
124 lbs.

BMI (Body Mass Index)
23

Weeks Pregnant
26

Total Weight Gained
20 lbs.

Where Do I Stand With My 20 lb Weight Gain?
Based on your pre-pregnancy weight of 104 lbs., we calculated your BMI to be 19, which is considered underweight according to the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies. This week you should weigh between:
120 and 122 lbs

You are 2 pounds over the high end of your target weight range. During your first trimester, you should gain between 3 and 5 lbs. Thereafter, you should be gaining 2 lbs. per week until the end of your pregnancy.

At full term (40 weeks pregnant) you should weigh between:
132 and 144 lbs Total Target Weight Gain: 28 to 40 lbs.

GREEAT...2 pounds over "the high end of your target weight range". :)

Tired.

The past few days I've been feeling a little more tired. Ugh. I guess it doesn't help when I wake up at 3am to pee, and then can't fall back asleep for an hour or two afterwards. Booo!

Luckily, I've had some good and regular bowel movements the past couple of days.

"You and me, and the devil make three..."

The other night, a (pregnant) friend of mine told me that she turned on some Metallica really loud to see if her baby would respond. She said that as soon as the music started playing, her baby just went CRAZY in her belly! And when she turned the music off, and turned some classical music on, the baby stopped.

So I told Tim to sing to the baby. He put his mouth up against my belly and started singing some tune from "O Brother Where Art Thou"...

"Go to sleep little baby (Go to Sleep little baby)
Go to sleep little baby (go to sleep little baby)
You and me and the devil makes three
Go to sleep little baby..."

There's more to the song, but I guess that's all he remembered. :)

So he's singing in a deep voice into my belly, and we felt her start kicking/punching/something! around...even where his mouth had been! We can't tell if she LIKES the singing, or if she's trying to tell him to STOP!!! :P hahaha...

Rotten Chicken

Yeah... we just discovered this morning that we've had some "frozen" chicken breast sitting in our trunk for, oh, about 4 days. :P Needless to say, our car STINKS!

At first we thought it was an empty cup from a frozen yogurt shop (and thus a dairy smell in the car). Tim noticed it getting progressively worse, whereas I (for some reason) thought it was getting better.

One day after picking Tim up from work, he got in the car and was like, "You need to make sure you wipe your butt better." hahaha! (It was a joke).

But this morning, he got in the car and was like, "It's getting worse! Something must be left in the car!" He then ran to the trunk and pulled out a grocery bag of once-frozen chicken breast. After removing the bag, he stuck his head back in the trunk and took a big whiff---why he did that, I have NO idea. He then started to gag and cough, and spit.

I am DEFINATELY deep-cleaning the car this weekend.

Another Photoshoot

Some more random photos of me-self... I gotta start doing some different poses.
And again, I think my belly has already grown a TON since taking these pics!!

Ahhh, how cute...

So two nights ago, I decided I needed a haircut. So I went into the bathroom, took out the scissors, and gave myself a trim. Phew! I'm glad it worked out okay! ;) haha! With all the fun (cheap) shopping that I've done, I didn't feel too inclined to go pay someone to cut my hair. PLUS, the gal that cuts my hair is on a cruise right now. So I cut it myself. It feels much better not to have a huge "wig" on top of my head. :)

I also waxed my 'stache, brows (and plucked them too), and even some of my belly. Did I mention that before? As my belly grows bigger, the little "peach fuzz" that I had on my belly seemed to get grosser and grosser... So whenever I wax my brows, I try to wax off some of my belly hair.

Needless to say, I had a MUCH better (feeling) day yesterday. I just felt "cuter". :P
Below is a picture of me after getting home from a "girl's night out" at the Cheesecake Factory.

Black pants from college. New dark gray long tank. Yellow-T from a couple years ago. Maroon necklace from last summer. Jean jacket from a couple years ago.


While I was in my "cute" mood, I decided to take some pics in my sister's long tanks (so she can see the colors that she asked for). Hopefully I didn't stretch them out. :) haha! Nice, long, and not-skin-tight! (I figure she could sew-them-in if they're too wide.)

Left to Right: Dark gray, brown, pink, blue. Not pictured: white.


I'll be posting a chart soon, but just FYI, I've gained about 2 pounds in the past week-and-a-half, and my belly has grown half-an-inch (who knew one half-inch would mean my pants would feel SO much tighter?!?). I think that means I'll have to find some time for another photoshoot this weekend.

Fatty Fat Fat

This past weekend, I've begun to feel F-A-T. Ugh.

ALSO, this weekend I felt slightly sluggish and tired (reminiscent of the First-Trimester days...double UGH).



Yes, I know I'm FAR from the time that I should REALLY be feeling like "I WANT THIS BABY OUT..." but that's how I felt this weekend. Triple UGH.



I think it's because my "normal" pants that I've been able to fit into are becoming to be a little TOO squeezed-into, thus leaving me with the gross muffin-top feeling. I was able to fit into a pair of REAL maternity pants on Saturday (though they were still slightly too big), and they felt more comfortable than my "normal" pants.



Baby girl seems to be moving around a lot too, with stronger kicks, punches, or WHATEVER it is she's doing in there!

High-Definition

For the past couple/few weeks, I've noticed that my eyesight has been MUCH "crisper" than "usual"... it really feels like I've put on some HD-glasses, or something! Over the past year or two, I had noticed that one of my eyes (I believe my right eye) was SLIGHTLY more blurry than my left (but it didn't seem consistent...some days were better than others, and even then, it seemed more like an Astigmatism problem than a "normal" near-far-sightedness thing).

But I just realized recently that my eyes seem to be pretty close (and sharp). NICE! Hopefully this is something that'll stick around AFTER having the baby... (but with my luck, probably not). :P

Pants

As I mentioned in my last post, I just bought some awesome long t-shirts (for $3 each!) that I LOVE LOVE LOVE!

The store I purchased them from also had a TON of long tank tops for about $5 each. Niiice! I'll be going back sometime to stock up...


But what about my pants?? My pants are getting a little more snug... I'm still able to use the rubberband trick on some of them, and the maternity pants that I DO have on hand are still a bit too big. To my great surprise, I was able to rummage through my drawers and find another pair of black pants (that USED to be too large for me), and now they fit JUST perfect! Hopefully they'll fit for at least a few days or weeks. Haha! (These are the black pants I'm wearing in the pics of my last post).

10 of my Favorite Weekend Finds

So here are some of the AWESEOME deals I found this weekend at the mall, Goodwill Clearance Center, and wherever else I went. (I didn't buy TOO much more than 10 things...I just figured that lists are always nice). :)

1. Green Shirt, $7. (Pictured on far left).
2. Purple T-Shirt, $3. (2nd picture... I got this in purple, white, and dark gray).
3. Eddie Bauer Vest, $1. (3rd picture... this was a GCC find!)
4. Multi-color Vest, $5. (Far right picture... yes, that is quite a wierd pose. Tim was laughing at me while I was taking pictures, so I just had to "strike" a wierd one).
   
   
5. Salmon-ish Colored Dress, $1.50 (Another GCC find! I picked it up and had a long, internal debate as to whether or not I wanted to give it a try. I'm glad I did! It looks a little funny around my growing belly... luckily it looks alright in the picture).
   
   
6. Tan and Pink-heeled Pumps, $6 (Pictured in the middle).
7. Awesome Cowboy Boots! $1.50 ("Welcome to Texas!" hahaha... I kept teasing Tim that he should get himself a pair...and then while I was at the GCC, I saw these. Well, I saw one boot, then I scoured the store for the other boot. Couldn't find it, couldn't find it, said a little prayer, and Wah-Lah! There it was! I need to research how to clean/polish 'em up).
8. A baseball, $0.50 (not pictured).
9. 4 Tall Glasses, $1.00 (not pictured).
10. An OXO Salad Spinner, $5 (not pictured).

I think I know where to bring my mom and sisters when they come and visit...