Tim and Olive's Blog

And without fanfare or warning, four first-trimester chums are back in town.

Hello again fatigue, nausea, food aversions and weepiness. I have to say, I have not missed you.  From what others tell me, you’ve come to re-visit us because baby’s growing and taking up more room, my stomach’s getting squished and my hormones are running amok.  And I shouldn’t expect you four to leave until the baby is born.  That’s just excellent.

I find it amazing that for about a minute when I first wake up, I feel refreshed.  And then whomp, fatigue, you find me and I want to curl up and sleep the day away.  Except I can’t seem to sleep very long before my bladder sounds the alarm and I’m forced to get up.

I’ve been told that eating smaller meals should help me cope with you, nausea.  Well, that’s what I did for lunch today and nope, still feel gross.  Something tells me vitamins are going to be a chore again and the chicken ban is going to come back into full effect.

The worst part is that I’m hungry all the time.  Sigh.

As for you, weepiness, you’re just there ready to dole out the tears whenever you fancy.  Even cartoons make me cry these days.

Anyway, I guess I have no choice but to try to be hospitable to you four for now.  Fighting you would simply be a waste of energy.  Just remember, your stay will end in due time and you will have to move on.

Today marks 27 weeks in my pregnancy, which according to some, is the start of the third and final trimester.  Baby and I celebrated today by getting a glucose screening test done.  A dear friend of mine was kind enough to accompany us for the 1 hour test during which my blood was drawn, I drank “the drink”, waited for an hour and had my blood drawn again.  It was a screening test to see if my body was processing sugar correctly – if not, it would mean that I might have gestational diabetes (diabetes of the pregnant woman type).

When the lab technician asked me whether I had ever had “the drink” before, I told her, “No, I haven’t.  But I have heard much about ‘the drink‘!”  It made her laugh.  She then offered me the choice of orange or plain flavour.  I opted for the orange.

“The drink” came in a little plastic bottle, refrigerated.  The technician said I had 5 minutes to down the whole thing.  I had been told that it would be incredibly sweet and pretty nasty tasting.  So I braced myself for the worst.

It was…  fine.

I finished it in less than a minute and thought to myself, I wonder if this is the same drink everyone else talks about?

I told the technician that if you’ve ever had to drink chinese medicine, this was nothing.  Chinese medicine is bitter and tastes like dirt.  This at least was sweet and citrus-y.

Conclusion?  Taste is relative.  When you’ve had something truly hard to swallow, the rest is surprisingly tolerable.  Here’s to the final three months!

As this pregnancy has progressed, I have found myself struggling with fears and insecurities I never thought existed in me.  In the last couple months, I’ve asked T at least three or more times a day week a common yet impossible to answer question, “Am I fat??!”
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Tim and I had an interesting conversation with a friend last night.  In the course of our conversation, we stumbled upon this question, “Does growing your knowledge of a person enable your love for them to grow?”

For example, when I married Tim, I could wholeheartedly say that I loved him.  But in the last 3 years, I have gotten to know him so much better than the day we got married.  So my love for him now includes all those dimensions of him (positive and negative) that I had previously not known.  Likewise, our friend yesterday shared with us something that we hadn’t known before, so now, when we think of our friendship and the love we have for our friend, it includes that added dimension.

Or perhaps the love itself does not grow.  Perhaps what grows with knowledge is the awareness of what our love encompasses.  After all, love is a choice.

As it relates to God, I can say today that I love God, but each day as I discover more of Him and experience more with Him, that little word takes on richer and fuller meaning.

Any thoughts?

photo credit: Caro Wallis via photo pin cc

Dear Baby Chan (aka, CHANnel 3),

If you are among the 5% of babies who arrive on their due dates, you will be making your grand entrance into this world in a mere ninety-nine days.  As I ponder this reality, my heart is filled with curiosity.  Who will you look like?  Who will you take after?  Will you be musical like your parents?  Will you love words like your mommy, or will you like numbers like your daddy?  What aspects of your grandparents will you inherit?  Will you be a social butterfly?  The life of the party?  A contemplative?  What passions will drive you?  What kind of friends will we be?

You are growing bigger by the day and I can feel your movements getting stronger too.  Are you feeling cramped in there?   These last two days, I’ve felt you move on both sides of my belly simultaneously.  What are you even doing???

There are many people who are looking forward to meeting you.  There is a lot of love awaiting to embrace you.  Do you sense that?  Every night, your daddy and I pray for you.  We pray for many things, but above all, we pray that you would know without a shadow of a doubt that you are deeply and thoroughly loved.  We pray that somehow God would communicate this love to you because our love is limited but His is unwavering and limitless.

In these next 99 days, we will be busy with getting ready for your arrival.  You just hang in there, enjoy being carried around and keep on practicing your happy dance.

With deep affection,
Mommy

I went for a check-up this morning.  Everything seems to be going well.  The baby-doctor (OB) said my weight is good, my belly size is right on target and the baby’s heartbeat is strong and happy.  I’m thankful.  I have to go in for a glucose tolerance test sometime before my next appointment.  I’ve heard some pretty discouraging things about that test so we’ll see how it goes for me.

I have one more monthly check-up before I switch to appointments every two weeks. When the doctor told me that, I thought, “Just like that?!  This pregnancy is whipping by!”  T, on the other hand, thinks that waiting 9 months is going way too slowly.

Baby has gotten two gifts so far:  a Vancouver Canucks bib, from friends of ours who are also expecting; and a pair of cute blue shoes, from one very excited grandma-to-be.  This weekend, we’ll be starting to collect other baby goods of a more essential nature.  It’s times like these that we are especially grateful for the network of friends and family we have around us who are so generous and helpful.

In other news, I think my second-trimester burst of energy is slowly coming to an end.  I’m finding myself more tired in the last couple days.  And my calf muscles are periodically threatening to cramp up on me (apparently this was something my mom had to deal with too).  Although, I’ve taken my nutritionist mother’s advice and upped my calcium intake and that has helped alleviate some of the cramping.

Anyway, just thought I’d do a little update while I had some time.  Thanks for reading!

The deep abyss that used to be my naval is slowly transforming.  It hasn’t reached the point where it’s popped out yet, but that day is certainly approaching.

And while we’re on the topic of physical changes, I have had to buy new underwear and new pajamas.  It felt weird buying medium-sized clothing when I’ve always worn either small or extra small.  But, I’m definitely more comfortable!

Baby seems to move around most when I’m first waking up, when I’m hungry and when I’ve just eaten.  I think this kid likes food.

One of my baby apps says that baby’s eyes can now open and that we can shine a flashlight into my belly to see if baby will move.  Here kiddo, let’s blind you with light for our entertainment!  Is it just me, or does that seem just a little bit mean?

This post is obviously a collection of random thoughts, but on a more serious note, I started reading “Grace-Based Parenting” by Tim Kimmel.  So far, I’m really appreciating his wisdom and insight.  The part I read today contrasted fear-based parenting with grace-based parenting.  And he presented the idea that each person is created with three intrinsic needs:  Security, Significance and Strength – which can be met through the gifts of Love, Purpose and Hope.  As we get our needs met by the God of grace, we are able to help our children meet those needs through God as well.

When T and I were crafting our wedding vows, we included the idea of making our home a place of grace.  I look forward to reading the rest of the book and seeing how we might live it out in our family in the coming years.

I’ve been wanting to post for a few days now but somehow settling back into life here has gobbled up all my time.  Hawaii was wonderful.  I used a ton of sunscreen and sat in the shade a lot but I still managed to get a decent tan.  Pregnancy has changed how my skin reacts to the sun so it seemed like I would get patches of darker and lighter tan, much to my chagrin.

Highlights of the trip for me included attending my childhood friend’s wedding and seeing many of my other childhood friends there, chilling at the beach, trying my hand at paddle boarding (while seated), playing in the waves, having T cook breakfast for me every day, taking in the scenery, eating delicious food at places recommended to us by friends and finding a gardenia scented perfume that I truly love.

Taking a plane while pregnant was an interesting experience.  On the way there, the lady in the aisle kindly traded seats with me so that I could have the aisle seat.  I had a really hard time falling asleep though because I couldn’t get comfortable.  The funny thing was that the same lady was on the same flight back as us – but not  in the same seat.

On the way home, we sat next to another lady who was travelling with three young children – ages 2, 4 and 6.  Since her kids were sitting in the row across the aisle from her, we opted to keep our seats.  We were amazed at how well-behaved her children were and inspired by the way she related to them calmly and respectfully.  Of course, the lady was very understanding of my need to use the bathroom often.  Thankfully, sitting in the window seat gave me a bit more sleep, which was great because it was a red-eye flight.  We were supposed to land at 6:30am but because of a dense fog, our plane ended up attempting to land 5 times with a re-fuelling stop before actually landing at 9:30am.

Anyway, here are some pictures from our trip.  Enjoy!

We’re going on our much anticipated vacation to Hawaii tomorrow.  With a long-time childhood friend getting married there and a chance to reunite with other friends from Toronto, we figured we might as well take advantage of the fact that baby, diapers, food and toys are all self-contained at the moment.  =)  The seats we have on the flight right now are window and middle seats.  We’ll see if we can use the pregnant card to get me an aisle seat.  Otherwise, some poor soul will have to let me in and out quite a bit!

Baby is definitely getting stronger and bigger by the day.  I can feel the acrobatics pretty strongly at times and once in a while, T can feel it too.  I’ve continued to have a hearty appetite, which I’m thankful for.  Other than that, I feel pretty “normal” – to the point that I sometimes forget that I’m pregnant.

Anyway, not much else to update today.  Aloha!

(By the way, if you are ever flying out of Bellingham Airport, which we did to get to Hawaii, be sure to park at Wiki Wiki Airport Parking! Ernie and Velma are great hosts and provide amazing service to start and end your vacation.)

Today is a happy day.  For two reasons:

1.  I woke up this morning to my little acrobat doing cartwheels off the sides of my belly.  Since I could feel the bumps and kicks with my hands, I reached over and put T’s hand on my belly.  I didn’t want to disturb the process so I didn’t tell him why.  I just put his hand there and hoped for the best.  And then baby kicked – hard!  So for the first time, T felt the baby move.  =)

2.  We went for a checkup today and found out our baby’s sex!  My father-in-law is adamant that he does NOT know so I can’t post it here.  But if you’re really curious, feel free to email me and I’ll tell you.  Just don’t tell my father-in-law.  =D

And a bonus happiness today was that I got to buy lunch for a random guy who had only eaten a couple crackers all day.  Happiness is meant to be shared, I think.