i think it's what they call nesting

i've heard and read about it. never really thought that it would happen to me. it seems that i'm obsessed in fixing the house all of a sudden. last week was the front lawn, i had to cut the hedge along the walkway to our front door so it would look nice and straight. after that, it was cutting the agapanthus since their flowers wilted already. yesterday was the patio, i threw out any plants i think were dead (before mama arrives and sees it!) and re-arranged all the bromeliads. i even anchored the bougainvillea to the fence with a straw since it was falling already (with eric's help of course!). and for some strange reason, i can't take seeing any cobwebs (and there seems to be a lot now in the garden because of the weather). i tell you, i haven't seen cobwebs these big before! medyo na-iimmune na nga ako sa spiders since i think i've seen all colors, shapes and sizes already. today, it was the garage. for weeks, i've been bugging eric to fix the garage since it's such an eyesore everytime i come home and seeing the garage shelves so disorganized. since he hasn't done it yet, i thought i'll just do it and rearranged it according to category: car, paint and gardening. i get really tired after doing the fixing-up though. i make sure however that i call eric to lift or push anything that is heavy (he's the one brining the laundry basket to the laundry room now).

i'll probably start washing the barnyard stuff so we can use them already. eric keeps on asking me when we're going to put the curtains and the window valance up. i have to remind him every now and then that we're planning to have the baby sleep in our room in his own cot so it's not really necessary to have the nursery fully decorated. he still wants it nice and ready for his baby boy though.

***

i rushed to the hospital last wednesday during my lunch break for our bi-weekly appointment with the ob. she was so happy to inform me that as per my last blood tests, my platelets are now up to 145,000 (minimum normal is 150,000). i actually missed a call from the hematologist about this. bp also was normal and test confirmed negative protein leak (sign of pre-eclampsia) so she was pretty happy with everything. i told her about experiencing shortness of breath every now and then and she said that it was because i was carrying high and the baby is putting pressure in my diaphragm and lungs which is causing the shortness of breath. i should get relief when the baby drops which signals that i'm about the delivery anytime soon after that. it was funny that when she measured for fundal height, she commented on how i don't have room anymore left!

***

last thursday, the filipinos (or should i say filipinas since it was only us girls) in toshiba threw me a baby shower luncheon. we had lunch at the newly opened ribs and rumps just right across the office. they gave us an avent gift set which consists of an iQ24 electronic steam steriliser, airflex feeding bottles, extra teats, tongs and a bottle and teat brush. it was so nice of them to organize something for us. we couldn't thank them enough! :-)

***

pre-natal class last week was spent watching actual videos of birth in the hospital. i never really fully understood how a woman's body...uhm, transforms to push out a human being out to this world, until we watched the videos. and seriously, even if these women knew that they were being filmed, they didn't try to hide the fact that childbirth is painFUL. but then again as we've been told, our body is designed for childbirth and millions of women have been through it and survived (not to mention go through it AGAIN!).

***

8 months (32 weeks) now!

10 more weeks to go...

we've passed our 30th week!

we started our pre-natal classes two weeks ago, every thursdays from 8pm-10pm until march 6. there are 11 couple in the class and i think we're one of those whose edd are latest amongst the group (due dates range from late march to late april). my tummy is really small compared to our classmates and even when i was in manila, people are commenting how small my tummy is given how far along i am with the pregnancy. am thinking if i should be worried but my ob said everything is fine with the baby and his growth is within the normal range of his gestation.

i woke up one morning around the end of our 29th week and i think i saw three faint stretch marks below my tummy! i've been religously applying cocoa butter cream every morning and bio-oil every night. oh well, it's part of the pregnancy i guess. i even showed it to my officemates and they said it doesn't look like stretch marks (i think they're trying to make me feel better) but marks from my office pants instead. i'm pretty sure they're strech marks.

i think it's safe to say now that my belly button will never pop, it seems to just flatten out. which is good so i don't have this protruding door bell-like belly button showing through my tops.

we got ourselves a box of newborn nappies already and am looking at baby bath stuff as well. we still don't have a bathtub to use but that should be easy to buy. we're also looking for a cot mattress to put in the portacot so the baby boy will be more comfortable when he's sleeping, might as well get a mattress protector as well.

i'm planning to start washing some of the baby boy's stuff by the end of the month and pack both my labor and hospital bag (we were told during our prenatal classes to separate the two) early next month.

we're starting to look into how we're going to celebrate our little boy's baptism. we initially wanted to have it in manila (since most of our family and friends are there) but decided against it since we're planning to visit manila during the holidays again anyway. we have a rough idea already where we could have the ceremony but we still don't have a venue to have the celebration afterwards (we initially wanted it in this garden venue near the place where i work but when eric inquired we have to pay for the venue pa in addition to the food, parang hindi worth it). so now we're thinking restaurant na lang. we'll always have our house as a fallback anyway. i actually bought a really nice raw cream silk baptism romper online already (talk about impulsive buying) but it's way too big (it would best fit a 6 month old i think). so either i get it altered or contact veluz to have a baptismal gown made instead. i was in dj's in the city one weekday when i had a time off and a baptism outift costs between $150-$250, ang mahal! so i think i'm better off getting one from manila.

i've been searching designs of baptismal gown that i like already. i want an heirloom piece that would suit either a boy or a girl, so not too much frills and lace. we'll see...

my parents and brother seem to be gearing up already to be here for the birth. they're looking at arriving between end march or early-mid april. depending really on what my ob says. medyo expecting na din kasi kami that i won't carry full-term since i was born premature. and my mama seems to be adamant that she's here during the birth of her first apo. my sisters couldn't commit naman since all of them have work. at least it's going to be my brother's summer vacation that's why he can go. not sure though how long they can stay. i'm not expecting long since my papa has work and my mama has the farm that she needs to attend to. bahala na, thankful na lang ako that they'll be here. we were planning to have the baptism between the baby boy's 2nd-3rd month para medyo malaki-laki na sya but i think my mama would want to have the baptism while they're still here that's why she's been encouraging us to have the baptism (kahit simple lang daw, no frills para lang ma-bless na) within the month the baby boy is born.

i need to file my maternity leave already before the month ends. eric and i are still undecided whether or not i take an entire year off or not. basta it's non-negotiable for him that i stay at home for at least six months before we send the baby boy off to daycare. if i have the choice, i'd prefer to go back part-time (three times a week) after nine months and then full-time after twelve months. that way, it wouldn't come out as a shock to me transitiong from a full-time stay at home mom to a full-time working mom.

speaking of daycare, not sure where we're up to on that (eric's the one looking after it) but i know that we've filed applications for waitlist already in some daycare centres, but the hunt isn't over yet! and would you believe, we were actually advised that if we're eyeing particular private schools, we have to file for an application as soon as the baby boy is born! that way, we've got better chances of getting a slot when the time comes for us to enroll him.

ano pa ba? eric's been helping me do the laundry already (at least taking down the sinampay) and he started to accompany me to the grocery since it's becoming more difficult for me to push the cart and load the grocery stuff in the car.

work still is crazy by the way. the project was planned just in time for me to finish it before i go on leave. but you know how projects are, more often than not they don't turn out the way they're planned. every now and then i still get overwhelmed. i'm just thankful that we have eric to go home to at the end of a long day.

the youth of the world...

...are coming to sydney in 2008.
http://www.wyd2008.org

5 and 6

...months that is. the pregnancy continues to be easy for me. i even survived the long flight to manila and back to sydney given that we have a stopover in bangkok not to mention all the walking i did because of shopping and the late night-outs with friends. i had an appointment with my ob as soon as we arrived and was shocked how much i gained the past couple of weeks given that i saw her only the week before we left. the good thing though was the next time i saw her, i lost weight which means what i gained really was just holiday weight. my platelets are still being continued to be monitored and as mentioned in my previous post, i had my glucose tolerance test. i'll know by the end of the week the result of the long gtt if i have gestational diabetes (short gtt showed a result that was a little higher than the tolerance level) and i'm really hoping that it turns out negative. i'm seeing my ob every two weeks now and then every week once i hit the 36th week mark.

since we got back, we've been scheduling our weekends now to do some stuff that needs to be done before the much awaited arrival of our baby boy. we're kinda anticipating that i might deliver early given that my mama wasn't able to carry me full-term. we finished painting the nursery (okay, it was really eric who did it :-P) and installing the border (i helped here) but haven't finished decorating yet. we'll probably set everything up around end march.

we were able to acquire more barnyard items to add to our collection (eric still wants to get the rug and lamp).



we also bought another portacot to be set-up outside so we don't have to wheel the one for the bedroom/nursery in and out. we got it for 40% off so we couldn't resist the bargain. although eric still dreaming of getting a boori timber cot.

we bought the car seat already...

and finally paid our baby's bugaboo in full (we have yet to pick it up though). i'm so happy we got it last year when babies galore went on sale since they increased the price a couple of hundred dollars as the start of this year not to mention that the canvas topping is now available in blue (it was a toss between red, orange and blue). we even got the transport bag so we could bring it with us when we go on a trip.

we pretty much have the major stuff that we need. we're still searching though for my rocker and glider.

the baby just moves all the time now unlike before that i can only feel his movements usually during evenings. sometimes when i just stare at my belly i can actually see the movements underneath my skin! i love feeling him move inside me.

i can already feel the additional weight of my belly and at the end of day my legs ache but nothing a couple of pillows can fix when i sleep at night. speaking of sleep, i have to get up every night now to go to the toilet so i feel i don't get enough sleep and having real difficulty in waking up every morning.

i can't believe we only have a little over two months left before we finally get to hold him. it seems just like yesterday that we found out we were expecting!

a very busy friday and the road trip down south

took time off last friday to do some stuff. i thought that instead of arriving late to work or leaving early to do some pregnancy related tests, might as well take the entire day off and do some errands as well. i started the day early going to the hospital for my long glucose tolerance test (the short gtt came out with a result of a couple of points higher than the tolerance level so my ob decided for me to undergo the long gtt to ensure that i don't have gestational diabetes). eric and i were already in the hospital the night before for the baby boy's fetal echocardiogram that the doctor wanted for us to do on our 24th week but we were in manila at that time and last thursday (28th week) was the only schedule we can get from the specialist to do the scan. everything seems to be okay we were told which is good. anyway, after that i went to see my gp since the ob was quite concerned about my high blood pressure eversince i got pregnant. the gp however confirmed that i have always been on the high side anyway but still checked for protein in my urine just to check if i manifest any signs of pre-eclampsia. results turned out negative but it will be checked by my ob every two weeks from now on. i then went to the shops to grab some lunch (i had to fast for the long gtt so i was already starving), had passport photos taken and then go to hcf and medicare for reimbursment of some medical expenses. i took the train to go to the city to go to the philippine embassy to have my passport extended and amended with my married name (finally, after 3 years of being married). since eric's been working with a client in the city the past couple of weeks, we decided to have dinner at the meat & wine co in darling harbour (eric truly enjoyed his prime cut fillet while i feasted on my prawn and beef skewer). we capped off our sumptuous dinner with a very rich cake from the lindt chocolat cafe in cockle bay wharf.

we just came back from an overnight trip to jervis bay (about three hours drive from sydney). with just a couple more week to go before the end of summer and feeling guilty of not planning anything during the australia day long weekend last week, we've made arrangements to go to jervis bay this weekend since aris and jen raved about how great hyams beach is when they went there around the same time last year. it has been raining (and hailing!) in sydney during the week so i wasn't really expecting that we could go to the beach yesterday. to our excitement, the weather was pretty good down there, blue and clear skies and the water was just so inviting! jen wasn't kidding when she said that the sand is really white and fine, reminds me so much of boracay. we stayed at a two-story loft apartment in dolphin shores dolphin shores and had a fantastic, filling dinner of mexican food at 3 gringos. on our way back to gloomy sydney today (it's still raining), we passed by woolloongong and had fish and chips for lunch.

i'm pretty tried now given my activity-filled past couple of days, and it's back to work tomorrow!

*baby and pregnancy updates soon!