Week 31

And the count down continues: 9 weeks left. I can't believe how big I am and that I'm probably just going to get bigger. According to our home scale I've already gained a total of 26 pounds! Here's the weekly belly pic:



We had lunch at the Cheesecake Factory today and I had a glass of fresh orange juice and the French Toast Napoleon which I highly recommend. It was 3 thick slices of french toast topped with fresh strawberries which were also between each of the slices. I couldn't even finish it all and Emma must've loved it, because before I stopped eating she started dancing around in my belly by rolling and kicking so much that you could really see my belly moving around.

We're starting to get our hospital bag packed and ready to go which includes items for both my wife and I. This week or next we'll have the child seat inspected/installed for us.

1/2 Chinese, 1/4 Japanese, 1/8 French, 1/8 German

That is the ethnic diversity of our little Emma. She'll be a mixed bag just like her mommies, but she'll be more Asian (3/4 Asian) since we are both only half. We are so curious as to what she will look like. Will she look half like us or will she look more Asian? I guess that will depend on which genes are dominant.

I'm 1/2 Chinese, 1/4 French, and 1/4 German. My wife is 1/2 Japanese, 1/4 French, 1/8 English, and 1/8 Dutch. The donor is 1/2 Chinese and 1/2 Japanese.

Gong Xi Fai Tsai!

Happy New Year! New year's day was yesterday and we went out for Chinese food last night. It's year of the pig/boar. What's cool is that my wife was born in the year of the pig/boar and it will be the year Emma is born in. Apparently this year is special, because it is year of the golden pig.

Kodo Drummers

We saw the Kodo drummers yesterday afternoon. They were part of the Society for the Performing Arts international series. They were great! I miss playing taiko and wish there was more than one group here in Houston to play with and learn from. I would love it if Emma could learn. She was a little bit active during the drumming and I'm hoping enjoyed it along with us. For Kodo's encore piece my stomach was reverberating to the drums and at first I thought it was my heartbeat or Emma's, but soon realized it was just from the vibration of the drums.

Triple Wonderful!

Our Triple Wonderful was on Saturday. It was my wife's birthday and our 5 year anniversary (we also count Valentine's Day to make it a "triple"). She gave me an awesome gift, so that I can start to play around with amateur photography and we can take some really good pictures of Emma: Fujifilm Finepix S9000 9MP Digital Camera with 10.7x Wide Optical Zoom. She also likes all the presents I gave her.

This year we took it easy for our celebration, because my wife's been sick and we wanted to make sure she got enough rest. This weekend we went out to eat, enjoyed a Taiko concert, and saw a movie.

Week 30

Yesterday we started week 30. The weeks seem to be going by fast and I still have a long to do list that I want to take care of before Emma's born. Everything is still going well. My back gets a little sore on the right side if I'm not sitting up straight. Emma's favors my right side, so sometimes it's a little sore around my right ribs and rubbing helps. I'm sleeping well and only have to roll over to the other side at most a few times a night. Overall I feel really good. My belly just keeps growing:

Go Marlee Matlin!

I've always liked and admired Marlee Matlin as an actress and what a great surprise this L Word season to see her as Jodi a new character on the show. Both she and Cybil Shepherd have definitely helped us enjoy the show this season since we still can't stand Max and Jenny's characters or their story lines. I just wish Marlee didn't get together with Jennifer Beals' character Bette. We think Bette has poor judgement and can't control herself.

According to Wikipedia: Matlin has been close friends with actress Jennifer Beals since they met in an airport in the 1980s. Read an AOL interview with Marlee and Jennifer Beals about “The L Word”.

Happy Valentine's Day!

My wife is the sweetest. She gave me a very lovely Valentine's card this morning and then this afternoon when I returned to my office after an off-site meeting a beautiful bouquet of multi-colored roses were waiting for me. I love her so much.

I also surprised her for Valentine's. This morning I gave her a card and some chocolates and had some irises and tulips delivered to her office. :-)

Ob-Gyn Checkup

We had a standard ob-gyn check up yesterday and everything is on track with our pregnancy. My uterus is measuring 28 cm and Emma's heart beat was 148. We will be seeing two more ob-gyns in the practice before we start seeing our preferred ob-gyn for the remaining visits. We've liked and are comfortable with all of them, so we won't mind who the ob-gyn on call is at the time of delivery.

Week 29

Wow! We started week 29 yesterday. It's hard to believe that in about 11 weeks we're going to have a little bundle of joy. Sometimes it's very exciting and other times incredulous and other times scary. Tomorrow we go for a checkup. Can't wait to her Emma's strong beating heart again.

Darude's Sandstorm

Everyone loves Darude's Sandstorm techno mix.

My friend sent me a link on YouTube to SNL's skit on a caveman dancing to Sandstorm, but the "video is no longer available due to a copyright claim by NBC Universal". So I googled "SNL caveman sandstorm" and found it at www.spikedhumor.com. The glow sticks are a nice touch.

I also searched YouTube for sandstorm and found a video with cool Xena action clips put very nicely to the music. Awesome work!

The instructor in our childbirth class mentioned selecting and playing specific music during the different stages of labor and delivery, so my wife was thinking of making a cd for me and using Sandstorm for the intensive labor pushing part.

Amazing Talents of the Newborn

I googled the video Amazing Talents of the Newborn and found it for sale by Johnson and Johnson Pediatric Institute the organization that produced it.

There is also a book for sale at Amazon called Your Amazing Newborn. This was written by the same individuals who created the video. Here is a brief description of the book:

Only 30 minutes old, and a baby stares at her mother's face, then begins maneuvering downward toward mom's nipple. A few days old, and she can track a ball, and "dialogue" with her limbs. Newborns are extraordinary beings, with innate abilities far beyond what is commonly believed.

Preparing for Childbirth Class

Tuesday night we went to the first night of our 7-week Preparing for Childbirth class. There were 9 other couples there and of course we were the only lesbian couple. The class is two hours long with one hour for breathing and the other hour for instruction.

We saw an amazing video on newborns called Amazing Talents of the Newborn. I couldn't believe that a week old baby is able to mimic facial features. The newborns were actually sticking out their tongues, pursing their lips, opening their mouths, etc. just like the person who was "playing" with them. There were other amazing behaviors we learned in the video.

We learned a lot in that first night and my wife was taking copious notes for us. We're looking forward to the rest of the classes.

Sore Hips

Sunday night was rough. My hips were bothering me and I kept having to roll over from my left to my right side and back again to get comfortable. I almost got up to grab my watch to see how often I was rolling over. It felt like at least every 1/2 hour.

Monday night and last night were much much better. I only woke with hip discomfort around 4 or 5 a.m. and then started my rolling, so I was able to get better sleep.

Week 28

We started week 28 today and I'm still doing pretty good. I'm just feeling a little heartburn with some hiccups after eating a big meal. The only discomfort I'm having is some back pain when I'm sitting in a chair that doesn't give me good back support (those 2+ hour work meetings in uncomfortable conference room chairs are the worst) and some hip and leg discomfort in the middle of the night that's relieved when I roll to the other side. I'm still gaining weight. According to our home scale I've gained a total of 22 lbs. so far. Yikes!

Here's a belly shot from today:


Emma is still moving around some, but not enough for us to catch well on video. She seems a bit camera shy.

We dropped my sister and a friend off at the Galveston pier today for their Caribbean cruise. My wife spearheaded the planning for a workshop cruise for an international research organization she is involved with, but we weren't able to go. The cruise line won't let pregnant women in their 27th week or higher go and my wife didn't want to leave me at home for so long by myself. Isn't she so sweet. She is taking such good care of me.