Saturday, October 31, 2009

Happy Halloween!

Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Love the outdoors!


Saturday was filled with FUN outdoors activities!
We hiked around Bull Creek Trail (near Peter's old apartment) for a little. The trail head was at a dog park area. All the dogs were running around fetching balls, swimming, playing with each other. This was such a tease. I really want a dog right now, but the more I want it, the more I realize we can't have one =(.




After our hike through BullCreek Trail, we ate lunch and Peter went with his friends Paint balling, which I, for obvious reasons, can't partake in.
Instead I went to Town Lake downtown to paint.

A couple people stopped to see what we were doing. One woman even asked me for my number to contact me about a painting...we'll see if she calls.

That day we found out that a couple that works with Peter also live at our complex!
It was really exciting!!!

_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_
Sunday we got off to a late start but we did some window shopping at Babies R Us. I think we decided on a couple things but haven't made any purchases yet. We want to be SUPER SURE!

Then we ate lunch at Peter's favorite burger place and headed to Lake Travis were some of his friends were windsurfing. There we saw a beautiful purple and orange sunset.





Friday, October 23, 2009

DOCTOR VISIT at Week 29!

I went to see the Dr. Eng again this morning. I weigh 149lbs, that is 4 pounds more than I weighed 2 weeks ago! My stomach measures 30cm. Dr. Eng also checked the babies heartbeat (130) and said that he was doing great.
I got the results back from a glucose test that I got done 2 weeks ago. It came back negative for pregnancy diabetes. So with my weight, heart rate, size of belly, and test results back, all we had left to do was ask her some questions.

She told us that in about 1 month, we would do another sonogram to see in what direction the baby was in. If he isn't head down, then at that time we will try different things to try to get him to get in the right position. She said that by then, however, most babies position themselves correctly. Now all that is left to do is wait til November 5th for our next visit...hopefully in these next two weeks I can get rid of this nagging cold!

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Hoy fui a ver a la doctora otra vez. Peso 149 lbs. ¡En estas últimas 2 semanas aumente 4 libras! El estomago mide 30cm. La doctora le escuchó el latido del corazón al bebe y esta en 130, normal. La vez pasada que fui a ver a la doctora, me hicieron un examen de diabetes, me salió negativo. ¡Así que todo sigue bien!

Le pregunte que cuando sabíamos si el bebe estaba en la posición correcta para salir. Ella me dijo que como en un mes me iban a hacer otro sonograma para ver en que dirección estaba el bebe. Si está mal acomodado para ese entonces, entonces nos enfocamos en tratar de ayudarlo a acomodarse bien antes del parto. Ella me dijo que la mayoría de los bebes se acomodan bien solitos. ¡Ahora solo queda esperar hasta el 5 de Noviembre para volver y esperar que se me quite esta gripa!



Thursday, October 22, 2009

Austin weather is schizophrenic! Yesterday it was humid and raining. Today it is BEAUTIFUL: cool, clear blue skies, with a lovely breeze!
Can't ask for a more beautiful fall day!
I made (Leilani's recipete) Baked Ziti for Ashish, Peter, and myself. Since it was a beautiful day, we ate it outside by the pool.

After dinner we drove to Pflugerville to Tinseltown Theater where we saw Lance Armstrong's movie: The Race Across the Sky.
http://www.ncm.com/Fathom/Sports/RaceAcrossTheSky.aspx
It was an intense 100 mile mountain bike race across some rugged terrain in Colorado's little town of Leadville.

After the movie we caught the tail-end of Happy hour at the Domain with Eli (a colombian who works at NI), his friend, Ashish, and us two. I ordered a virgin cosmopolitan =)...basically cranberry juice in a martini glass. The waitress even put a lime on it to make me feel cool...haha.

Monday, October 19, 2009


Feliz Cumpleaños Abuelo Pedro!
From us three here in Austin

Sunday, October 18, 2009

It's beginning to feel a lot like Christmas!

LOVE THE AUSTIN WEATHER!

This morning was nice and crisp for a stroll in the park. Ashish, Peter and I went to Town lake where I walked 3 miles while Peter and Ashish ran 9.6 miles.



I got to be accompanied by CHINA. A retriever mix from the Austin Pet's Alive organization that tries to find homes for homeless dogs in Austin. They bring them out to Town Lake on the the weekend so that they can be walked by people (like me) and maybe get adopted.

I would love to get a dog right now...but we know that it's not the smartest idea. For now, I have to settle for my adopted weekend friends.After Town Lake we went to Ashish and Travis' House for breakfast and some Sunday Fun-day activities. I cut Ashish's hair and then we played Polish Horse Shoes...as being demonstrated by Peter and Travis. I was just keeping score for a little. Once I started playing, I had to go fetch the frisbee myself TWICE in the neighbors house!

We came home exhausted and napped until it was time for dinner!! SO YUMMY!

SIDE NOTE 1:

This is our finished dining room/office area with Peter hard at work. We each have our own computer, with lamp and cork board. The dry erase board contains things that we need to do SOON.

Side Note 2:
A little walk through memory lane...
This was me in January of this year;
Right after the ING 1/2 Marathon
This is me now, October 2009,
after a 30 minute walk =)

Thursday, October 15, 2009

BABY NAMES???

If you have any suggestions for baby names, PLEASE POST THEM HERE!

Tuesday, October 13, 2009

Our weekend...

This past weekend was filled with fun, exercise, building, and kicking!

The weekend started with a MOVIE DATE to watch COUPLES RETREAT. http://www.couplesretreatmovie.com/#/film
The movie was very funny in a real/scary sort of way.
Earlier that morning, we went to see Dr. ENG again. She did a glucose test on me and measured my stomach...27cm. I now weigh 145.2 lbs. She checked the heart beat, and said that everything looked great. Now my appointments are going to be every 2 weeks!!
Saturday morning we went to TOWN LAKE where I met my first pregnant runner friend. I met her through a friend of a friend. She is 24/25 weeks pregnant but barely showing. She had invited me to go run with her but I just couldn't. I tried for a couple minutes but then got cramps....I couldn't hang and had to WALK!

In college, when I crashed my scooter freshman year, I was more focused than ever during my recovering to get back into the best shape of my life. I didn't want people to say that I was a good runner...UNTIL the accident. My best cross-country and track seasons came soon after being cleared to run again. I broke into top 3 on the cross-country team and I broke 5 minutes in the mile. Now, once again, I am storing this "WANT" to run so that once I can run, I will USE it to get back into great shape. I don't want people to say, USED to be a good runner.

It was emotionally really hard to have to accept that I COULDN'T RUN! But it was nice to have someone to talk to about pregnant things....while exercising. We also talked about how much we were looking forward to running with our strollers and PASSING people in races...hehehe
I ended up walking ~3 miles

Cool thing too is that her and her husband (who works at NI with Peter) also started Bradley classes last week! After the walk, we met up with Peter, Ashish and her husband who were all running and went to BREAKFAST....yummy yummy breakfast tacos!

After town lake, I only had energy to NAP! When we got up, we went to IKEA to pick out the dinning/office area furniture! We went through a million and 1 ideas, and finally came out with our furniture.

For the UF/LSU game, we went to Ashish and Travis's house. Fortunately, the gators won! I was a little nervous since TIM got hurt a couple weeks ago, but everything is was fine...=)

Sunday we built our customized IKEA furniture and went to meet the new group of people that started working at NI this week. The dining/office area is still not finished, but at least it is in place. I can't wait till it's ready so we can start clearing out the baby's room and leave it ONLY WITH BABY STUFF!!!

Thursday, October 8, 2009

Bradley Classes have Begun!

Yesterday was our 1st Bradley Class.

All day I was running around with classes and errands so I got home just as Peter was getting home from work and we ran to put our "class stuff" together and shot out the door....late, as usual.

After a few wrong turns, we made it to a really nice Chiropractor center that had a sign on the door "Bradley Method students: USE SIDE DOOR". So we went around. The side door opened up to the room with 12 eyes that turned to stare at who was late, just kidding, no one stared, they welcomed us in.

We had missed the other couples' introductions, due dates, and location of giving birth. We told everyone our info and continued with the class. Later I found out that 2 other women in the group were due the same week as me, one other one was due 2 weeks after, and the last was due in early February. This is one of the first times that I didn't want to be in the lead pack....but nature has it that I'm in a close second place. We will see come January who wins.
Ohh: FUN FACT is that everyone in the class in having a BOY!

A little about the class itself...

It was mainly conversation where we talked about the Bradley method, the C-section rate in Austin (40%), Dr. Bradley, Lamaze, common myths about birthing, the importance of nutrition, and other such things. I realized that the little brown spots (freckling look-a-likes) on my nose and cheeks could be due to a protein deficiency. My assignment for next week is to fill out a report of everything I eat for a week (meals and snacks) and try to count how much protein I consume. I should be somewhere in the area of 75 grams per week!

Then there was a section on relaxation, and in the last section, we saw a little movie of a natural childbirth (Mexican woman at home in a tub). Most of the class found that it was peaceful and painless...yet I started to get really nervous about giving birth in general. It seems like it really hurts for a COUPLE HOURS. The instructor kept making remarks that it was a lot like running a Marathon. I've never run one! I've only run a 1/2 marathon...which didn't feel that bad, and I was in and out of there in 1 hour and 30minutes. Lets say the full takes a little longer than double of that, 3 hours and 30minutes...that is a lot of time to endure pain. One of the girls that was there said that her friend was in labor for 41 hours!!!!!
Anyway, enough of those thoughts.

The baby was moving in there the entire class. He would not sit still. I would catch myself looking down at my shirt and just staring at the movements across my stomach.

Overall it was a great experience and we learned a lot. Peter liked it too. Dr. Bradley (the guy how started this program) was a big supporter of having the dads feel-Part of the process and delivery.

We have lots of homework: things to read, things to do, and things to find out!!!

check it out: http://www.bradleybirth.com/WhyBradley.aspx

Sunday, October 4, 2009

Fwd: Sonograma- Septiembre 30

Here are Sonogram Pictures from the last visit, September 30th.

The baby now weighs 1 lb 12 ounces.

Here is a video of the heartbeat.

How i've felt being pregnant...

This week, week 26 of the pregnancy, has been a one with lots of commotion and action. I'm not exactly sure what is going on in there right now, but what I do know is that I feel the baby's every move. Peter, myself, and some of his friends here have been able to see the action live.

My stomach moved up and down, side to side, and in random ways too. Right now, as if he knows I’m writing about him, he is moving all around. I can see the area right on top of my bellybutton going down and moving to (my) left.

I've been trying really hard in the last couple weeks to describe how if feels to be pregnant, since it is a common question. I find that only people who have had kids understand but since I'm surrounded mostly by people that have never had kids, the question comes up more commonly. Whats funny is that Peter's guy friend's too have asked me to describe it.
I don't think I’ve been able to come up with a great description but this is what I have so far:
At the beginning, I didn't think I felt much of anything (I didn't even know I was pregnant). In retrospect, I do remember feeling like I needed to go to the bathroom a lot but finding myself unable to. I thought it was due to the unwelcoming environment all the latrines that I visited in Panama. I had the opposite of what most people say they experience. Little were my cravings in the first couple months. I felt FULL most of the time. When I did “crave” or think about food, I was just wishing I could eat normal food that we have here in the US. One thing I do remember is getting lots of M&Ms in the first couple weeks and then not evening wanting to look at them a couple weeks later.

After finding out, I started to feel subtle movements in my stomach that I didn't know if to attribute to the baby or to just thinking that that is was the baby since I had just found out.
Shortly after the movements became more clear. Most of them however, other people couldn't feel when they placed their hand on my stomach because they would just miss it.

Now, however the movements are so strong that you can see them through my shirt. I have never felt anything that feels like this before. It reminds me a lot of when I would take my dog in Panama, Princess, into town. I would usually carry her in a purse/bag of some sort so that she wouldn’t bother people on the bus. She would move around, stretch, and reposition herself the entire hour and some ride into town. Through the side of the bag, you could see all those movements. The baby inside me is doing the same thing now… I get nervous sometimes because of all the movements. I don’t really know what’s normal and what’s not. Most articles I read say that strong movements and active babies are a sign of a healthy baby.

Another aspect of being pregnant is the “gaining weight” part. When I arrived in Panama, I weighed 127. At 18 weeks of pregnancy I weighed 132. At 25 weeks of pregnancy I weighed 142. The extra weight I’ve been gaining has started to take a toll on me. I feel some back aches and my feet to get really heavy and tired often. There have been a couple days where I feel my quads tingling. Understandably so, I’m carrying weight they have never dealt with before and in such short amount of time, that they haven’t had time to catch up or adjust.

This rapid gain in weight makes it a little difficult to have cravings. Let me explain. I’m exercising and eating healthy for both my health and the baby’s and to top it off, I’m feeling heavier and heavier. Though I remind myself that it is the baby growing inside, the amniotic fluid, and hopefully the breast milk, it is still difficult to indulge in cakes, cupcakes, cookies, candy and such. Not to mention that I can barley finish meals like I used to be able to. After dinner, there is barely any room for water to wash it down, let alone space for dessert. Most people say to TAKE ADVANTAGE of this time that I’m ALLOWED to be Fat…but I don’t see it that way. In the end, I’m only making it more difficult for myself after the baby is born, and for what…for a pie?Now don’t get me wrong, I do like snacking on things and the Ice Cream with crushed Oreos that I had the other night was simply OUT OF THIS WORLD.

What I am trying to explain is that I think that cravings might be a mental thing more than anything. I think it’s the body craving a “feel good” sensation since it is having trouble feeling good in clothing that USED to fit, during workouts that USED to be easy, normal daily activities that USED to be simple. The emotional toll of cooping with all the changes (whether you are prepared for this journey or it caught you by surprise) can make any woman seem like a nut case. I remember in Panama I would find myself crying one second and laughing the very next. I would think to myself, I’m acting crazy with these instantaneous mood swings… “I’m acting like a pregnant woman”. The other day, I found myself at the cafeteria of National Instruments (where Peter works) in TEARS because Peter commented about me wanting a 2nd breakfast, when I went to get a Bagel. He then said he was kidding and asked me if I wanted, I should go get it. I was hungry AGAIN, even though I had eaten breakfast 2 hours ago at the apartment. I know he was doing it to help me, so that I don’t get upset later that I gained too much extra weight, but still…I was HUNGRY. In that cafeteria, I was mad, then sad, and then confused….all in a matter of 15 minutes.

In summary, though I feel as if I have been pretty fortunate to say that the sign and symptoms of pregnancy that aggravate and haunt most women’s pregnancies have been pretty light, I still feel them to some degree. I will keep trying to work on finding the words to describe “How it feels to be pregnant”. In the meantime, I hope this has given you a little better idea of How I’ve felt being pregnant...

Friday, October 2, 2009

BABY SHOWER RECAP

From Mini Miami Vacation and Baby Shower

We want to Thank all of you who came to the baby shower and those who were there in SPIRIT! I had a great time seeing all of you. Some of you I hadn't seen since I left to Panama a couple months ago.
We played a couple fun games:
  • Guess the amount of Mints in the Baby Bottle
  • Guess what POOP is in each diaper
  • Baby Bottle Chugging contest
  • Baby Word Search/ Crossword
  • Compota Feeding competition
Along with the games there were onsies, bibs, and washcloths for personalizing and decorating. The artist in everyone came out!

From Mini Miami Vacation and Baby Shower

From Mini Miami Vacation and Baby Shower

From Mini Miami Vacation and Baby Shower

From Mini Miami Vacation and Baby Shower

From Mini Miami Vacation and Baby Shower

From Mini Miami Vacation and Baby Shower

From Mini Miami Vacation and Baby Shower

From Mini Miami Vacation and Baby Shower

From Mini Miami Vacation and Baby Shower


The abuelos all did a great job with the catering. Publix cubanitos, wraps, turkey platters, cheese platters, fresh fruits and veggies, pastelitos, hummus, and crackers filled the tables. Unfortunately, I was only able to get my hands on a SINGLE wrap!
From Mini Miami Vacation and Baby Shower

All the Planning, decorations, and desserts were done by the most excited TIA-TO-BE. Blue, green and brown, little trains, balloons, and signs of It's A BOY filled the Grand Room in Doral Isles.
From Mini Miami Vacation and Baby Shower

With a beautiful view of the lake and surrounded by friends and family who were so excited for the arrival of this new little champ, I was the happiest Mom-to-BE!

From Mini Miami Vacation and Baby Shower


Thank you all again for making this special time...that much more meaningful!

Quotes to Live by:

A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort.

Be kinder than necessary, everyone you meet is fighting some kind of battle.

When you help someone up a hill, you get that much closer to the top yourself.