The difference 30 yrs in technology can make...

The first two pictures are ME at 27 weeks in my mom's belly!! (around Sept. 1979)

The next three ultrasound pictures are our baby Veronica at 28 weeks, Feb 20, 2010... we did the 3D Ultrasound at Sono Image in Coquitlam http://www.3dsonoimage.com/services.php
We will definitely be doing the 3D imaging again... what a difference, and well worth the $200 for 2 sessions!!

"AND THE GOLD MEDAL GOES TO...."

(... do they even announce the Olympic Gold Medal winners like they do at the Oscars? After almost 16 full days of watching the 2010 Winter Games, and 10 Canadian Gold medals, you'd think I would have noticed.) ;p


Every parent thinks that their child is destined for great things, so it will come as no big surprise when I say-- I SWEAR this little girl inside my belly is going to be an Olympic champion. "How can I tell", you ask? Well, from morning 'til night, she's punching and kicking, doing stomach crunches, leg raises, bicep curls...with all the moving around she's doing, she's bound to be one fit little baby!!

According to my Pregnancy Calendar, after 28 weeks I'm supposed to check in with my belly every morning and evening and count 'baby movements'. If I don't feel about 10 movements in an hour, I'm supposed to drink juice or eat a sugary snack and try again... If THAT fails, then I'm to contact my practitioner to get a checkup and make sure everything is alright. (Yet another way these books and doctors try to freak out expectant mothers...)

However, what they DON'T give advice on, is how to function when you're being karate-chopped from the inside 24/7! "10 movements in an hour" Pregnancy Calendar?? How about 10 movements every 10 seconds! Especially at bedtime.


They say that the average woman starts feeling baby move between 18-22 weeks. If you've had a baby before, or you're really skinny, you'll feel movement around 18 weeks... well at 21 1/2 weeks when i STILL hadn't felt anything, I was getting a little anxious. "Umm.. how do you know if your baby's still alive?" I would ask my husband. And his face would go pale.

Then one day at work when I was around 22 weeks I felt it. Was it just paranoia setting in? Or maybe just gas bubbles after lunch? Nope. Within a few hours I felt it again, and then again later that night after dinner. Like little fingers rapping along the inside of my belly. I consulted my Urban Encyclopedia (aka 'Facebook') and all sources were agreed--- that was baby moving. Whew! Thanks Facebook doctors. She was alive and well, and I fell into that 18-22 week statistic. (Sometimes it's really OK just to be average.)

And now at 29 weeks, I realize it's been an Olympic party in there ever since! Maybe it's because now I know what it feels like so I am more aware? Maybe baby's getting bigger and stronger and simply moving around more in there? Maybe it's a combination of both, but either way, it's comforting to know that whenever I feel any movement -- it's good movement... even if that means she punches my bladder at 4am and makes me pee 7 times a night.


So, like I said... if there's going to be a future Olympic Gold Medal winner, it's my little girl. After all, she'll be born in 2010, so that has to bless her with all things athletic. :)

(By the way... is being a "Ninja" an Olympic Sport yet? If not, it should be... hmmm... maybe little Veronica here will put it on the map.)

Happy birthday to my mom... in loving memory..

Well,

My kids will never know the beautiful soul that was my mother, but that doesn't mean that they shouldn't share in our memories of her... this is a slideshow I made for my mom's funeral. miss you mom.

THIS IS HALF YOUR FAULT!

I have joked since Day One of discovering I was pregnant that I was going to write a book called “This is Half Your Fault!” focusing on the ‘joys’ of marriage and relationships during the 10 loooong months of pregnancy… but the likelihood of that actually happening is pretty low for 2 solid reasons:

a) I don’t think I have the attention span to actually write a book;

and

b) Other than a catchy title, I don’t think I have much material to fill the pages!

Now, I don't know how most of you ladies feel out there, but I really have to hand it to my husband. Apart from some bumpy transitional times during the first trimester where we just wished we could go back to the way things were, Brad has really jumped onboard and has been amazing throughout this crazy new stage in our lives. He's been supportive & understanding of my various mood swings -- he caters to my random food cravings, (like running to 7-11 at 10pm if I decide that I REALLY need some fuzzy peaches or Rolo ice cream), and most of all he's managed to cope with my lack of 'libido'....

(Wow girls.. Ready to get pregnant now or what?!) ;p

The Backstory…

Even before we were married or ready to have kids, Brad and I talked about what would happen if we ever got pregnant: Would we keep it? Yes. No brainer. How would we afford it? Well, we just would... "Let's try our best to wait until we're in our 30's.." That was our only goal. (And we succeeded at that!)

We talked about what we thought the most challenging parts of pregnancy were going to be… (and if you’ve read any of my previous posts, you can probably guess that I wasn’t thinking about the miracle-of-life that is conception)… no… I was focusing on all the drugs I’d need because I’m terrified about the pain I will feel during labor… and I was wondering how the hell I was going to get through 9-10 months of pregnancy with no wine!!

We had long talks about parenthood. What does it mean to be a 'parent'. We talked about my upbringing, his upbringing, our morals, our views on disciplining... We were relieved to discover that neither of us have a desire to introduce religion to our kids at birth, ( even though I was raised Catholic, my parents gave my brother and I the choice to continue practicing at age 13 and we both chose not to.) Our kids, too, will be free to make decisions about religion if and when they're ready.

We were confident that we'd both be accepting of any life choices that our kids made (and were pretty sure up until our ultrasound that our first child was going to be an awesomely gay son-- ah well, we may luck out with #2!) We're STILL convinced that our kids will probably be accountants or scientists or something else that we artists can't relate to. But all we can do is teach our children about love and give them the best tools possible for them to survive... (and then we'll do what our parents did... keep our fingers crossed that what we were able to give them was enough!)

We will expose our children to the world. Focus on the things that are truly important. Passion. Education. Culture. Wisdom. We'll teach them about food and nutrition, and introduce them to various activities and hobbies and styles of music and arts and sports and people. We'll start them young going to see live theatre and eating out in restaurants. They'll grow up on sushi and pad thai and spicy Indian curry and hopefully by growing up in multi-cultural Vancouver (even though they'll be raised by two whiter-than-white parents) they'll never even need to know about being color blind.

(By the way, on a total side note, have you ever googled the definition of "Parent"? One pretty traditionally says: "PARENT: One who begets, gives birth to, or nurtures and raises a child; a father or mother." But another one says: "PARENT: An organism that produces or generates offspring."

An 'organism' huh? Wow. I feel so... ordinary.

What happened… (The Pregnancy Part)

So, we agreed early on in our relationship that if the whole pregnancy thing ever happened that Brad would give up booze too. (Fair is fair, right?) A ten month detox. Besides… a girl can’t get preggers on her own, it takes 2 to tango…

As I've said in other posts, I found out that I was pregnant in September 2009... right after Brad & I had our last financially irresponsible summer of being DINK’s… (Dual Income, No Kids)… lounging on patios with our two puppies and amazing friends, racking up hundreds of dollars in bar tabs...

And then, WHAM. Bye-bye summer of freedom, it's detox time. Easier said and done for me than for Brad, that's for sure... I was feeling so crappy that even the smell of wine was enough to make my tummy turn. But he was a trooper. There were moments for sure during the first trimester where I was so intolerably grumpy that he probably wished he could drown himself in a case of beer... I remember one particularly irritable day I told him to either start drinking again or go back to work shooting movies on the island, because we were actually happier that way.

Ahh love. ;p

So I've covered our views on parenting and mood swings and food cravings and what happens when two people lack a 'vice'.... so now, for a brief moment I will talk about my "libido" (or the lack-thereof). **Sorry to my future children who may be reading this... You may want to skip this paragraph!** I have done much research in this area, and it simply seems that it's absolutely inconclusive. It's just different for every woman. Some women experience an increase in sexual interest and activity during their second and third trimesters, and some women don't. The only consistent thing seems to be that if you're feeling sick and tired during the first trimester, you likely will not be in the mood for intimacy. No kidding. You mean, puking isn't a turn on for most people?! But it seems that MY 'mood' just hasn't picked back up again yet... but I suppose there's still time!

OK. That's all I'll get into about that. I don't want to embarrass anybody.

All in all, my reason behind this whole blog was to give kudos to my hubby. He's really been picking up the falling pieces during this whole pregnancy thing.

So Bradley… it's true. This IS half your fault! And thanks, sweetie, for taking on your 50%.

xox

(P.S: I'll have to keep you all posted on the "What Happened... The Birth Part" and "What Happened... The Breast Feeding Part". We'll see if I still feel this way after giving birth to a watermelon and having a creature tug at my once-upon-a-time-sexy-female assets!! ;p)