An Update on Pregnancy :) The Last Two Weeks..

 I'm usually really bad about writing in our blog unless something drastic happens. I just use facebook or instagram as our daily diary of things that happen during the pregnancy and in our life etc.. Daniel and I go back and look at my albums on facebook all the time because that really is how we keep track of documenting our memories nowadays. Who has time for scrapbooking anymore? lol Since facebook/ instagram are usually strictly picture oriented posts for us, it is nice to occasionally write a diary in the Tiny and Tiger blog. We are literally about to have our baby so I figured it was time for an entry! :)

A couple photos from Kaitlyn Taylor's Baby Shower.

Picture of our new kitchen and baby shower decor underway

 I am now officially "term". Which means I am 38 weeks in my pregnancy and could pop any minute!! It is 2 weeks until my due date and I literally have only a week left of work before my maternity leave starts!! This is both exciting and nerve-wracking. I am officially becoming a mom!! >< We are going to the doctor every week now vs. every two weeks. My doctor also checks my cervix every week to make sure I'm not dialated. As D day draws near we are getting more and more excited (and in my case nervous/ anxious, can you tell). We had a sono last Tuesday and found out Kaitlyn is a very healthy 7 pounds 1 ounce. When they first told me I kind of freaked out because I thought that babies gained a pound a week. I was thinking, holy crap! That means she'll be 9 and half pounds when I'm at 40 weeks! @.@ I was wrong, thank god, they only gain about a half a pound a week. Still, she's going to be a very good size if she comes when I'm closing in on 40 weeks. I have my fingers crossed that she will come a little earlier though.. either that or stop growing so much haha. Please help mama and go easy on her private areas, baby. -.-"

Second trimester for the most part was very smooth for us. No bleeding problems like the first trimester and I felt great. Even halfway through my third trimester I was feeling good. We redid our kitchen, finished the nursery, took our maternity pictures, completed all of our classes, and had our baby shower! I felt like super woman. It's been such a journey and I love everything that comes with the territory. We got a lot done and I'd say both Daniel and I feel fairly confident with everything (I'm sure that will be reevaluated once I'm screaming in the labor and delivery room). I was starting to think that I was just going to get lucky and skip out on the 3rd trimester woes altogether because I felt great halfway through my third trimester. I'd heard that the last couple months of pregnancy is really when you get the most uncomfortable. Luckily for me, it didn't start until about 2-3 weeks ago. I started mutating. Literally. Immense swelling in my hands and feet. ITCHING. And what the heezies, carpal tunnel?? I've always had a big belly since the beginning of my pregnancy and for the most part Kaitlyn has measured a week ahead each week so the growth didn't bother me as much. The swelling, however, does make you feel like a balloon. It is never consistent either. It just picks and chooses its days. Some days I look completely normal, and then other days I'll wake up looking like jiggly puff.  I have not yet acquired the ability to float yet. Thankfully, it's mostly in the hands and feet. Kaitlyn's movements were also starting to make me want to go pee 20 times a day. I think she thinks my bladder is a trampoline. I wish I was exaggerating. I love that she's so active but sleeping is interrupted by at least 5 visits to the restroom - I'm hoping this actually prepares me a little for the nighttime breastfeeding sessions in the coming months. Trying to find the silver lining here..

HOWEVER, it is still worth it in the end, because we have our eye on the prize. Which in this case, is our baby Kaitlyn Taylor. We really can't wait to meet her. We talk about her every day and who we think she will be like the most. Preparing for her birth really has been quite exhilarating. We've learned and researched a lot. Daniel and I have become big advocates of cord blood and cord tissue which we will be banking for Kaitlyn when she's born. Stem cell research is just developing beyond belief and I'm sure in another 20 years there will be a lot more we can do with something like this than even now. Our doctor actually had a child who ended up having cancer and she told us, "you really don't think its going to happen to you, until it happens to you". Better safe than sorry I suppose. Plus, you're only paying around $200 a year after the initial fee which is really a drop in the bucket for your child's safety and health. Something else that helped us make this decision is that all of Kaitlyn's siblings and our family members would also be able to use her cord blood/ tissue in case something happened.. since the DNA is the same. Very cool. So we thought, heck yea, that is very worth it indeed.

Kaitlyn Taylor's nursery upstairs <3

We are also big advocates of natural birth. We have been from the start but have been unsure how to go about it since there are so many mixed reviews on it nowadays. I just recently hired a Doula to help coach us through the whole birthing process. Okay, don't get me wrong, I'm not so natural that I'd be comfortable delivering my baby out in some field with nothing but a midwife and some towels, but so many studies show that medicated births are actually higher risk for both mom and baby.. Of course, if its a medical emergency, or your baby is breech, there is nothing you can really do. But I'm going to try to go as natural as I can for as long as I can. Hey, if my mom did it for me, I can do it for Kaitlyn, right? My biggest fear is induction, epidural, and c-section. I don't want any of those things if possible because they tend to be harder to recover from and can slow down the labor process. It also makes breastfeeding harder which I intend to do for at least 6 months to a year. We are praying for a smooth delivery of course but I know that it's never a perfect world, so I'll just have to leave it in God's hands once Kaitlyn says ready, set, go!! The Doula is mostly for Daniel anyways. To fan him in case he passes out. haha.. jk.

my early push gift from Daniel! :)

Of course now that it's getting closer to my due date, all of my nesting tendencies are coming out as well. This means I rip open all of the linens and things that were gifted to us and start washing everything. Even after the baby shower, I ended up buying so much stuff for Kaitlyn! It is really never ending when it comes to baby products. I am obsessed with organic and natural products. I'm sure once the baby is a little older, it won't be as prevalent but since a newborn is so much more sensitive and susceptible to bacteria and things, we like to keep everything as natural and organic as possible. We've been adding things to her nursery as well! I ordered a toy chest, korean playmat rug for her to lay on, new drawer furniture to match her crib and changing table, curtains, and more decor to add to her room. Everything was coming together! And as if on cue, as soon as we finished decorating her nursery upstairs, I decided that Kaitlyn really should be sleeping on her crib mattress and not the bassinet/ pack n play type thing we got her for the first 6 months. A lot of people do bassinet and pack n play playpens because of the convenience when first breastfeeding but it really is not as sturdy as a crib or crib mattress. I'm sure we will still use the playpen when we want her in different rooms or when she goes to Grandma's house, but I kept thinking, what was the point of having an awesome nursery on display upstairs for 6 months if she couldn't even use it? The more I looked at her crib mattress and all of her organic sheets and linens we got her.. the more it became clear to me that she should be sleeping on that from the get-go. At the end of the day, it really is better for her spinal development to sleep in the crib/ firm mattress we got her vs. a plastic playpen. Plus, she would have the pretty mobile (which usually are not attachable to pack n plays) to look at and listen to earlier on. It made total sense in my mind and a lot of people were advising us to do so as well. Soooo now it was just a matter of how do I get the mattress to be close to my bedside for breastfeeding... of course lucky Tiger got to drag her crib and her other furniture downstairs to reassemble in our room lol. We didn't bring EVERYTHING down lol.. but the essentials were all brought down so she could use them as soon as she came home with us. My brother came over to help Daniel move the changing table down so it wasn't too bad. The only thing he had to reassemble was the crib which he managed to take apart in only 2 parts so that the assembling was easier. We plan on moving her back into her nursery upstairs around 6-8 months. I think I was more exasperated with myself than Tiger was but he did not utter a single word of complaint, my darling husband.. 

Kaitlyn's bedding from Pottery Barn Kids

Getting all of our products ready has been more fun than anything. I love shopping for clothes and now I can shop for little people's clothes!! Like I said before though, there is really no end when it comes to baby products, toys, and clothes. Some of my favorite items that were gifted to us and/or we bought ourselves was our stroller: the Bugaboo Cameleon3, a Korean play mat for babies that one of our friends recommended to us, cute dresses we received for when she's older, and the tons of toys we received from my students. We received a lot of linens and clothes too from Taiwan and Korea which I love! I maxed out on onesies which pretty much meant that I was moving on to 12-18 month year old clothes. My mom said they grow out of clothes fast so to get bigger one year old clothes vs. the infant ones now. Gymboree was also having a sale just this last weekend so I did some damage while I was there as well. Everything in store was under $14!! I got most of her outfits for under $10!

Kaitlyn's sweet ride. Love the sleek design and smooth ride of our Bugaboo Cameleon 3 stroller.

some dresses and jumpers for our baby <3

Korean play mat. Korea makes the best baby products! I'm not being biased! We got her the Tiger one for obvious reasons :)

Got her so many little dresses but just had to post these two-pieces I got her because they're just too adorbs.

  We also finally hired our postpartum nurse!! HALLELUJAH!! Praise Jesus. We had found a great one before but she cancelled on us a couple weeks ago because of scheduling issues she had with other clients. I was so sad and lost at that point. I mean, yes, my mom is here and she'll help us but ever since my Dad had surgery for thyroid cancer, she has had her hands very full taking care of him. (My dad is fine, btw. They were able to catch the cancer on time, thank goodness.) The new postpartum nurse is someone my mom found for me. She is also Korean and is actually, in my opinion, the best one we've interviewed so far. She is very "mom-like", caring, and she seems to know everything about postpartum! I feel so much better about the situation now that I know Daniel and I will be taken care of by someone who has a lot of experience. I'm sure we will be exhausted the first couple of weeks while we are taking care of Kaitlyn so it's good to know we will have extra professional support outside of our family. Korean postpartum nurses do things quite a bit differently than Americans do things after pregnancy. They believe asians in general are built a little differently so they stress how important it is for the mom to recoup and take care of herself the month after the delivery. Apparently, they have facilities in Korea that you can go to for a month after giving birth and they make sure mom and baby is fully recovered before they leave.. there are postpartum nurses galore in those facilities and they take awesome care of you. I heard they have versions of this in LA and in Houston too but not in Dallas. We are blessed to have been able to hire someone with that sort of knowledge and experience. However, the most important thing is comfort level. If you're bringing someone into your home for a long stint of time, you want to make sure they are someone you are comfortable with and willing to trust with your family. Especially if you're paying an arm and a leg for them lol. Luckily, I feel super comfortable with our postpartum nurse and have already started calling her "auntie" in Korean. Still, it is reassuring to know that my mom will be here to keep a hawk eye on things even while she is here. I can tell she's going to take really good care of us though just based on the things she's told us. There's a lot of crazy examples of what they do/ make you eat, but I won't get into all of that. Essentially, they cook for you/ hubby, clean for you, take care of the mom, and helps take care of the baby as well. Sign me up.

  Through it all, the biggest thing I've realized is that having a partner in crime who really supports you, understands you, and shares your thoughts can really help you get through a lot of the tough obstacles during pregnancy. When your body is changing so much, it can be quite overwhelming. Yes, there is life inside you and it is a magical thing to experience.. But there is also a lot of swelling, discomfort, itching, stretching, hormones, carpal tunnel, etc. and don't even get me started on bladder control. Daniel has been the most supportive and understanding husband throughout this entire pregnancy. He doesn't make fun of me when I cry watching KPOP Star3. (It's really quite sad when they get cancelled off). He doesn't judge me when I turn into the Hulk because I couldn't tie my shoelaces right. He's encouraged me, reassured me, massaged me to sleep every night, made me feel like the most beautiful woman in the world, and most importantly he's made me feel safe and calm about every situation. If anything, this experience has made me realize even more how much this man loves me and how much I love him. He's going to be a wonderful father and I'm so blessed to have such a strong, patient man by my side. Kaitlyn already loves him so much (she reacts only to his voice and touch). We will always work as a team and I know I can get through anything as long as he's next to me and our little Kaitlyn Taylor Tsai.