i went to longs for a few items and stopped over at the top dog that they have tugged away there. i order my usual (polish dog) but as i soon as i hear the words come out of my mouth i want something else. especially when the guy taking the orders is also calling out hot link and frankfurter out to the other hungry customers. and i see them in all their glory. i want to take my order back but its too late. i then think i should have ordered 2 but dont. i eat my dog and realize, im still hungry and debate whether or not to order another hot dog. and if i do, do i want a hot link or a regular hot dog. hmm, ive never had their regular hot dog before. what if its not good? i should just stick to my usual. i sneak a peek at this girls hand in which she is holding a regular hot dog half eaten (and could not finish, maybe she'll give it to me if i ask and tell her im pregnant). it was juicy looking, shiny, plump and bigger than the bun. yeah, i think i will have another one. oh glorious day. i never ever order their regular hot dog, and now i think i like it better than the other dogs. all beef from da east, as it says on the menu. anyway, after devouring 2 dogs with all the fixins (onions, mustard, relish, and sauerkraut) plus a mini root beer, i was ready to be rolled out of there. after a few more steps i kind of started to feel gross and in the midst of exploding. which then reverted to - fuck, what was i thinking. eat till you are not hungry, not eat till you are passed fullness capacity. but i was hungry, or so i thought, after that first dog. anyway, i get home and am uncomfortably walking up our many steps and couldn't wait to just keel over when i ran into our next door neighbors, so i had to put my best face forward.

we chit chat, they invite us to dinner this friday and im like i dont know this and that - its cause at this point i just really want to run inside and explode and not be around anyone so i can moan and groan. i tell them that they are invited on easter sunday if we dont make it this friday and then her fiance (is it one e for the guy or two?) asks me, are you...um and then he motions his hands as if to make a pregnant belly for himself. and im like, oh yeah and i take a look at my belly and its surprisingly huge - but huge from the hot dogs i forced on myself and not the baby - and his fiancee chimes in with glee and congratulate me. they were both very kind.. i wanted to say that oh, this (rubbing my belly) is just the hot dogs, but i had to play it off as if i was farther along but saying im 4 months isnt exactly a lie. anyway, i told them we were having a home birth and they tell me that the previous previous tenants had a home birth as well. oh and that she, is a doula - my neighbor. finally, we say our good byes and i go inside and close the door behind me and take a look at my belly. jesus, its about to explode. really, its not the baby.

anyway, at this point i dont look pregnant pregnant, but i do get curious stares now and then. probably because i do look like i could be or that maybe i should just layoff that second (or third) hot dog.

even though my belly hasn't popped out yet, there are already predictions on the sex of the baby. my friend caressa is placing a bet that it will be boy. a chinese gender predictor says it will be a boy. the linea negra on my belly is a sign it will be a boy. my not having any "morning" sickness is also a sign that it will be a boy. and then there is this:

Madame Zaritska, using her mystical powers, has the following prediction:

"The day you deliver, outside will be bright. Your baby will arrive in the late night. After a labor lasting approximately 18 hours, your child, a boy, will be born. Your baby will weigh about 6 pounds, 1 ounces, and will be 17-1/2 inches long. This child will have medium brown eyes and a lot of brown hair."

boy or girl, im just hoping for a healthy baby.

this was last week's belly picture

cw cursed me and our unborn baby by saying it will not have chubby cheeks. boo. but fat deposits begin to fill out the cheeks by 14 weeks, so i am definitely going to eat up this week.

for dinner last night, i made croissant french toast, scrambled eggs and plenty of bacon. it hit the spot. of course, cw didnt want this for dinner so i made a tuna croissanwich, tuna in a pita bread, and french fries. sometimes i think he is the one that is pregnant, cause that boy can eat.

I'm officially in the second trimester! Some books say the second trimester is at 13 weeks but most say week 14 is the marker. Some due date calculators actually put me in my 15th week??? same due date (9/12/09) as always but for some reason they have me a lot farther a long.

My energy is definitely making a comeback, but i still tire easily. I feel a little achy in the stomach area and also my sinuses are usually inflamed enough to cause some horrid pressure.

So I'm a third of the way through and baby's a third of the way cooked. Now the baby starts a period of rapid brain growth, fat buildup and detail work. Highlights this week include fingerprints and much more!

Baby's arms are now in proportion to his tiny body, but the legs are still on the short size in comparison. Meconium, sticky first baby poop, is now loading up baby's intestines.

The baby continues to gain new and impressive skills such as practicing and controlling voluntary muscle movements. The baby's movements are no longer the jerky, uncontrollable twitches of yore—he can now move with graceful control.

The baby now weighs about 1.6 ounces (45 grams) and is about 3.5 inches (9 cm) long from crown to rump, about the size of a clenched fist. The baby is sporting a downy coating of hair called lanugo that keeps him nice and warm. Baby fat will accumulate over the next few months, allowing most of this hair to shed. The baby’s genitals are now fully developed, but we wont know or find out the sex until our next ultrasound appt., which is on April 28th. The baby also starts to produce thyroid hormones because the thyroid gland has now matured.

And yes, as my friends who saw me yesterday can attest - im apparently starting to show. i still think its me being bloated, but whatever. i think if you didnt know me though and didnt know i was pregnant, you would just think i was slightly getting a bit of chub. fuller cheeks, fuller breasts, fuller thighs and definitely a fuller tummy. all the books say you can start to feel the uterus move out of the pubic bone and into the lower abdominal region. you can feel the top of the uterus if you laid down and used your two fingers to press down on your tummy. my midwife did this and helped, but i still couldnt "feel" anything. i could not tell the difference between fundus and whatever else is around there. she even said she could feel where the baby was. lucky her. see what lack of education and experience gets you? faking a feel up of your fundus and baby, thats what. baby likes to hang on the right side at the moment. and now whenever i roll from side to side a little too quickly (but what was once a normal movement for me), i get some horrible side pains or cramps, which is considered round ligament pain.

oh and i got bored and did those baby morph things. um not so cute. a couple of them had the baby look mixed - not me and charlie mixed but i guess for them mixed ethnicity is only black and white. i did do the vw baby thing and here is, under their impression, what our baby would look like:
the other attempts at it were not so, um successful. i think the best one that had the skin tone right and the hair (bald, actually with slight wisps) was this one site but the eyes and mouth were blank cause the program couldnt align ours properly. so it turned out to be kind of creepy.

Charlie has been in LA since Friday morning but is getting back tonight with his Grandma's car, the Volvotron. Now it will be easier for us, especially when baby comes, to visit our friends and families in LA more often than not, YAY!

so today we heard our baby's heartbeat. a good strong 160 bpm. it sounded like a locomotive especially with my own swooshing sounds included in the mix. and apparently, according to an old wives tale - a heart rate above 140 bpm is a sure sign it's going to be a girl, although my linea negra says otherwise. because according to that old wives tale, a line that doesn't stop at the belly button but continues up to the sternum, is a sure sign that it's going to be a boy. and of course there is also the other old wives tale - that if you weren't ever nausea or had morning sickness, its definitely a boy.

who knows? but all we'd really like to know is that he/she is a healthy growing baby, as it should be. i had dreams last night that we wouldnt hear the heartbeat and that i gave birth to a still born baby. it was scary. all of it can be pretty scary. if its not one thing its another - miscarriage fears in the 1 st trimester, to still births, to sids, and then what? fears of amber alerts of your kid? how do parents do it! kudos to all of you..thank you mom, thank you dad. don't get me wrong, im happy to be joining the club of parenthood...

so i am signed up on a few baby sites and they send you a weekly thing to update you on what the hell is going on with your body and baby. one of which also sends me a weekly digest of posts that other preggos post and some of these are just, um, how do i say this nicely? mind boggling.

for instance, something like this:

first symptoms???? help?

so, i usually have my period like clockwork and it hasn't come yet. what are the normal symptoms of pregnancy? it seems like i go to the bathroom all the time and my boobs really hurt. could i be pregnant?

my answer: dude, fucking take a home pregnancy test.

or many posts that tell of strange symptoms or rashes and they are asking other people advice on what it could be. to which my answer is - call your fucking doctor.

or questions about maternity leave (which is different in each state) to which i say - go ask your HR person, dude. or google the family leave act for your state. I'm just baffled, not to say i am any kind of expert on pregnancy, childbirth, breastfeeding or motherhood, but i am the type to research and take in good as well as bad information (there are of course tons out there, especially when you google it). and shouldn't you if you don't really know what is going on? and if not, hell breakdown and ask your mom, sister or aunt? which i guess is why these preggos post to other preggos, but seriously some of them are like dude, you should know the answer! call your doctor, take a pregnancy test, stop having sex and breeding - i mean, im kidding. sorry, i didnt mean that (perhaps just a little). anyway, sometimes i think just like we have a drivers license test, we should have some sort of are you fit to be a parent test. i actually don't know if i would pass one myself. so there, im an idiot too. and dont even get me started on octomom.

anyways, we have another appointment with the midwife on Friday to which I think we will get to hear the baby's heartbeat. im not sure if i was supposed to record what i was eating like i had done the last time but even if i had, i would be scolded. i have not been eating properly as of late. its hard at work. i need to get a timer to jolt me to eat.

this week/weekend i think i will start packing up the 2nd bedroom and get it ready to have it be a blank slate for the nursery. im starting to feel crafty again, not necessarily motivated but getting there. i ordered a full body pregnancy pillow as well as those belly bands. cant wait to try them out. i also think i am going to start knitting. yeah, me?! i had first learned to knit when i was like 7 or 8 and made many a scarf and thats about it. but id like to make something like this:

or something spectacular like these things. beautiful aren't they? but i have never been one to follow instructions or even a pattern (at least store bought patterns).

7:30 am - had fresh fruit & veggie juice
9:00 am - drank half cup of diluted regular caffeinated coffee
11:45 am - had left over pad see ew which was maybe 1/3 of a serving
1:00 pm - had some edamame and a 12 oz glass of water
3:30 pm - bag of nuts and a 12 oz cup of water

bad mommy, this is not enough food for us!

i almost blacked out this morning, on the bus. the bus was packed as usual, no windows open. all of a sudden, i couldnt see straight and i started to feel as if everything was closing in. i started to feel peaked and i knew i was probably turning green. luckily, the next stop was the high school so half of the bus got off and i could finally sit down. i still felt a bit suffocated and too weak to try and get up and open a window. this is why i miss muni - muni has actual operable windows. ac transit has a 5 inch wide 24 inch long "window" at the very top of the larger windows that only pop out a bit. thats it, and they are never open. anyway, i still feel a bit off. i actually haven't been feeling all that well and this weekend especially sunday, all i did was lay in bed and catch up on sleep. but maybe i was about to pass out because i havent been eating properly since i had been sleeping instead?

i haven't cut my hair. yet. half of me doesnt want to spend the money. i usually cut my own hair or have my good friend cut it. but the last time i spent money on a haircut/style was awhile ago in portland (so cheap! 45 including tip!). there is this new salon down the street from my work, that has massage shampoo chairs and all the yelpers love it. they also have a discount on tuesdays, so maybe, ill just buck up and do it. i did, however go shopping on saturday but by the end of it i was feeling sick and couldnt wait to get home. i spent $126 but on 5 shirts, 2 sweaters, 3 pairs of lounging pants, a skirt and 3 pairs of underwear. so i think i deserve to lavishly get a salon cut, no?

So, for the short hair cut. i love short hair. i have always had short hair for most of my life except these past 5 years. i actually did more with my hair when it was short and now that its long i absolutely do nothing with it. i always had a bob, either exaggerated and funky, to your expected vidal sassoon type (you know from that commercial long ago?). but then it always felt so typical, so asian. for awhile i would always choose something funky and fun but i guess im not in my 20's anymore so maybe something normal is called for? but i dont like normal. i dont know. i also can never make up my mind on anything. the last haircut i had in portland, i came up with on the spot. i wanted some layers, some severe in which if i put my hair up it did look like a bob, but if left down looked like a funky layered long cut. oh i dont know. anyone care to send me some pictures?

as for the pregnancy, i am now at the last leg of the 1st trimester, like the very last leg. im not really sure if i am still in my first trimester now that i think of it. the books i have of the week by week have different statements on the size of the baby. some say its at 1-2 inches while another says its at 3 inches this week. some say its the size of a lime while others say its the size of a plum. whatever the case maybe, its just bigger and badder than before. since the first 12 weeks are the most crucial and the most detrimental to the baby's life and development because that is when it is the most susceptible to outside forces such as eating raw eggs (salmonella) or one too many cold cuts (listeria). normally us adults dont even flinch over raw eggs, cold cuts or even mayonnaise because our immune systems can handle the small amount of it if any was to be there. but the little lima bean could not. it may seem a bit crazy to not eat soft boiled eggs (which i happen to love) or skip the eggs benedict for awhile, but wouldnt you if there was just a slight chance? even if doctors dont really know just how much or how little, id rather just have peace of mind and skip it for the crucial weeks. anyway, now that im in my 2nd trimester, things should be much better. i still need to get my mood up somehow cause i dont know, i still feel slightly off. maybe its the weather that keeps me gloomy and unmotivated.

my hair is extra greasy these days. ill wash my hair and the very next day it feels as though it had been a week since i last showered. my boobs have grown a full cup size now and last night i swear it was starting to expand again. my nipples are a bit glossier and though i thought i got away from the horrid stuff of pregnancy like the morning sickness, constipation has reared its ugly head. maybe since my 1st trimester was uneventful, my 2nd trimester won't be a happy breeze like its supposed to be. i already have pimples. actually, i have a big old zit waiting to bust out of my chin. my lips are extra dry and always chapped. oh and now you can really see that little dark line that runs vertically up and down my belly as to point to the direction and or horrific hole the baby will be coming out of in the near future. i have heard of this and have seen it on many a large bellies but i dont even have a belly yet! or even a mere baby bump! but its there. its soooooo strange. i not only have it from my belly button on down but i also have it from the bottom of my breast bone to my belly button and it is actually kind of crooked and doesnt quite align with the line from the belly button on down. apparently, according to old wives tales - Some people believe that the linea negra foretells the gender of their baby, thanks to centuries of old wives' tales, a linea negra that runs up, past the belly button, to the lower part of the sternum means that you will have a boy, and a linea negra that stops at the belly button means you're having a girl. oh-oh, some people will be disappointed, except cw of course. that is, if it even is or becomes the truth. i won't know for another 4 weeks or so.

work has been really stressful because the past few days it has only been me and another person and sometimes the big boss. i have paperwork on top of paperwork and deadlines i have already missed. its hard to keep track of so many things and by now ive probably forgot to order something for a job. but im trying to stay on top of it. and also remember to eat and drink plenty of water. speaking of, i should really get to ordering my lunch now.