So, I am here to officially announce that I am PREGGERS.. I know, crazy right? I got to hear the baby's heartbeat yesterday (and no, i am not having twins!), it was pretty awesome to say the least. My estimated due date is 9-10-11, which happens to be my brother's birth date and yes, 2 days before Jax's own birth date. Now that's just an estimate, but how cool would that be and after all, Jax came right on his due date. And yes, we are planning on having another home birth with the same wonderful midwives we had for Jax.

So officially, I am almost 13 weeks pregnant (this saturday) and am now in my second trimester (well this varies. some say the start of the 14th week is the second trimester)!! Woo hoo. This time around, I did get morning (noon and night) sickness and was more tired than ever. This baby is already getting gypped. Not much fan fare and even Charlie said - I forget you are pregnant (which will come to an end as soon as I start showing). Which kinda irks me sometimes - because my body is working overtime and even more so because not only am I working full-time at the office, but at home too with Jax. And although I may not show it or complain much - I'm hurting here..not really hurting but man am i tired and sometimes all i want to do is absolutely nothing. I'm also feeling a bit sick lately and still get terrible headaches (one of the joys of pregnancy).

Anyway - As for the Baby - There are a lot of things going on this week! All twenty teeth have formed and are waiting (Teething is yet to come!). Baby is almost 3 inches long (the size of a medium shrimp) and weighs nearly an ounce (28.3 grams). Consider that the placenta weighs about an ounce now as well.

Baby's intestines are migrating from the umbilical cord into his or her abdomen. The villi are also forming in the intestines, these help in peristaltic movements and digestion. The pancreas of the little one is even secreting insulin! Meconium, the baby's first stool, is developing. Fingerprints have formed baby's tiny fingertips, veins and organs are clearly visible through the still-thin skin, and baby's body is starting to catch up with his/her head — which makes up just a third of his/her body size now.

We are trying to decide whether or not we want to know the sex of the baby this time around...hmmmmmm. What do you think?

Maybe not funny, how about strange or awkward?

#1 - at longs - as the lady before me is being rung up. the cashier calls out to her coworker who is passing by. he goes - what? she replies, you know what and then giggles, but you know with like her tongue pushing her teeth kind of giggle? and then he stays and situates himself behind her. another coworker passes by and walks away only to come back and also hang back behind her. its now my turn to be rung up. cashier: I like your tattoos. and says to herself, i am obsessed with tattoos and then giggles again. i love this - motions her hands across her chest. me: oh thank you. cashier: yeah, i was thinking of getting some there but i just never knew. me: oh. anyway, she asks me more questions all the while the two other guys are just standing there. staring back and forth at her then at me. as i walk away i try and emphasize my waddle and poke out my belly.

#2 - on the bus - i get a seat next to someone and the bus is not full and there are plenty of seats for almost everyone. but out of the corner of my eye, the guy who is sitting parallel to me on the other side is looking me over. its probably my tattoos again. after awhile he gets off and touches my shoulder and says kind of mumbling - do you want my seat? how nice, but how weird. i have a seat already. i decline politely. im thinking hes getting up to get off the bus. nope. now it comes to my stop and i have to stand there next to him. and i can feel him eyeing me, but i dont think its in a perverted way? i dont know. anyway, as i walk up to stand and get off the bus, i try and suck my belly in - which is no easy feat now - to save him from the embarrassment of hitting on a pregnant woman.

#3 - since it was a lovely day out yesterday, we went to eat at jupiters. we get a seat and finally decide on a large pizza, a large beet salad and also the hummus two ways appetizer. the server pauses and is like - just so you know, that is A LOT of food. I just wanted to say cause i didnt want you guys later to be like - why didnt she warn us? she obviously doesnt know who she is dealing with and cant see the obvious signs. have you seen charlie eat?

so, again i can look pregnant or look as if i spent a little too much time at the buffet line recently. it's weird, i do not gorge myself or pig out cause im eating for two now- which for some reason people think i do cause im pregnant. but i just get hungry more often and so eat more meals throughout the day.

oh and no, i have not felt the baby move nor do i know what sex it is yet (we'll find out on the 28th). but sometimes at night, i try and lay very very still. just to see if i can will myself to feel it. i hear and feel my stomach grumble or make some noise but is that the baby or is it just me? is it gas? wait, could that be it? yeah, no. i have no clue. but when i finally do, you'll be the first to know.

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!

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.