Updates....

So sorry for the long silence. Its been 5 months and yet its only now that I am slowly getting the hang of being a Mom despite all the help I am getting. It is truly a remarkable experience and I am just enjoying every minute of it.

Ok, here are some of the answers some people have been asking. The name of Pedia is Dr. Silvestre affiliated at St Lukes and Manila Doctors who is a breastfeeding advocate. I highly recommend her if you are looking for someone who will take care of your baby and help you regarding your breastfeeding concerns. Just be ready with the long line during her clinic days.

Regarding my OB, sorry I don't just give out the details per her request mainly because she also screens the patients she wants to handle. Why???

1. Homeopathy is not for everybody.... For all those asking who she is, I highly suggest you read my entire blog and research on homeopathy thoroughly. Its not just giving you medicines to treat infertility but it is also a change in lifestyle, open mindedness, full commitment and patience.

2. She also assesses the person or the patient if there is a fit between the two of them. It is important for her that there is a rapport and the patient should be very open to her because homeopathy does not only deal with the physical well being but your psychological and emotional well being as well.

3. There are instances wherein she will openly tell you that she can not handle your case not because she is choosy, but she relies on her gut as well whether the couple is a fit to the principles she believes in.

If you think you are still very interested, pleas email me at rosy_dimple@yahoo.com and will give you her contact details.

I do hope you understand.

My prayers are with all the couples trying to conceive.

Just to share, this is the latest picture of my baby....

Meet My Baby Girl Callista Kaori or Cal

Here's the picture of my precious daughter Cal :) Just a short summary, I delivered at 36 weeks and 2 days via normal delivery. It was a gruelling 27 hours of labor but it was all worth it. I'll post next time my labor experience.

Update on the Nursery

I just want to share the final look of our nursery room :)

@36 Weeks

Any minute now I can give birth, yup it will be a bit earlier than expected because my baby is so excited to come out and she doesn't have enough room in my tummy anymore. Last Saturday, I was ordered to have bed rest because I had contractions the day before and my baby is already in position, meaning her head is down there in my pelvis and can already be felt by my OB when she did an internal exam on me.

My OB was a bit worried because at 35 weeks, she's still early and we all know the implications if she will come out early. So my doctors visited me at home, my other doctor tried to fastrack her maturity while she is still in my tummy so in the event that she comes out early she will not need an incubator or drugs/antibiotics/steroids. During the time they were with me, I was having contractions every 5 minutes and these were strong and slightly painful contractions. My baby descended further down into my pelvis. The doctors were saying that I might give birth that night or the following day. Although, Cal's movements were very slow, meaning she was taking her time descending. After 2 hours, my doctors said she is fine, her cells are complete, she is estimated to be at 38 weeks already and she is so excited to come out.

So here I am about to enter my 36th week tomorrow and she is still in my tummy. I had my biophysical exam yesterday and everything was normal. The score was 8 out of 8. Her estimated weight is 6.8 lbs (+/_ 1.1lbs). Lo and behold her measurements are already at 38 weeks. So true enough, as what my other doctor said she is mature enough to be able to come out anytime.

Another thing that we have to prepare right now is our pedia. We already had our initial consult with her and we discussed our concerns about vaccines. Yes we are opting not to have any vaccines administered to her because we feel that it will be better for her in the long run. Call us radical, some may even call us stupid but we believe that since she will be purely breastfed she will get all her needed antibodies from that. So choosing the right pedia was also critical because she must be willing to allow us to what we want. Good thing my OB recommended a very nice pedia who is an advocate on breastfeeding plus the fact that she is willing to allow us not to administer the vaccines as long as we sign a waiver.

So there you go, we are all eagerly awaiting the arrival of our baby girl Callista Kaori or Cal. Just this morning when I woke up, felt her moving around in my tummy I suddenly burst into tears. I was just overwhelme with joy and no words could express how thankful I was to God for blessing us with our daughter. I just couldn't help but recall nine months ago wherin I was on the verge of getting furstrated and giving up but I am just so glad that I held on. Now in a matter of days we will finally see our very beautiful daughter. Thank you God, I just feel so happy and blessed right now (I am even crying as write this).

To all those trying to conceive, never loose hope because your time will really come. Just trust in Him and be confident about youselves because in due time you will also be where I am today. I will continue praying for all of you.

@ 33 weeks

I think its about time to update my blog. I've been really remiss in doing so because I have been really busy. I started off my year with very hectic activities.

We started off buying the baby stuff. This was really a hard task and a very expensive activity. First off, our daughter will be the first grandchild on both sides. So imagine that everything is new because there are no available hand me downs. Then the most difficult part was finding all the stuff we wanted in one store. We had to jump from mothercare, rustan's and baby & co. We even had to visit the Trinoma branch and Shangri-la branch of mothercare because Trinoma had more items compared to Shang. The sad part is, I still had to resort to buying stuff from the States through an online seller simply because we really have limited baby items here in Manila. Honestly, until now I still have a few more items that I need to buy before I can say I'm done with shopping.

Another thing that kept me busy was preparing the nursery. It took us around a month to finish the nursery. I'm still in the process of completing the accessories. More or less this is how it looks like. My theme is orange, green and white.



Its a bit more updated now but I have not been able to take some pictures. I'll upload the final look once everything is complete.

About the pregnancy, it was pretty uneventful until I reached the end of my 7th month. I had edema or "manas" and my doctors were really concerned about this. The culprit was the 3 pieces of Kentucky Fried Chicken I ate last week. After that, I bloated really bad so the doctor had to do a slight LDT with my CST. Good thing it already subsided right now. The only thing I am watching out for is my blood sugar. It also started fluctuating and the culprit was the banoffee at banapple. Haaay, its just too good that I couldn't resist. So I'm off to see the endocrinologist on Monday to find out what do. I am just praying that I don't need to take insulin for this.

Other than that, it has been a wonderful journey. Each time my baby moves in my tummy, it makes me cry. There are still times that I couldn't believe that I'm finally pregnant and that I am actually about to give birth. The most wonderful time is also being able to communicate with the baby. She actually says yes and no whenever she wants to. Case in point is her name. Her full name is Callista Kaori and we gave her Callie as her nickname. She never responded when we call her Callie so we were at a point of getting confused what name to give her. Until finally my doctor was also communicating with her and she said she likes her full name but hates her nickname. She feels that the name Callie is a name for horses and that Callie does not sound good together with our family name "Lim". So the nickname she wants is "Cal". Right now, me and hubby are trying to get used to the idea of calling her Cal. Here's one baby who knows what she really wants. I wonder where she got that :)

We have been trying to finalize our birth plan as well, of course with the inputs of Cal. She wants with lights on, her nursery rhymes playing, eucalyptus aromatheraphy, among other things when she comes out. I'm still trying to find out what else she likes because we really need to finish everything.

Another discussion we had with Cal is the date of her birth. She wants to come out April 5, which is actually the death anniversary of my Dad. The thing is my OB feels its still a bit early so she is suggesting that Cal should come out April 10. I said this was on Good Friday, Holy Week. My OB said maybe she wanted to come out when everything was quiet. Hubby and I were just concerned that it will be difficult to celebrate her birthday if it will fall during Holy Week. So we have been convincing her to come out April 12. Last night, at first she wasn't answering but later on it was a weak yes and after much convincing it was a strong yes already. We do hope that she is convinced with an April 12 birthday :)

Hmmm, are we sounding really weird? Believe it or not there has been a lot of instances that me, hubby and my doctors have been able to communicate with her even if she's still inside my tummy.

This journey or pregnancy is really such a wonderful experience. It is a very demanding, physically exhausting and an emotional rollercoaster but I would gladly go through it again.

Next step is the delivery :)