@ 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 :)