It all comes back to food.

I certainly have some updates to make!

First of all, tomorrow marks 8 weeks and is also the day we get to go in and see our Sesame's heartbeat! I can pretty much guarantee that I will burst out into tears when we see it flashing on the screen. I am in incredible anticipation of our appointment tomorrow. I will also be getting poked and prodded as they run some more blood tests (in addition to the pre-conception ones they did last year), but that doesn't phase me in the least. I just can't wait to see how much Sesame has grown!

On the morning sickness front, it is still very much at bay. I've only had one more "bad" episode since I last typed, but other than that, I think baby and I are communicating a bit better. At night, I will grab some juice (usually pomegranate or raspberry) or something to eat, and I will "look" and baby and sternly say, "This is for you, OK? This is for you," to ensure it stays down. So far, so good!

One of the craziest yet most blessed things I've noticed with pregnancy is how completely unpredictable it is. It is absolutely as far from predictable as you can get. You'll see below how I mention that one day, broccoli was my hero--the next, my enemy. I'll have a fantastic-feeling day, and the next, I'll be snuggling with the toilet a little. That is, of course, exactly how parenthood will be. One day, your child is an absolute angel, sleeping through the night, not fussing even once throughout the day...and the next, you're cleaning up the poop art she's covered the wall in, she won't eat the veggies she devoured the day before and she has a new cuddling preference that you can't quite seem to figure out. That's all coming our way in about 7 months, and I couldn't be happier about it.

Speaking of food, I've discovered our little one's two current favorites--french fries and soft-serve ice cream. When all else fails and has me shedding a few tears, this combination works. I vowed to not get into eating fast food while pregnant, but I view fries differently. They are potatoes, plain and simple. Well, and salt and oil. That's okay in moderation. Burgers, though, have lots of mysteries and are just addicting. Thus, it is my personal choice to not get our child hooked while still in the womb. Not that that really happens, but still. It's my personal health choice.

But man, those fries tasted heavenly today after I shed a few tears of self-pity at not even being able to eat a chicken or potato salad . Soft-serve ice cream never gets old, either. Yum, yum.

Before we move onto pictures, I had a dream the other night. I dreamt that our baby was born two days early and that we had a boy. He was absolutely perfect, of course. It was strange, though, because I usually remember baby dreams incredibly vividly. I didn't remember this one until quite a bit into the morning, though. Not that that is super important in the end, but still.

At first, I simply just felt like we are having a girl. The logical side of me, though, thinks that we are having a boy. (Yes, it is based on logic. If you don't know what kind of logic, that is quite alright.) Hee Suk just feels that we are having a boy, no special reason. Only time will tell! We're still a few months away from being at the stage of finding out, if our doctor will be sneaky enough to let us know. (It is still curently illegal to disclose the gender of the baby in Korea, but many hospitals are relaxing on the law now. Given that we communicate in English, she's already said she's pretty sure she can come up with some discreet way to tell us.) That's not even important in the end, but it's always fun to guess.

OK, so let's move onto pictures to help retell the story of this week!

7w1d

To make things easier on me and to save us some money, I got a bike! Can you tell which one it is? This is seriously the natural lighting of the picture. It looks like it was delivered from the heavens with how blindingly it stands out!

♥

7w2d

These foods were my heroes of the day! My stomach was being particularly fussy, and this was what kept me going. As I mentioned in my last post, eating cereal with milk first thing is a life-saver. The milk I drink (on the right), which really isn't milk but is at the same time, saves me every day. It always helps my tummy calm down so I don't get too nauseous. Thank goodness it's delicious!

♥
7w3d

Happy Birthday, Appa! Today, Appa got his first bike ever! Mommy laughed so hard when Appa tried riding her bike the first time but saw how much joy it brought him to ride. Thus, Appa has a bike now, too! We took our bikes to the grocery store and had dinner while we were there. Sesame had been hinting at wanting 돈까스 (donggaseu--breaded pork cutlet with amazingly delicious sauce) for awhile, and holy smokes, did we devour it! It was the best meal I had had in some time, so I was one happy camper. Afterwards, we had some soft serve ice cream. Yum, yum.

♥
7w4d

For as well as I was feeling on Saturday, I wasn't quite so much on Sunday. The morning was okay, but later, morning sickness was causing me to feel very unsettled. Broccoli was my go-to, only to have the toilet become my new go-to. Thus, I confined myself to bed rest, and this was my view pretty much all day. (I wasn't feeling so terrible, but my stomach was very sensitive.) Bed rest was completely amazing, as I caught up on some America's Next Top Model and Project Runway 5! I was in heaven. In this picture, Tim Gunn's Guide to Style is up next. Bliss.

♥
7w5d

For the past year or so, I've prepared myself for sleeping exclusively on my left side. I've held off on getting a pillow to put between my legs for support so that I can get a nicer pregnancy pillow as I get bigger, but I think I'll have to just pick one up in the mean time to support my hips better. This cat, which Hee Suk won in a crane game for me, has become my temporary pillow. This doll is actually really special to me. ♥

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Today--7w6d

This is a picture of my cell phone. Our hospital sent me a text message to confirm our appointment tomorrow, April 1st, at 1:30pm. (And yes, medical facilities always send text messages the day before your appointment to confirm--HUGE text message culture here.) ^o^

I didn't plan for this to be a day-by-day update, but I supposed that's what it's turned into. We are so incredibly excited for tomorrow, and the time can't go by quickly enough. I'll hardly be able to sit through the lesson I have in the morning before the appointment! I am starting to feel really tired now, though, so I had better be off.

Our Heavenly Father, what else can I say but "thank You?" Words fail me for the graciousness I feel, for my inadequacy in Your presence, for how incredibly awesome You are. Thank You, my King. Thank You.