Moving on to the 3rd...

Last Friday: 26 weeks and then some


The Third Trimester
Though there is "debate" over when the 3rd trimester actually starts, I say 27 weeks is reasonable. If you take 40 and divide it by three, it comes to 13.3 repeating. Thus, 26.6 repeating is the magic number. 27 sounds better. Some people like to factor in the extra time many muffins take to cook, but that just gets to be crazy. Thus, it's 27 and now for me. Time to celebrate with some cheese or something!

Elephant
My ankles and feet suddenly swelled up early last week, most likely due to overdoing it. I was on self-imposed bed rest whenever I was at home to help get my legs back to normal. It definitely helped day-by-day, and by Saturday, all seemed to be well.

Saturday
I thought I would have more time to type over the weekend, but I was hardly on the computer at all. I relaxed a great bit of Saturday to be sure things stayed okay, but I suddenly remembered I needed to make a trip out to the bookstore to pick up a new reading book (a manga!) for one of my students. I wanted to be sure it would be age-appropriate and that the English wasn't too high-level, so that's why I actually made the trip instead of just ordering it. Anyway, for those who are anime/manga savvy, we are totally reading Fruits Basket in one of my classes.

Anyway, while we were there, I wanted to see if they had any good books on a baby's first year. I was a little disappointed with what was there and almost walked away empty-handed, but upon inspecting What to Expect: The First Year a little more thoroughly, I deemed it very suitable for what we were looking for. It has diagrams and drawings, so it's a winner in my book. Even though I love the internet, I prefer having books to reference rather than trying to sort everything out that's on the web.

I was so exhausted from the short shopping trip, but we were both hungry and had nothing easy to prepare at home. We hopped on over to Dongdaemun to eat at a great new place we found that is super inexpensive and yummy (kalbi and naengmyeon--yum!), and I wanted to quickly check out my favorite spot for maternity wears to see if there were any great deals. The place I got my denim capris from is going out of business, so she had a ton of stuff that was only 5,000 or 10,000￦. I used all of the cash I had (a whopping 20,000￦), and walked away with 5 new pieces--she included a cute breastfeeding top for free! Everything was 5,000￦: the super comfy skirt I mentioned before in a different color, a great dress, some really nice black pants and a pair of comfy pants for the prenatal yoga class I hope to take. It's all in the wash right now, but I'll try to get a picture sometime.

Sunday
Sunday was busy (by our standards, anyway!). It was UFC 101 in the morning, and then we made a quick trip out to HomePlus to get a few groceries and have lunch. When we came back, we met our friends and watched their little one for a couple of hours so they could have a little quality time together. My back felt it by the end of the night, but I think the reality of the matter is that our son doesn't want to share me with anyone. ^.~

Classes
First, a couple of pictures from our breastfeeding class last week:



We skipped out on the Wednesday class I had mentioned in my last post in favor of me getting a bit more rest and not having a really tight schedule for the day, but we went to classes on Thursday and Friday.

Prenatal Nutrition
I didn't really want to go, but we went because Hee Suk seemed really keen on it. It was pretty much everything I already knew, but we did walk away with something. I can't remember what it is now, but I do remember there was one thing we walked away with! Obviously, it wasn't too much of a revelation, but it was find anyway.

Newborn Care
Hmm, where to start?

I was really looking forward to this class because I am at the stage where I suddenly feel like I don't know anything, but I left not feeling so wonderful for a few different reasons.

The content itself was fine, but the doctor holding the class...I am just glad she is not my doctor. She stood right in the middle of the screen, so her head was always blocking something. We had to remind her a couple of times to please use the microphone because she was incredibly soft-spoken. For many of the questions people asked, she would begin with, "As I told you before..." which when repeated so many times, makes me feel as though she's somehow trying to "defend" herself in that she wants people to know she already covered that. I am far from eloquent right now, but maybe someone is following with me.

Hee Suk asked a question about the hospital discharge timeframe since she had mentioned it to be about 3 days for a normal vaginal delivery, which is pretty long by US standards. If it is unnecessary to be there, I might go psycho. Almost everyone in the class literally scoffed at him as if he were a complete moron for asking such a thing. The look on the face of the woman in front of me is unfortunately pretty deeply embedded into my memory right now (yes, I am often hyper-sensitive about such things). I'm sorry, but I don't find joy in lying on an uncomfortable bed for three days while gladly letting others watch my baby and do as they please because "doctors know best." If there is an actual reason to stay, of course I understand.

The end result was that if everything is fine, it is possible to leave after 8 hours a the earliest, which seems comparable to the timeframe in the US as well.

Then the kicker:

We decided it might be more comfortable to just ask this doctor about them stealing baby away after birth. What I had heard in brief from our doctor is that they take baby away for two hours to "monitor" him to be sure all is well. Issues can arise, of course, but I see this as absolutely unnecessary. Her response sounded promising at first, but then she got into how they usually keep baby for somewhere between 2-4 hours.

Um, no.

Since she is not our doctor (and I am pretty sure she doesn't do deliveries anyway), Hee Suk decided not to press the matter much further as there is really nothing she can do for us. I couldn't shake the blues all day, though. I wanted to just call our doctor to talk with her to put my mind at ease, but he thinks it is better to talk with her face-to-face. I do agree, but the wait is a bit difficult, especially since this is something I had wanted to cover at our last appointment but couldn't due to being just about knocked out from the Orange Drink of Sugary Goodness. I love our doctor and our hospital to no end, but I will go absolutely psycho if they take a our healthy baby away for that long. Hopefully, we will be able to work something out. Otherwise, we just might have to look into another place to have our baby, which I would really like to avoid.

When I had briefly asked our doctor about it before, she had mentioned, "You'll be so tired from labor anyway." I know several other moms who can vouch that the fatigue was nowhere near enough to get them to be okay with having their babies gone. Some are fine, which is dandy and all. We are not okay with this for a perfectly healthy baby. We didn't go into details at that time or press the matter, so we'll see how a bigger discussion goes.

Anyway, that's on the list of discussion topics for next Wednesday.

Upcoming Classes
Hee Suk may attend a few on his own so that I can rest up more and save time. Tomorrow is a baby food class, for example, and he might just go himself since Wednesdays are slightly busier for me. He is so wonderful. He isn't afraid to go even though it's usually just a room full of women with the occassional spouse tagging along. I really admire that in him and hope our son inherits that!

Yoga
There are some new prenatal yoga sessions starting in September at the culture centers of EMart and HomePlus here, and we are currently trying to figure out which one is better for me to take. It will require a few schedule changes, but it's something I really want to do. I could just do a video at home, but having a class really keeps me accountable. I definitely should supplement at home, though, with some of the videos Hee Suk has found for me. Hopefully, it all works out!

Birth Plan
I have a fantastic birth plan that a few expats here have shared in both English and Korean that I gave to our doctor. I have decided, however, to work with Hee Suk to get it to be far simpler and much more to the point, which he agrees is a great idea. We haven't started it yet, but hopefully, we'll be able to get to it before next Wednesday. That way, our wishes will be ridiculously easy to see and won't get lost in wordiness and length. (Seriously, it will be alphabetized as much as possible.)

Sideways
Our little one has taken some delight in lying in a sideways position a couple of times since last Friday. He's not making a habit of it, but I think it's hilarious. My belly looks so strange when he turns! I took one picture, but you might not realize how strange it looks unless you're really familiar with pregnant bellies.

That's about it for now from me! I will try to have more frequent updates rather than big massive ones...but we'll see!

Lord, thank You so much for blessing us with a little one who is thus far so incredibly healthy and full of so much life. You work in incredible ways that we may never be able to comprehend but fill us in amazing ways. Even though we are weak at times, You are always strong--our Rock, our Shield, our Salvation. Thank You, my King, for blessing us far beyond measure and even farther beyond anything we could ever deserve.