The Cutest Little Nose!

Our appointment went very well today, despite a few disappointments. All that matters in the end is that baby is simply thriving and looks absolutely perfect.

I am so exhausted, so I will briefly type up some of the key points from the appointment:

--Hee Suk was not allowed in the ultrasound room. There are two different ultrasound labs: one connected to the doctor's office, and a whole separate room of rooms for the super ultrasounds (such as the NT scan). I thought it was beyond ridiculous and unjustified (they don't allow husbands at all in the super rooms), but there really was no way around it.

--Since it was just some tech doing the ultrasound, she obviously had no sort of relationship established with me. The room was dark, and a joyous thing didn't feel quite so joyous. For the first approximately 15 minutes, she got to see OUR baby in such great detail, taking tons of measurements and pictures, and I just had to sit there and wait quietly. I just don't get it.

--After an eternity, I got to see our baby for just over 2.5 minutes and hear the heartbeat. This is definitely wonderful, but it makes me envious of those who get to see the baby the entire time.

--She then did an internal ultrasound, and I saw nothing from that. I just felt it. -.-;

I did walk away with four photos and a CD-Rom of the ultrasound portion that I was permitted to see, though! I've watched it countless times already. I never tire of hearing his/her heartbeat. It's only made me more determined to figure out if Sesame is a boy or girl, though!

Our visit with the doctor was quick since she had to rush off to a delivery, but she basically said everything looks perfect at this point in time. From my blood tests, the only concern comes from the blood clot test. Normal is up to 14, and I measured at 14.8. She decided to have the test run again today to see if it was just a one-time deal or if I really am slower to clot. Thank God I was not cursed with a fear of needles. I'm not really concerned at all about this. I had just better watch those paper cuts.

--On measuring the heartbeat: I found out today that Koreans really don't bother measuring the heartrate of the baby unless something seems abnormal with it. Koreans really don't mess so much with the numbers.

Oh! Here are some good numbers, though:

From Mommy:

BP and BPM before the appointment stuff started--106/63, 80bpm

After the NT Scan, before meeting the doctor--108/63, 69 bpm

Weight--Approximately 57.7kg, which is 126.94 lbs. I told Mom that any weight I had gained went down the toilet Friday night/Saturday morning. I basically view it as having maintained the same weight throughout pregnancy so far.

Baby!

Not too much to report, but...

Length--5.9cm, which is about 2.3 inches

Nuchal Fold (or whatever it is called)--About 1mm

And now I am completely out of it! What better way to close this entry with photos of our beautiful little Bonbon?






My Lord, there are truly no words. Despite my worries and fears, You have continued to show how mighty You truly are. Thank You, my Lord. Thank You.

Moving on to 12! (By my standards, anyway)

Tomorrow is a really big day for us--it's our 12-week appointment! The anxiety has been driving me crazy (pretty literally), so all I've wanted to do all day is just sleep the day away and wake up tomorrow just in time to get ready for the visit to the doctor.

For those wondering, we are having an NT Scan done tomorrow. Why? At least at our hospital here, it's really just routine. The doctor never really mentioned that it was to assess any risks for Down Syndrome, just that it was to take some measurements. That's what's done at ultrasounds anyway, so why not? I'm totally against several procedures that are often performed on pregnant women, but for me, I look forward to getting to see our baby in such great detail. (If you're wondering for whatever reason, no, 4-D scans are really not all that appealing to me.)

I was surprised when browsing a pregnancy message board that so many women in the States are against it and decline it. I guess it has unfortunately just earned a pretty bad reputation over there for inducing unnecessary fear in moms-to-be. The only thing their concerns have truly warned me about is that I should probably go in expecting a crazy bill when all is said and done tomorrow! (In Korea, you pay per visit.) I guess I'll learn "the hard way" that it's not exactly just another ultrasound. It'll be worth it, though. I really can't wait for our appointment to just be NOW already!

Anyway, I can't wait to see how big he/she has grown. Speaking of he/she...

I had my first truly definitive "gender-telling" dream during my nap this afternoon. Pre-pregnancy, there was usually a specific gender in each dream. Since becoming pregnant, though, it's just been a mystery, though I've felt slightly inclined to boy in a few. This one was no slight inclination, though! In it, something weird happened, and then I gave birth to FOUR babies--ALL GIRLS! It will now be absolutely hilarious if it turns out we are having a boy. I will say that they were all incredibly precious and adorable like you wouldn't believe. And the labor was 100% unrealistic (like, "What labor?"). Talk about a crazy dream!

Anyway, let's have the pictures tell some more of the past week's crazy tales:

11w

Feeling rather uninspired this day, I wanted to take a belly pic but didn't get around to it. I know, lame. Before one of my classes, I had to run to the grocery store to buy some snacks for the children. I wanted to buy chocolate-covered peanuts for myself, but this was all they had. Low-quality chocolate, but it gets the job done. What I REALLY want are salty chocolate-covered pretzels. Oh, yum.

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11w1d

Yay, picnic season! Students here go on school picnics like woh, so their mothers prepare gimbap. One was kind enough to donate some to my cause. :D

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11w2d

This is the food of DOOM. I am 99% sure this is what wound me up in the hospital. It usually looks and tastes better, but I apparently just did not have the right craving at the right time. At least Hee Suk was okay.

If you somehow missed it, 11w3d was awesome enough to get its own post.

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11w4d

What do you eat for dinner the day after you've recovered from food poisoning? That's right--pizza. We tried a new place and really liked it. :D It doesn't cost an arm and a leg like Domino's or Pizza Hut here, so I think we have a winner!

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11w5d

This has a sad story to it. Well, sad to me.

All I have craved is the American food I never thought I would miss. It is so hard to find the key ingredients to be able to make and eat what I want. It's just awful. You know what I went through trying to find a burger and a can opener just to eat some green beans.

Walking home on Monday (I took a taxi to class since it was raining at that time), I started choking back tears. As soon as I got home, I cried like a baby, just absolutely sobbing. I was home alone, hungry and had nothing appetizing that would be easy to prepare. I then decided to go way out of my way to go to TGIFridays so that I wouldn't have a complete mental breakdown. I was so desperate that I called myself to ask about closing time and get directions. I never do such crazy things here.

I was so hungry that I didn't even think to grab my camera to take a picture of the food, but I wish I had! The stock photo on the menu looked great (Jack Daniels Chicken with shrimp, veggies and mashed potatoes), so since there was no honey barbecue chicken and other chicken choices (I wanted chicken) were all white sauce style, I ordered that. My meal looked almost completely different. The chicken was fine, as were the veggies, but the shrimp was sooo heavily breaded, seasoned and fried. I though it would be coconut shrimp, but it definitely wasn't. The mashed potatoes wound up being mashed sweet potatoes (which Koreans love), organized into two neat little balls side-by-side. I didn't realize it at first since I was starving, but the cinnamon they sprinkled on top in the center of the potatoes had them looking quite like a bosom. It was hilariously disturbing. I might be confusing some information with healing PCOS and with pregnancy, but I had heard sweet potatoes weren't the greatest thing to eat, so I ate a few bites and left it at that.

So anyway, the tissues are from my sobbing fit before dinner.

♥

11w6d

This brings us to today's photo, which is dedicated to (baby's) Uncle Brian. I want to listen to classical music periodically just because it's a good thing to do, so today's classical selection was my Xenosaga II OST Disc 1. Not exactly pure-bred classical, but it's darn good stuff!

And that's all I've got for today! To all those awaiting emails, I know you're probably wondering how I can say I am too tired for emails when I write novels here. All I can say is that I am sorry. -.-; I will try to be better about getting back to people.

My Lord, we are truly in Your hands. You know my thoughts, my worries, my fears, and I just commit them all into Your able and mighty hands. You have never let us go, and I know I just need to trust in Your strength, especially when I am feeling weak. Thank You, my mighty King!

Our Lovely Day at the Hospital

So I am skipping my daily pictures for now to bring to you a special presentation of some pictures from 11w3d (or according to my official date, 11w4d) visit to the hospital!

Friday night, I had made plans with someone to go out to a very nice flower festival and to see Kim Yuna, the world champion in figure skating, perform (for free!). I was very excited about getting to just go out and relax and have a good time. Unfortunately, I suddenly felt really sick around 12:30am Friday night/Saturday morning. I threw up and immediately knew it was NOT pregnancy related because of how it happened and because I did not come close to feeling better afterwards. Up until 6am, I wound up tossing cookies all night. Other complications that need not be mentioned also arose. It was not a good night, and I was so zapped of energy.

So 6am was the last of the cookie-tossing events, thankfully, but I was still not able to really take in very many fluids. Standing was something I was happy not to do. I knew I had food poisoning. It's not like I've never had a stomach bug before. It's just different when you've got a little one inside of you. You know that he/she will be okay because they'll zap everything out of you before any real harm comes to them, but you still worry about how quickly you'll be able to recover and whatnot.

After talking with mom and having Hee Suk call my doctor, we decided to go to the ER to get me hooked up to an IV for fluids. I forgot to write it all down, but my blood pressure was way high, something like 142/75, surely from my poor little heart trying to compensate for having nothing to run off of. The doctor came to my room, if you could call it that, and was like, "Well, we can't give you medicine since you're pregnant, and we can't take an X-Ray, but I am pretty sure you have gastro-intestinitis."

No duh.

Koreans love making use of every single diagnostic thing in existence. The medical care here is fantastic, but it is overly cautious at times. If I weren't pregnant, I would have been home with my water and Powerade and some crackers, calling it a day. Here, she's talking medicine and X-Rays! In my mind, all I could think of was, "Woman, I know what's wrong with me. Just get me my fluids so I can get out of here." Hee Suk asked her how long the IV would take, to which she replied with, "About two hours." Yikes! We decided I would lie down and rest up while he went and had a good lunch.

IVs really stink. Well, getting them hooked up, at least. They first drew some blood from the spot they were putting the IV in, and then they attached the IV. Hee Suk asked if I was okay, to which I replied, "About as okay as one gets with a sharp needle poking around in your hand!" I just wiggled my toes and laughed while it was going on, recalling how one of my dear siblings ripped their own IV out with their teeth once.

I didn't realize IVs were so cold. The fluids in the tube just made me feel so cold, but after some time, getting replenished helped me to warm up. You'll see in the pictures below that my ears at quite red. The pictures were probably taken around the 3-hours in mark. Yes, 2 hours wound up being 4. I was kicking the IV bag by the end to try to make it go faster.


My IV, what I more endearingly referred to as Chinese Water Torture. If you don't know what that is, look it up.


My *lovely* bed. Maybe I am silly for expecting so, but I thought we would have at least had beds that prop up. Oh, no. I felt like I was in some make-shift battleground infirmary.


My poor hand. ;~;


Concerned Appa-to-be. Although by the end, he was having a blast taking funny pictures of me. Jerk.


Oh, yeah.

So by the end of four hours, I was going crazy with cabin fever. The rooms were simply divided by curtains, and I had heard so many people come and go. The most annoying people came last. One woman across the way from me kept moaning. I thought maybe she was the woman we heard come in who had somehow managed to break her arm and a rib, so I simply said, "Well, don't break your bones, then!" I did have sympathy on her, though. I was jealous, though, because they let her listen to her baby's heartbeat twice. Her husband, however, I wanted to smack. HE CAN'T CONTROL THE VOLUME OF HIS VOICE. That, and he likes letting his phone ring 20 times before answering it. Um, hello? Silent mode, please? Jerk.

Here, I'll show you an unfinished video I made to recount the festivities towards the end. Hee Suk was out of the room and suddenly came back in, so it ends with an unflattering shot of my face. You've been warned.



So I had mixed up who was in the room before with who was in the party room now. The old lady was being seen, and it must have been one of her children, his/her spouse and their child. Hee Suk and I were CRACKING UP listening to them. He informed me that older people here think IVs are bags of magic since they were introduced around the time of the Korean War, so she wouldn't listen to the doctor or answer her questions. She just *knew* she needed a bag of magic and was quite enthusiastic about it. I was very ready and willing to donate the last bit of mine to her. The doctor asked her to cough, since that seemed to be the problem, to which she let out this pathetic fake cough, trying to mimick the sort of sound the doctor was looking for. The doctor ask, "Was that a real cough?" "Yes. Yes it was! It was real!" This lady was so overly dramatic. We just could not stop laughing. Hee Suk said she sounded like she was from the country side, so I asked him if he had seen any cows parked out front while he had been out there.

Soon before we were ready to get out of there, Hee Suk asked what would be okay to eat. She mentioned that soup wasn't okay, but that juk was. I guess in English, it would be translated close to porridge? Thick soup, basically. No spicy stuff, no this, blah blah blah. So with getting fluids in me, I started getting really hungry. I asked Hee Suk to hand me my bag so I could eat a granola bar in there. He advised against it, and I was like, "I know my body! Give me my granola bar!" (All joking, of course.) Thank goodness I had that sucker in there.

Anyway, I was being all sarcastic and weird that last hour, but when we were ready to go home, I started crying. I don't even really know why. I just wanted to be home. We left and spent the rest of the day in bed watching different movies on TV. Even though I was exhausted at the hospital, I could not sleep for the life of me. I don't know what it was, but I didn't sleep for even a minute. Some time after we got home, though, I started drifting off every now-and-again, and that was nice. I just wanted to sleep it all away, knowing that I would feel better in the morning.

So all is well now. I had a bowl of cereal and am still taking in some Powerade. I will still be taking it easy both activity-wise and food-wise today to be safe. I just cannot wait for our appointment on Wednesday to get here already!

So big thanks go out to Mom and Hee Suk. Mom was a huge source of comfort when the doctors were giving me wrong information and for everything else in-between, and it was amazing to see how Hee Suk just really stepped up to help me out in every way possible, even though he had had an important appointment scheduled that day. Sesame and I are so blessed to be surrounded by so much love!

Thank You, my God, for holding us in Your mighty hands and for sending us so many who care about and love us. You are so amazing, my Lord!

Mental Breakdown

So I avoided completely breaking down today, but just barely.

As I mentioned (I think), I get nervous only around appointment time. That's when I start imagining hearing the news that I dread hearing. What this really means for me is a bit of increased sensitivity the week before the appointment.

Today was a rainy day. This obviously means that I can't ride my bike to my classes. I decided to take the taxi. I hate taking the taxi since some drivers are over-confident in their abilities, but I wasn't going to walk in the rain. I freak out over "wasting money," but it only costs 1900won, which isn't even $2.

Well, traffic was terrible, so what is usually 1900won turned into 2800won. Not expensive, but I only had 5000won on me and had to get back home after class. It just did not have me feeling comfortable. On top of that, while I am checking for coins thinking it would go just slightly over the usual, I discovered my phone was not in my bag. As I kept sitting in traffic, I was freaking out over not being able to call Hee Suk so he can tell the student's mom that I will be late and whatnot. It just had me feeling really emotional and upset.

So when we finally get to the drop-off spot, I walk quickly/slightly jog to get to her building because I am running 10-15 minutes late without them even knowing why. I then about burst into tears thinking about what happens if we receive the worst sort of news at our appointment (being sad about anything triggers being sad about everything in me). After that, I realize my phone has my student's apartment number, and I have no way of getting it. I was really about to lose it. Thankfully, though, I remembered.

So on my way back home, I stop a taxi and immediately start freaking out when I get in. The driver was very polite and well-dressed, the interior was well-kempt, and he was playing "classy" music. In Korea there are regular taxis and deluxe taxis. Deluxe are more expensive and are black cars with yellow tops (the sign things). This car was not black, nor did it have a yellow top, but I freaked out anyway assuming it was a deluxe taxi in disguise, planning how I would say, "Just drop me off here," if it got to be too expensive. He didn't have a little scanner for the touch-and-pay card I have, so I was really going to be out of luck if we got stuck in traffic or if it was indeed a deluxe.

As I am sure you've already guessed, everything was fine. I just wound up with a really awesome taxi driver who actually cares somewhat. When I got home, though, I just hugged Hee Suk and tried to hold back my tears. It was just too much for this pregnant lady. Ah, the hormones.


In other news, I remembered later on in the day a very silly baby dream I had. I don't know if I had it while napping or the night before or what. The only thing I remember was looking at our baby, who kept sticking his/her tongue out! He/She had this adorable long tongue. It was just so cute. If our baby does have a long tongue, I will be shocked. Mine is super short and fat, and Appa's isn't much better!

Well, I am off to call and see if Sesame's Grandmama isn't too busy to talk.

Thank You for keeping us safe, my Lord, and for blessing us with another day together.

Might just fall over...

I might fall asleep in the middle of this, but we'll see. Most likely, I'll go to the bathroom at least 20 times. Sentences and paragraphs will almost assuredly be short and scattered.

Not that it requires an extraordinary amount of energy, but I just don't have enough to upload pictures right now. Maybe next time. ^.~

So I wanted to post about hitting the 10-week mark last week. 10 weeks seems like it's hardly anything, but it signifies that we are 25% of the way through! That's just huge to me. It's just so incredible to thing about. Hee Suk tends to freak out a little when I tell him how many months we have left, so I spare him such updates. How far along we are is manageable, though.

What's amazing about 11 weeks is that in the weekly countdown, we are now in the 20s. 29 weeks! 28 weeks and 6 days! and so on. Those numbers seem so small to me! I might just regret that later, but for now, that's how it feels. What's also wonderful to think about is that next week marks 12 weeks. That just seems like a huge milestone. We'll just have to celebrate by going out to Fridays or something. ^.~

Speaking of food, holy hunger! I had a pretty big lunch and was hungry again shortly thereafter. I am convinced there is no such thing as being completely satisfied after a meal anymore. My current snacks of interest are grapes and those small red tomatoes. I've forgotten some English (as if the name of the tomatoes are common knowledge), so I can't remember what they're called. Vine tomatoes? Roma? Cute? My time ringing groceries was apparently in vain. I do know that bananas are 4011, though. That's important.

Not that you were inquiring, but I live in the bathroom now. I have some classes that are 1.5 hours long, and others that are 2 hours long. The break times I always offer are now going to be more of moments of salvation for me. I look at it as preparation for motherhood, though. Not sleeping through the night because of this obviously helps with preparation for the long nights with baby. (Mom--instead of hoping our baby beats his/her Uncle Steve's records, how about you wish Uncle Tony's early sleep patterns on us?) And going to the bathroom constantly throughout the day...maybe all of the constant diaper changes and feedings? That must be it.

I really am going to fall asleep. I had best be calling it quits for now!

We are so blessed by You, oh Lord. Please continue to teach me through all that I experience, opening my mind and my heart to Your wisdom.

I might just have to break this up into two posts

Will I ever learn to not let these pile up? We'll start with the pictures for now since they all have stories themselves.

9w6d

So. Several out there have been saying that we must have a girl. Several out there are praying for a boy. We, of course, will be delighted either way. I just had to share, though, that shortly before we found out we were expecting, I bought this Anastasia DVD in mind for our future daughter. Only God knows if we will ever have one, but my goodness. For like $6, I couldn't pass this up since it is in both English and Korean! I might have to force this movie on our boy if we have a son, LOL.

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10w

Belly pic! To me, there's a bit of growth. You all probably think I am nuts, though. This is NOT a full tummy! I ate right after taking this picture. ^.~

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10w1d

I had had enough of not having my Wii set up, so I finally set it up again. This really is important enough for a picture. I think the faces in this picture truly capture the whole heavenly essence around it. And yes, this is relevant to pregnancy. I want Wii Fit so bad, but on crummy feeling days, its Super Mario RPG and the likes.

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10w2d

Believe it or not, this is our fridge. (Freezer is below.) The smell of doom seems to be fading now! Hallelujah!

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10w3d

For those not keeping track, this was Saturday. I confined myself to bed rest with a few doses of Wii and America's Next Top Model. My bum was sore by the end of the day for being on it for so long.

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10w4d

Sunday deserves its own post. Hee Suk had to go out, so Sesame and I went for a walk by Cheongyecheon (Cheongye Stream). It turned into a three-hour outing! It was a perfect day, and it was just an incredible time. This picture is from a sort of mini museum we stopped by. I will type more details about the walk and share more pictures in a separate post, I think.

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10w5d

Mom's package finally arrived! In it were a Bella Band and an adorable mommy and baby bear that say, "Now I lay me down to sleep..." when you press the paw. I was skeptical about the BeBand at first, but I am a believer now! It looked so small, but I hardly feel any pressure at all (which is super important to me right now). Thanks, Grandma! ^.~

And if you can't tell, my pants are ghetto-low in this picture. Like I said, no pressure, thank you.

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10w6d

So I am cheating a little and using a picture from something that happened yesterday (Monday), but it is too good to pass up. Plus, I took the picture today, darnit. Here's the story:

I have one student (Korean age 7, but she hasn't turned 6 quite yet in American years) who just doesn't get this "mixed" stuff. When she first met my husband and me, she couldn't understand how a Korean and an American could get married. (I didn't know this until yesterday when I was laughing with her mom about what happened in class.) Now that we are having a baby, she absolutely CANNOT imagine what he/she will look like.

So in class on Monday, she asked me, "Twins? Twins?" "Two babies? No, one baby." "Huh? So English baby or Korean baby?" "Both! Half-Korean, half-American." Still unable to comprehend, I tried telling her about how my husband has black hair, and I have blonde hair (easy enough for them to understand). When you mix, it makes brown hair! Our baby will have brown hair!

Well, she couldn't get passed thinking about the black and blonde hair, so she said, "Ah! One side will be black, the other side blonde!" I was laughing so hard at this point.

I decided to use my pen of a million colors to explain it to them (there were two students that day). I said, "When you mix blue and red, it makes purple, right?" "Yes! I know, I know!" "Blue and yellow makes green..." Etc, etc. Well, she again got caught up on the first example, so she started thinking we're having either a purple baby or a baby with purple hair. I was beside myself in laughter! I told her mom about it after class, and we just laughed together. I mentioned one popular model who is 50/50 that just about everyone knows and told her it would be good to point him out to her daughter the next time he appears on TV (he's in several commercials). I am also going to show pictures of my friend and his wife and their beautiful half-American, half-Chinese baby on Thursday, I think. It's just too hilarious, the things children say.

Anyway, more later! I need to get to my last class of the day.

Living on the Edge

So I guess I am a bad mommy today. I had a turkey on honey oat with cheese, lettuce, onions, green peppers, cucumbers and plenty of mayonnaise from Subway today, AND I ATE IT COLD. That's right. No toasting for me. No warming up my meat. I ate, *gasp*, cold deli meat!

I am not trying to be insensitive to the whole idea of listeria, and I am not trying to downplay how devastating infection can be. I simply did not want a toasted sub today. I wanted my sandwich to taste exactly as it did. And you know what? I did evaluate my risks. I don't take unnecessary risks. If you think I am being irresponsible and risking my child's life for my own selfish desire, well, you and I are no longer friends of Facebook, then, because you just don't know me.

Here are some numbers:

About 2500 people in the US are infected each year. I've just learned the US' population is over 300,000,000. If you remember simple math, that equates to, well, my calculator had to give it to me in scientific notation. That's not even 1% of the population.

Let's pretend only pregnant women can catch listeriosis. OK. Each year in the US, there are about 6 million pregnancies. About 4 million result in live births. Let's simply use the lesser number. Well, at least this wasn't in scientific notation! Still not even a 1% chance. My chances of having a stillbirth are 10 times greater than contracting listeriosis.

Of course, it only takes one bad sandwich. Well, it only takes one bad driver on the road to knock me over dead, too. I'm not going to stay inside the rest of my life.

So I will, of course, be careful. I love our baby more than most of you could really even know because of how much we've struggled in order to have him/her in our lives. I love our baby so much that darn tootin' I'm eating that sandwich I've been dying for.

Well, brain work for the day done, a belated Happy Easter to all! I was going to Photoshop our ultrasound to put bunny ears on Sesame, but I do not have the program on Hee Suk's laptop. Oh, well.

For Easter, we went to a Cherry Blossom Festival. It was so nice to get out and walk around. With moving and Hee Suk being really busy with miscellaneous projects, I've really missed having some quality time together (read: 2-week emotional basket-case). It was just perfect.

For our traditional Easter meal, we went to TGIFridays and ate like it was going out of style. Let me back up and inform you of how the past week has been The Week of Ruined Dinners.

So remember that night I was all excited for steak and green beans? That never happened. We got to cooking the steak, but oh, silly me! I forgot we don't have a can opener! Pretty much every can in Korea has a tab top to pop right off. Well, these green beans are from America, not Korea, so there is no tab top. I was devastated, literally. I cried throughout dinner. I wanted my green beans. I didn't want the steak without my green beans. Getting SO excited for something and being let down like that is pretty harsh.

Then one night, I wasn't feeling too well, so oddly enough, the only thing that sounded reasonable was fried chicken. Didn't make sense to me, either. I was looking forward to munching on the french fries that come with the meal first to get my appetite going, but there were no french fries to be found. Hee Suk called, and they said, "Yeah, you have to pay 50 cents for them now!" And they didn't tell us that when ordering...why?? Again, devastation, though it was more manageable than the green beans episode.

And THEN, Saturday night was designated for shopping for maternity jeans and getting me a nice grilled burger! (Details on shopping will come later.) We finished shopping, and after some hassle getting the right number for the closest Outback Steakhouse, I had him call and ask if they grilled their burgers on the fire. This was a requirement, not to be sacrificed at any cost. "Oh, we don't have burgers--we have steak!" What kind of Outback Steakhouse doesn't have burgers?? Absurd! I just about fell over at that one.

So back to TGIFridays...I had looked on the site on The Night of the Ruined Burger dinner and saw that they offered ONE lonesome kind of burger. It looked good enough to me, so we made plans to go there on Sunday. He called on Sunday, they do indeed grill them, it's not a Korean-style bulgogi burger, life is good. We ordered a set menu for him, which included some amazingly delicious boneless chicken, a Jack Daniels Steak, a smoothie, some sort of lemonade and a brownie and ice cream dessert. I, of course, ordered my precious burger.

Holy smokes, TGIFridays is a piece of heaven here in Korea. I never liked it in the States, but holy moly, I think I will go there every week now. Because of our cell phone company, we get 20% off our order there, too! Anyway, it was just ridiculously good, and I was ridiculously happy. Still nowhere near home- or park-grilled food, but it was absolutely what I needed. YUM. Baby is now satisfied. Praise God indeed. Seriously. You probably heard me shouting Hallelujah! all the way over where you are.

So anyway, I will simply share pictures now (I am so far behind on posting these!) and continue more stories as we go.

8w4d

This is a strawberry-pomegranate smoothie. Best.Smoothie.EVER. When we got to HomePlus, our local grocery store, we were going to eat, but I suddenly did not feel so well. Hee Suk ate, and I drank this. So good. I am hooked for life now!

♥

8w5d

On that grocery trip, we had to buy a lot of stuff for our new place since our last place provided next to everything for us. I am absolutely in love with Classic Pooh for baby, so we got these two cutting boards and a few cooking utensils. Not that Sesame needs a cutting board, but it made the decision process that much easier. ^.~

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8w6d

Going with the Classic Pooh theme, this is one of the things Hee Suk bought me way back when we were still in the early stages of trying to conceive and I had had a mental breakdown at work. It was the sweetest thing he could have ever done for me. It is a Memory Book, a "Baby's First Years" book. I have not written in it yet, but it's where I keep our ultrasounds.

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9w

Our bookshelf came today! This is the section that houses my pregnancy-related stuff. Next to my Korean picture dictionary is the memory book, The Infertility Cure, a free sort of memory book from the doctor and a copy of What to Expect When You're Expecting. I have to find where my magazines are and put them there as well.

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9w1d

Yay! Our address forwarding really does work! I've subscribed to this magazine ever since we moved here. I love it to no end.

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9w2d

Just thought I'd take a picture of some of the pregnancy items I bought from Target whenever I found a good deal! The most expensive items on this rack are about a whopping $7.50. As you can see, I bought several with working at Target in mind. I've worn three pieces here! When I found the dresses (the two on the left with prints), originally I thought, "Oh, man! I love these, but they are maternity!" The tag says, "For 9 Months of Style," so I thought, "Hmm...I will try them..." I paired them with a thick high-waisted belt, and you really couldn't tell they were maternity at all. The purple top hardly seems maternity, either. I've worn that a million times over already.

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9w3d

So I've hardly grown that much, but I do not like pressure on my belly in the least. The jeans I brought over were already too big for me, so they have been fine. However, sitting on the floor often has me unbuttoning them to allow some extra room for comfort. I've pestered Hee Suk about getting out to do some pants shopping, and we finally did! I was very pleased to find these (I thought for SURE I would not find anything long enough) for about $20 a piece. Trying them on was heavenly. I had heard switching to maternity wear does wonders, but you don't really realize it until you do. They take all the pressure away from your tummy and still look super cute. So much loving going on here.

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9w4d

Yes, friends and family, this is THE burger. You'll notice the bacon on the side. It was supposed to be a bacon cheeseburger, but no, that was not in our little one's original request. Thus, they were ordered on the side. And no pickles. And they were out of tomatoes, which worked out for the best, anyway. Heaven. HEAVEN. It was a HUGE burger. I ate almost all of it. Hee Suk had a few big bites. Yum. Yum yum yum.

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9w5d

I had to go to the dentist today to get my braces tightened, so afterwards, we decided to go to Subway. I hemmed and hawed about the whole deli meat thing, but I made the decision to go for it. I am so glad I did. I ate half for lunch and just finished the other half while typing all of this. This is the only Subway I have ever seen in Korea. I seriously look forward to visits to the dentist. Again, YUM.

So that's where all of our adventures stand! I am off to take a shower, read my Bible and hit the sack. Well, I think I will read first. I always pass out right after my shower.

We are certainly blessed beyond measure! Thank You, my Lord! You have made the ultimate sacrifice so that we might be able to enjoy the blessing of life in so many different, incredible ways. Thank You, my King. Thank You.