Christmas and 23 weeks

Hello everyone,

While it may be 4 days late, I am now languishing in the over-full stupor of a delicious Christmas dinner, trying to find room for the pumpkin pie.

Christmas was pleasantly drawn out this year. Brent and I braved the mayhem on Christmas eve to finish our shopping (or so we hoped). Then on the 25th we acted as if it were our night-before-Christmas as Brent's parents flew in that night and we were planning on celebrating Christmas on the 26th. Unfortunately, neither of us had actually finished shopping yet and were both surprised to find that even the big stores respect the sanctity of the holiday and are therefore not open to late-LATE shoppers like us!

Then after a wonderful reunion with Brent's parents Christmas night, we celebrated Christmas together on the 26th, including a trip to Coronado to walk on the beach and explore the Hotel Del Coronado before an impromptu Mexican dinner at a place Diane and Elliott used to go to 30 years ago as cooking Christmas dinner at that point would have meant eating at around 10pm!

All the holiday fun has also made me a bit late with my latest pregnancy update. So to catch up, and use one of our Christmas presents (a tape measure), I've thought of a little weekly routine. So, here's week one!

Week: 23 (118 days to go till the due date [DD for short])

Jen's belly size: 38.5 inches and growing daily...

Baby's size: a very large mango - the kind that weigh over 1lb.

This week's pregnancy complaint: Bleedin' gums! Yes, that's literal. And they're so sore! Something about hormones and increased blood flow, etc. But strangely they can cause preterm labour so I need to get on the 3+ times a day brushing!

This week's highlight: Diane and Elliott are acting like great expectant grandparents. Diane has even felt her granddaughter kicking. And Christmas was good to our little mango too - a cuddly blanket (that I'm stealing from now till April) from Grandma Lois, a hemp onesie from Grandma and Grandpa Freeman, and a bottle for Dad to feed her.

This week's fun fact: If born now, she has a 25-35% chance of survival. We're hoping to go a full 17 weeks more, but it is reassuring to hear that her chances of survival go up rapidly from now on!

And I can finally post my most recent bump photos, even though they were taken a week late (at 22 weeks). The growing-shrinking thing has finally stopped and I think I can now consider myself officially "popped" :-)

Finally, here are some more photos of our week:

A visit from Brent's Aunt Joyce, Uncle Randy and cousins Kirsten and Alison from L.A. and part of our Christmas present to Diane and Elliott - a day of brunch, the Farmer's Market, a trip to the zoo, a football game and sushi.

Lots of love to you all,

Jen, Brent and our big mango xxx

p.s. For those of you who heard about John's debacle trying to fly home from Uganda (which summed up amounted to incompetent British Airways staff, a ridiculous shift of responsibility from Canadian officials onto airlines to verify the visa status of their passengers, and ongoing ignorance and systemic racism against refugees), he has finally been granted permission to leave the country and will be on a flight home tomorrow.

Puerto Vallarta

Hola!

Well I'm sitting in our dim living room, beside our one baseboard heater, watching the rain whip down from a cold, windy winters sky. It's hard to believe that around 26 hrs ago I was sweltering in a Puerto Vallarta pool in my bikini! Nevertheless, it is December, and if we're going to celebrate the holidays this year, I'd prefer the weather would cooperate with something winter-like!

We had a great 8 days in sunny PV. For years I have feared Puerto Vallarta as an endless wall of high rise resorts and timeshare sharks. We were greeted instead by a beautiful mid-size town nestled against lush, jagged hills, set on a beautiful half-moon bay.

We started out with three nights at a little local hotel in the old town of PV, set amidst cobble stone streets and overrun with bougainvillea.

Our friends Sean, Michelle, Booy and Mike all flew in the same day we did, so the 6 of us caught up over dinner on the beach and wandering the

streets of PV, watching the festival of the Lady of Guadeloupe celebrations until the wee hours. The next day Sean and Michelle moved to the resort where the wedding was to be held, but

Mike and Booy (who were staying at a place down the road from us in PV) took to the fantastic restaurant attached to our hotel, so breakfast chez nous became a daily ritual.

While three days wasn't nearly enough time to explore all PV and the surrounding area has to offer, we did manage to get in a whale watching/dolphin/snorkeling boat trip, discover a fabulous vegetarian buffet and buy some souvenirs - including a sink! (Brent's folks just remodeled their kitchen with tiles bought 30 years ago in Mexico when Diane was pregnant with Brent, so we figure we have some time to find a house for our sink ;-)

I even got to practice my Spanish more than I expected - cab drivers, servers and shop keepers were all very obliging.

Then on Tuesday we moved to the Playa Fiesta resort, 5km south of PV. It was great to see 20 of my longtime friends who are now scattered between Victoria, Toronto, San Fran, London and Cairo. And the resort was beautiful - a 42 room boutique hotel on the ocean with very attentive, friendly staff. The only downside of the 5 days was that nearly 75% of the wedding guests (including the bride) fell victim to vicious tummy trouble. We later learned that some of the staff at the all-day open bar were rinsing used glasses in tap water and promptly refilling them for further consumption! Brent and I thought we escaped it (thanking our built-up immunity from countless G.I. bugs in the past), but he has been feeling under the weather since our flight home last night. Hopefully it's only a cold!

Some of the highlights of the 5-days at Playa Fiesta included a boat trip with the girls to a private island for Michelle's bachelorette party (and a snorkeling boat trip and night out for the boys for Sean's bachelor party), S&M's beautiful wedding ceremony and celebration on Friday,

and a Karaoke finale on our last night!

Another hit of the week was the wedding's youngest guest - Erika and Tim's little guy, Aiden. He's nearly 7 months old and a very playful and easy-going baby. Even the guys in the group had caught baby fever by the end of the week! Hopefully over the next few years we may have more little ones in the group ;-)

Speaking of which, I also received a lot of comments on my belly. At first they concerned how "not pregnant" it looked for how far along I was and then later, people were commenting on how much it had grown by the end of the week! I hope that was due to a fetal growth spurt rather than all the buffet food we had! (According to the baby sites, she is now the size of a large banana!)

Brent and I also took the hours we spent by the pool to make great progress with the colossal job of naming! We managed to get through the entire girls' section of the Baby Name Bible (around 27,000 names) to come up with a final "shortlist" of only around 40! Then on the plane home last night we each wrote private lists of our top 10, then compared them for overlaps in the car ride home. We're now down to our top half dozen, which to us seems like great progress!

However, despite a fantastic holiday, it does feel good to get "home." I was sad to not be joining many of our friends as they migrated from Mexico to celebrate Christmas with their families in Victoria. But NEXT WEEK we have Diane and Elliott coming for Christmas here on the night of the 25th! We are very excited and are looking around for fun Christmas-y things to do with them over the holidays.

I also looked into flights to Victoria this morning while I was on the phone with Lindsay, Mom and Dad in England. To my surprise I found a cheap fare from Jan 8-20, so now I am trying to see whether or not I will have a job in January that will allow me to run away for 2 weeks! Look out Victoria, my big belly and I may be looking to couch-surf after all!

I hope all of your holidays have started well :-)

xox Jen, Brent and the banana

p.s. It turns out my green card actually works too! Crossing the border back to the US was FINALLY a simple process!!! YAY!

Off to Mexico with our little Mia...

Just a quick farewell as Brent, I and our little cantaloupe head on our first international trip - to Mexico!

Tomorrow we get the privilege of waking up at 4am to be on the road by 5:30am to hit LA traffic around 7:30 and hopefully make it through the city to LAX by 9 for our 10:50am flight to Puerto Vallarta (factoring in our usual tardiness and more traffic than we imagine, we'll probably get there around 50min before our flight)!

We have our good friends Sean and Michelle to thank for the excuse as they are FINALLY getting married (a little joke since they've been strong and steady for a decade now) next Friday, an event we would be loathe to miss.

We're tacking on a pleasant 3 nights in PV's "Romantic Zone" at a little local place before heading to the beautiful Playa Fiesta http://www.playafiesta.com/ for Sean and Michelle's 5-day celebration. I'm incredibly excited to be seeing many of my Victoria friends again and of course the snorkeling, kayaking and jungle hikes won't be half bad either ;-)

Finally, the reason for my reference to 'Mia' (aka Mia Hamm - one of the few women soccer players of international repute) is due to our daughter's early soccer practice, apparently going on with my tummy as the absent ball! Either I was too oblivious to feel the initial "fluttering" of her more gentle movements, or she simply skipped that stage and went straight to kicks (which my prenatal books told me were not supposed to start for another 2 weeks). Either way, after her first three little boots back in week 17, and a week to rest, she now begins a regular tootsie drum roll nearly every morning and afternoon. I only feel bad that her dad's not usually around for them, and when he is, his warm hand on my belly has an instant soothing effect. Nevertheless, until they reach my internal organs or ribs I am loving them!

I've also started pre-natal yoga classes at a women's hospital here. I think most of the women are silently wondering if I'm an impostor as they pose with their beautiful, round bellies and I come in with nothing. Counting by weeks (as opposed to lunar months) I'll be 5 months on Monday. Where's my belly? Lately even the more substantial "evening belly" seems to be shrinking! I don't have any worries about the baby, and none of my health care providers have said anything about her size or growth, so I think it's my size that's the issue, not hers. However, if I gain the estimated pound a week over the rest of my pregnancy I'll be right on track for the lower end of the advised weight-gain spectrum. So, I guess the bulk of my maternity-clothes-days will just be in the latter half of my pregnancy!

Well I should get back to work. Yes, the job that officially ended a month ago continues. Only a few more stories to go though...

Hasta luego,

Jen, Brent and "lil' Mia"

Congratulations! It's a...

Hello everyone,

Well, here's the post some of you have been waiting for! (And no, we're not just going to come out and announce it right away, hee hee ;-)

(Left: me at 18 weeks)

The lead up to the ultrasound yesterday was an interesting process. Brent and I started talking about what sort of family we'd like to have a few years ago. It included a veritable gaggle of both girls and boys, biological and adopted (though don't go thinking Brangelina yet). That image still holds true in many respects, especially with regards to sex. But when we got pregnant we realized that both of us were secretly hoping our first child would be a girl. So were both sets of grandparents! But as the day when we hoped to find out grew closer, we started considering what if we are having a boy? Brent was a lot better at relaxing his hopes to accept either sex, hoping most of all for a healthy baby. I found it a bit more difficult (though of course having a healthy baby was the primary concern!). As yesterday grew closer, I thought about my two adorable nephews, Keenan and Hux, how wonderful Brent must have been as a little boy and how much I loved growing up with older brothers. I started imagining what it would be like to have a little baby boy, name him, play with him etc. And I can finally say that when we went into the appointment yesterday I was genuinely excited about having a boy as our first born.

The exam itself was a bit of a let-down. Rather than watching and learning about the baby as we'd done during previous ultrasounds, this appointment had so much for the radiologist to check that he kept the screen turned toward him and just went from measurement to measurement. Even though Brent could see the screen he said he rarely knew what he was looking at. As the time went on, I got worried that maybe the radiologist didn't know that we wanted to know the sex so he might not be looking for it, so I interrupted him to clarify that if possible, we'd love to know. He said ok, but then kept fairly quiet for the rest of the exam, evidently frustrated that our baby's head was stubbornly nestled down in my pelvis (I think it was the baby's way of accommodating what WE wanted to know by sticking its bum up in the air ;-).

Finally, 3/4 of the way through the appointment he turned to me and asked if I had any feelings about what we were having. I didn't want to say girl in case I was wrong. I finally admitted, most often a girl, but sometimes a boy too. Then he said, "If you were having a boy, what would you name him?" I jerked up, "We're having a boy?!" The radiologist smiled and just repeated the question. We flubbed around telling him we had lists but... He waited patiently then finally said, "You're having a girl." I jumped up and grabbed his arm unable to tell if he was still joking. "Really? A girl? Are you serious?!" The poor guy! He finally showed us "proof" on an ultrasound (Right: our cute baby's bottom from below with an arrow pointing to her lack of penis) just so that I would finally believe him.

So while I'm happy to say that we really would have been happy having a boy first, we're ecstatic that we're having a daughter! YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Now comes the very difficult task of choosing a name... But as Brent says, at least we only have to choose one (for now)!

Looking forward to your reactions :-)

Jen, Brent, and our cantelopette

Belly update

Hello again,

Trying to finish up my last few narratives, I'm facing constant distraction from the web's millions of baby websites. After weeks of focusing on work, my tummy and a long-awaited release from deadline pressure has turned my brain to baby-land mush.

Pregnancy, impending childbirth and then the even larger future responsibilities of parenthood sure do come with an array of adjustments! This month the physical side has gotten more interesting. My body is morphing in ways it has never done in its past 29 years. I'll save you most of the details to prevent too many "Too much information!" comments. Save to say that itchiness is a major factor!

And then there's my tummy. It's definitely grown (I'm in around 70% maternity wear now), but its size keeps changing! Brent and I marvel as it does this daily growing and mysterious nightly shrinking routine. I seem to be waking up with close to a flat stomach (well, its only really flat when I lie on my back, but even standing it's just a lower paunch) which then expands over the course of the day into a serious Buddha-worthy belly by nightfall! And it's not giggly like I've simply had too many deserts and not enough gym, you could practically bounce pennies off it (maybe we'll try that tonight). What's the deal? A one day "pop" would be fine, but as I wake up the next morning excited to show off my finally obviously pregnant bump I look and it's gone! Here's the photos to prove it (and no, I'm not just sticking my stomach out in the second one, that's relaxed!):





I have my 4 month prenatal appointment this afternoon with a new midwife (I'm trying to switch between them so we can meet all 11 before Birth Day), so I'll have to tell you how that goes a little later (I'll try to remember to ask her about the growing/shrinking routine). But next week is the big news, we hope. On Tuesday morning we go for our 18-20 week ultrasound. I feel like we've been spoiled with 2 ultrasounds so far but I am not about to turn down another opportunity to see our little one! This one is a big deal for doctors to make sure that everything is growing correctly (no third eye, arm, etc), but it's also a big deal for us (in addition to our hopes that everything is in fact growing right!) as we will finally have an opportunity to HOPEFULLY learn whether we're having a girl or a boy! Of course this depends most of all on whether the baby cooperates. But if so, we're hoping that the radiologist is skilled enough to make out the distinction, as we're having the ultrasound at the earlier end of the range.

Now while we're incredibly excited to find out, and we're making no secret that we want to know early, I should warn you that we've decided to sit on the news a little while before we share it. I'm sure we'll have feelings about either sex and we'd just like to process those alone a bit before we make it public. Sorry for the wait, but the bonus may be that when we're ready to let the sex be known we may have a name to go with it!

In the hopes of avoiding a sea of highly gendered clothing, toys and accessories that are so ubiquitous in the baby market that you are practically forced to get something that screams GIRL or BOY, we considered waiting to tell everyone the sex until after any potential baby shower (my sister Lindsay keeps hinting at something in Victoria in early April. I don't know - ask her!). However, as many of you have been sweet enough to hint at baby gifts, which we would greatly appreciate (especially used and hand-me-downs as we seem far from that trusty barrage from family and friends who've had children being all the way down here), maybe it's just better if we make a general request? As you all know us, we hope you will understand our desire to raise a child with some independence from the pink-flowers-dolls and blue-trucks-tools dichotomy. That doesn't mean pink, blue, dolls and trucks are banned, just that we'd like to encourage our little girl to play with trucks and tools if she wants (who knows, maybe her vocation will be as a structural engineer), and our little boy to explore his passion for art, dance and drama (in case he's inherited a long lost ballet gene that neither Brent nor I were blessed with). Hmm... watch me say all this and then buy the first frilly princess dress I see when we have a girl or the cutest little fireman outfit for our son's first Halloween costume... ;-)

Nevertheless, we do appreciate it :-) Our only other request is for anything made from organic, hemp or bamboo fabric (or again, used clothing, blankets, etc are great, as repeated washes often remove most of the chemicals) so that our little one can focus on filtering the most polluted air in the US rather than also being swaddled in the world's most chemical intensive crop (dear sweet cotton) as well :-) Did any of you doubt what hippie parents we were going to be? Hee hee...

Well that's all for me for now. Our little 'something-larger-than-an-apple' has a hankering for sushi tonight!

Love from B, me and the tum.

A "relaxing" vacation to Sequoia National Park

It started with a Facebook ad: an autumn scene in the mountains with a cosy luxury log cabin to stay in. It was about 85 degrees in my sun-drenched office in late October, and as thousands of snow birds started their migration south, all I wanted was to snuggle up by a log fire and drink hot cocoa with the cold winds of fall howling outside. I clicked on the ad (which I never do) and an hour and a few phone calls later, Brent and I were headed for a five day vacation in Sequoia National Park with two nights at the Wuksachi Lodge in the central eastern mountains of California.

For weeks Brent and I anticipated this much-needed break from our hectic work schedules and the beautiful but monotonous heat of San Diego. So two days after our much anticipated immigration hearing and a day after I finished my 10 week, 50-60hr/week contract at IPJ (lately Brent's schedule hadn't been much better), we were very ready for the 7hr journey north.

Our troubles began before we even got on the road. In sending our car in for a pre-trip lube-oil-filter the shop investigated our annoying 'check engine' light and suggested we get the spark plugs replaced. This took $120 and 2/3 of our first day. Then, as we finally packed the car at 3pm Brent got a call from the hospital. An Iraqi refugee who has been in the hospital since he arrived 3 weeks ago was finally being discharged. His case manager was not answering her phone, so Brent had to deal with it. So, off to the hospital we go to get the family a taxi. Once the family realized we weren't going to drive them home (a 1.5hr round trip) they decided to get a friend to pick them up. Another hour gone.

Hitting LA in rush hour was unavoidable at that point, so we spent the next 2-3 hours crawling through LA's freeways, stopping at an In-N-Out Burger for what we'd been told was a FABULOUS veggie burger only to be informed once inside that their veggie burger was simply their regular burger minus the meat. I reluctantly agreed. Brent ordered their other veggie option - a "grill cheese sandwich" - and was given their burger with cheese and no meat. At least the fries and chocolate shake were yummy while going down, but regretted a few hours later.

Our biggest excitement of the evening however, was Brent sitting in the parking lot of the In-N-Out, clad in shorts, a thin T-shirt and sandals, realizing that he had forgotten ALL of his clothes! We both agreed he'd "pulled a Jen." ;-)

We drove as far north as we could then spent that night in a motel as our last daylight hours (useful for setting up our tent) were spent in LA traffic.

The next morning we set off again, making a long pit-stop at a large outlet mall to buy Brent some warm clothes.

We finally reached the park entrance at around 4:30pm Sunday night. We had only booked Monday and Tuesday nights at the lodge and were planning on camping. But seeing as it was almost dusk we thought we could try camping, or simply see if we could tack on an extra night at Wuksachi. We paid our fees and entered the park, only to be greeted by a sign that reminded us that there was no fuel inside the park. Our tank was 2/3 full, but the 3hr round trip to the lodge, plus driving around the park gave us reason to pause. Brent erred on the side of caution and we headed the 5 miles back into the village of Three Rivers (pop. <100)>

By Monday morning we were desperate to get into the park. What had planned on being a 4-5 day vacation in the mountains had now shrunk to two. As we approached the gate again we were told that chains were now REQUIRED at mile 14. The Lodge was at mile 23. We looked in dismay at our sports tires (NOT all-terrain) and eventually succumbed to the fact that we would have to turn around for yet another 10 mile trip into Three Rivers and back AND pay $30 to rent chains. Another 1/2 day gone.

FINALLY we entered the park, driving the twisting, winding roads up the mountains till we were in snow. The roads, however, were completely clear and dry. Throughout our entire trip chains were completely unnecessary! Ugh. But the scenery was beautiful. We checked in at the stunning lodge then headed back to the largest grove of Sequoias in the park. Heading out on our first trail we glanced a few feet in front of us to see a mother black bear and her cub scamper down the hill and onto our trail! No trail for us!

(the photo to the right has the two bears on the trail if you can make them out)

Our remaining days in the park can better be described in our photos. We hiked miles of trails (some with fresh bear prints) in the snow then went back to relax in the lodge with hot baths delicious meals and hot tea a plenty. It turned out to be the perfect, relaxing getaway after all!

Our journey out was luckily much less eventful than our journey in, with the exception of encountering a very large, very live tarantula on the road down the mountain and hitting complete grid-lock once we reached San Diego after a 10hr drive back. We spent an hour and a half in viewing distance of our neighbourhood!

As this post is already ridiculously long I will once again opt to wait until the next post (soon) to relate the normal stuff, like my evidently confused belly.

Love and greetings to you all!

Jen, Brent and our little apple XXx

A time of Change!

Yes, it's a shameless reference to Obama's historic victory, and the childlike hope that has swept across the vast majority of this country and the world. It's finally a good time to be in the US again!

And be here we will!!! Yesterday Brent and I went to our long-awaited immigration hearing with a suitcase full of photos, cards and paraphernalia from our four and a half years together in order to prove the legitimacy of our relationship. We had every official document we have each ever been issued, photocopies for the US citizenship and immigration folks to keep, and even our hospital papers and ultrasound photos. Brent in a suit and me in my nicest maternity wear, rushed downtown with all of our things to find parking and then navigate the huge federal building for our 10am hearing. It didn't help that the room number they gave us was WRONG, but we still arrived at 10am sharp. Unfortunately our friends Jan and Don who ironically had the same interview date and time we did quickly informed us that my name had already been called! It didn't help that our lawyer was also nowhere to be seen.

Five minutes later they called my name again and in we went, without our lawyer! We were taken into a private office by our female interviewer and asked to swear the 'I will tell the whole truth...' oath. As we sat down in our lawyer bustled, out of breath and apologizing profusely - her earlier court case had run late. Then, before we had even sat down she blurted out "So, did you hear she's pregnant?" The interviewer looked at me as Marci began asking me when the baby was due and how I was feeling. Well I don't know if that's what did it, but after being asked if I had or ever planned on engaging in the usual crimes (prostitution, terrorism or overthrowing the US government), the stamp was out and suddenly the magic word APPROVED was being stamped all over my documents! Hallelujah!

The whole thing took about 15 min, we didn't get to show her a single document or photo and we were out before our friends Jan and Don had even gone in! A little later Don was thankfully granted residency as well and so the four of us went for sushi to celebrate :-)

It was sure quite the week last week. The immigration hearing came just days after the election and was the day before my last "official" day at the IPJ (though that is where I am writing from now, one week later!). Then the following day Brent and I starting driving north for a MUCH needed celebatory/recouperation holiday in Sequoia National Park. But that will be the next post ;-)

Take care everyone, more news soon!

xox Jen, Brent and le petite pomme!