Am-Nee-OOOOOHHHH

So this past Friday, Paul and I decided to get an amnio done. If you remember quite a while back, we went to get a quad screen done and the results were that Arjun would have a 1:182 chance of Down Syndrome. Though those are really good odds against downs (about 0.5%) I guess it's always been in the back of his mind. We figured, at this stage (36 weeks) we had little risk, and this would give us time to wrap our heads around the possibility of raising a special needs child before the big day.

We went into the clinic, mom was treated like a rock star because she interviewed there and they all want her to work there. So we did a preliminary ultrasound to make sure Arjun was ok, everything was healthy, and the doctor didn't see any signs of downs which was good. We got some 3D ultrasound pictures done and I think Arjun has Pauls nose and mouth!

I know it's hard to see ultrasounds, but I tried to line up their faces. You can see his nose and lips and he has his fist by his chin. Those little things are his fingers. 

The doctor then prepped me for the procedure. I let everyone know that I would be zoning out, and I did. I just concentrated on my breathing. It felt like a bad cramp, but it was over in no time. I was sort of scared to breath because I didn't want Arjun to move and get stabbed by the needle! 

They sent the amniotic fluid to be tested for downs and also for a fetal lung test to see if his lungs were properly formed. I think I've been freaked about his lungs because poor Paul has bad lungs. 

After the test, they had me lay around for 40 minutes to make sure Arjun was moving alright and that his heart rate was ok. 

We should have our results this friday!

Airing Out Dirty Laundry...

Ok, so not as juicy as my title implies, but when you're pregnant, you start researching EVERYTHING, and laundry detergents are no exception. Recently, my mom has been wrapping our roti (indian flat bread) in kitchen towel to keep it from getting dry, but when I eat them, they taste like soap. So, I was already looking for a change. 

Since before I can remember, we have always used Tide Detergent, Downey Fabric Softener, and Bounce Dryer Sheets. That was my go to system forever, but after the food issue and the soon to come baby, I was in the market for something that didn't leave a residue. 

The first things to go had to be the Downey and Bounce, since it's that residue that makes your clothes feel soft. This residue also makes your clothes a little water resistant. Don't believe me? Take out the filter in your dryer (the one that catches lint) and run water over it. Even though it's made of mesh, there is usually enough of this residue to make this screen waterproof. If the lint in your dryer gets built up and trapped long enough, it can catch fire. Just a heads up!!

So with a fabric softener and dryer sheets out of the way, I just needed to find a soap that didn't make my food taste like Tide and wouldn't bother Arjun in the future seeing how I'm planning on doing cloth diapers. After looking through CD (cloth diaper) forums and blogs, I came across Charlie's Soap. CS has three ingredients: 

Goin' Back to Cali

Ever since this third trimester has started, I've been exhausted! I've just been flat out done, not tired in a sense, but my muscles and everything have just been tired. It feels almost like that day after you are sick, when your body feels like it was hit by a truck. I think it's a mix of not sleeping well at night (due to having to pee 1000 times a day or having to readjust because I'm not used to the new bump) and making a human. Luckily, for the most part, everyone is really understanding.

I know there are women out there that are still rock stars through the entire process, and I think they're amazing people, because this whole thing, has been taxing. The first trimester I was super sick, and now I'm super tired and have horrible back pain and pelvic pain, I don't know how they do it.

The Engagement

So the reason that we were going to California was for the Engagement of Pauls youngest brother Ricky. So, in Sikh culture, I was pretty sure that the only thing that happens is that the men in the brides family, come to the grooms house with a gold kara for Ricky, and then the guys from Ricky's family go to her house and take a box with bracelets and such, and tea is served and that is it. But this engagement was NO JOKE!

There was a prayer and lunch at the house, then a few hours later, there was a full on reception. I think I've just been out of the Sikh wedding circle for too long, but Indian weddings (which were already out of hand) are getting even more out of hand! I should have known it was going to be big when everyone kept calling it "the reception."

The party was beautiful, the bride to be looked amazing, the food was pretty good. It was a good time. It looked like Pauls parents and Parvinder's parents had a good time and that's all that matters! As big as this party was, the wedding is going to be outrageous  Can't wait, glad I don't have the headache of dealing with the preparations!

The Flight Home

On the way home, we took Allegiant out of Fresno, direct to Honolulu. The tickets were booked last minute and were only $199 a piece. Then you have to pay extra if you want to choose your seats, extra per carry on, extra per checked bag, and extra for snacks and beverages.

We got there early, when asked for our ID's we used our military ones and were pleasantly surprised to find out that if you are active duty military, you get 3 free bags (up to a total weight of 99lbs.) Since we didn't get to pick our seats, when we went through security, we asked the lady at the counter if she could switch us and she said she couldn't, but since it wasn't a full flight, we could try and switch seats when we got on.

So Paul went to the bathroom and they started boarding, I was pretty sure that we were going to miss our flight, but he came out in the knick of time, we were last to board and had our own row! I'm glad we had the extra seat between us because the seats on Allegiant, don't recline! Poor 6'3" Paul would have been miserable!

We landed safe and had a great trip!

Space A

So Paul and I are flying back to California for his little brothers engagement party. We decided that we would try to do Space A(vailable) travel. Basically, it's low or no cost air travel through the military. To sign up to be in the system, you have to send them an email the moment leave starts which is awesomely 12am.

So last night, at 12 am I clicked send on and email I wrote hours before. Then I went to sleep, only to have to be up 3.5 hours later to get ready to get to the Air Force base.

We leave the house around 4:40, grab me some McDonald's so I don't get hangry and make our way.

7:13 - they put out "the list" which ends up being the pre list. It's the list to make sure we are eligible for actual roll call or actually getting a seat.

7:56 - were on the list! Waiting for security now. We were 51 52 on the list. Luckily there were 73 open seats.

8:04 - made it through agricultural check of baggage. Of course there was someone with 9 bags of cut apples in his baggage... Also wearing opened toed shoes. There always has to be someone.

8:39 - got boarding passes, Paul grabbed his parking pass and is running to the truck to take it to long term parking. I'm twiddling my thumbs, hoping he makes it back ASAP!!

9:08 - We got through security, and headed out to the plane. We ended up traveling in a C5 Galaxy. It was HUGE plane!! It was so weird, there is a compartment above this main compartment where the seats actually were. There were 73 seats, and we were facing the tail which made take off and landing interesting.

11:00 - I woke up from my nap and our boxed lunches were being passed out. Ham and cheese on wheat, cranberry juice, water, a pear, cup of fruit and rice crispy treats. It was pretty good for $4.50! After eating, Paul kicked my butt at trivial pursuit AND Life (the game), as a little kid starred longingly at the iPad.

3:30 - Landed at Travis. It wasn't a bad flight. It was like a normal plane but REALLY loud. There was tons of legroom, there were restrooms. It looked like it was pieced together with scraps, kind of, but it was a pretty comfortable ride. No complaints, other than the crazy amount of waiting in the beginning.

So, these times are all Hawaii Standard. We landed at Travis AFB 6:30 local time, it was about a 5.5 hour flight. We left the base, got food, and headed down to Sanger.

12:30am (PST) - arrived home, got into PJs and tried to go to sleep. When I took my socks and pants off, my legs were HUGE! I had thankles. Like it looked like my thighs went all the way down to the floor. I have never seen my feet that swollen in my life. I immediately laid on the floor and put my feet up, did some yoga and went to bed.

*** So yesterday, I started a new prenatal. I ran of my One A Day vitamins. Every time I took them, I would get extremely bad heartburn. I just thought it  was my new life as a pregnant lady, so I just kept taking them. I researched a little more and decided I would try a natural vitamin. I picked up the Rainbow Lite prenatal and DHA. I didn't have heartburn at all and I also had no problem in the restroom in the morning, even with the lack of water the day before.

Another Month Down w27d6

There were a few things that I wanted to blog about today, so I figured I'd start listing my objectives first so that I stop rambling so much!! Here's what's up now that I'm 27weeks

Dr.'s Appointment:

So this week we had another Dr.'s Appointment. It's weird, last time we went, he added a week to what week we're actually on. On Tuesday, when the appointment was, I was 27w3d, when he checked my uterus, he said, "26..27..28... yep, 28 weeks, right on track!"Maybe he just means I have 27 weeks out of the way and I'm working on the 28th? Meh.

So I let the Dr. know that every once in a while, my heart rate will spike. I mean it's usually around 85-95, but sometimes it will randomly get to 145! The first time it happened, I was watching football and had a cup of coffee, both things that could make my pulse rise, but it happened again a couple times after that. So the Dr. did an EKG on Arjun, and he was hanging out, moving like a champ.

This was the first time that Paul could see him move. Needless to say, he was totally freaked out! I think that now we're in the second trimester, he's getting freaked out by the thought that Arjun is a baby inside of me.  Like he looks like a human and takes up a huge portion of my stomach cavity.

I mean, looking at that picture, I guess it is a little scary. Our little man is growing up so fast, lol. He kicks, and moves and he can blink and hear me. Right now, Arjun's favorite thing to do is punch and kick at my colon. Paul says, "he's already a pain in your ass!"


Grilling Adventures

So after the Dr. I told Paul that I would grill up some tandoori chicken for dinner. We have a Weber Gas Grill and about 6 months or so ago, the ignition button stopped working. I guess Paul would bypass this by turning on one burner, letting the bottom of the grill fill, then lighting it with a clicker lighter. So I thought I would turn on all the burners and give it a go. I started the grill alright, along with burning the tips of my eye lashes, eye brows, and singeing all of the baby hairs surrounding my face! I was so freaked out that I started crying, I was a mess! I'm ok, and it could have been WAY worse, but that was my last day ever using a gas grill!

Registry Nightmares 

I've been trying to work on my baby registry. It's hard to tell people what I need and want when I have no idea what I need and want! Luckily, sites like Amazon and Babies R Us, have lists that you can go off of, and categories of things you will need. I've put a lot of things on there. Things I think I'll need, things I think I'll want, things that would be nice to have. I put a lot of big ticket items on there, not so much that other people will buy them, but if we don't complete the list, we'll get 10% off of whatever is left on the list.

We do finally have some things that we could agree on and our parents have bought for us. We decided to go with:

Baby Cache Essentials Curved Lifetime Crib and matching dresser

Also we went with the BOB Revolution SE Stroller



And the Britax B-Safe Car Seat.



Cloth Diapers

I've been compiling everything onto the Amazon list , which is cool because I can link other registries to that one. So you just go to my amazon, and you can see my Babies R Us registry and my registry for this super cool local store I found called Baby Awearness. I'm not sure if I mentioned it before but I'm planning to go old school with Arjun. I'm planning on doing glass baby bottles and cloth diapers. As soon as I told Paul about the cloth diapers, he pretty much said he was out! The thought of scraping poop out of a cloth diaper, then having it sit around for a day or two, totally grossed paul out. To be honest, it was kind of scaring me having all of our disposable diaper dependent parent friends telling me that I was going to abandon cloth diapering in a heartbeat. I went online and I looked up diapering and it was all so overwhelming, and to be honest, I still didn't really understand the process, so I tried looking for a place on island that sold the diapers so that I could feel them and understand what I was getting us into.

I found Baby Awearness and we went in and were greeted by a super helpful worker, Jenny (I believe). She sat with us and we went over all of the packages of diapers they have put together, to make beginners diapering a breeze. The best part? Their packages were comparable to prices you would find online! Save money, support a local business, and get all the support I need with the process? Winning! So as soon as I go back and get some notes down, I'll start blogging about the brands of diapers I really liked!

6ish months down.

We had our 5th month check up a few weeks ago, uterus is growing, Arjun is kicking and all is well!

My belly has definitely started to show. My boobs and belly are just getting bigger and bigger. The belly is what it is, but I'm not sure that I needed my DD boobs to get bigger! I never really spend money on myself when it comes to quality bras, so I thought I would treat myself to new Victoria secrets bras, which was awesome until they didn't fit anymore a few weeks after I got them! Super annoying.

Though this will be out first child, Paul and I already have a fur baby, our German shepherd, Klaus. I hope that Klaus can learn pretty fast that he is no longer the baby in the house and his new job is to protect Arjun.

Let's hear it for the boy...

So the most important person on this journey with me is my husband, Paul. We met some years ago, remained friends through my college, then his college, and when he graduated we reconnected and ended up erring married. He's a great guy and I always kinda thought we would end up together!

In the Beginning

So we married on November 23, 2009 and we really didn't have a lot of time together. I was teaching in south Florida and he was in army training in Virginia. There were a lot of a phone calls, texts and emails, but it wouldn't be until he announced being stationed in Hawaii that we would finally move in together and start our lives.

We were together about a month before Paul had to go to California for a month for training, he came back in february only to leave in April for a year long deployment in Afghanistan.



While he was away, we spoke nearly every day and we spent a lot of that time talking about when we wanted to start a family. We decided that we would try when he came home April 2012 and here we are!!

The Beginning of the Pregnancy

Since the beginning of the pregnancy, it's been kind of hard to coax some excitement out of Paul. At first he was pretty excited. He was excited to find out, to tell friends and family, just in general. After a little bit, he seemed to not be as excited. Now granted, the thought that I'm creating a new human being, a new person that wasn't previously on the planet, is the most crazy, amazing, awesome thought to me, Paul actually doesn't get excited about anything really. I feel like just because everything is crazy to me, that it should be to him too, which isn't really fair because he's not the kind of guy to get overly excited about anything (he's VERY even keeled, which is why he's my rock!), so why should this be different?

I know he has a lot of stress on his shoulders right now, so I totally understand his lack of glee. He just started a new job, they're already ramping up for another deployment (where he will be leaving not only his wife but 6 month old baby boy behind), and we just went from 2 people living on 2 incomes to 3 people living on 1 income. It's a lot for any person to have to think about and I don't know how he does it! He's a great guy. If he's half the dad that he is husband, we're an incredibly blessed family!