Musings of a Multi-Cultural Mind

On Wednesday 12/14/16, at 2:50am, our little king arrived.  He made quite an entrance too.... We arrived at the hospital on Tuesday, 12/13, at 7:30am, and met with our OB to do a final ultrasound to see what position our son was in.  Low and behold, he had moved into a head-straight-down position, very far down in my pelvis.  So we had to make the final decision as to whether we wanted to proceed with a c-section or go with a vaginal birth.  Our OB really made the case to go with vaginal since it was now a possibility so that I would have a much shorter recovery time, so we decided to give it a go.  All the birthing/delivery rooms were full at that point though, so we went off to the cafeteria for breakfast to wait it out a few hours.  In that time I remember feeling so nervous.  Did I make the right decision?  I was already mentally prepared for a c-section and the recovery that would be involved with that type of birth.  No labor, a quick cut, and the baby would be here.  Could I h

The past couple of weeks since Thanksgiving have been pretty busy.  We've been going to our ultrasound and prenatal appointments, and our doctor determined she'd like to deliver our baby at 37 weeks by C-Section on 12/13.  Seems my little guy is looking good in there, enough fluid, decent size (surprisingly doesn't seem overly-big so far!) and dropped low into my pelvis head down.  Problem is, he's at an odd angle - kinda sideways - which has been pretty painful for me.  He could end up moving into a more straight down pose, but on top of that, my blood sugar levels have just been too hard to control.  I'll eat something one day and I'm fine; the same thing the next day will send my sugars soaring.  But then I'll take a nap and wake up shaking and nearly comatose from extreme lows, so I can't risk increasing my insulin dose either.  Throughout all this, I've been so impressed with my OB and the diabetic nurses/counselors with Sharp-Rees Stealey.  The

So today marks our first Thanksgiving together as man and wife!  Though it definitely was a different vibe for us this year, as neither of our families were in town, and my out-of-control gestational diabetes makes the traditional Thanksgiving dinner limited to turkey only for me.  What's the point without all the goodness of mashed potatoes, stuffing, and pumpkin pie?  Or even a good buttered roll?  Just adding those to my list of things to eat after I pop this kid out - even if its just Boston Market or microwave dinners!  :)  So today we just opted for home made tom kha soup(Thai coconut chicken soup) and a movie date.  I know we're a little childish, but we watched Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them and Disney's Moana.  I've been saying for years Disney should do something based off of Polynesian mythology - really there are so many great trickster characters, and Maui's a great one. And I love Dwayne the Rock, and thought they did a nice job with a mash-up

So here we are, at nearly 30 weeks, and it has already been an interesting start to the 3rd trimester.  As I mentioned in my previous post, I failed (miserably) at the glucose tolerance test, and despite all my denial, blood tests after fasting and normal meals without sugary items still showed that I do indeed have a problem.  My OB and the diabetes nurse & dietitian spelled it out for me in a clearer way.  Basically, after around week 25, the placenta starts to crank out even more fancy hormones, and your pancreas is required to produce 3 times as much insulin as normal.  And if you don't eat regularly, your liver decides to dump a bunch of sugar into your system because it thinks you need the energy, which in turn the pancreas battles by making more insulin.  So there can be a lot of internal spikes and crashes going on that can be dangerous for the baby, possibly resulting in preeclampsia/blood pressure spikes, higher birth weights, premature labor, or worse case even still

I'm so frustrated with doctors!  I'm 7 months pregnant, but before I even became pregnant I started my case for disability.  I had been on Cymbalta for a year and it wasn't helping me, but then I got fired from my job (I suspect because of several of my Fibro issues) and lost my insurance and couldn't afford Cymbalta anymore and went through several horrifying months of withdrawal that nearly killed me.  I decided then that I didn't want to go on any more of the Fibro approved meds until there was better proof that they work and better research.  Heck, just from reading many of the posts on my support group and blogs I've found through Pinterest it's obvious nothing works or if it does, it doesn't last. I've worked my butt off for 20+ years and of course it kills me to give up my career but my body is telling me enough is enough.  Applying for disability was always the last option but I don't know what type of work I could even do.  Anything phys

And I meant that title pretty literally!  Its been a couple of crazy weeks, all starting the week of my husband's birthday.  We were attending a funeral for the mom of my husband's friend, and it was pretty hot out and we had been standing in the sun for awhile when I started to get a bout of dizziness and vertigo.  Its a strange feeling - I just started sweating profusely, my heart started pounding, and my eyes started to get all fuzzy.  I guess I'm not all that obviously pregnant still, so since nobody wanted to relinquish their seat to the fainting preggers my husband's dad guided us over to a shady spot further away from the ceremony.  So after sitting on top of a grave in the shade covered in ants for awhile and drinking water I felt much better.  But getting back up off the ground again was a challenge, and my back wasn't too happy!  That didn't stop me the next day though when I decided to move around furniture and baby items that had been sitting in

So as I've mentioned before, I come from a mixed background of Persian, Hawaiian, & Italian (and I think a little Irish, Dutch, & German mixed in there from my maternal grandma.)  But I grew up in a completely English speaking household (if you still count ghetto slang and pidgin as English).  See, my grandma never learned to speak Italian from her immigrant father because like many old school immigrants, they really wanted their children to be fully American.  Funny thing is - my grandma learned a lot of Hawaiian from her mother-in-law and she did pass that along to me when I took an interest in languages later.  My grandparents separated and divorced when I was very young, but memories I do have of my grandfather from a young age were of him teaching me to count in Hawaiian and Japanese.  He had been in the navy for many years and sometimes even now in his mid-80s, he surprises me with phrases in Japanese, Vietnamese, and Korean that he still remembers. Of course throug

So the other day we got to have our anatomy scan ultrasound and I gotta say, it was the coolest thing we've seen in our pregnancy so far.  Its the one where they spend about an hour on your ultrasound doing all the measurements and checking all the major organs for proper development, and usually the one where most people find out the baby's sex.  Of course I had already found out via blood test at around week 12 since they do that for us old as f* moms over 35 (haha.)  But no doubt about it, in between his constant leg pumps and tendencies to moon the screen, we could see clearly we are having a boy. Already this kid has got so much energy and personality.  And rhythm!  The way he was pumping his legs and fists, we wonder if he's destined to be a drummer.  And the way he'd move his mouth in reaction to the technician prodding my belly to try to get him to turn over.... was that attitude I detected?  We're gonna have a character on our hands, just hope he's

Now I'm almost at 19 weeks in my pregnancy and finally starting to feel a bit better.  I lost 15 lbs and still a bit nauseous, but I have been eating well and even doing a little cooking.  I have to laugh a bit because just doing little chores around the house or cooking makes me so happy these days you'd think I accomplished something big like building the damn house or something.   But that is just the reality sometimes with a chronic illness - when you've been down for awhile, the simplest, silliest things can feel great. And those times I get down, I just try to remember -- I'm a freaking warrior!  I got off of my dangerous Fibromyalgia meds, and at that point in my illness, doctors were going to put me on just as dangerous narcotics & opiates (the same kinds that killed Prince and Michael Jackson!) but I refused and powered through.  And every time the pain gets tough or I struggle, I think of that and think of how I have to be strong for my son and feel so p

So now that I've introduced our son and talked about our happy pregnancy discovery, I gotta get a little real about the uglier side.  Ahhhhh those lovely psychotic first trimester preggy hormones!  My first 4 weeks, I just figured my moodiness was still from withdrawal syndrome from the high dose corticosteroids I had been on to get my lungs functioning again.  But its almost as if as soon as I saw that little plus sign on that stick, it all hit me like a ton of bricks. First off - the morning  all day sickness.  I'm in mid 12th week so I'm hoping it goes away soon but damn.  I've lost 17lbs since the wedding, which hey, I needed, but its never all that great to lose weight from being sick and worrying if your baby is getting enough nutrition.  My Dr. even had me stop my prenatal vitamins for now until the nausea subsides in the 2nd trimester.  What sucks is I can't even throw up, I just get the dry heaves for extended periods of time, and my husband tells me to q

Up until now, I've nicknamed my baby "edamame".  I mean, come on, it looks like a little bean with tiny arms and legs sprouting out of it.  But since I happen to be old as F*, I was fortunate enough to do a genetic screening they give women older than 35 to check for any chromosomal abnormalities. This was a simple little blood test they did last week that just took blood from my arm as usual, and then the sample was sent off to a separate genetics lab for processing.  99% accurate and no trauma to the baby - just using whatever cells the baby sent out into my blood stream as opposed to having to stick a needle into my tummy to pull amniotic samples.  Pretty awesome! Well, today at our 12 week doctor's appointment, the results were in.  No down syndrome or any problems whatsoever, and signs of a lovely "Y" chromosome - meaning IT'S A BOY!  Stephen and I just high-fived each other as soon as we heard.  We would've been just as happy with a girl, but

So honeymoon over, reality set in really quickly.  I was finally detoxing off of all the antibiotics and Prednisone I had been on for the past 2 months and feeling super motivated to get my new life as a Mrs. started.  I doubled down on my job search efforts and even had some good interviews. But two weeks post honeymoon I noticed something different going on.  Why on earth did my boobs hurt so much, and wait.... why are all my bras so tight?!  I never had this as a PMS symptom before.  I just brushed it off though as a possible side effect of the withdrawal from the Prednisone.  I mean, I had been on 60mg a day for over 2 months after all (typical dose for autoimmune disorders is 5-10mg for reference; my high dose was to bring inflammation down in my lungs that refused to work).  Such high doses of cortico-steroids can really mess with your hormones after all.  In fact, high doses in my youth stopped my period from coming all together for a couple years, and had caused my period to

This post is so looooong overdue but there have been certain battles and struggles I've been dealing with that some days make the tiniest task overwhelming. But I'll save that for another day and focus on writing about our wonderful little mini-honeymoon getaway in nearby Desert Hot Springs. We'd had a few ideas for our honeymoon, but considering the hubs is self-employed and I'm unemployed, we decided to keep it short and sweet.  We had thought about Santa Barbara or Mexico, but as the wedding approached, neither of us were getting over our colds and we were pretty exhausted from all the wedding stress.  We had stayed in Desert Hot Springs for Stephen's birthday at the Aqua Soleil hotel and we loved that we had a private hot springs jacuzzi in our own room, but unfortunately this time around their jacuzzi rooms were all booked up.  I did some digging around though, and found another place nearby. El Morocco Inn was just what we needed - less than 2 hours fr