19 Weeks

And lots of kicks! My husband felt her acrobatics for the first time last night. Pretty incredible--they are right when they say this is the best part of pregnancy. We have our anatomy ultrasound on Wednesday morning, hope all goes well.  Here is my 19 week shot (with our baby girl's big brother, Lucas):

Side note: The shirt I am wearing is from East Borough, a delicious vietnamese cafe in Costa Mesa http://www.yelp.com/biz/east-borough-costa-mesa. The cafe is owned by my brother in law and his wife.  In just a few short days, my husband will be moving down to help them expand.  Although, I am sad to see him go, I am excited for this opportunity and am happy to see him pursuing his dream of owning a business. I have a good feeling this will be great for everyone. Can't wait to join him with baby girl in the summer :).

17 week ultrasound reveals...

...our baby Cao is a girl! My husband and I went back and forth (but, secretly, I knew it was a girl all along :)). We couldn't be happier--and girls are immensely more fun to shop for. We already have two large storage bins filled with baby girl clothes--I really need to delete Zulily from my iPhone. Although most things we bought were great deals and necessary items, we (I should say "I") did splurge on the occasional "there is no way we'll ever come across something that cute again" dress or sleeper. I'll post some of the cute clothes we found and the brands in upcoming posts. Two posts for me in one day is nearly impossible to believe. Enough rambling, here are a few shots from the ultrasound:

I have to say that the idea of the 3-D ultrasound really freaked me out. I've seen ones in the past that have left me bruised with nightmares. This is why we went into the ultrasound asking ONLY for the 2-D, black and white, non-alienesque capture to see if we were (1) having a human child; and (2) whether or not that human child was a boy or a girl. However, when we weren't paying attention--BAM! out of nowhere the technician projects a "sneak peak" 3-D shot...and, instead of the expected reaction, I was surprised by the absolute love and adoration I felt when I saw the picture of her below...and without hesitation I blurted: "That's my daughter!":

Little foot :)

Time to play a little catch-up

It did not occur to me to start this blog with the beginning of my pregnancy, because as I mentioned in the first post I am no good at keeping up with things, nor was I attune to the benefits of blogging. So, here I am...19 weeks and nothing to show for it! My husband did take a few pictures along the way, but had I put even an ounce of thought into them we may have wound up with some cute cohesive pictures (or maybe I would have realized I should at least be facing the same direction!), instead we have a somewhat scattered product (so apologies in advance). Regardless, here goes:

7.5 weeks

9.6 weeks

10.8 weeks

11.5 weeks

12.6 weeks

14 weeks (At this point, similar to losing the necessary "I'm 5 and 3 quarters!" as a child, I've lost interest (or energy rather) in exact points in time)

17 weeks

Now, I'm due for a 19 week shot. Keep you posted. On a side note, hubby leaves in less than 2 weeks--crazy how much I miss him already.

Purpose

I wanted to find a way to document the journey of our first baby and although I've never been a slave to the social networks of the world wide web (really, I sometimes can't believe I've managed without facebook), I decided beginning a simple blog might be a good way to keep the ball rolling.  I've tried pictures books, journals and scrapbooks in the past, but most end up with a last entry from 2002 or a picture with a half written story (and now I can't remember what happened!).  At one point I tried to collect all of my memorabilia from a year abroad in Spain with the intent of creating a beautifully crafted scrapbook. It is still sitting, dust-covered in my memory box from 2003 with only one page complete (an outing to the local theater). In other words, I have a lot of trouble holding myself accountable for things I set my mind to (well, the stuff other people don't see). Which is why I thought a blog would be a good way to keep me in line.  I imagine my only follower will be my husband, but even with just one person checking in my need for extrinsic approval will activate and force me to my computer more than once every 5 - 10 years for an update.

My husband and I were married in July at a small ceremony in San Francisco City Hall.  I was never the kind of person who thought much about weddings and marriage, so I didn't disappoint myself when we opted for the $200 city hall ceremony in lieu of the $30,000 glamorous affair. Plus, how many people can say they were married in the exact same place as Marilyn Monroe and Joe DiMaggio? Unfortunately, however, he will be moving in the next few weeks to Southern California and I will not be joining him until after the baby is born.  So, I figured this might also be a good way to keep him updated in real time. Enjoy!