Out and About in Dubai

Obviously I didn’t do so well in my attempt to post every single day. My goodness, I even skipped an entire month! Ah well.

Today is the baby’s “official” due date but he seems to be showing no signs of wanting to come out just yet. I have an induction scheduled for Dec 20th but I hope he comes soon as I’m tired of waddling and just want to get this labor and delivery business over and done with. Not looking forward to the pain at all.

Mom has arrived to help me through this whole process and Dad and sister and coming next month to see the baby.

Here are the latest belly pics.

At 32 weeks, baby was already head down and has remained that way since.  I’ve always been borderline anemic so have been taking iron supplements since early on.  I am swimming regularly 2x per week now as running is just not possible as my heart rate gets too darn high even at a slight jog.   Just warming up puts my HR at over 150 bpm!

33 weeks pregnant

At 36 weeks, I’m feeling like a big roly-poly-watermelon-carrying monster.  I think I’ve perfected the roll-and-push-maneuver at night to get out of bed and into the bathroom since I feel like I have to go a million times a night.  My husband has called me a beached whale but after a few evil stares he’s refrained from using that phrase to keep our marriage in tact.

36 weeks pregnant

I’m at 40 weeks today but still in my pajamas so will have to wait a little bit to take the 40 week prego photo. 

Weight gain to date is about 18 pounds.

Tags: baby, pregnancy | 3 comments »

Okay, I swear I meant to post the below yesterday! But for some reason my picture upload function wasn’t working on Wordpress and I tried 2 laptops, Firefox, IE, Chrome but nothing seems to work! When I click the upload button, there is supposed to be another window that pops up for me to choose my photos but it’s not happening. Anyway, then I forgot to post and here I am today!  (If you find pictures below, that means I’ve fixed the problem.)

Since I woke up today I have been sitting in front of my laptop for the last hour trying to figure out what would be my first post after yesterday’s crazy idea of committing to posting EVERY SINGLE DAY until my delivery date of mid-December.

There is no dearth of information in my head but for some reason I can’t seem to get it out into words.  So I’m just here typing away to keep the fingers moving.

What can I write about…hm….Aha!

Here is something I found in my drafts section that I started in late July and never got around to finishing.  Might as well kill two birds with one stone by using it for inspiration today and cleaning out my draft folder at the same time:

THERE GOES THE FIGURE. At 16 weeks pregnant, I am finally “showing” with a tiny little baby bump.  I can still fit into my pants but my stomach now looks like I perpetually come home from all-day Dubai-style brunch (I wish!).   However, I’m in that in-between stage that strangers would probably thing – “God she should lose some weight.”

Standing, I could probably still suck it in to avoid the odd stares.  But seated, my stomach looks like tiered rolls of fat. Anyone seeing me at the gym having breakfast would probably think inwardly that I should put down that fake-sausage and egg non-mcmuffin and get back on the treadmill.  Because you see, I don’t have that perfectly rounded pregnancy stomach just yet.

WEIGHT GAIN. I am also having trouble gaining weight.  I was underweight to begin with and aiming to gain about 25-30 pounds.  According to guidelines, in my second trimester I should gain 1 pound each week.  I thought that would be easy because pre-pregnancy I would eat for two AND finish DB’s leftovers.  I thought about food all-the-time!  I woke up wondering what I would prepare for dinner.  For example, I could spend hours on end looking for the perfect bulgogi recipe and driving to 3 different markets as well as Karama to get the perfect ingredients.

But now?  Although I have had no morning sickness at all, food no longer interests me.  I surmise that the reason for this can be one of two things.  One – I could chaulk it up to baby hormones.  Or Two – I subcounsciously do not want this baby and therefore not eating as a result.  I’m going to go with reason # 1.

20 weeks pregnant

Now back to the present day.  This week I am 30 weeks pregnant (only 10 more to go!!).  I kind of feel bad about what I wrote in the last paragraph above about not wanting the baby.  Now that the baby is moving and rolling around in my tummy like ALL THE TIME, I feel quite bonded to it/him and am very much looking forward to meeting my (gulp) son in December.  “Son.”  I still think that word and concept is so weird to voice out loud.  I’m going to have a “son”.  Son Son Son.  Weird.

24 weeks pregnant

My appetite is slowly coming back I think.  Although yesterday all I ate was a small bowl of cereal for breakfast, a chocolate brownie with one scoop of ice cream for lunch, and a big bowl of udon noodle soup with chile beef for dinner.  Now the brownie with ice cream thing I blame on the baby because I have had it for lunch FOUR DAYS IN A ROW.  Yeah, you read that right.  I have something like that maybe four times a year so FOUR DAYS IN A ROW???

28 weeks pregnant

Weight gain to date – 10 lbs since being pregnant.

 

Tags: baby, pregnancy | 2 comments »

So it’s been more than one month since I’ve returned to Dubai after summer vacation spent in NYC, Chicago, France, and Switzerland.  And what have I got to show for it?

Nada.

The baby room is still completely empty (well, we did buy a rug for it…but then decided to keep it for ourselves so moved it into the master bedroom), I still haven’t sorted out my mountain of receipts that need to be filed, trashed or excel-spreadsheeted, I haven’t started on any of the 3 knitting projects that I my mother-in-law bought very nice expensive yarn (or “wool” as they call it in the UK) for, nor have I caught up on my blogging as I promised myself I would do, nor have I completed my family tree that I half-assed started on heritage.com. AND, I only went to the gym ONCE last week.

I’m such a SLACKER!

I’m convinced it’s the unemployment.  After all, if an object in motion stays in motion, then an object not in motion…just ends up on the couch?

So in an effort to jolt myself out of this rut, I am going to try and blog EVERY SINGLE DAY until my delivery date of December 17th.  At least, I’ll try.

Whew…here goes…

Tags: baby, random | 1 comment »

4 months since my last post – wow – I am such a bad blogger.  I could tell you how I was busy with work, friends, family, etc but the truth is…that…I…just…didn’t…feel…like…writing.  Could this be writer’s block?  No, because writer’s block is where I sit in front of a laptop with a blinking cursor staring back at me but I didn’t even go as far as to open up my Wordpress admin site to even see a cursor.

So, there you have it.  Confessions of a non-blogaholic.

But if I WERE to have blogged, I would have blogged the following.  And excuse the lack of photos b/c photo editing and uploading would mean that this post would never get out:

1. Feb - DB’s company had its first round of layoffs (or “redundancies” as it’s called here) and luckily for us, DB’s name was not on “THE LIST.”  We did lose about 100 colleagues in the process although the exact number was not released by the company.
2. early March - DB’s company had its second round of layoffs, er redundancies (still trying to get used to that word) which affected my business unit (yes, we work for the same company) and luckily I was also not on “THE LIST” but sadly another 100 or so colleagues were let go.
3. mid March - I celebrated my 32nd birthday and blew more money at Atlantis (all alcohol!) than I make in 2 months.  But it was so worth it
4. late March - had a lovely long-weekend trip to Muscat where we met up with some old friends.  Pictures (hopefully) to come soon.
5. Apr - I started Level 3 of Arabic class which went well.  Level 1 was all oral and beginner’s stuff and Level 2 was learning how to read and write the alphabet.  And now for Level 3, we focused on learning how to read and write all the oral stuff that we learned in Level 1.
6. mid Apr - I peed on a stick.  The stick conjured up a symbol.  The symbol made me feel numb.  Through my numbness I managed to call DB over to examine the symbol.  The symbol’s message was clear – we would be expecting a new arrival come December.  DB was overcome with joy and excitement.  I still hate babies.  It was definitely Clear. Blue. Easy.
7. early May - DB and I visited the OB.  I was prepared to pee in a cup or have my blood collected for b-a-b-y verification but instead she sticks me on the exam table and aims an ultrasound thing at me.  We then saw our little blueberry (actual size) on the screen with its beating heart – it was the cutest thing ever.  Still brings happy tears to my eyes just thinking of it.  Maybe there’s hope for me.  Maybe I won’t hate my own baby.
8. mid May - DB and I finally bought own very own car after renting for the last 1.5 years.  We have had a whole rainbow of Yarises – green, red, silver, powder blue, black.   Goodbye Yaris, hello Landrover.  I have to admit, the news of the b-a-b-y did spur us in this direction.  I was prepared to wait until December but DB was anxious to ditch the rental and finally get the car he’d been dreaming of for years.
9. June - I had my last day at work due to my 1-year contract being completed.  I will not be pursuing further employment (at this time) as the b-a-b-y is due in December and I will be going home to NYC for July and August.  Very much looking forward to being home for the first time in almost 2 years.  Sadly sans husband as DB has to stay and work (hey, someone has to pay the bills).

So here we are – almost July, unemployed, and p-r-e-g-n-a-n-t (I hate that word).  I can’t promise that this won’t turn into some kind of baby blog b/c there seems to be some kind of weird phenomenon that happens where pregnant people/moms tend to talk about their experience and their child all the time.

Khalas!  And here lyeth my blog updated.

Tags: arabic language, baby, blog | 6 comments »