Uh, yesterday, I was inspired. I had a bunch of left over hot pink fleece from baby blankets I'm making - so I wanted to make a toy for Lily. A hot pink fluffy Cthulhu seemed to be the most logical choice!



( Side and back profile under the cut )

I actually had a lot of fun designing and making this. Once the initial pattern was drafted - it was surprisingly easy to make!

IT STILL A GRIL!



We did 3D ultrasounds today - Lily is looking great and completely adorable! We also double checked, and she's still a girl, so no "Oops! Wrong Gender!" eBay auctions are needed :D

( More pictures under the cut )

I haven't done kitsuke since I was 15 weeks pregnant - just been too busy. I finally got a chance to dress in an ensemble I've been wanting to do for quite some time today!



( Lots more photos under the cut - and belly photos! )

I actually didn't find it hard to dress at all today. The only real hurdles I encountered was the fact that my himo and datejime are...uh...considerably shorter on me now than they used to be! I also wore a kimono with no ohashori - I'm honestly not even sure if I could get an ohashori out of it when I'm not pregnant - but I didn't have any issues.

I personally found it extremely comfortable tying everything under my bust, and I did wear sarashi both wrapped around my bust and down around my belly to help support it. I looked a bit like a mummy undressed, but it was so comfortable! Oh, and just for the record - biyosugata is a pregnant woman's BFF!

ltdead , remember George, the black and white kitty? We found out today he lasted only one week in the cat lady's care...he was adopted pretty much instantly by a family!  I had a feeling he would - being the little snuggy, love-bug he is.

Today, I felt cute!



Side profile of le bump!

My betta, Shi-shi, passed away this morning. I felt slightly silly bawling my eyes out over a fish, but dammit, he was an awesome fish.

I try to comfort myself in knowing he lived a very long life for a betta. He now rests between the daffodils in the back yard.

Kakapo FTW.

Today is our 1 year wedding anniversary...and our 3 year anniversary of me moving in and commandeering Arian's life ;P I couldn't imagine my life without Arian. I love you babe!

So, what have we done for our anniversary so far? We went to the hospital this morning so I could do my 3 hour diabetes test (this test involves fasting for 10 hours, having your fasting blood drawn, drinking a high glucose drink within 5 minutes and then having your blood drawn 3 more times, once on each hour after the drink). I begged my doctor for an alternative to having to drink two bottles of the nasty-arse glucola drink, so she gave me a meal plan of 2 pieces of wonder white classic bread and 5.5 tablespoons of smucker's grape jelly. "SWEET!" I thought. Even though I hate both white bread and grape jelly - it was much MUCH more preferable to the glucola stuff.

But then...I had to eat it...



That is me, in the hospital lobby, completely and utterly unimpressed.

Apparently, 5.5 tablespoons of grape jelly is well, a heck of a lot of jelly, and truly made for a totally disgusting sandwich.

So today we had our anatomy ultrasound and found out that Mini-Mozi is Little Miss Mini-Mozi!

So much for my "gut instinct" that it was a boy, eh? Haha!

Other than finding out we're expecting a girl - the scan went great! Her heart, brain and spine is looking awesome according to the doctor...and if I may say so myself - she has the cutest nose, evah!



I seez u!


Baby kimono - here we come!

OMG. Stephen Fry did a BBC series - Last Chance to See with Mark Carwardine!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/lastchancetosee/

Last Chance to See is my all time favourite Douglas Adams book...and quite possibly one of my all time favourite books, period. It's a shame DNA never survived to film the follow-up and to see how the kakapo population is growing...(and quite possibly not a shame, seeing the Yangtze River Dolphin is now considered extinct).

I'm so excited about this, I can't wait to see!

Spot looking, well, spotless.


And Charlie, balancing his starfish on his head (he balanced it for 10 minutes! A new record for him!)

So, technically - I am on a kimono buying hiatus until I wear each of my kimono. However - two new kimono became a part of my collection recently.

This is my "Hiatus be damned!" kimono. I mean, seriously - freakin' spider web rinzu! Spider web is a hard enough motif to find on kimono in general - but to find a kimono where the actual base silk is patterned with spider web is really, really, REALLY rare. So, this beauty came to live with me. The added bonus is that the yuzen pattern on the bottom is absolutely gorgeous, and the base colour is a really amazing deep greenish teal (check the swatch at the bottom of the photos for a closer colour representation):





This is my "I've been lusting after this for weeks, however, resisted purchasing because of my hiatus but now it's mine because my husband hijacked my computer and clicked buy it now when I was showing him" kimono. I've always been a huge fan of indigo kimono - especially those with stripes (remember my wedding kimono?) and this one has been calling out to me for weeks because of it's colour, the pattern, the unusual placement of patterns on the sleeves, and the bright, lively colours in the patterns. It just seems so cheerful and chic.



A few years ago, I never thought I'd have such a specialized collection full of wonderful Taisho pieces - but it makes me happy knowing I have them. They are true pieces of art in their own right.

Today was quite a challenge dressing in this kimono!

I fell in love with this kimono at first sight, and while technically, it is way to short for me to wear - I really wanted to add it to my collection.

Had I not been 15 weeks pregnant, I probably would have had a considerably easier time dressing and actually achieving a small ohashori under the obi. But due to my growing belly and *ahem* bust, I couldn't even get a small ohashori!

With a lot of padding under the bust area, some creative tying, and the use of a safety pin - I think I managed to dress respectable enough. Unfortunately - I couldn't have my collar as low at the nape of the neck as I normally do - but, that's the sacrifice one must make with such a short kimono.

I know I'm normally all down with coloured, embroidered haneri and fancy obiage/obijime, but for this ensemble, I strongly felt that all white accessories (well, the obijime was mostly white) would be the most appropriate. I'm quite happy with how it turned out and I received many compliments in Japantown today!



You can kind of see my baby bump here. I do have to say, it's a lot more noticeable in yofuku than wafuku though!


Back view:


Close up of Obi

Larger photos can be found in my Flickr account.

Photo taken from when we went to the wedding of 2wanda's daughter a few weeks ago.


Yes, I know I'm wearing colour. Trust me, I did look for a black dress to match my cold, black heart, but then came across this Anna Sui dress that just screamed "perfect" at me...oh, and is also big enough that I should still be able to wear it for a bit through my pregnancy :P

Today, I ate seasoned jellyfish, without realizing it was seasoned jellyfish.

I was reading the Yum Cha menu in the car on the way home from lunch - and one of the appetizers was "Seasoned Jellyfish" and I was all "EW!!! Gross! Even if it was the last thing on Earth to eat, I'd rather starve!".

But then, I started wondering what it would look like....and then it dawned on me...that quite possibly, the seasoned "agar agar noodles" I thought I was eating with my seaweed salad, was quite possibly NOT agar agar...but rather...JELLYFISH.

So - I Google imaged searched when I got home and holy cow! I ATE seasoned jellyfish. AND LIKED IT.

WTF?

Noms for you?

Yay! Round ligament pain! Fun!

NOT.

I'll just sit here and cuss a bit now.

Today I went in for my nuchal translucency ultrasound to assess any potential risk for Down syndrome, Trisomy 18 and heart abnormalities.

The ultrasound technician was really quite lovely, explaining the entire procedure as she was going along.

The whole process was pretty awesome - they had a screen up on the wall so I could also watch what was going on and...THEY WARMED THE GEL! Anyhow, after she checked quickly to make sure there wasn't a twin (thank goodness there wasn't!) she went straight to business, and the first thing the baby does is roll over from showing his back to facing us! Apparently, baby was having fun moving around and posing....in all the wrong positions for measurements! The technician had to do some creative belly jiggling and even tilting me slightly upside down to try and coax the baby into moving to a good position to get measurements.

Eventually - we got the measurements and they were able to calculate my risks based on the first blood test:

1 in 5,100 for Down Syndrome
less than 1 in 100,000 for Trisomy 18

Which is very, very good. The technician did warn though that I still need to go for the 2nd blood test - as for some women, the numbers can change....but in general - things are looking pretty good so far.

The heart also looked really good which was great news and beating strongly.

Oh - I'm also measuring ahead at 13 weeks & 3 days rather than the 12 weeks 5 days my dates put me at. It's too early to move my due date - the technician said I might just have a long baby!

Anyhow - enough boring text - pictures!

Quality is bad as this is a camera phone photo from the screen:


Scan of baby with hand to it's mouth!


I have to admit I'm feeling considerably more relieved at the moment that everything is currently looking good :)

So, I'm now 11 weeks 4 days along.

Had my second prenatal visit yesterday and I just want to say that so far, I think my OB/GYN is totally awesome!

All my blood work has come back normal - so she's happy about that. I still need to go and do my 3 hour glucose test seeing the lab ended up being closed last Friday (how dare they make a pregnant woman fast overnight only to have the lab closed the next day!) - so not this Saturday, but the following Saturday I'll be going to the hospital to get it done.

I also put on less than 1 pound since my last visit 3 weeks ago - and most of that "less than one pound" was probably my gigantic sandwich I ate for lunch before my appointment and the 24 oz of water I drank with it. haha. I was actually a little surprised, to tell the truth - because it seems like I'm doing nothing but eating lately. Holy cow - I've never eaten this much before in my life. I absolutely MUST EAT breakfast, morning tea, lunch, afternoon tea, dinner, snack, right before bed snack (or else I'll wake up in the middle of the night starving). I suppose it works in my favour that all my meals and snacks are generally very healthy (granola bars, youghurt, fruit, whole wheat, veggies, etc) and that I don't consume junk food or sugar. I did eat a cheeseburger last Saturday though, AND IT WAS SO GOOD! Anyhow, the doctor wasn't concerned - so neither am I.

We also got to hear the baby's heartbeat! My doctor wanted to see if she could hear the heartbeat (if we were ok with it) because it's fun to try. She did say though that as early as I am, it's normal not to hear the heartbeat - so I shouldn't worry in the least if we didn't hear it - but we did! :D It was kinda surreal - but all sorts of awesome.

She also explained that the "baby bump" I have right now is mostly my intestines getting all squooshed up inside, as the uterus hasn't moved up high enough yet to be causing the bump. For some reason, this greatly amused me.

Arian and I also got around to joining up at the gym around the corner from our house. Now that the worst of my morning sickness is over - I actually have energy again to exercise. Before anyone tells me I shouldn't be going to the gym while pregnant - my doctor strongly recommends at least 30 minutes of exercise EVERY DAY while pregnant. Of course, I'm not going to do anything like marathon running or the like - I'm just interested mainly in light weights, power walking/cycling and yoga. I also have a pregnancy fitness book that clearly explains safe/not safe exercises to do - so I'm all good. Exercise while pregnant can be highly beneficial in many areas - especially during late pregnancy and labour and can help you get back into shape faster once the baby is born, so YAY all round!

26th of July is when I officially start the second trimester. Until then...I'm trying to remain relatively low key and not too excited. Things seem to be going well so far - but a girl in a pregnancy community I'm a member of just miscarried yesterday - and she was around the same week count as me. It was certainly a reminder that anything can still happen in the next couple of weeks!

Next Friday, I have my nuchal translucency ultrasound - hopefully that will turn out well and it gives us another excuse to see the baby! :)

Any mommies here who cloth diapered, or know of someone who did?

I have a few questions:

1. Did you buy your diapers, if so - what brand?

2. Did you make your own diapers?
If so:
- have a favourite pattern, or did you make the pattern yourself?
- did you wait until your baby was born before making them, or made them before birth?
- What fabrics do you recommend?
- How well did they hold up with uh, "blow-outs"?

I want to cloth diaper, and since I already know how to sew - I figured I may as well make them myself. It's just uh, I've never made a diaper before, nor have I ever changed/put a diaper on a baby before...haha.

Here's a picture of me...not wearing kimono. Amazing!

9 weeks 2 days.



Excuse how tired I look...photo taken after a long day at work.