Santiago Gabriel

was born on December 7th, 2008 at 5:25 am. He was 8 pounds, 12 ounces and 20 1/4 inches long. I know, he was a huge baby! I am typing this with only one hand as I hold him with my other arm. He's beautiful, he's perfect, and he looks like his dad. He's suffering from acid reflux and it just breaks my heart to see him like this but we will take care of it. Hopefully.

December 2 - still no baby

One more day is almost gone... And my baby is still inside.

November 28 - no baby yet

I can't take this any longer. Oh, well, I think I have to. No baby yet. I am dying to see him, to get to touch and hold him, to get rid of this huge belly.... But it seems that life has its own ways.

November 23 - baby still inside

39 weeks tomorrow. My dear beautiful baby is still inside me. I have the hugest belly in the whole world. I swear - this is just unbelievable. I have been asked twice in the last two days if I am carrying twins. No, it's only one baby. I am not sure if they believe me or not. But I understand. My belly is huge. And it's heavy. Quite heavy. I wake up with a lot of energy and feeling fine. But I do get tired quickly, as I have said before, and after 4:00 pm everything starts hurting. My back, my legs, my lower abdomen, etc., etc. EVERYTHING. These weird pains that wrap the middle part of my body...

Nevertheless, I had a great Sunday. D drove me to a Christmas tree farm about 45 min outside of Austin. I wanted to have my tree ready, I wanted a natural tree, and I wanted it today. So there we went. It was quite fun! We walked among the trees, we chose our tree, D cut the tree himself and now it's here in our living room - with lights, and ornaments, and everything else. All this in one day. Of course, I overdid it, and now I am paying the price... Can't move and I will be going to bed in 30 minutes. Everything is fine if I stay sitting here in this sofa with the 100 pillows supporting my back and my behind... but just wait until I have to stand up. It is just an excruciating pain as my legs and lower back realize that they have to hold me and walk me to the bathroom. It's a little bit scary. If it hurts like this now how much is labor going to hurt?

Due date is Dec 1st. We never thought I was going to make it this far. Not my doctor, not my mother, not me. But here I am. Still pregnant.

Nov 19 - still pregnant

And it seems that the baby does not want to come out. He has not dropped, I am not dilated, not effaced... Nothing, nada de nada. He's in no rush whatsoever.... Sometimes it feels like everything was just a dream and that it's not true and that nothing will ever happen.

I feel fine. Back, and legs, and buttocks ache, though, but I guess I am fine.

It's getting closer

Yes, it is. 37 weeks this week. Very likely we will have a baby within the next two weeks. I am so excited but so tired, so unbelievable tired and achy and uncomfortable but other than that I am fine. No swollen ankles or hands, blood pressure is fine, I can sleep through the night although I go to the bathroom 3 or 4 times every night. Everyone says that I look great but that my belly is "impressive" which means huge. Yes, it is huge and that makes everything in my lower body hurt. But I am so excited...

I want my baby to be here with me!

Hiccups

ME: David, the baby has the hiccups...

D: No way!

ME: Yes, he does....

D: No way....

ME: Yes, I can tell. Short, repetitive little movements...

D: Wow...



46 days....

33 weeks --- seven more to go.....

Wow motherhood is approaching...

Exhaustion

It's tiring being pregnant. Quite the tiring experience. And this morning my legs hurt. And my feet. I feel like I had walked 15 miles (and no, I haven't). It's a weird internal pain that I can't really identify. I really don't want to check the 15 pregnancy books that I have upstairs because I don't want to start getting weird ideas or something. I am tired of those books as well. I haven't read them in a while. Whatever it has to be, it will be. I'm completing 27 weeks on Monday and that puts me close to the end of the sixth month ?? Maybe. All these weeks and months in pregnancy is very confusing. Because it is not 9 months, no, no, no it is really 10 lunar months of 4 weeks each. It is really a long time. I wonder if human beings are the mammals with the longest gestation? I feel I have been pregnant forever and I still have three more months...

100 days

One hundred days for our baby to get here.... And he might get here sooner. Wow!!!! WOW!! WOW..... And we have a crib and a dresser and...... a couple of books, two pacifiers, and a little elephant that you can put in the crib. And that's it. I think we really need to start working on this. Or not. I am really not sure if we have time and we can take things easily or if we have to rush and get everything ready ASAP... Never done this before.

Ah, we have a mattress too!

Remember?

Nostalgically, I went over my 600+ honeymoon photos. It was a delicious trip. Why did it have to end??? Will always be grateful.

Athens - the Parthenon on a beautiful afternoon

Mykonos


Santorini at night


Istanbul

The last night of the trip...

The hottest summer in 83 years in central Texas

and I am 23 weeks pregnant. Yes, the hottest summer in Austin. Wow. I could have been pregnant last summer. It rained every other day. But no... It had to be this summer.

Summer Cold

I'm sick. I have this crazy little cold. And it's boiling outside. It's been a very, very hot summer. It feels like the AC and the heat -- getting in and out-- have not been good to me. My head is killing me and my nose is not working. And of course I can't take a lot of things. Doctor said that Tylenol will help, and lots of fluids. Same old thing. Has not been a good day.

We saw our baby this morning. He had his little hands on top of his head and he was crossing his legs. He was just there relaxing inside me, waving his little fingers. Little baby. He's breeched. His butt is facing down. Hopefully he will turn around on time. My dear friends the fibroids seem to have stopped growing and have moved (could this even be possible) to the right part of the outside of the uterus. The doctor was surprised but he said that everything looks great. According to him, I am doing very well (except for the cold) and that things are looking perfect. I just feel tired. TIRED. TIRED. TIRED. I just want to sleep. And I do that. I do a lot of sleeping. I just can't get enough sleep.

I am watching "So you think you can dance." What if my baby becomes a big, hip, crazy dancer? Mmmmm....

My pregnancy - Part 1

I am 22 weeks pregnant. One of the words that comes to my mind very frequently when I think about this pregnancy is weird. Everything seems just weird. Weird might have a negative connotation but I mean it in the very best way possible. Weird in the sense that I have a human being growing inside me. Yes, a human being growing inside me. And when I think about it, it just seems the weirdest thing in the whole world. It doesn't matter that millions of human beings have grown inside women for thousands of years. I didn't think too much about it until now that one particular human being that is going to be MY CHILD is growing inside me. It is just amazing that such thing can even be possible. Every day as I see my big belly, it amazes me, and puzzles me, and provokes me... I am making a human being. I'm just stunned.

The weird feeling has been with me since the beginning. I found out I was pregnant very early: week 4. Quite the shock. Week 4 & 5 no physical symptoms. I was just feeling fine and a little bit panicking because I didn't have symptoms so then something must be wrong. But no. Nothing was wrong with the baby but it was going to be with me very soon. By week 6, it hit me like a rock. Wow! What the heck is this??? Again, just weird, weird, weird! Nausea 24/7, indigestion, extremely tired, cranky, getting sick, etc. I couldn't stand the smell of the detergent that we were using at the time, I couldn't stand the smell of beer ( I love beer but during those days beer smelled so, so, so bad- it was so sad), I couldn't stand David's toothpaste. I literally couldn't kiss him! I had terrible aftertaste in my mouth. It was just very weird. I recognize that all those symptoms are the most normal symptoms of pregnancy but, BUT, BUT you can read about them, you can know something about them but that is not the same as having them. It was not fun. It was not fun.

There was really nothing to do. We tried saltines (which were useless), ginger tea ( which made me throw up more violently than before), and just waiting. And that was what we did. We just rode out the storm. I was so glad David was here with me. He listened to my complaints, and he tried to drink beer in a different room. And he scratched my back when I threw up. That was so nice. By week 10, I was feeling better. Little by little I have felt better and better. It seemed that the worst had passed. And so far, yes, those 4 or 5 weeks, have been the worst. Four or five weeks seem like nothing now but wow, what a trip that was.

tortillas

I made nopalitos last night. With onion, tomato, serrano, cilantro, oregano, and a drizzle of olive oil.... Delicious!! And yes, very Messsican. I heated up some tortillas because the natural way to eat nopalitos is with tortillas. There is no other way. David didn't eat tortillas with his side of nopalitos. In fact, he told me that he could not eat tortillas in every single meal. (What????)
He will never be a Messsican....

Updating

My dear husband wants a post. He keeps going to my blog every once in a while just to find NOTHING. NADA DE NADA. Oh well.... It turns out I am kind of lazy. But he's also kind of lazy because even though he has read every post, he has NEVER posted one single comment.... So, we're even. I believe.

So, here it is......

A post.

Bye.

I LOVE YOU, DEAR HUSBAND OF MINE.