That’s another third trimester difference for me. Heart burn. Add to that, being more tired, yet waking up in the middle of the night to pee and not being able to get back to sleep (guess what time I am writing this blog post? Answer = 4am.)

It’s harder and harder for me to do household chores (thanks to Andy for stepping up and picking up the slack!), pick up and/or fight our precious toddler when she doesn’t want to do something, walk up flights of stairs without being winded and carry things at all. I generally defer to Andy or anyone in the general vicinity who is willing to change B’s diapers, give her a bath, brush her teeth or lift her into the highchair. I still cannot give up putting her to bed even though our nighttime routine involves me standing and swaying with her through two songs of her light-up seahorse and then lifting her into the crib. She slept in her big girl bed Thursday night for the first time, which I hope continues because I am pretty sure I let out a grunt each time I have to lift her into her crib.

I make that same grunt when I bend over to pick something up. I need to start working on my quad muscles and grand-plié it when I bending down is required. My body hasn’t fully reached to the point where it recognizes it’s limitations and is still trying to power through tasks in the fashion it was used to.

A last noteworthy change, Three Words: African Tribal Boobs. They are back. If I do not wear a bra and a sturdy one at that, the suckers prop themselves up on my belly…how attractive is that? I finally had to breakdown and buy a $45 Victoria’s Secret super supportive big girl bra last weekend and boy has it ever been nice. It is even a cup size larger than the last pregnancy which I don’t quite fill out yet but I suspect breastfeeding will fix that. And no that wasn’t in the budget. January is turning into a bust for our budget plan, but some things you just gotta give in for and African Tribal Boobs is one of them.

We are back from a wonderful weekend in McCall and are just starting to process pictures, unpack and get ready for the week. It will be a few days until I have some really fun photos to share, so in the meantime, I thought I would share this one of Belén’s first time sledding.

The Hoobing household has been ecstatic all week since we booked our trip to Europe in September for our friends, Patrik and Claudia’s wedding.  After some serious deliberation we have decided to take the whole family so besides mapping out the itenerary, we are starting to brush up/learn some of the languages of the countries we will be visiting.  Andy has enough German covered, so I finally cracked open the French Rosetta Stone I received for my birthday and started lessons.  We thought it was important to start preparing Belén as well.  I apologize, I am not the best iPhone videographer…the video is dark until :14 and the sound quality is not the best.

Tomorrow, Andy is skiing, B and I are hanging out and we will likely all go sledding in the afternoon. Let me take that back. I keep forgetting that it is not practical or smart for pregnant ladies to go sledding, so I will be taking photos. For some reason my brain does not seem to register sledding as something that goes on the “Not for Pregnant Ladies” list of activities…soft of how I felt about zip-lining in Fiji during the first pregnancy.

Within an hour of arrival to this small mountain town, we were welcomed with a spectacular show of fireworks kicking off the McCall Winter Carnival.

Travel Rerun: Harbin Snow Sculpture of a Woman

Location: Harbin, Heilongjiang, China

Latitude: 45° 45′ 0 N, Longitude: 126° 39′ 0 E

Let me be honest, I have been thinking about names since I was in high school. Not that I had any plan of having to choose a name for anything besides a car and a dog for a good long while, but you know, it’s one of those things girls think about. Or at least I did.

So, I should be all over the baby name thing. I should have had two workable girl names picked out like ten years ago, right?

Well, I guess I did. But then they turned out to be the same names that every other woman my age seems to adore as well. You know them, the Madeline’s, the Ava’s, the Sophia’s, the Isabella’s. Beautiful names, but now, smack dab in the top 10 baby names in the United States.

Couple that with the fact that choosing a name is actually not something I do on my own. Oh…right?! My adoring, yet picky-when-it-comes-to-choosing-a-name husband has to be onboard with the name as well. I didn’t take that into account when I was choosing names as an 18-year-old.

So I we went searching. Actually scouring is a better word. A few books, but mostly the Internet. Here are a few good name choosing sites, I came up with:

Behind the Name The most popular names in a whole bunch of different countries. This site is great as I love names that are not too unusual but not commonplace in the US, so Europe’s name lists provide a lot of great ideas. Plus after living in two foreign countries, we like a name that sounds a bit international.

“Name My Baby” post from Aidan Donnelley at Ivy League Insecurities on choosing her baby’s name…especially the comments.

Nameberry, names and their meanings

“Baby Names” app for the iPhone

There are really SO many great names, right? It seems almost humurous how many of the baby girl names Andy and I have at least mentioned to one another?

I have been promising this post for awhile but it has taken me awhile to formulate my opinions on the topic.

To Cesarean or Vaginal Birth After Cesarean…that is the question. To be honest, I have not made a decision one way or another, which may sound wishy washy or indecisive, but in my humble opinion, one of the most important attributes to a successful birthing plan is to be flexible. Here are my thoughts on each approach.

C-section

I know c-sections because I had one with Belén because she was breech and would not turn. My recollection of the surgery was that it was quick, efficient and in less than 30 minutes we had a baby. No contractions, nothing. Super easy. And I get two extra weeks of paid leave from work.

Except then I remember the recovery. The puking from the drugs right after my father in-law walked into the room to see the baby. The itching from the morphine. The compression machines on my legs that made noise all night long. The catheter. The removal of the catheter before my body was ready to pee on it’s own. The ultrasound on my bladder to see if it was really as full as I was claiming (it had 1.2L). The temporary catheter to remove the 1.2L of fluid. The second ultrasound on my bladder to see if it was really as full as I was claiming (1.3L). The re-addition of the catheter. The nasty looking puffy incision. The weakness I felt on the internal incision for weeks to come. The knots on the edges of the internal incision that could still be felt months after the surgery when I exercised and then sneezed or coughed…. Ah, yes, the c-section. Easy, but yet not so much if you count all of the recovery aspects of it.

As a side note, here is a great reference on 10 Things I Wish Somebody Had Told Me About C-Sections.

VBAC (Vaginal Birth After Cesearan)

Call me crazy, but I have decided that if I am going the VBAC route, I am going to do it all natural. I will likely hire a doula (again) and reeducate myself on hypnobirthing as I think this is the birthing approach that most speaks to me as I have a special ability to check my mind out when I need to.

To be completely open, this route is intimidating to me because I have never felt a single contraction let alone had my body open to 10cm. And the thing I am most worried about is bladder problems afterwards. I am also concerned about baby’s head size due to the large craniums in this family as well as the total size of the baby being that Belén was 8 lbs. 7 oz.

After talking with my doctor about my concerns, let me just say that he eased most of them. He is very experienced with VBACs and takes every precaution when doing them and does not try to force something that is not meant to be. He assured me that we can reevaluate the size of the baby’s head and body before going into the labor to make sure this is still the approach I want to take given that knowledge. He also said that leaky bladders are more a result of carrying to term than giving natural birth.

So….where does that leave me?

I *think* I want to go for the VBAC…but I need to start the mental preparation process, like now. I feel like natural birth is something I need to mull over and prepare for for a good long time until I will be ready, so my goal for this week is to hire a doula and dig out my Hypnobirthing book.

That said, I sort of just have a feeling that the birth is going to turn out to be a c-section again, but I guess I shouldn’t go into it thinking like that. My fear is something a few of you have warned me about that I end up going through the nasty parts of both natural birth and c-section and this is what I absolutely want to avoid. If the baby is look big or ill-positioned, I am going to tell the doctor to just cut me open. And I actually think that is what he would probably advise anyway. We are not messing around with turning the baby again if she is breech. That scared the shit of us last time when her heart beat dropped dramatically. I don’t think I have ever been so petrified in all of my life.

That is where I am at…polarized approaches to birth…c-section or 100% natural…with the latter being my intent on my birthing plan unless new knowledge about our baby changes my mind before labor begins.

Mothers, do you have any sage advice for me? How would you recommend I prepare myself for this journey?

This post should come as no surprise since practically every blog I read as of late has gruesome tales of days on end of sickness. Also because, well, when we walk into the doctor’s office with our daughter they say, “Hi Belén” without referencing her chart or looking her name up in the computer.

I recently wondered out loud in front of a friend if perhaps we are those parents who take their kid to the doctor way more than necessary and she kindly replied, “No I think all of your visits have been warranted.” (Thanks Laura!) And actually even though I am a bit self conscious how much our daughter has been to the doctor, I cannot recall a single time where they looked at us and said, “Uh, there’s nothing wrong with her.” Although they would probably say it in some prescriptive doctor lingo like, “Despite her mucus output and change in behavior, your child is safe to resume all of her normal activities without the need for prescriptive intervention.” Nope, they have never told us that. It’s usually like, “Uh, weren’t not sure, but…” or “It’s not normally like this in kids her age, but we think she has…”

Anyway, I know you don’t want to read gory details about our nearly 21-month-old peetree dish’s latest science projects so I will keep it brief…or as brief as my sometimes prolix tendencies will allow.

A couple of weeks ago, actually the day before Andy came home from China, Belén’s behavior started to really suck and she was pulling on her ear and had a fever so with the help of my mom, I took her to the doctor. It was a Saturday, so we went to one of the Urgent Care places open on Saturdays. The PA quickly determined Belén did indeed have an ear infection and prescribed some antibiotics and we were on our way.

In an attempt to distinguish myself from my fellow nerds of the male type who all carry around black backpacks with HP logos to cart their work with them to and from their homes and meeting rooms, I decided to spice things up a bit with this bag from Forgotten Shanghai, sold at Athleta.

If you have been reading this blog for awhile or know me personally, you probably already know that I like goals. They make me tick. They give me something to look forward to, to work for…I dig them.

Sometimes when goals are lofty, I break them down into smaller goals that when combined and achieved together achieve the greater goal.

Running a marathon, for example, is really three separate races to me: the first ten miles, miles 11-20 and the last 6.2. If I look at it as a full 26.2, it can seem unachievable, but broken down…let’s do this thing.

I also create mental rules for myself. For example, if while running a long run, I am tired, I know I can always make it eight more minutes without stopping. Eight minutes is nothing, I must keep going if I have less than that amount of time left. When running marathons, this can be increased to even eight miles. Once I make it to 18.2 miles of a marathon, there is no quitting…

And since I like goals, I like to measure progress towards goals. Sometimes during a run, I will spend upwards of half the run doing mental math problems figuring out what fraction of the progress I have made.

I am running five miles which will take me 45 minutes at a nine minute pace, and I am 12 minutes into the run, so I am 12/45 reduced to 4/15 of the way through the run.

If you see me running, making what looks like a gang sign, it is probably just the finger configuration for 9 * 7 (hold both hands up facing your face, put the seventh finger from the left down and you get 63…it works for all of the 9′s times tables.) Even though I have a minor in math, my mind sometimes gets tired when running so I resort to the 9′s trick with my hands.

Anyway, so my point. Today I am at a milestone in this pregnancy which I am very excited to reach. Of course, I am thrilled that this wee babe of mine that I have been nurturing for nearly 26 weeks could likely survive outside of my body, if needed, but that is not what I am talking about.

Nope, the excitement, the hype is being generated over something much more arbitrary than that. Today I break the 100 days left mark. I have 99 days until my due date! Doesn’t double digits just seem so much more doable?

The funny thing is that even with my terrible memory which is even more terrible when I am pregnant, I vividly remember breaking this arbitrary goal with my first pregnancy. So yes, it really does mean something to me.