Feeling Better

Hello folks,

We had a great doctor's visit last week. Jonathan and I heard the baby's heartbeat for the first time, which was pretty cool. It was so cool to look at the ultrasound together. Apparently, our baby has 2 arms and 2 legs, a spinal cord, and 2 hemispheres of his or her brain! The doctor was speeding through everything and I could tell that Jonathan was not paying attention to a word he was saying, so I translated for him. Jonathan was just enraptured staring intently at the screen ignoring everything so he could see our baby moving around.

The little one was turned away from us so we could not get a good view of the face on the 4D ultrasound. Also he was not able to determine the sex this visit so maybe next time we will know. Our next appointment is August 12th. Wow, that is in 3 weeks! Time is flying by so fast.

I am 17 weeks now and just starting to feel better. The doctor told me that my body is almost done building the placenta and that once it is developed the nausea and vomiting will subside. Sure enough, I have not had any vomiting episodes since Friday! Yay! A week of keeping all my food down. Jonathan is still cooking for me because the heat in the kitchen effectively kills any appetite I may have. I have been doing laundry but not much else around the house yet. Hopefully I will have more energy in the coming weeks.

We ordered more maternity clothes this week and we got our first baby presents from a friend who is leaving Japan this weekend. Thank you again, Melissa! It was great to get some baby stuff because so far I have been so wrapped up in this pregnancy that I have not really thought about the baby in a concrete way. Jonathan has been dreaming it will be a girl and several of our friends also think it will be a baby girl, but I guess we will just have to wait and see. If it is a boy, I have some Japanese friends who have sons and have a lot of baby clothes and stuff they are willing to part with :)

Most of the female teachers I work with are moms and they have told me they are so excited about me having a baby because we will have even more to talk about. My coworkers have always been awesome and inclusive, but it is cool that we will now also be working moms. I feel so lucky that we are taking this step when we are in such a family-friendly environment. Not many of my friends have kids yet so it is good to have some support from my peers and co-workers.

It is summer vacation now. I have been going to work, but I will probably take some long weekends in the middle of August. Jonathan will probably take time off at the end of August as well. We are excited to meet the new ALTs and go to the summer festivals!

For those of you stalking the blog but not posting, send me an email with an update about your life! We miss you and hope you are well.

xo
Laura (and Jonathan!)