Happy Halloween!

Hello everyone!

We have been having a busy month, but we haven't forgotten about the blog!   I have not had many interesting things to post recently, but I will try to update you now...

Jonathan started teaching a new student this month.  For his new job, he has to wear a suit, so we went shopping on the 16th to get him ready for work.  He looks quite sharp, in my opinion. Don't you think so too?

 

Sorry the photo is a little blurry. He would not hold still to get his picture taken because he did not want to be late for his first day, lol.  Please ignore the pile of dirty laundry behind him.  He interrupted my laundry routine and made me drive him to the station, haha!

The baby is growing well.  As of 10/24 she weighed approximately 1,600 grams which is 3 pounds, 9 ounces.  She has been kicking and punching quite a bit and she has the occasional bout of hiccups.  We are so excited to meet her!  There are less than 10 weeks until our estimated date of delivery, so it feels like it is crunch time.  Here is an illustration of her size and development we saw in a Japanese maternity magazine:

Aww. 

Today we had some friends over for a halloween dinner.  It was a lot of fun.  Last night, Jonathan and I watched a scary movie and made my costume.  I think it turned out quite well.  

I was a skeleton complete with creepy baby skeleton, haha.  We had fun making the stencil and painting the bones onto a cheap dark-colored long-sleeve shirt.  What do you think?

Jonathan was a protester.

Nice sign.

Well that is all I can think of updating for now.  I am down to prenatal appointments every other week so we will be back at the doctor on November 7th.  We'll let you know if anything awesome happens!

Love,
Laura, Jonathan, and baby

Mid-October

Hello all,

It has been an emotional week for my family, but all I feel like saying about it is that I love you all so much and I feel so lucky to have been born into such a wonderful supportive group of people. I appreciate all of my immediate and extended family for being there for each other during difficult times. When I come back I will do my best to show you in person how much I love and appreciate you!

We have been busy recently and the baby has been growing by leaps and bounds. I uploaded some photos of our weekend in Nagoya to the photobucket account.  If you want to see them, just click on the link that says, "Photobucket" to the right under "Useful Links".  I will post one teaser photo here now.

xo
Laura, Jonathan, and baby

Baby Kicks, Pear Picking and Dinosaur Hunting!

First, the baby update:
Our little girl (maybe) has been getting bigger and stronger so very quickly.  She kicks me all the time, especially in the evenings when I am relaxing at home.  She is usually pretty quiet at work, but I have a fun thing to share with you all.  On Tuesday, Jonathan brought my lunch to me at school.  He was telling me about his plans for the evening and the baby started kicking like crazy!  I think she recognizes Daddy's voice!  My books say that her hearing is very well developed by now and she is beginning to open her eyes so she is much more sensitive to light and sounds.  She may even be able to recognize mine and Jonathan's voices!  It is so exciting to notice how she grows and changes.  We are now 27 weeks.  I start my third trimester next week.  The pregnancy seems to be going very slowly and very quickly at the same time. We will be a family of three in just three short months!

Now for our adventures and some more pictures:
This past weekend, we had many adventures! On Friday we went pear picking in Wakasa Town.  On Saturday we went to the Dinosaur Museum in Katsuyama, Fukui (about 3 hours northeast of where we live) with two of our friends from Obama.  And on Sunday we went to Kyoto for some tasty falafel and the open air flea market at Kita no Tenmangu Shrine!  Whew!  We forgot to take pictures in Kyoto, but we documented our excursions from Friday and Saturday. Enjoy some photos!

 It sprinkled for a few minutes so we had to take shelter under our umbrella.

 Above is the Fukuisaurus, discovered in our prefecture!  Below is the Fukuiraptor, also discovered here!

Love you all!

Laura, Jonathan, and baby!

September Update & Laura loves Jonathan

Hello friends and family,

Sorry I have been so bad about posting recently.  I have been tired and struggling with morning sickness (again) and did not want to type up all the whiney posts I was composing in my head.  I have thrown up 4 times in the last 7 days (at work all times) and I am just so ready for fall to come.  I hope if I can just power through September, I will be able to make it.  I think my nausea is being aggravated by the heat (temperatures in the 80s and 90s every day) and my seasonal allergies, but I cannot take any medicine because I'm pregnant!  The recent bouts of morning sickness have not been nearly as bad as they were back in the first trimester (I am able to eat a bit more than just toast and crackers, and I have been keeping my prenatal vitamins down), but I am just tired of feeling so crappy.  I really need to start doing those prenatal yoga tapes because I can feel my stamina and muscle tone deteriorating every day.  I won't have the energy to deliver this baby if I do not get my act together and just push through the negativity and self-pity I have been stuck in!

I am truly happy to be pregnant and every single time our baby kicks me I stop and smile.  She is kicking all the time now, usually a couple of times per hour, but sometimes I think she is napping in there so I will go a while without feeling anything.  Or perhaps she is awake but still too small and is kicking me in the back or in my tummy fat, lol.  I love her so much already and I love Jonathan more everyday now that we are becoming parents.  I am so so so very lucky to have Jonathan in my life.  He is the best man I could ever hope for.  I am trying to hard to recognize when I am "pregnancy crazy" so that I don't freak out about little things, but he is just so patient no matter what I say or do.  He takes care of me emotionally, spiritually, physically, and financially (although I try to take care of myself in all those areas too).  He does more than 60% of the housework: cooking, doing dishes, cleaning, and taking care of the garbage. I totally owe him a dishwasher when we get back to America. And a maid. We enjoy cooking so I think we can skip the chef. I am sure that once the baby comes, I will have a new person in this world that I love completely and unconditionally to a degree that I never thought possible, but I already love and appreciate her more than I could ever imagine because she has shown me that I made the right choice when I married Jonathan. If the first 2 years of marriage and 4 years of dating before were this good, then I cannot wait to see how great the rest of our lives will be. 

Everything in my life is changing in a big, irreversible way, but I couldn't be happier.  Heartburn, vomiting, nausea, bladder infections, backaches, homesickness (is there such as thing as "momsickness" where you miss your mom?), fatigue, and a lack of interest in doing anything outside of our apartment aside, I would not have chosen any differently if I could go back in time.

I love you all and thanks for bearing with me.  I am making a 25th week of pregnancy resolution to be more positive in my thoughts and words so that I can have the power and energy to overcome the little bumps in the road. Life is only going to get harder and busier from here on out and I want to enjoy the magic and little miracles around me every day.

xo
Laura, Jonathan, and baby

Here are some recent photos. Link to babymoon photos

Boy or Girl?

So we went to the doctor today for our 24th week check-up and ultrasound.
He takes a screenshot and says,
"Well, here it is."
I said, "What are we looking at?"
"The sex."
"Is it a boy or a girl?"
"Which one do you want?"
"Either one is fine."
"Girl, maybe. We will check again next time to be sure."

Hahahahaha. So we have a "girl, maybe."  I find this hilarious and I hope you do too.

Also, our baby girl is still too shy to let us have a 3D picture of her face, but we got an awesome profile shot of her trying to touch her toes. So cute!

We will post pictures... eventually!

Love you all,
Laura, Jonathan, and Girl Maybe

Ultrasound photo

Here's a picture of our baby! The head is the prominent feature in this ultrasound printout, with some of the spine visible- oooh creepy! We felt the little dude or dudette's first kick on Saturday in the evening after Laura had eaten a strawberry crepe. Since then, Laura's periodically been stopping mid-sentence to tell me the baby kicked, where I'll rush over to try and feel it, but, of course, s/he won't do it.

Also, we're 20 weeks today!

We have an appointment tomorrow to determine the sex of the little hitchhiker. We'll let you know soon whether you should start conditioning our unborn child to like blue and footballs and trucks or pink and princesses and dolls with an age old display of rampant consumerism. Haha JK LOL. Not really. But seriously though, you are going to buy our baby a ton of stuff, right?

I'm doing well; I have a break from work for a few weeks to relax and enjoy summer. We're going to go on a babymoon soon and enjoy all the foreign food Osaka has to offer and watch movies. We'll post later to let you know which box our baby fits in!

Love,
Jonathan (and Laura)

Two Years in Japan

Hello folks,

Happy Monday! It has been a busy past few weeks here in Fukui. Jonathan, Grainne and I went to visit the lovely Jen in Aichi prefecture last weekend. We had an excellent time shopping, eating delicious food, and enjoying city life. We met up with Mrs. Deguchi and Ashley, some friends from Ohio University for an Italian lunch in Nagoya. After that we went shopping and got some cute clothes, foreign food, and new beauty products. For dinner we had Indian food with Ashley's friends and then we went out for karaoke. Sunday was a lazy day where we did a bit more shopping and we got Starbucks coffee.

Jen came back to Ohi with us on Monday. She stayed until Thursday morning and we got to do a lot of fun local things together. We went to the beach, visited a temple, and also went to a library/art museum/creepy puppet house. Mostly we just hung out and enjoyed each other's company. It was a fabulous start to summer vacation. I took Monday - Wednesday (the 25th-27th) off. I believe this is Jonathan's last week of work for the summer. He gets most of August off. Yay! I am back at work after another busy weekend.

Group A of the new ALTs came to Fukui Wednesday night. Thursday after work I took the train up to Fukui city to meet them at the welcome BBQ. The BBQ was a lot of fun, and it was great to see all the northerners again. Friday was their second day of orientation. I had to be there for the "Settling In Workshop" to introduce them to the South (Reinan area). There were 6 new southern ALTs so Lucia and I had our work cut out for us. I focused on the Obama area people and Lucia focused on the Tsuruga area people but it always feels like we don't have enough time to cover everything. They are very interested in learning about the area and always have a million questions. I remember those days...

So the coolest part of the orientation situation this year was that I got to meet Conor's successor. Her name is Rebecca and I already like her a lot. We have been talking via facebook for over a month so I already knew we would get along well. Our supervisor and another person from the Board of Education came up to Fukui City to pick us up and bring us back to Ohi on Friday around 1PM. We got some paperwork done and she is out right now doing more paperwork and visiting our schools. On Saturday the new Obama area ALTs, Grainne, Jonathan, and I hung out and had okonomiyaki for dinner. On Sunday we all hung out again and were joined by Lauren and Ryan, a pair of veteran ALTs from Obama, for the Obama festival. There were food booths, music, a stage, and a number of dancers and performers. The fireworks festival is tonight (Monday) but Jonathan, Rebecca, and I have a BBQ with our Board of Education so we cannot go. Luckily, Ohi town will be having its fireworks festival this coming weekend so we will not be missing out too much.

So, in conclusion, we were very busy! I am feeling a lot better now that the worst of the morning sickness is over. I only threw up once last week. I suppose I am not quite ready for medium salsa and guacamole chips. Especially since I took my prenatal vitamin with them instead of taking it with something mild right before bed. So as long as I limit my spicy food intake I have been eating almost full portions at my meals. Yay! The baby is getting bigger. I know this because my belly is getting bigger, haha. Apparently my uterus is the size of a cantaloupe now that I am 5 months pregnant. Pre-pregnancy it was about the size of a pear or an avocado. Ha!

I cannot wait to feel the baby moving around in there. Sometime over the next month I should be able to feel him/her. Also we may know if the baby is a boy or a girl in less than 2 weeks. Yay! I am still worried and nervous about the pregnancy, but I am starting to feel like the baby will be coming into our lives soon. The pregnancy is almost halfway done! I had a dream the other night that we had just gotten back from the hospital and Jonathan was feeding the baby. He asked me to take over and I realized we only had the one spit-up cloth. I panicked because I felt like we were so unprepared for the baby to actually be here. When we were planning for the pregnancy, we spent a year researching about the physical, emotional, and financial realities of pregnancy in Japan. I bought books, read blogs, and spoke with foreign mothers and fathers living here before making the decision. I spent so much time and energy planning for the pregnancy but not as much time planing for the baby! I know that it makes sense to wait until the 3rd trimester to buy baby stuff and all that, but I am feeling a little restless having to wait to make the proper preparations.

Well that is all for now. I will try to post again this week. It seems like I have a lot to say if I wait over a week to post, lol. Also, pictures! Sorry about the delay I will put them up soon.

Love,
Laura (and Jonathan!)

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!)