my turn

So Kirby had a 24 hour stomach bug while we were gone (and a little after we got back) so we thought if anyone got it, it would be the family that kept them for us. But they didn't get sick and we had a week of feeling great so we assumed it was an isolated incident. Until Friday and Saturday. Stan got it. By Sunday he was feeling ok, which was good since we were the Sunday morning hosts this week. All was fine yesterday but last night I woke up and had horrible indigestion. Nothing too new. Common for me during pregnancy so I took a Zantac and tried to go back to sleep. My stomach was a little rumbly but eventually the meds kicked in and I was able to sleep again. But this morning I woke up and had to run to the bathroom. Without being too detailed let's just say it wasn't too pleasant. While I was using the bathroom I was afraid I wouldn't finish in time to turn around and throw up. Ok, so maybe that was detailed. Anyway, I won't be tutoring today, mostly because the place where I go on Tuesday and Thursday doesn't have a bathroom and I'm not about to go to a public one--squatties and intense smell so not gonna happen. So far Bennett has had a few gross diapers but no vomiting, let's hope the poor guy doesn't get it. After being sick for a month back in Jan/Feb I think he's had his fair share. Wait I threw up all Jan too! I should have gotten a pass on this.

The best part is that I'm already to the point where I'm hungry most of the day and have to eat regularly to keep off headaches and feeling kinda weak. I'm sick but also hungry.

so.completely.wrong.

So our trip to the doctor while in KM was exciting and surprising all at once. If I've never explained it to you before let me start out with this...It is against the law for doctors to let the parents know a baby's gender before birth. This comes from the implementation of the one child policy that started in 1978-1980. Each family is allowed to have one child with a few exceptions that allow a family to have two (living in a village, being in a minority group, etc). Traditionally boys are regarded as the favored sex for children, as has been in many cultures, so with this policy many couples would find out they were having a girl and abort their child in order to give themselves a chance for a son. With this the population of men was beginning to grow and of women to decline. This causes some serious society issues. So therefor to prevent aborting so many girl babies the government decided to not give the parents the option to find out. So now that I've given that history lesson you may understand why were were so uncertain yet hopeful we would be able to find out if we were having a girl or a boy.

We went to an International Hospital in KM that works with many foreigners and is rumored to tell foreign parents the gender of their child. This is also our best option for a thorough ultra sound. We wanted to take a trip anyway and this was the perfect time to have the check up and our Anniversary getaway. We had the normal things done (urinalysis and blood pressure both ok) and then on to the ultra sound. We had a nurse that helped us through the whole process to translate and take us to where we needed to go. She and the u/s tech both agreed to tell us the gender if we were able to see. Of course she started with the head and heart and all that. The baby was active and healthy and looked great. As she moved down the body we noticed that he was all curled up and being modest. So we didn't get a full on view but from looking up through the legs and bottom we were able to see what surely looked like little boy parts sticking out (knowing that if it was a girl nothing would be 'sticking out'). The nurse and the tech both gave us pretty strong affirmative for a little boy without being able to see the best view.

I have to admit that I was shocked and disappointed. Of course with the disappointment I felt guilty but I just couldn't help how I was feeling. We were all so certain it was a girl. Stan was in shock also but of course he was feeling like 'THE MAN' with producing yet another male offspring (apparently that male dominated mind set is not unique to the Chinese even now :). I went through the evening between thoughts of disbelief and amazement. I just couldn't wrap my brain around being the mother of three boys. I had trouble sleeping that night--a lot due to the bed being so hard that I could not get comfortable with my big belly and some to do with a mind running wild. I woke up early with a heavy heart. I knew my selfish thoughts were the cause. I laid there and talked to FATHER. I asked HIM to give me a heart of joy and happiness for being the mother of boys. I asked HIM to help me to feel thankful for healthy wonderful children. I asked HIM to prepare me to raise strong men that loved HIM more than anything. And I thanked HIM for knowing me better than I know myself and trusting me to raise HIS beautiful boys.

I have felt fine ever since then. I still feel amazed at times that I will have three boys but not in a disappointed way. For many reasons, some to do with the whole one child policy that I talked of before, we are not sure if we will have any more children. I've already been asked a couple of times if we will try again for a girl. The answer is I don't know if we will have another child. But my thoughts have been that we would not have another child for the purpose to have a girl but for the purpose that we felt FATHER was asking us to parent another of HIS creations. We have talked about adopting and that is still an option for us, knowing that if we do we could choose to adopt a little girl. We simply don't know what the future holds for our family.

Just now Kirby came and interrupted me so that I could have a sword fight with him. I'm happy to know that I have many years of sword fights, trains, cars and all the other fun things that boys love. I get to watch three (at least) boys grow into young men and eventually move on to begin families of their own. This is what being a mother is all about!

Sometimes it's not so bad to be so.completely.wrong.

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our wonderful trip

We had an absolutely fabulous time away. As much as we love spending time together as a family it's also really nice to have time for just Stan and I. I think sometimes we forget what it's like to just be together and have adult conversation, especially since we only had just over a year of marriage before Kirby was born and most of that year I was pregnant--which let's face it makes women a little off from their 'normal' selves. So we had 2 full days of adult time! Such a blessing.

Almost as soon as we arrived in KM (our Province capital) we took off for the hospital. Baby Pittman #3 is very healthy and almost for sure a boy. It was an interesting time at the doctor--more to come of that in the next post--but we were so thankful to get a thorough check up. We did a little shopping that night and then went to a newish restaurant that was pretty good and we got to eat some semi-decent Texmex. Then back to the hotel to hang out and watch some movies.

The next day we got up, ate our western breakfast (mmmmm) and then on to a Chicago Coffee for drinks and Internet. We saw some friends there and got to chat a little. We had lunch and spent the afternoon and evening with friends and had a great time laughing and sharing stories. Sadly I was so exhausted by the time we got back to our hotel that I fell asleep and didn't get to enjoy the movie that night. The downfall of the pregnant woman.

Sunday morning we finished up the shopping (I guess I should note that all this shopping was buying American food stuff to bring home. Seriously a lot of it.) and ate Pizza Hut for lunch. We caught a 1:00 bus back home and got here in time for dinner. I know it doesn't sound exciting but it was fun. We were able to take our time, do whatever we felt like and not have to worry about nap time or bed time--other than for me. :)

The boys had a fabulous time with our friends. It was a serious blessing to not have to worry about them at all. Kirby even had a little stomach bug starting Saturday morning with throwing up (1 time) and the big D (countless times) and they didn't even skip a beat. Kirby felt fine, other having to run to the bathroom often, so they still got to paint, play outside and do all the other fun things our friends had planned.

Fun times for all!

pregnancy stuff

Sorry, no Wordless Wednesday this week (or for the past couple of months), all my recent pictures are already posted so I thought I would just do a little pregnancy post. So here are a few recent things...

- I am 19 weeks tomorrow. This means that because I'm going to have a c-section at 39 weeks by the end of the weekend I am halfway through this pregnancy. Time has FLOWN by.

- The little baby thumps I've been feeling for a couple of weeks are now getting stronger and more regular. I think that is my favorite part of pregnancy. I've never been one of those women who claims to love being pregnant. I seem to get all the bad symptoms (especially this time with being so sick the entire third month) but feeling the baby move is so sweet.

- I am really showing. I look probably the same as many women do at 6 months or more. I know this is normal in many cases for a third pregnancy but sometimes it's still weird to me. The good thing is I have not gained any weight. I lost about 5-7 kg (11-15 lbs) in the four or five weeks I was sick but as soon as I was able to eat real food again it came right back. (side note: I always tell my weight in kg because that's the kind of scale I have there so that is more accurate than giving it just in pounds.)

- This weekend Stan and I are going to KM (the capital) for a short getaway to celebrate our 5 Year Anniversary that is coming up at the end of the month. While we are there we plan to go to a hospital that works a lot with foreigners. We will get a thorough sonogram to measure all the usual things. There is about a 20% chance they will tell us the baby's gender. It's against the law here to find out but rumor has it they may tell a foreigner. We are praying hard that everything will look good and that they will have pity on this momma and let me know pink or blue.

- We both (well I guess I should say the whole family) feel like this is a girl. Some facts: I have been more sick, hormonal, etc. with this pregnancy than with both of the boys--my symptoms with both of them were very similar. For the first time we have agreed on a girl name (and did so within a week of finding out I was pregnant) but don't have a for sure boy name--with the boys we had a boy name picked out as soon as we found out we were pregnant but never could agree on a girl name. Every baby thought I have includes pink--I've always been drawn to blue in the past and just adored the girl clothes from a far. And lastly, the pencil test is undoubtedly saying girl. All of these things could mean nothing but are still all true.

I will keep you updated on how this weekend goes and I'm sure I will have some stories from the weekend. If not from boring us, from the family that is so graciously keeping Kirby and Bennett while we are gone.

workation

So here I am. I woke up this morning wondering if there is ever a time when Blogger gets tired of an un-updated blog and just deletes it. Now I am fully aware that there are many blogs that go much longer without updating but it was still a thought. And with that thought came the thought that I am ready to start writing again. Nothing profound yet...have I ever been profound...hmmm. Anyway, I'll just start out with our Workation trip to Thailand.

So the week before our trip Bennett came down with some sort of stomach bug. We still aren't sure if it was a virus (hard to believe cause no one else got it), food poisoning (likely cause he eats off the floor/ground), or a parasite (again, likely--did I mention that even though our floor gets mopped everyday we still don't let the boys apply the 30 sec. rule, if you came here you would understand). The five days before we left Bennett had vomiting and diarrhea like I have never seen. My boy can eat, anyone who has shared a meal with our family can attest to that, and we had trouble keeping liquids in him that week. I PTL that our dear friend Amanda was here that week spending some time with us. I seriously believe without her we would not have made it through. She helped clean up vomit (yes, this is a really good friend) since I myself was still pukey, helped with the many loads of laundry and sacrificed a week that was supposed to be spent seeing our city to be nursemaid to me and Bennett. Bennett was so bad that he lost about 2 kg (almost 4.5 pounds) So we were to leave Saturday morning on a 4 hour bus ride to the capital city so we could fly to Bangkok on Sunday. I was pleading with Father for Bennett and I to both stop throwing up long enough to get through the traveling. I can PRAISE HIM cause he answered. Bennett threw up Friday afternoon and then began to ask to eat..and he kept it down, little bits at the time (the diarrhea continued for a few more days but not so bad and since we have not potty trained him yet it wasn't such a big traveling issue). I threw up Saturday morning and other than a few more small bouts of nausea I have felt fine since. Stan is positive that I was having traveling induced nausea on the days we had to travel. Any morning we had to get up and be somewhere was when I felt queasy. It was almost as if the anxiety upped the hormones, I think he was right. But my pregnancy will be another post.

So on to our Bangkok arrival on Sunday evening. We were taking a couple of days to have everyone have a check-up with a doctor. Since Bennett had been so sick I really wanted them to go ahead and see him on Sunday evening. So we check in to our hotel and walk on over to the Hospital to the pediatric area. Let me tell you this was an amazing pediatric office. There was a play area (I'm talking full on tunnel slides and climbing equipment) that also had a child's movie playing and a table for coloring. They are open all weekend, including Sunday till 8 PM (obviously since we were there about 6:30). We were seen within 10 minutes of arriving. They had no problem looking Bennett over and doing a full check up on both boys. They both checked out fine--I don't have their stats but they both were fine with weight and height. The doctor said that if Bennett was keeping down food and liquids he was definitely on the mend but gave him some probiotics to get his system back to normal.

The next morning it was my turn. I met with an OB--who came into the office just to see me after I sent a pleading email. I really liked her. She got my thorough history and did all the normal exam, blood work and had them do an ultra sound. The blood work all came back normal and the ultra sound was great. Of course being only 14 weeks along there was no way to tell the baby's gender. But I was very pleased with the facility and feel very confidant about having the baby there. After I was done it was Kirby's turn to have his allergy test done. She decided to add in shrimp and crab to the test to rule out shellfish allergies. After his arms were all pricked and our wait was over we were able to confirm that he is indeed allergy free! He had been drinking milk for a few months but I wanted to just make sure and have it in his medical records. So, another answer to prayer! Stan was supposed to have his check up on Tuesday morning but he got food poisoning and didn't want to deal with the appointment so we had to postpone.

Tuesday afternoon we headed to Pattaya on a bus and got there just in time for dinner. This is where we spent the bulk of our two weeks. Our time there was mostly meetings but we were also blessed with some great times of fellowship, worship and informative classes. The boys got to swim and play each day with their friends. The only draw back is that there was a stomach virus going through the conference as well as a bad cold. Bennett, not being fully recovered from the week before, ended up with more stomach issues and we all got the head cold. Bennett was by far the worst off and got a cough so bad that if he ate too close to bed time, when the cough was the worst, he would end up coughing till he threw up. The colds lasted through our meetings and to our few days of vacation time. We had some friends that stayed a few extra days as well so we did our best to enjoy it even while feeling kinda lousy. You can see pictures here. We left there and went back to Bangkok for Stan to do his check up (including a stress test, I wish I had a picture of him in the little outfit he had to wear), the boys got checked over again and a little shopping (we are now the proud owners of a Wii). We finally made it home and did our best to recover (the boys both went through a phase of having drainage from their eyes...I have never seen that before) and getting back to our normal schedule.

In reality normal schedule doesn't begin until tomorrow when we go back to class and studying but it's been nice to have a few weeks to get life back in order.