dreamin on

So far it's the 'coolest' symptom of this pregnancy. In reference to a pregnancy calendar marking daily milestones and/or tips, this is around the time my dreams would be vivid. How true that is.

The last two nights, my dreams were quite vivid in color and in sound. The scenes were so specific, and I remember intently hearing conversation with actual words. My usual dreams pre-pregnancy were black/white, and no sound. Just complete visual and feel, as if I can read minds and know what's going on.

Although the dreams aren't making much sense, it's kind of cool that I'm remembering my dreams again. I read somewhere that we dream even when we don't know it, but most of the time I forget about it once I wake up. These two dreams have kept me in bed much longer than I should in the mornings. LOL.

The whole concept of dreaming has always fascinated me. In the last two years, I've had quite a few significant dreams regarding the changes in my life. Babies can dream in the womb, so I read. I'm curious as to what kind of dreams Gerard's been having. Perhaps it's a mix of the lights and sounds he's been able to grasp. I dunno but that's just really cute to think about. The first time I noticed a baby dream, it was my nephew. I think he was probably 1 year old. He was napping on my bed, and out of the blue, he just started clapping and smiling. It prompted me to lay next to him as I thought he was awake, but he was quite asleep!
 

Back to this crappy symptom

Aiye!! My appetite is lost again. Getting hungry fast versus lack of appetite doesn't make me feel great. Today was a super lazy Sunday which was spent walking around downtown shopping for computer stuff and taking naps at gramma Hernandez's place where I spent the weekend. It started out as a nice, sunny day then the clouds rolled in =( The heartburn symptom began last week, and also, a very uncomfortable sensation struck me while we were in mass today. We did a lot of walking from the cable car stop to church, so as soon as I took off my jacket and sweater, I sat down and started to feel like there was no air around me. I coughed and wanted to vomit, and the thirst didn't help. It felt like my lungs were being pushed up, which is probably what was going on. Thank goodness it only lasted for a few minutes. After sitting down for the most part during mass, I got my normal life back. Oy we haven't been taking consistent pictures of my belly like some folks do, but we finally took a decent one this morning. It looks a lot different in picture than in the mirror. We'll post that up in a little while. Baby G has been kicking and moving much more (or I'm feeling it more!) -- last night Papa E finally felt something. It was great. Now we will always remember the first time we both felt Gerard kick was late at night while watching our favorite comedy flick Euro Trip. How classy. But hey someday we plan on taking our own Euro Trip so I hope this was a sign that it's going to happen. By the way -- street smokers are horrible people. There is simply no way you can breathe downtown without inhaling cigarette smoke every 20 feet. Second hand smoking is truly a killer disease that no law seems to care about. Hey I don't mind if anyone wants to smoke their lungs out, just don't bring the 10 people around you down! 

My new eating symptom

I'm guessing my uterus is just moving up as regularly scheduled, since I feel some pressure on my stomach (really, it feels more like it's floating sometimes). The pressure seems to affect my eating habits. Like my stomach is feeling smaller. I get hungry every 2 hours, and I eat, but I get full right away. Then I get so hungry again. Lately, I've been having two dinners. Usually, when I have 2 slices of pizza for breakfast, that lasts me until lunch. But nothing I eat for breakfast lasts me until lunch anymore. I need to eat every 2 hours! For some reason my body just wants to eat more at night. Gerard's movements are about as random as they come. I feel them more though, when I have tighter pants that press against my belly. Today I was wearing my favorite stretchy pants that aren't as tight as the others but I still felt his movements or hiccups :) The holiday virus is up in the air, and I caught it a couple of weeks ago at work. But it didn't last very long with me, although remnants of my sore throat are still around. Papa E has been very sick since the weekend, so we've had to stay away from each other. My mom also caught something, so I should be really careful about catching it again. Preggy + flu = not good! 

His name

We decided to stick with Gerard Gabriel because there's just no other way! Can't wait to meet you Gerard.

In preparation, we are slowly buying his clothes and setting up his college fund so we don't roll over in stress later with tuition costs. He must be excited because he was moving around a lot late last night as I was opening up an account, and also this morning on my way to work. We're also excited enough to get something like this started so early. I really hope his movements are not the result of the caffeine I had earlier yesterday because I've been craving so bad and depriving myself of coffee for weeks now (and in fact, during this whole pregnancy). Doctor said it's ok to have 1-2 cups a day, but I've avoided it for the most part so when I'm reaaaally craving I go for a very small cup or a few sips at the most. I've only had coffee of such amounts twice during this time. Although my dosage of chocolate is far more than that of coffee, even if I only have it every now and then. I'm not a big fan of chocolate to start with.

Yesterday in mass, the priest was talking about the end of the world and how we should be prepared because we can not expect the moment. He was contrasting it to the kind of preparation an expecting mother goes through, and the way he described that was exactly how it feels! The changes, the preparation, the anticipation, etc are all exciting times but nothing like the preparation for the end. LOL. In the meantime, we are straightening out our lives and habits and preparing a good path for Gerard so as the end of the world approaches, we'll be sure he is raised a good person.

These new pants I bought last weekend are cool, but I forgot to cut out the security tag sewed on to it and I was setting off alarms at every store I've walked in and out of on Sunday. Something to laugh about. I just saw the tag this morning, though, so it's not like I was completely aware!

Anyhoo, it hasn't been a great start of a Monday for me. Not only have I been getting morning gagness, but when I was preparing my breakfast, I knocked my cereal bowl while opening my box of milk, and the cereal went flying towards the floor and I salvaged what I could off the counter. A majority remained in the bowl. Keep in mind this was a small box of "travel" cereal so there wasn't much to begin with. On the way back to my desk at work while carrying the bowl in one hand and the rest of the milk in the other, my elbow knocked something and I almost lost the bowl too! So more cereal and milk spilled all over my work station. Oh and the first crap I committed this morning was losing one of my contact lenses while I was trying to put it on! I dropped it somewhere in the bathroom and couldn't find the damn thing! Luckily I still have glasses and it's actually the time of the month for me to dispose of those lenses anyway... I just now have to find my new lenses that were packed away somewhere when I moved out of my apartment.

Our next appointment is in about 2 and a half weeks (my birthday which I should be taking a day off for anyway!) and we hope to have more good news! Can't believe the year is almost over. It's been wild and awesome and sad at the same time.


-Rio

p.s. To answer Nikki's question on the guestbook, yup, I'm having the wobbly walk now. And having a harder time getting in and out of my car and bed! 

kickin' me where it doesn't hurt!

Seems the movements are being felt more and more now, and the best way to describe it is the smile that dominates my face every time I feel it. We're leaning more and more towards the name Gerard, and as I've told Egan, the naming game is still open until we fill out that birth certificate. So far, though, "Gerard" has been getting points from the both of us since he brought it up the other day.

I recall my journal entry a while back about a dream that we were having a boy. Was that a dream come true, or what? A little known story: many, many months ago earlier this year, I had a dream about having a baby. And it came out of nowhere, taking me a while to realize what it meant. No, I don't think it meant I was going to have a baby soon but I had a different interpretation of it that's rather personal. And I'm going with that interpretation because at the time, it made sense with what I was going through. However, now that the dream literally came true, I'm also taking it as a signal or a message from ... a divine source. Egan probably thinks it crazy, but I'm a little more attentive to these things. The reason why I insisted on having "Gabriel" in our boy's name is because Gabriel is a messenger of good news... and twice, I've received unexpected messages regarding this baby I have yet to hold or see with my own eyes. Crazy coincidence? Doesn't matter to me. It's definitely kinda cool because I have had very significant and divinely dreams in my life that I can never disregard, and my baby dreams aren't any different. They were definitely dreams of good news, and I couldn't deny that.

Baby Gabe or Gerard (if we are 100% on that one! I hope we are) is already receiving lots of attention from us and we just can't wait until we meet him in person. Egan and I are comparing our respective baby features and traits, and predicting what Gerard would be like when he's here. It's fun to think about these things.

"Gerard" is of English origin meaning "brave spearman." Sounds like a strong dude, and that's exactly what we're going to train him as. In the meantime, keep kicking me in the pelvis, lil Ger! 

it looks like a...

Today we had another perinatal progress check appointment.  I accompanied Rio after my architecture class and we were rewarded with news that there's no down's syndrome, growth was right on target and they were able to tell us that all major parts of the brain were present.  This time they also gave us a special treat!  Through the awesomeness of the sonogram, we got to look between baby's legs and, as in the Austin Powers movies, what we saw looked just like a great...  big... JOHNSON!  WE'RE HAVING A BOY!   There went my predictions of having a daughter.  HELL YEAH!  My boy's a fast swimmer!  He sure swam his little nanomotor-powered tail off!  We couldn't agree on a boy's  name before today. We have 'Gabriel' as a middle name (other kids might call him "GAY-briel" if it was his first name.)  'Ethan' sounds like the person saying it has a lisp.  Rio just plainly doesn't like 'Evan.'  I said I didn't like 'Thomas' because if he meets a nice girl named Katherine, well, 'TomKat' is out of the question.  I thought 'Yuri' wouldn't be a bad name; Yuri Gagarin was the first human in space.  But Rio didn't like it, neither did one of her brothers.  I guess the Dr Zhivago reference is out.  We live in San Francisco, where the bigoted public school district purposely bussed me out of my nice nob hill neighborhood to the latin ghetto mission district where schools are poorly funded because my last name is Hernandez.  We also have to think of our boy's future resume, to make sure that we spell names conventionally, to help his resume be more marketable.  We won't take a name like Duane and spell it D'Wayne.  I really like the movie Cyrano de Bergerac, but Cyrano Hernandez would clearly get thrown in a ghetto public school and his mind would rot from lack of proper funding.  But Rio and I both like the name 'Gerard.'  So 'Gerard Gabriel Hernandez' is on the table.  We're going to have to fight the SF School District very hard to keep him in a school that's receiving proper funding.  We have lots of work ahead of us! 

Cold holiday greetings from San Francisco

Since we never made an announcement, Egan and I got hitched last month in a very small ceremony with just family present. We decided it was best to seal the deal in the eyes of the law before baby was born ^..^ (and before I got too big for the pictures). However, we'll have an actual celebration with all our dear and loved ones sometime after baby is born, but right now, our focus and energy are to establish a stable environment for our belly jean (that's what we're calling "it" until we have a name).

But we are now feeling baby movement here. Or I think it is. Unless it's living jello in my uterus. It sure is getting a lot harder to lean over and reach for that fallen pen on the floor! I have a bad tendency to knock things off my desk at work, and that reminds me.... I have to get more slip-on shoes because tying shoelaces is nearing impossible at this time.

And so whatever your views of Thanksgiving may be, we are still very thankful for everything that's happening and for everyone who's been supportive.

-Rio and Egan