The blog name remains

...for now at least! We had our ultrasound today and baby looks great, still measuring a little bit big, and it's a BOY! In the words of our ultrasound tech, "those are definitely boy parts!" I have to admit I've had mixed feelings, because I was hoping for a girl and had almost convinced myself it was a girl, but it's setting in now that I was wrong! It will be fun for Soni to have a brother pretty close in age. I am looking forward to seeing them play together. We'll get our little girl someday if that's what the Lord has in store for us! For now though, bring on more dirt and trucks and rugby!

He felt it!

Yesterday Taiyo felt the baby move in my belly for the first time. :D

Baby’s movements still feel pretty small, but are definitely becoming more frequent and distinct this week. Yesterday baby was the most active he/she has been yet. After work, I laid down for a rest with Taiyo and Soni, and baby started moving again. I put Taiyo’s hand on my belly, but I didn’t tell him that the baby was moving because I wasn’t sure if it was strong enough to feel from the outside yet. I just wanted to see if he would notice it on his own. Sure enough, after a minute, baby gave a pretty good sized (for 18-weeks) kick right up on the middle of my belly, right where Taiyo’s palm was. Right away he opened his eyes and picked up his head and looked at me with a confused smile that said, “did the baby just kick me?” So I asked him if he felt a kick right in the palm of his hand and he said yes. :) So exciting!

We’re entering my favorite part of pregnancy!

#2! What's it going to be this time?

Baby #2 is on the way! I am currently 17 weeks pregnant and due June 29, 2012. My due date with Soni was June 29, 2009, so these two will have very close birthdays! I hope they'll be okay with that!

We have an ultrasound scheduled for February 6, two weeks from today. We are both very excited to know if #2 is a boy or a girl! I'm hoping for a girl, but if it's a boy, of course we'll be happy as well. It would be fun for Soni to have a little brother to play with, and hey, then I wouldn't have to change the name of my blog!
So here are the results of some old wives' gender prediction tests:

Chinese Gender Chart: GIRL
Carrying High: GIRL
Craving Sweets: GIRL

Wedding Ring on a String Swings Back & Forth: BOY

A Bit of Acne: GIRL

More Morning Sickness than the First Pregnancy: GIRL

So far the Old Wives are suggesting it's a girl, but two more weeks and we'll find out!

Taiyo is a (non-conditional) permanent resident!

We applied for Taiyo's green card pretty soon after we got married, but since it was based on marriage we had to provide a packet of evidence showing that our marriage is legit and real, and even then the green card is only good for 2 years, at which time we have to submit another packet of evidence to show that we've stayed together for the past 2 years, and things are still "real." Then the short-term conditions can be removed. We submitted the I-751 to remove his conditions in July 2011. Last week we finally got notice that our application was approved, and we got Taiyo's "permanent" permanent resident card in the mail! We're almost done with the immigration process! Next step: US citizenship, which he is eligible to apply for on Oct 14, 2012.

Emails to my little ones

When Soni turned 2, I decided that I wanted to start an email address "for him" that I could write to. (I took the idea from a google commercial I saw a while ago.) I haven't been great about scrapbooking or baby booking, but in today's digital world, it's easy to send a quick email. So I created MyTaisoni@gmail.com, and I've sent him several emails about things he does, things he'll probably like to remember, things about him that touch my heart, etc. When he's an adult I'll tell him about it and give him the password so he can read notes from me throughout his life. Maybe when he goes on his mission or gets married. I wish I had started even younger, but I think it will still be something he/we can look back on with a smile later in life. I plan to do the same with the rest of our kids too.

Toddler Talk

Taisoni is putting together a lot of small sentences lately. It's cute to hear the things he's thinking come out of this mouth.

When he falls or gets hurt or anything like that, we usually ask him, "Are you okay?" and he now replies, "Uh-huh. I otay." Taiyo got sick this weekend and when he coughed, Soni would ask, "You otay Dad?" in a very sweet voice, often accompanied by a soft stroke on the cheek.

He also has bath toys in various shapes that stick to the walls of the tub, and one day while playing with them, he picked up one in the shape of a triangle (which he pronounces more like "terrinal"). Instead of sticking to the wall, it fell, and Soni said, "Whoa! You otay terrinal?"

I've been looking forward for a long time to the time when he'll be old enough to say what he wants to say, but still has a toddler mind so funny things come out. He's getting close! As he does start to say some "darnedest things" I'll post about them!

Bye-Bye Tonsils! (And adenoids! And snoring!)

Since Taisoni was about 10 months old or so, he has been a bad snorer, and it seemed to get even worse as he got older. Sometimes I would watch him sleep and I would see his chest dipping in as he tried to breathe, but no air was going in, and then suddenly he would gasp and stir in his sleep. Other times he would be able to get air in, but it sounded like his airway was very small and it was quite noisy.

July 15 he had his tonsils removed at Primary Children’s Medical Center in Salt Lake City. I had been reading horror stories online about how awful the recovery has been for other moms of toddlers who had their tonsils removed. I wasn’t initially too worried about the whole procedure, until I read those experiences online. I braced myself.

The technique used was a fairly new one called "coblation." It does not use high heat, it does less damage to the healthy surrounding tissue, and has shown significantly better recoveries in clinical studies than the normal laser technique.

Dr Bryan Tagge has performed hundreds, probably thousands, of tonsillectomies, and he finished the procedure in about 10 minutes, if that. He was very cheerful and comforting throughout the whole process. He did also say after the surgery that Soni’s tonsils were about “as big as they get,” and in the 10 years he has been doing this, they were definitely in the top 10% size-wise, and he was very optimistic about the change we would see in his sleeping.

I got to go back and see Soni first. While he was still trying to come out of the anesthesia he was crying and looked as if he was in pain. He wouldn’t look me in the eye, just moaned and cried softly. I held him and rocked him to sleep and waited for an overnight room to be available for us. His oxygen levels were not staying as high as the nurses would like, so we held an oxygen mask near his face as he slept. Once we were set up in a room, Taiyo and my mom came back. Soni slept for about 4 hours total, and then woke up a bit confused at first, but soon became happy. My dad, Erin, and Everett also came to visit, and Soni was excited to see them there. He watched a DVD, played with toys, made animal noises, and laughed. He drank apple juice, and ate 3 cups of jello and a cup of mac-n-cheese. He even said a couple of words that he had never said before, which surprised me.

That night Taiyo and I stayed with him in the hospital, and he remained hooked up to the oxygen and heart rate monitors so the nurses could monitor him. A few times during the night his oxygen levels dipped, but they resolved themselves each time, so the next morning we were given the go-ahead to go home. Once home, Soni was like his normal self already-- if anything a little more vocal than he used to be. We kept him on his pain meds without breaks for the first few days. Then we began to stretch out the doses, particularly at night, since I did not want to wake him at night more than necessary, and he (thankfully) did not seem to be in pain when he woke up in the mornings, which had been one of my concerns.

Throughout the week things kept going smoothly. He has said “owie” or acted like it hurt probably 3 times total, but each time we gave him some meds and he was back to normal within 10 minutes. He has had no problem eating or drinking. We are now 12 days post-op, and we’re slowly starting to let him eat some “hard” things in small pieces because he wants to eat and has not acted like anything hurts him. By Friday I’ll feel like we’re completely in the clear as far as complications go. I’ll still be cautious a little longer, but I’m really not worried. I feel so blessed that the recovery has gone soooo smoothly. 95% of the time these past 12 days you wouldn't have even had a clue that he had had surgery so recently.

And the results are like night and day, just as the doctor said they would be. I never used to be able to sleep with Soni in the same bed, because he would snore so loudly, and he would be restless, kicking me or flopping his arm into my face, etc… But last night when he came into my room at 4:45 am, I let him in bed with me, expecting to take him back to his room once he fell asleep. But next thing I knew, my morning alarm was going off and I was actually surprised to see Soni beside me because I had forgotten that he was there! He was sooo quiet and not restless at all. His breathing was so peaceful. There has been another unexpected benefit too-- he immediately (same day of surgery even) started saying new words that he had never said before, and putting together a few small sentences. I don't know if that's a coincidence, but I suspect that the opened airway and increased room in his throat has actually widened the scope of sounds he could figure out how to make. I admit that it could be a coincidence, but I feel pretty strongly that the tonsillectomy had an effect. The surgery was 100% worth it.

I took a couple of short videos of him sleeping a few months before the surgery, showing a couple of the ways he would breath, and soon I will take another of the way he sleeps now, and put them together as a sort of “before and after” display. I’m so grateful for the way everything went! I wouldn't trade our experience! I’m grateful for modern technology, good doctors, and family who is willing to take time out of their lives to help us through a process that could have been worse that it was!