Preggy Me @ 37 Weeks

Our visits to the OB have been weekly now. During our last visit, I learned with much horror that I gained another 2lbs. (2lbs in 1 week!). Seems like I’m catching up with my wieght gain. Good thing though is that the estimated weight of our baby is now 6lbs. So still not bad atleast my baby gained weight too. Our OB also taught Joema how to wear medical gloves because he will cut the baby’s cord. Didn’t know there’s a right way to do it (it’s because the outside of the gloves is sanitized and you can’t touch it with your hands). She told him that he shouldn’t hesitate to cut the cord since the baby won’t be hurt by doing so. They will wait until the throbbing of the cord stops before cutting it. We were both so excited while our OB was teaching him. It felt so real now hehehe.

Pregnant me at 36 weeks and 4 days.


But I’m still going to work. No signs of labor yet. But if last week I’ve been avoiding walking (per my OB’s instructions), now I can walk all I want. The other day, I went out to the mall during lunch time after almost 4 months!!! We ate at Jollibee and Jollibee never tasted that good ahahaha! I've also stopped taking duvadilan since we're already on term. (40 weeks is full term, while 37th to 39 and 6 days is term if you didn't know).

Baby Shower ala Flower Puff Girls

I was so touched with the baby shower my Flower Puff Girls have thrown - well, this was a joint baby shower for me and Mads but still. The effort they've put into every detail of the shower was just overwhelming. We knew the date and the venue but everything was kept from us, every single detail was a surprise. When we entered the room, the lights were out and then everybody said "Congratulations!" They were taking our pictures and recording a video of us.


We were all so hungry, we had to eat first. See, I was first one to get food hehe.


Then the games began. For the first game, we were asked to list as many baby items as we know. And then afterwards, when another group has the same item in their list we had to cross out that item from our list. The goal is to list down baby items that the others groups did not think of. The winners got their price but the losers were asked to wear bibs!


For the next game, we had to guess the word that will complete the nursery rhyme correctly. Our group won!


For the last game, we were given letters that we need to sort out and put into words based on the clues given to us. The words were mostly about pregnancy. And because I've read books and attended birthing class, my team won again! Which was a good thing because the losers had to wear diapers hahaha!


After the games, came another surprise! Our husbands came! And there was also a game for us with our dear hubbies. You know that game, when you they ask questions and you have to have both answers correctly. The questions I remembered that were asked were: "What part of your wife darkened?", "Where did you get baby's name?", "What was your wife's waistline before she got pregnant?" (so happy Joema got this right!). It was actually fun, well mostly because Joema and I had the same answers and we won the game hahaha! While we were doing the game, the girls were busy preparing for the next game. They had strings cut to the length which they think fits our tummies. I was hurt they thought I was that big hahaha! Here's L fitting her string around M's tummy.


And then came the gifts! We actually gave them a wishlist so the gifts aren't really a surprise. But it still is so nice to open gifts and find out how much you like it. They gave M a grooming and health kit, while they gave me baby beddings.


The fathers came bearing gifts too! I was teasing Joema why his gift is wrapped in a small box while B (M's husband) had a big wrapped gift!





It turned out Joema bought the one item I wanted the most from my wishlist - a Moses basket from Babinski baby. (I'll post about it another time.) So why the small box? It only contained a printed photo of the basket because the basket has to be ordered online. Actually, the girls were the one who ordered it online, Joema paid. So thanks to them are still in order.


It was a really wonderful baby shower! I am overwhelmed with the love they put into making it possible. Thanks to new amazing friends! I've known them only for a short time but they didn't hold back in showering us with their generosity.

Bugged by the Travel Bug

Ooohh! I can’t wait to hop on a plane again and travel. Nothing really beats the high I get when we go to the airport and check-in our luggage. Last year, luckily enough I was able to travel before I got pregnant – to Kota Kinabalu with Grace and to Coron with Joema and our friends. Unfortunately, we weren’t able to join my family in our annual out-of-the-country trip, last year to Viet Nam. This early my mother is asking where we’re going for this year. By the time September rolls in my daughter will be big enough to travel although still too young to remember the details of the trip. I don’t think we can possibly go to the beach this coming summer, so our friends are gunning for a November trip to Bora. Oooh, I’m crossing my fingers and praying we’ll have enough funds for a trip to Bora this year and our family trip abroad. I’m not sure how much the new baby will cost us (diapers, check-up with the pedia, shots, etc.) but I know everything will be provided to us. He will provide so I won’t worry that much.

Anyways, I was thinking and since by the time we can travel we already have our daughter there are just so many things to consider. Do we bring her with us? If not, can we leave her with my parents or in-laws? Wil I have the heart to leave her? If we bring her then the place we’ll visit should be baby friendly. No more super-packed itineraries or we’ll just be killing ourselves, what with taking care of the baby and going around town. We need to find baby-friendly hotels to stay-in. Maybe not self catering apartments. But you know what, I just can’t wait to travel again, and this time with our baby girl. My husband’s never the one to just entrust everything to me, we always share responsibilities. So I’m sure we’ll manage to travel on our own with a baby in tow.

Preggy Me @ 36 Weeks

At 36 weeks, I am now starting to feel the heaviness of the baby inside my tummy. Today, I am feeling so heavy and feel like lumbering my way when walking. I’ve started bringing food to work (for lunch) so that I don’t have to walk down to our cafeteria to buy food. The only time I get up from my work station is if I need to go to the washroom, go to the printer/copy room, go to my boss’s office or go home. Bambini's movements are starting to get unbearable. One day, I thought I was already experiencing labor pains because I felt pain in my lower tummy every time she moves. I get paranoid everytime I feel something painful eventhough most times they're just flickers of pain. Someone asked me how I'm feeling now, if I'm excited or if I'm scanred or if I want to give birth already just to get this over with. Well actually it's all of the above. It differs every day, every hour hehehe.

Last Saturday we had another check-up with our OB (we are now doing weekly check-ups) and imagine that after only two weeks I have gained almost 5 pounds. Ugh! I have now gained a total of 24 pounds. My baby is now 5lbs 8 oz. Our OB is confident I can deliver her normally. We’re praying everything will be okay come D-day so that we don’t have to settle for an emergency C-section. I'm actually getting scared of the labor pains, I'm expecting the worse. When I feel scared, I just have to think about Bambini, that after all the pain we will finally see her.

We’re pretty much ready for the baby to arrive. Although we don’t have a yaya yet. Hopefully, we have found someone by the time I give birth so that we can move back to our place. My hope is that we’ll bring home Bambini to OUR home and not to my parents’ home.

Well that’s about it. Here’s a photo of me during my ultrasound taken by my husband on our last OB visit (@35 weeks and 4 days). See my very pronounced linea nigra?

All our Bags are Packed

And we're set!

Daddy's bag, Mommy's bag and Bambini's bag.

Used this list on what to bring to the hospital.

Carter's Outlet Store

As mentioned in my earlier post, we wanted to go to Carter’s to buy clothes for our baby girl. But instead of going there with Joema, I went with Joy who willingly went with me and Kyla. Good thing though, because if Joema was with me I wouldn’t have bought this much clothes for our Bambini.

It was so much fun shopping there. It’s not really a store but a small storage room. Shelves and shelves of baby clothes right in front of you. You must be really patient to go through all the clothes there. Good thing that when we went there, there was a new shipment of clothes for newborns. Joy wanted to buy pajamas for Miguel but there weren’t clothes for toddlers at that time. So I guess it was really lucky that we went there that day. Initially, Joy would sift through the shelves and then ask me if I want this item or that item. I told her to just me pass every thing she thinks are cute enough and I’ll add it to my pile. I just edited when it was time to pay. Kyla was also very patient in holding the baby clothes for us, while her mom and I are rummaging through the stacks of baby clothes.

Everything was cheap. Mittens for P20, 3-pack onesies for just P150, the blankets I think are P120, don’t really know how much the rest are because I just let Manang Vickie add up everything. She even gave me an additional 10% discount. Eveything you see here for less than P3,500.



Beats SM because the night before we only bought a handful and the bill was around P2,500. Well, that’s because we bought these cute and super soft items from Tiny Tummies which are made from organic cotton. I initially bought cheap clothes but when I saw the items from Tiny Tummies, I had to edit what’s inside my basket to be able to buy a couple of Tiny Tummies baby clothes.They are a bit pricey (P500 for a blanket!) but the material is really really soft. You can never deny the difference from the cheaper brands in the department store. But now we know, next time we go shopping for clothes, we’ll go to Carter’s, well the shop is actually called Hello Baby. I think they manufacture the clothes and then export it to the US.

How to get there, if coming from EDSA, turn right to Buendia then right again after the Shell station, you’ll go straight to the Bel-air gate. That’s already Zodiac St. go straight and find number 48 to your left. The storage room is at the back of the house. Just enter the premises and follow the arrow to lead you to the back. You might want to call first to ask what their new arrivals are. Phone number is 896-4802 (although I only got this info from the internet). By the way, payment is cash basis only. I promise you, you wouldn't want to know what Java PDF, you'll just want to buy clothes for your babies when you go there.

Crib for our Bambini

8 January 2010

Last Saturday, our friends in cohorts with Joema surprised me with a “baby shower”. I put it in quotes because it wasn’t a formal one. They all just trooped to our condo and presented us with their gift – a crib! Imagine my surprise and delight!

Anyways, the plan was Joema and I will bring stuff back to our condo in the morning and then proceed to the Carter’s outlet store in Bel-air Makati afterwards. A few minutes after we arrived, Heili, Tric and Luigi came. Their excuse was they wanted to come with us to Carter’s. I didn’t have any inkling then because truthfully the day before, I was asking Heili if it was worth it to go to Carter’s. Because that day (Friday), Joema and I went to SM to buy a few things for Bambini. My husband even had an excuse for staying in instead of eating out for lunch – he was watching a Lakers game. So I let him be because I know how much he missed our place and our cable haha! And then the de Castros came too! Although Joy’s excuse was they also wanted to go to Carter’s hmmm.. I don’t know about that. But my antenna must’ve been turned off that particular moment because I still didn’t get it. I figured, they wouldn’t throw a baby shower because they didn’t have anythign with them (no wrapped gifts or paperbags). Then Joema and Tric went downstairs, Don’t have any idea why. And then when they came back, they were carrying this huge box. Joy started singing “happy birthday” which made me more confused haha! Luigi helped me open the gift, but we weren’t even half way through, just the bottom of the box peaking out and still shows no sign of what’s inside the box, Luigi said “see, it’s a crib!” ahahaha! Although in the picture below, we've tore off most of the gift wrapper.

We had fun letting Joema set up the crib. My husband had no idea how to. With all the excitement, he didn’t even read the manual first before proceeding with the set-up. Mek, who's a dad of two, was laughing at him watching him do it.


Well, apparently Heili was planning a big surprise baby shower for me that was supposed to happen last 18th December, during our Christmas party. They invited my mother, mother-in-law, my college barkada and friends from work. But since it was the Christmas season, everyone had their calendars already blocked off, and the plan didn’t push through. So that’s why they gave Christmas gifts to our baby girl. And then they replanned it for when Epoy was here but I think some people were still not available so it didn’t push through as well. So they finally planned for it to coincide with my birthday. The plan was to give stuff for the baby much like what my other friends did. That was why Joema didn’t want to buy stuff for the baby yet. I was insisting on buying things for Bambini already because I was already panicking, I think I won’t reach my 40th week before givign brith (I secretly hope I’ll give birth on my birthday). So Joema had to tell them to move the date earlier, that’s why they ended up going to our place last Saturday and apparently their plan changed too because they just pooled their funds and bought us this fantastic gift for our baby!

Group pics..





Here's the crib..all set-up in our bedroom. Thanks, you guys! I'm sure Bambini will love it!

*All photos except the last one were taken by Tric's IPhone 4, the last one taken by my camera phone. My husband completely forgot to bring a camera even if he knew they were coming to bring the gift. Hay! I was bugging him for a while asking him why he forgot. Atleast we still have photos we can show Bambini in the future.

Flower Puff Christmas

16 December 2010

I only recently got our pictures so this is a bit late.

My friends from the division celebrated the culmination of our Kris Kringle with a Christmas Party. We actually also did this last year but I wasn’t able to blog about it. Our code names last year were bold stars, this year were flowers - we're flower puff girls hehe. So anyways, there were only a bunch of us but we had so much fun! Can you believe the party program only consists of eating, a game and then exchange gift but we were all very happy in the end.

Photo-op before we ate dinner. We were waiting for people to arrive so that we can start.

We had just one game which was charades. Every item was Christmas related. So I can't remember what A was acting out on this one hahaha.



We were all excited to get our gifts so after just a game, we exchanged gifts already. Here I am with my mommy, M. My codename by the way was Bougainvillea haha. No, I didn't choose that. What we did was draw lots on our codenames first. And draw again who are babies are. My baby was Champaca but she didn't come to the party.



Look how happy I was with her gifts, she gave me two items from my wishlist.


While others were duped haha. Here's M being punked by J. M wanted foundation from The Body Shop but when she opened here gift she got Mena hehehe. But of course she got the real think in the end.



We didn't need fatcow hosting to enjoy the party. We just needed good company.

Last Wedding for 2010

30 December 2010

Before the year ended, Joma and I attended our last wedding for the year. Would you believe we attended a total of 6 weddings this year? That was a record-breaker for us.

It was the wedding of my college barkada...Kae to her fiance Jayson. The ceremony was held at the Santuario de San Pedro Bautista Parish in Quezon City.

With the girls...Sharon, Reyna and Sheryl were secondary sponsors.



With my dashing hubby...he was the designated photographer that day so this was his only photo for the entire event hehe



My friend walking down the aisle. She was teary eyed which got me teary eyed. We're so happy for her!



During the wedding rites



The new Mr. and Mrs. after the ceremony outside the church.



Reception was held at Bella Ibarra. I was asked to lead the opening prayer.




Their reception program was very new to me. The bouquet and garter toss was done immediately after the cake cutting and wine drinking, which is at the start of thr program. Thought it was wise since most single guests didn't expect this and have no way out of it haha.






The very touching father and bride dance.



But it was followed by a happy prosperity dance by the newlyweds.




Congratulations and best wishes, Jayson and Kae!

Migs Christmas 2010

18 December 2010

We had our annual Christmas party at Tric and Heyl's place. We were the first ones to arrive.

The night started off with a sumptuous dinner.

The Dimaanos and De Castros came and we were finally complete.

After dinner was gift giving time. Everyone had such a blast even the adults who also opened their gifts hehehe.

Bambini received Christmas gifts as well. Our little girl is already loved by so many people.

Then inuman na! I was so inggit hehe

We made salubong EJ's birthday with drinks and rock band.

Tipsy Heyl and tipsy birthday girl

This is how a photo looks when the one who set the timer is already drunk.

Here's to friendship and more Christmases spent together.

Birthing Class

12 December 2010

On our last day in birthing class, we were taught how to clean the baby when she pees or poops, how to put on diapers (both cloth and disposable ones), how to swaddle, how to give a bath and discussed everything in between.

The dads are supposed to be in charge of changing the nappies since us moms are breastfeeding.

Here 's a class pic taken a week before our last day..so I'm 29 weeks and 5 days pregnant in this photo.


Wacky shot!

Here are the contact details for our birthing class:

Rome Kanapi
Landline: 436-1757
Mobile: 0917-5415114
Email: romeinquiry@gmail.com