Forgive me for my long hiatus from posting... we were busy HAVING A BABY! :D Noah Yinsen 林彦信 Lam arrived on September 20, 2011 at 6:59pm, weighing in at a whopping (for Chinese people) 7 lbs 11 oz and 19 inches long (seems to have inherited my short legs). I feel the need to document everything for posterity, so here goes with the labor story.

I had decided to take a week off from work before my due date so I could rest up and finish his nursery. So on Monday, I enjoyed my first day off, watching the Food Network and lounging around at home. After I came back from a Creative Arts Ministry meeting, I started feeling abdomen pains, but I wasn't sure if it was true labor or false labor. I just kept feeling like I needed to poop, so I just kept going to sit on the toilet. Contractions at the beginning weren’t that consistent – they were anywhere from 5 to 20 minutes apart. The pain escalated quickly. I was moaning and making pitiful suffering noises, so I decided to stay in the living room on the sofa so I wouldn't wake up Tony since he had a big executive meeting the next day. Tony went to sleep, and the next 7 hours for me were a blur of constant trips between the sofa and toilet, kneeling on the ground, leaning on the wall, pressing my face into the pillow, and gritting my teeth through intense pain. I spent most of the night looking through bleary eyes at the labor app on the iPod that records contractions. All those breathing techniques and labor positions I learned in our childbirth class were USELESS!

Finally, Tony woke up around 6:30am for work and came out to the living room, and I told him I needed to go to the hospital. It took him FOREVER to get ready to go (as usual), and we didn’t leave until 7:30am. By then, my contractions were consistently 5 minutes apart, and by the time I got to the hospital, they were 3-4 minutes apart. Upon arrival to the hospital, I asked for a wheelchair, but Tony said “it’s so close!” and so we walked. I crumpled to the ground in the elevator, alarming our fellow passengers. Finally, we made it to the labor and delivery ward, and I collapsed into a chair while Tony checked in. They were very fast, thank the Lord (and thanks to online pre-registration), so I got into a room quickly and they measured me at 4 cm dilated. I was able to get an epidural within an hour. People warned me that the epidural needle was big and scary and the whole process hurt a lot. But I could care less. Let me tell you…


Almost immediately, I couldn’t feel the contractions. I watched the graph on the monitor rise and fall indicating that I had just had one, and I smiled because I couldn’t feel any pain. It was heaven! In the next few hours, I was able to take a nap, eat popsicles, text/call people, write some emails and take care of some church stuff. The dilation did slow down, but I didn’t mind a bit. When the nurse said it was time to push, I requested the big rearview mirror so I could measure my own progress, but it was kind of discouraging, because for the first hour of pushing, it looked like there was NO CHANGE! The little top of his head kept peeking out, and then going away. Grr. Finally, the doctor showed up so I knew I was making SOME kind of progress. Coincidentally, it also happened to be around the time we were scheduled for an appointment with him, so we were lucky he was right there in the hospital.

After two hours of pushing, the little alien finally came out, wailing and flailing his little white hands. Tony cut his umbilical cord and they put him on my chest. I can’t explain the feelings that a mother feels when holding her baby for the first time, but I will tell you that I cried. I could not believe that this perfect, tiny helpless creature in my arms had been formed by God inside my body. He was the most beautiful baby I had ever seen. And he didn’t look like an alien after all!

25 days left -- the countdown begins!  And just a few more days until I'm officially "full term."  These last months have been pretty tiring... more joint pains and waddling.  My midnight bathroom trips have increased to about three per night.  But I can't complain... I somehow managed to avoid symptoms that I hear other people complain about, like morning sickness, heartburn, varicose veins, food cravings, etc.  Praise the Lord that my placenta grew away from the cervix 2cm now!  Thanks for all your prayers. :)  Hopefully it will continue to grow in that direction... so if all goes well, I won't need a c-section. :D  The last time we checked a few weeks ago, the baby weighed about 4 lbs, so by now I'm expecting he's around 6.  The sonographer predicted that if he continued on the current trajectory, he'd be about 7 to 7.5 lbs when he comes out.  My American friends think this is perfectly normal, but all the Asian people gasp and give their condolences when they hear how "huge" my baby will be.  Hehe.  I guess it's good though!  You know, brain fat and all that. :)

Rachelle, Jen, and Janelle threw
us the most elaborate and awesome baby shower I
have ever seen in my life, with the help of so many people -- I felt very loved! <3  Jen's house was transformed into Noah's Ark, complete with watermelon ark and a diaper ark!  It was amazing.

In other Baby News, we graduated from our childbirth class, where we learned tons of useful stuff!  I actually really enjoyed it.  Last night I finally packed my hospital bag.  I think I've finally come to the realization that the baby could come any day now.  Tony wants to put a towel down on my seat in the car, just in case my water breaks. :P

This weekend, he's going to Chicago for the Labor Day Tournament... it's my first year not going!  I'm kind of sad, but I'm also looking forward to a whole weekend relaxing by myself and being a homebody.  Just hope the baby doesn't come while he's in Chicago, or he's gonna have to book it back to STL! :)

Okay, I'm in full nesting mode now.  This week is our "babycation" week!  Well, it's not really a vacation.  But there's Vacation Bible School at church all week, so all of our normal youth and sports events are canceled.  W00t!  Which means... finally some time to get ready for baby! :)  I emailed Tony an ambitious to-do list for this week with each evening all planned out.  Of course, he does not operate like this, and has already tried to foil my plans. Blast!

I moved everything out of the baby room.  Tried to find a new home for my craft supplies and my dresses, which seem to have overflowed into the baby's closet.  Hmm.  So I began the much-needed task of cleaning out my closet(s) to make space for baby!  It's amazing how many clothes I never wear, but like to keep around "just in case."  I probably only wear about 10% of my wardrobe.  So I managed to make a small dent in my closet, and we donated all the clothes to Goodwill.  Now if only I could get Tony to let go of his ratty t-shirts that are older than some of our teens. :)  Oh, this month you get free Chick Fil-A with donations on Tuesdays or Wednesdays!  We also sold some furniture on Craigslist, bought and assembled some new furniture from IKEA (thanks Ben and Linda!).  We bought zero VOC paint and primer, and spackled, sanded, and taped. Now we're starting the fun part -- painting/priming. The room is going to be a muted blueish grayish slate color -- goodbye flourescent ecru walls!

A few third trimester symptoms/things to note:

• Sciatic nerve pain
• Loose joint pain
• Peanut-sized bladder
• Angry red stretch marks (alas, tummy butter did nothing but make me waxy and smelly)
• Super acrobatic baby tickling me all day

Guess I can't really complain!  God is good. :)  And yes, we finally do have a name picked out, but it's a SECRET! :D

In other non-baby-related news, this conversation just happened at work on internal company IM:

Lam, Beverly W [10:17 AM]: i feel great affection for you today
Lam, Anthony K [10:17 AM]: yay
Lam, Beverly W [10:18 AM]: i think it is because you decided you were gay in my dream last night

Hellooooo, third trimester! We had another ultrasound yesterday to check on my placenta, which unfortunately has not moved. Right now it's sitting right next to the cervix opening, which might be a problem during delivery. Worst-case scenario: if the opening is blocked, I'd have to get a c-section. But we're praying it will move up and away as the uterus expands during the third trimester!

But one perk was that we got to take another sneak peek at the little alien! They even did a 3D sonogram, which was awesome. We could see the HAIRS on his head already! I was very amazed, because my mom tells me that when I was born, I had no hair so the nurses stuck a Christmas bow on my bald little head. Maybe he'll actually have hair! :D I'm crossing my fingers that he gets Tony's nose. And height.

He now weighs 2 lb 13 oz, which is in the 63rd percentile, so he's right on track! This means he already weighs more at 28 weeks than his cousin Philip did when he was born (at 30 weeks)! Craziness.

The little alien has been very busy in his watery home, writhing and kicking and stretching and punching. It's been harder to sleep lately, although the preggle pillow helps a little (THANKS, LINDA!). I guess he has grown to where he is pressing even more on my sciatic nerve, so sometimes I walk like an old lady. It makes me mad that I can't lift stuff around the house. How am I supposed to get the nursery ready? We have done nothing to that room except buy the paint. Haha.

We're very thankful for all the friends and family who have given us their hand-me-downs! I've been really feeling the love lately. Rachelle, Janelle, and Jen are throwing us a baby shower in a couple weeks, which I can't wait for! My parents are even coming into town that weekend. And I was surprised to see stuff from our registries already disappearing! So blessed. The little alien thanks you.

We had our big ultrasound yesterday, and...



Praise God that he is healthy and normal! He's about 9-10 inches long now, and 12 oz (don't ask me how they can tell how much he weighs). Tony thought it was a girl, but after we saw how active he was, I suspected it might be a boy. He moves around a LOT -- the sonographer kept commenting on how fast and busy he was. (Of course, that may or may not have anything to do with the Kit Kat I ate earlier that afternoon.) He's always kicking me now -- it kind of tickles! It's still so weird to me... like there's an alien growing inside me or something (I can't help but think of Breaking Dawn and Bella's monster baby).

So that answers ONE of the most commonly asked questions that everyone felt compelled to ask me in the past few months since I've been showing more. Janelle suggested I print a shirt with the answers and just wear it around so I can just point to it when people ask, hehe.

• When are you due? September 25
• Do you have morning sickness? No
• Do you have any cravings? No
• Is it a boy or a girl? Don't know
• Do you want a boy or a girl? Don't care
• Do you have a name picked out already? No
• Wow, you're huge! ...Thanks?

Okay, I'm guilty of asking the same questions to people (except the last one). :) I suppose you gotta get the basics out of the way first! We have some names picked out, but didn't want to narrow it down until we found out the gender. A few years ago, I was reading through my old diaries to find good fodder for girls' small group (I often read from my old diaries so the teens can learn from my mistakes/stupidity, haha). I came across an entry I wrote sometime in elementary school in which I promised God I would name my children after people in the Bible. Do you think that still counts? Hehee. If so, that severely limits our options, sigh. It also doesn't help that there are so many kids at our church, and they've taken all the good names! Hehehe. So name suggestions and ideas are welcome! But sorry, we're not going to reveal the final name until he's born. :) 20 weeks down, 20 more to go!