SURPRISE! Baby Shower

The sweets table (handcrafted sweets..personalized favors)

Today we celebrated the baby with a beautiful baby shower hosted by my sister, she must have planned most of this with my mom and other sister without letting it out of the bag once because it was a surprise for a while until a certain somebody said "see you next week, at the shower!". Anyway, I'm not a good receiver of surprises but I realize that even though I had an idea there was an event, the surprise became more about the extent to which she went to to make it really quite beautiful for us (me and the little one inside). It was that, that made it a great surprise, every detail was thought of to match my personality (I love orange..my daughters room is partially orange, my wedding was partially orange..) and I was afraid I was fading to beige.

I love throwing parties because I like themes, decorating and making little gifts but on the other had I dislike parties because I get stressed out about if people can make it or not, if they find it to be important enough take the time out to attend. I will say that we found out over the last few years that May is an awfully busy month for celebrations especially the first weekend of month of May is graduation and First Holy Communion but we also know quite a few people with birthdays at this time as well and then theres sports..people seem to think their kids will become the next Michael Phelps or something so they dare not miss one practice game or it might profoundly impact or alter their kids future stardom. 

Anyway, The party yesterday, had enough people there, people that came to support us because they genuinely care about us and that was just enough for me. My mother, 2 sisters (one of which is also expecting her first baby!) and nieces were there, my cousin (close like a sister), her husband and three little boys came from DC, my father in-law, sister in law with her two little boys, my neighbors Carli and Daisy came along with their sons..and more. It was really nice. 

Cake and cookies (handcrafted by my sister!)

Every detail complemented the party, the sweets table had a lovely cake (vanillas with chocolate filling) with buttercream frosting, with matching heart-shaped sugar cookies, white chocolate morsels, cream/orange M&M candies and fruit bowl. It also had these adorable little favors, personalized with my name and shower date and a cute little elephant etched into it. She also made these adorable little flower arrangements with Gerbera daisies. 

The lunch/dinner table had a variety of salads, rice, baked scallops with mango salsa, bbq and jerk chicken, lasagna, little toast with the crust cut off ( love!) and lots more. It was really great to catch up with everyone, and the kids had great time too. Arielle was so happy to have all her cousins in one place at the same time and since the party was at my moms house, they were all right at home on the playground and playing football with the dads at the party!

We also played a diapering game which was really funny, we discovered my sisters husband (whose about to be a daddy..) has no idea how to diaper babies or in this case rabbits, dolls etc. and that my husband seems to be a speed diaperer! He won a $25 gift card for diapering the most dolls in 45 seconds. It was rather comical but he takes these kinds of things seriously.

We received so many gifts for this little girl; I thought we had all we needed but the gifts (mostly from a registry I set up but intended as a wish list of sorts for myself to buy along the way) were all really great, we received a beautiful moses basket, baby monitor, babycook, Organic towels, first aid kits, tons of onsies, little colorful summer outfits, two car seats and more. Arielle even got some gifts which really made her feel great. At the end of the night, after everyone had gone home, the kids fell asleep watching the Smurfs movie. I am really thankful to my sister for hosting the party, it was a  really nice  thing to do and  allowed me to really celebrate the fact that in a few weeks we (the three of us) will have a new little person in our house but also that this little one has a place within a much larger and very loving family. she's an extremely lucky little girl and we cant wait to meet her.   

Week 32

My baby girl at 31weeks 3 days (chubby cheeks!)

Today I had a doctors appointment with Dr. Keith Lescale, one of the best maternal-fetal medicine specialist in Westchester. I am technically (31 weeks 5 days) 8 weeks 3 days away from my due date, its an important day because, I (and Dr. Lescale) have been a bit worried about a the whole possible C-Section issue for the last 11 weeks since Dr. Lescale mentioned it at 23 weeks, so today was the day to finally see what the little girl was doing in there. I got in a bit late (of course) but the doc wasn't even there which was strange but the very friendly and enthusiastic technician came in and began scanning my belly. 

The bitter sweet of being considered "special" case, is that although you've got to go through a few more tests than you'd like to, you also get to see the baby a lot. I was just saying to my husband the other day how I feel I have become a more relaxed person because during my first pregnancy I was calling the doctor at night if for some reason i felt the baby wasn't moving enough (she was probably sleeping), I was furious they wouldn't let me have an ultrasound after the 20 week, I was so paranoid that something would happen to the baby before we got to the end point..and I was on vacation so not really doing anything strenuous at all! This time, I have postponed seeing Dr.Lescale who does the ultrasound twice already; he wanted me to come in every 4 weeks since week 23 but I decided to wait until she (the baby) was bigger and I was closer to delivery! Who skips ultrasounds..especially in 4D?

Anyway,  its kind of a really great moment to get a rare glimpse into the innards of your own body, its even better when the tech does it in 4D so we get a really 'real' image of the baby just to make us smile. So without getting completely into detail the facts are in, the baby is very very cute..I expected her to be cute but she looks so adorable in there I almost want to be at 40 weeks right now! The tech pulled up the 4D image and we all were quite amazed at how chubby her cheeks already are at 32 weeks, she's 4lbs 2 ounces, heartbeat at 139 and she's not breech! yay.

After all the fun, the doc came in and basically said I am still in the clear for a natural (non surgical) delivery for now and to return in 5 weeks when the baby is full term to take one last look. They still seem rather concerned but not without optimism. Anyway, here I am and here she is. 

International Day

International day in at my nieces elementary school in was this past weekend and pretty fun. My sister had to represent the entire continent of Africa, we served Nigerian food (jollof rice, efo, meat-pies, fish stew, nigerian salad) though and displayed items from as many other countries as we could. The funny part of the day was that I had agreed to do the fashion show, not myself but to dress a bunch of little kids in some of the dresses from my little store to publicize it to the mothers in the audience. The problem was we only had three kids within the size range that I stock which is 6months -4T. So basically we had a lineup that consisted of a rambunctious 2 year old Peruvian girl, Arielle (whose 3+), my niece (whose 5), my other niece (whose 8) and two of her friends who are even bigger than her. The kids did ok but a lot of the outfits looked too uncoordinated and apparently my husband found it tough to photgraph kids on a stage. In the end we all had fun. Arielle cried when we left ( she does this alot when she has to leave).

WORK? Childcare or Homecare?

Arielle at 2 months old

When I found out I was expecting my first child, I was ecstatic as you may imagine but as things settled in I began to think of the consequences of returning to work after baby. This is an issue that is extremely complex and certainly varies widely depending on your position in your field and income but in general, I think after 40weeks of worrying about the well being of your baby within your body, the baby is born and precious and then the worrying continues but just in another way. 

Once you emerge from the initial fog of new motherhood, reality sets in and you realize you may have made a decision (determined parental leave) which seemed like the right one many months before actually meeting your little one but may actually be harder to fulfill than you ever expected. Sure there are the logical issues like money but then there are heavier issues like mentally returning to normal (mommy brain is real you'all!)  and the biggest, hardest part (for me..at least) was parting with this little thing you love so much and handing him/ her over to a person you may have met a few times. Not everyone has this 'problem', some people are fortunate to have family members to help out or have the ability to work from home etc. but for many women, the idea of having to return to work is hard to deal with moreover, is there anyone who you feel is suited to take care of your newborn?

I am an assistant professor and have taught for several years so for me the situation was a bit complicated because of the higher education structure, basically  the Fall semester begins in August and Spring semester begins in January and I remember looking into the faculty handbook and realizing that although the benefits were absolutely fantastic, they suggested that we try to align our paternal leave with the semester scheduling. My daughter was due at the end of September so I could take the Fall semester off (with full pay) and return in January which at the time seemed like I couldn't have planned it better but in fact, she was born in October and the months between that and January flew by, and suddenly there I was leaving my home to a perfect stranger and handing my 3 month old baby over to a woman I had found through an ad we placed, I was a mess, I cried every morning in private. I thought it would be easier to at least have someone with the baby in our home with our things and the baby in her own crib where she could be fully attended to..it wasnt. Arielle eventually began attending a daycare center when she was 10 months old and could walk..this was still hard.

This time around, my timing is actually worse if thats even possible; my semester ends in a few weeks, I'll be about 34 weeks and the baby is due July 1st which basically means I have 7 or 8 weeks before the Fall semester! I have to decide by Monday if I intend to return for Fall 2012 or not which means I need to have some idea of who will watch the baby and how much this will cost. Arielle's current daycare/preschool also takes babies at 8 weeks but I feel really apprehensive about leaving such a young baby in a group scenario especially if I am trying to nurse. I feel strongly about mothering, being present and instilling certain things early on so in my mind the benefits of staying with my baby far outweigh the monetary gain I would get from returning to work after 7 weeks but if I don'd do so then I am out from June until January which may be a bit too long to stay home I think as well as keep Arielle home from play/preschool. Anyway, I had decided last year to try to just do what feels right and everything will fall into place, its a very vulnerable place to be but it may just be the spirit of this time.