ok, so my husband and i decided to embrace mystery, and not learn the gender of our baby until the birth.



actually, for about the past 12 weeks, we've even had a sealed envelope with genitals pic, and a note from the ultrasound tech for us to peak at if the suspense became too much...but so far we've managed a significant amount of self control!

at first i didn't know if i wanted to find out or not, but once i fully made up my mind it's been much easier. and it's fun...because i love surprises.

i've never been one to peek at christmas gifts, or try and pry secrets out of people. i like happy suspense.



however, our gender decision has not been as popular with everyone else! a lot of the family has asked for sneak peeks into that envelope! haha.

people also ask how we're going to buy stuff and plan a nursery without knowing the gender. well, the truth is that i figure planning gender neutral is the best investment long term anyhow. if we have future children, then they'll be set. also, how many fancy outfits does a newborn need anyhow? especially one born during the texas summer time?



a fun perk about not finding out our baby's gender has been all the guessing!!

since i work with people from a lot of different countries and cultures, it's been fun to hear all the wives tales around the world for determining your baby's gender!



here are a few i've heard so far...

if the heart rate is high, it's a girl, if it's lower, it's a boy. (our kiddo's was 152 yesterday...any guesses?)

if your belly is pointed, it's a boy, if it's round, it's a girl.

if you carry low, it's a boy, if high, it's a girl.

if you get bad morning sickness, it's a girl, if not, it's a boy.

if you break out, it's a girl, if your skin gets clear, it's a boy.

if your whole body blows up, it's a girl, if just your belly gets big, it's a boy.

if you crave sweet things, it's a girl, if sour things, it's a boy.

if you get a dark line down your belly, it's a boy, if not, it's a girl.

on that last one, i actually had a lady come up to me and peek under my shirt to see if there was a line when i told her i didn't know the gender! haha. (note: she thought it was a girl!)

over all though, most people have been guessing for a boy, so we'll see what happens! we'll definitely be thrilled either way!



just for fun, i've throwing in some belly pics my friend did for us! (at about 32 weeks) so take a guess and let us know what you think baby p is going to be! :)

mowgli was diagnosed with congestive heart failure this past summer, so we knew we wouldn't have tons of time left with him, though we were certainly hoping for more than we got. getting pneumonia last month really threw his body off kilter some more though. the past few weeks he had been having fainting episodes usually 2-4 times a day because his heart just couldn't pump well enough. we'd been working with the vet to try and figure out a way to get his heart working properly again on medication, but then yesterday he had a fainting spell that he just didn't wake up from. the vet said it was probably a heart attack. have i ever mentioned how much i hate heart attacks?

anyways, he will be very missed. there were so many quirky things i loved about that dog.

i rescued him about 6.5 years ago...before my husband and i even got married. he had been living out underneath someone's house, and he looked pretty scary. there was no way to really know for sure how old he was...but he couldn't have been younger than 5 when i got him.



at first i didn't even know if i wanted to keep him! i got him as a companion for my other little dog, numa. but when i got him he was so awkward and strange that i didn't quite know what to do with him!

he had to be house broken, he didn't know what treats and toys were, he was very socially awkward,  he had strange obsessions, and i had to teach him how to use stairs so that he could even get up to the 3rd floor apartment i was living in at the time.

over time though he turned into the most loving dog i ever had. his awkwardness turned into an adorable quirkiness. his personality was almost human. his quirkiness earned him lots of nicknames: slomo, mogi bear, momo, moga singh, etc...



he was perfectly fat and oh so soft. he was like a stuffed toy to sleep with, and he didn't move all night. he had this adorable crooked under bite that made his tongue stick out when he would sleep. he would do a little dance and bow down to greet  you whenever you came home. he always thought that he was big and tough, and didn't know that he was actually small...though he was maybe the best guard dog out of all of ours.  once he learned what toys were, he had an obsession and would squeak them all the time. one of my favorite things was to watch him at christmas and birthdays, because he loved to open gifts! especially gift bags. it made him so excited, and he'd walk around with a gift bag on his head. people may not believe me, but he actually liked wearing clothes. i think it made him feel super cute...which he was. and despite being an inside dog, he loved the outdoors, and especially camping. he was such a little trooper.



there are so many little things i miss about him already. it's hard to imagine our home without him.

i'm so thankful that we got to rescue him though and spend these years with him. we were very happy together, and he always had that gratefulness about him.

love you momo!

wow, so far 2012 has been a year of craziness!
maybe God is trying to prepare me to be able to handle life with a bambino? who knows! i'm kind of hoping to get a breather before the baby chaos begins though!

anyways, last week my husband gave us a little scare...which isn't a nice thing to do to a preggo lady who may already be a little extra hormonal...

this whole story began in december though. maybe a year before that actually, though we had no idea.

the week before christmas i made my husband go to our doctor because he had some painful swollen lymph nodes on his neck.

of course the doctor's office was crazy with people trying to get in their physicals and stuff before the end of the year, but our doctor was awesome, made it a priority to see us, and was really interested in what was going on with my husband.

he immediately had him do some tests and get a CT scan, and the results came back with a diagnosis of "suppurative lymphadenitis"...which our doctor found to be very interesting, and something that he had never seen in his 40 years of medical practice. he said though that the most common cause of that would be an infection, so he consulted with an infectious disease specialist, and put him on a 6 week dose of a tough general antibiotic.

the swelling an pain did seem to go down during that time, though he did still have some hardened lymph nodes. the doctor said at that point though that it could take awhile for those to fully go away, but he felt like there was a chance that whatever was causing the underlying infection had been killed out, though the best and least invasive way to find out would be to just pull him off the antibiotics and see if any of the symptoms came back.

he did pretty well for about a month, so we hoped for the best!

but then a couple of weeks ago i noticed my husband start to grab the side of his neck some. when i asked him if the knots were coming back, he would say no, that he just had slept funny. :P

anyways, his work sent him off on a last minute trip to canada, so i told him that if his neck wasn't feeling normal that i would make him go to the doctor when he got back.

however, when he got back from his trip, i wasn't expecting to see a huge lump on the side of his neck! it looked like a goiter or something!



we went back to the doctor again, who said this time a lymph node was abscessed, and we needed to see a surgeon to get it drained.

so off we went that day to the surgeon, who told us it would need more than drained...he wanted to try to remove it and biopsy it to make sure it wasn't lymphoma or something.

the idea of it possibly being cancer had us both pretty freaked out!

so we got him scheduled for surgery, and we were praying like crazy for a good report!

just after the operation, the surgeon came to me and said the site was completely full of puss and infection...which made him feel that the chances of it being lymphoma were slightly less. however, he was having biopsies done, and cultures done. he said that if it was a common staph infection or something then he would want to go back in after the infection cleared to do another operation, and make sure that the infection wasn't secondary to lymphoma. apparently an infection like staph can compromise the tissue from the biopsy.



we were seriously bummed that it might still take weeks, plus another operation, before we would be able to fully rule out the possibility of cancer.

but then the next day some good news came...or at least it was good to us!

the initial tests on the bacterial culture showed that it was something not too common in the US. the doctor told us at that point that he felt more comfortable ruling out lymphoma, and he didn't feel a secondary surgery would be necessary! thank God!

so instead he handed us over to an infection disease doctor. she's been amazing and thorough, and so we feel like we're in pretty good hands!

the final cultures on the bacteria will take about 6 weeks to grow in the lab, so until then they won't know the exact bacterial strain. but they know what family it's in, and they've started treatment on my husband that involves about 4 different antibiotics at the moment, but they will fine tune the treatment once they have more info on the exact bacterial culprit.

the estimated that it will take 6-12 months on meds before the bacteria is totally cleared from his system (it's from an aggressive bacterial family!), but they feel like once it's gone it will be gone for good...and hey, taking pills is definitely better than chemo! :)

they don't feel like it's anything that is contagious either since it's been internalized in his body. they're doing a few tests on me though just to be sure it's nothing i've picked up as well though since we've been exposed to a lot of the same things.

when we were in india a little more than a year ago, shomik got very sick, and was sick almost the whole time we were there. they suspect that this is something he picked up then while his immunity was down, and his body has just been fighting to subdue it ever since.

so anyways, we're so thankful to God that this is something that can be treated! we appreciate all the continued prayers though for a strong recovery, and for safety for me and our kiddo!

now we're hoping that our next major trip to the hospital will be for happy things...this week i hit the 3rd trimester, so we're ready to focus on happy things and new life! oh, and we still have SO much to do!

ps- our little pup mowgli is still having some issues...which of course had to take a back burner to the chaos of this past week, but we really need our whole house to be well now! send the prayers!

ok, so i just thought i'd give a little update of all the weird things happening in my body right now...for posterity. :)

no, but seriously, pregnancy is an interesting time that i want to remember.

i will give you fair warning now though...this post will likely contain TMI. just keeping it real folks.

i'm around 26 weeks just now...so about to close out the second trimester.

so at this point on the baby front, everything is measuring at just about the right size and everything seems pretty much how it's expected to be at this point. the kiddo is around 2lbs and 14 inches long. the baby is moving around like crazy these days. besides the kicks and squirms, i'm feeling the occasional hiccups now as well.

some people say that their babies are more active after they have a meal or sugar or something...but i would say that my baby is the opposite. if i'm hungry the baby squirms around like crazy, but once i eat i'm pretty sure the baby is taking a nap. this leads me to think that this kid might have already inherited the "hangry" trait from my side of the family. (you know...when you get so hungry it makes you angry. hehe.)



when it comes to my body things are definitely getting interesting. i've gained about 16lbs at this point...which is absolutely frightening...but supposedly right about normal. they say healthy weight gain is between 25-35lbs, so hopefully i'll be able to keep it in that ballpark.

i can still wear my wedding ring...barely! it's been getting warm really early this year, so as soon as the warm days hit, i've noticed my rings and shoes starting to feel tighter. it seems to only get bad at this point though if i'm just really hot, or if it's late and i've been on my feet all day.

no stretch marks as of yet. i know that doesn't mean i'm out of the woods or anything though. but my belly is really getting out there. i get lots of comments from strangers asking when i'm due now. and i definitely can't turn sideways to squeeze through small spaces anymore, and i've started having to wear a belly support belt. (which is awesome by the way!) no outie belly button yet either...though my belly button is definitely looking a little warped. oh, and my boobs are looking like a US road map. the veins and arteries are really visible...i guess they're just getting things ready for production!

i've had a couple nosebleeds...which hadn't happened to me since i was about 8 years old.  but that honestly hasn't been a surprise since 90% of the time when i blow my nose these days it's blood tinged. and i'm blowing my nose a lot...especially in the evenings and in the morning i seem to be stuffy. i've heard that's all fine and normal too though.

sleep at night has been interesting. i guess God is preparing me to be woken up frequently by making me have to get up to pee a lot. also the occasional charlie horse will wake me up. and lately i've found my arms falling asleep a lot and waking me up. i hope that part is normal!

i really haven't noticed any weird cravings. my husband has been lucky.
also the mood swings so far haven't been as bad as i would have expected. i mean, i'm not saying i haven't had any, but over all i've felt pretty emotionally stable...which is always a good thing. :)

that's all i can think of at the moment, so that sums up my state of the pregnancy address for the second trimester. hopefully the third trimester will be as kind as this one as been...and not like the first one was! :P i'm getting excited to meet our little one...and it feels like it's coming fast now...and we still have lots to do!

ok, so i dunno what's going on, but for the past 3 weeks it's been like doggie plague at our house.
the pups are dropping like flies over here!

mowgli has been hit the hardest. the poor ol' man has more issues than lindsay lohan.



he thankfully just pulled through some nasty pneumonia, though he did have a close brush with death.

he's definitely all perked up now though after a few days on IV, and having to take about 10 pills a day!

yesterday morning though we woke up to find him covered in blood. randomly. that's always scary.

i was already half way thinking of going to the vet (even though i've spent waaay too much time there lately!) for bindi anyways, because she had a really nasty hacking cough. so i just loaded those two kids up and headed over to our home away from home. :P



it turns out that this time mowgli basically had a giant exploding zit. sorry if that's tmi, but it was a huge sebaceous gland that ruptured and spewed every where. the vet said he would normally just remove it so that it won't give anymore problems, but since our little guy is also a heart patient he didn't want to give him any unnecessary surgery...even if it's minor. so we just added yet another pill to mowgli's diet. and he's none too thrilled about it.



bindi...our super tough dog...it turns out has a bad case of seasonal allergies. it's spring time!! so she's on steroids and antihistamines.

thankfully the vet waived our office visit fees this time and just charged us $6.50 for all the meds. i guess that's one of perks of being a frequent client. :P hopefully our next visit there won't be for a long while though!

ps- for anyone wondering, numa is thankfully still plague free...though she's super jealous that everyone else keeps getting "medicine"...at least she thinks she is!

ok, so i know that my blog has been quite baby centric these days.

my apologies...and i might as well apologize in advance, because i'm afraid it may only get worse for a bit.

with less than 4 months to go, and with life looking pretty busy up until then, most of my spare moments are now being utilized to either prepare for the baby, or do things that will be easier to do now before the baby comes. already from the womb this kiddo is taking over! haha.

but anyways, needless to say i have begun the overwhelming task of looking for baby stuff.

however, i don't know if i'm just a weirdo or what, because most of it doesn't appeal to me at all! why does baby stuff have to be all in pastels or primaries...who ever decided that's what babies like?

well anyways, i have a friend with an etsy store full of baby stuff that i love, so i thought i'd share that with you today. the store is called susie mey, and it utilizes indian textiles to make cute things for little people!

i call susan a friend, though i think we've maybe only met once or twice a long time ago...but we have a lot of mutual friends, and whenever i see her designs i know that we're kindred spirits!

check out a few of my favorite things from her shop...



a block printed crib blanket! have i ever mentioned that i'm a total sucker for anything in block print? these colors would go perfect with what i have in mind for a nursery as well.



block print bibs! i can't control myself. i most likely will be ordering up several of these. she makes them with a waterproof liner as well. and i love that the patterns are so charming, but also gender neutral! did i mention that we're not finding out our baby's gender? well, at least trying not to. :)

but if we have a baby girl, you better believe i'll eventually be ordering some of this cuteness...



oh, and i'm pretty sure i need a couple different cute patterns of the block print swaddling blankets as well... :)



it's a good thing i'm married to an indian, because i have a small obsession with indian textiles and decor...and our cross cultural household gives me a good excuse to indulge! ;)

oh, and did i mention that susan has a cross cultural home as well? she's of indian descent while her husband is a gringo like me, so i'm also inspired by the cute mixed babyness!

so thanks susan for the gorgeous baby stuff you put out there!

today would have been my dad's 59th birthday. i always miss him a little extra on this day, but this year as i think of him i can't help but think about how this year he would have been a grandpa.

i don't know how to explain this without sounding crazy...but today i feel thankful that i miss him. i feel thankful for the sense of losing something so great.

i think the reason is because my child will never get to know him. they'll never know the feeling of loss and missing him, because they will never know the feeling of having him. and for that reason i feel sad for my child and what they will miss... even though they'll also miss the grief of loss.

growing up, i had all four of my grandparents living until i was 12. i guess it was something that i took for granted. our child will only know 2 of their grandparents. and only one of them lives on the same continent.

that is sad for me because i know what they're missing out on...but for this child, i guess you don't really miss something that you never had. i do know that this kid will be loved by a lot of people though.

one of my dad's favorite books of the bible was job. and today i can't help but think of the verse where he says "Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked I will depart. The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; may the name of the Lord be praised." (Job 1:21)

i think today for the first time...almost 3.5 years after losing my dad, i can finally say that to God with full honesty. of course i wish more than anything that i still had my dad here with me. but even when He takes away...God is good. he gave me the most wonderful father a girl could ask for...and now He's given us a new blessing.