pregnancy: a swollen state of awkward

i was lucky to have a relatively normal pregnancy.  i was spared morning sickness, high blood pressure, gestational diabetes and all other serious pregnancy related health issues except for that one stint to the emergency room, but i'll get to that. i did, however, get everything else. 

for instance, all of my appendages were swollen. i felt like i was pumped full of air and liquid...and more air and liquid. holy crap i sometimes didn't even recognize my own fingers and feet! after the first trimester, i couldn't wear my lovely engagement ring anymore and even my flip flops....you guys, MY FLIP FLOPS, were tight on my feet!

rings almost got stuck. off they go :(

excuse my whackass looking toes

i invested in wide shoes for my big feet. they still ended up being too small, omg.

i also got this pesky thing called sciatica. no, the word pesky actually sounds cute. this freaking painful ridiculous thing called sciatica. that's more like it. on the daily, i felt sharp pains radiating down the back of my legs. for a while, it affected my left leg, then it would switch to my right leg. what made it worse, unfortunately, was walking which i had to do a lot of for my work. so for a very long time, i literally hobbled around wincing in pain and since i didn't reveal my pregnancy to most folks until it became obvious, most people just thought i had a bum leg. i felt really miserable but during my summer break, i discovered prenatal yoga which made all the difference in tempering the pain. finally, namaste!

frog legs...not the official yoga pose term. this is probably the end of my 2nd/beginning of my 3rd trimester

i also developed this CRAZY ALL OVER BODY ITCH. omg, it was horrible. it always got worse at night and prevented me from sleeping because i stayed up scratching myself, leaving welts all over my body. it was truly unbearable and the only thing my ob could recommend to me was benadryl to address it. ugh! i didn't want to take any unnecessary medications during my pregnancy so i declined. i tried to find alternative solutions and read that pine tar soap and oatmeal baths helps relieve itchy skin, but not by much. that itch stayed with me throughout my pregnancy. i literally was counting down the days to my due date just so i can be rid of my itchy skin!

totally smelled like tar, but it help alleviate my itches a tad :(

then the night of my 2nd year wedding anniversary, after a nice dinner with hubs, i went to the emergency room which was NOT the way i wanted to end our lovely night. i didn't feel much movement from my baby when i did my kick counts and compounded with the fact that i had such horrible stomach pains during the day, it got me really worried. turned out i was dehydrated which resulted in contractions. no! i was 2 months too early to have contractions! i had to be hooked up to an i.v. and that was pretty traumatizing too. the nurse had to poke me twice because my veins were "roly poly." the second time she poked me blood squirted everywhere and even got on my flip flops. oy. we finally left the hospital at 4am. i was exhausted but relieved that my baby was going to be fine.

monitoring my baby's heart rate.

the dreaded i.v. :(

i also had the typical pregnancy constipation, backache, food aversions, nausea etc... but overall, it was not a scary pregnancy. if any, most of the fear came from my head and my overactive imagination...and google. psa: refrain from google unless you want to shit your pants.  

sperm, meet egg. egg, meet sperm

i think the moment my husband and i decided it was time for us to get pregnant, the pressure of that choice became a lot scarier than the thought of raising a child/ being responsible for another human being for the next 18 years of his/her life. i think it was because we weren't sure we were even physically capable of doing so. in the back of my mind, i kept thinking my eggs are old and dusty and his swimmers are probably old and lazy. ugh. i even started an IVF fund JUST IN CASE. my thinking was, i will save up for one shot and that will be that. we just can't afford anything more.

we definitely didn't get pregnant right away. i went and got checked out just in case and the hubs did too. turns out his swimmers WERE a little lazy. so i made him drink chinese herbs and told him to stop placing his laptop on his crotch. maybe they were lazy because they were too hot! i even got some acupuncture for myself just in case. can't hurt right? we didn't want to talk to a fertility doctor until we tried what we could no matter how far fetched or hairbrained it seemed.

hubs consumed some nasty and very expensive cordyceps

acupuncture for me. can you see the needles poking into my heel and knee?

i also went to costco and got a box of ovulation sticks. when i saw that double line indicating that i'm ovulating, you better believe i called my husband at work and told him when he got home that night that he had to drop his pants right away. haha, sexy goes out the door, it's work people, work.

time to get busy

then one day, while we had hot pot for dinner and i was sipping my usual beer, it really tasted funny to me. i don't know why, it just didn't taste the same as it normally does. i had to pour the rest of my beer down the drain. yuck.

i also picked up some weird aromas from food i normally ate. i would ask my husband & in-laws if they smelled this funk to the food. nope. weird. maybe my nose is broke.

turns out at that time, i was already about 1.5-2 weeks pregnant! some people say that pregnancy alters your sense of smell and taste. although it was way early in my pregnancy, i still think it had something to do with it.

so that morning when i took my first pregnancy test and saw the double pink lines, i remember frantically calling my husband to come back into the house (he was leaving for work and i was just getting ready to go myself) when i saw the results. he was skeptical at first so we took 2 more home pregnancy tests over the course of a few days just to make sure....

touchdown! woot. a blood test at my doctor's office officially confirmed it. we were pregnant!! from that day forward i walked around with my hands hovering protectively over my belly, feeling blessed for this little life-form inside of me. imagine, me, MOMMY!

my trinity

so this is what i gifted myself last year. woot! a cartier trinity ring! i was already eyeing it when i got my love bracelet, but being the truly restrained person that i was, i stopped myself and came back two years later to retrieve what was fated to be mine :P pat on the back for showing restraint?

the trinity ring is an iconic cartier staple. it is made of three gold bands intertwined to form one ring. the rings must criss cross the correct way when worn or else it feels tight and uncomfortable, a neat little consequence for not having the rings perfectly aligned into a perfect circle. the basic trinity ring is made of three different colored golds (pink for love, yellow for fidelity and white for friendship) and is just plain gorgeous. i bought the trinity ring to specifically wear on my right pointer finger or my right middle finger. love it.

the one thing i learned about brand name jewelry is that the price ALWAYS go up, never down. so if you see something you like and have the means to purchase it without going into debt, then i always advise doing so sooner rather than later. because 2 years later, purchasing this baby meant dealing with a price hike which made me grrrrroowwl. oh wells, still love it and still on my finger baby!

so that was my bday gift to myself last year. this year, it will be even more fabulous. promise.

last year's red birthday

my birthday just passed. woot to being wiser, boo for that deepening furrow i see between my eyes! every year, i LOVE getting myself an extravagant birthday gift, usually as a reward for the hard work i put in during the year and also because i have this faulty weakness for shiny things which i use to adorn my appendages. last year, i gifted myself a beautiful red box.

this year, i held myself back because i'm working towards an even bigger present. i sure love to spoil myself rotten though. thank god for employment!

flowers for days

my bouquet with my wedding invitation front and center.

we were really happy with our wedding florist, fleuretica. they were a magical partnership of creative ladies who dreams up the most beautiful flower arrangements fit for gods and goddesses and little girl-ladies who call themselves bagnatic ;)

unfortunately, my wedding photographer was less than fantastic so i didn't get many great shots of my wedding bouquet or the bouquets my bridesmaids carried.

my bouquet is the 2nd one from the left.

another angle of my bridesmaid bouquets.

my husband's boutonnière.

table centerpiece at our wedding banquet.

flowers for our wedding cake.

so after our wedding, my husband still uses their services to get me flowers for all kinds of occasions. not going to protest that...nope.

1st valentine's bouquet as husband and wife. he wanted the arrangement to resemble our banquet centerpiece. LOVE.

i in turn, sent him this arrangement to commemorate our 2nd wedding anniversary.

my husband sent these, oops-i -forgot-to-send-you-something-for-our-2nd-wedding-anniversary succulents. ha!

2nd valentine's arrangement i received. i absolutely LOVED the orange tone to these flowers.

i TOTALLY LOVED this little lady bug detail. lady bug luck i say.

and for mother's day, he gave me this flower arrangement. awwww....not yet a mommy, but still in love.

so as you can see, long after our wedding, we still love our wedding florist the best. unless they close shop, move away, or become too crazy expensive, i think our flowers will always come from them. if only they can fill my wee home with flowers every single day....a gal can dream right?

i favor favors

some people probably think party favors are useless, but i for one, really like receiving them, even though they are....useless. most of the time they are anyway.

i've isolated my warm feelings about favors to the fact that i like walking away from the gathering with something. and when you are handed one, or find one at your assigned spot, it feels like an itty bitty present. for me??? really for me??? i gush, i gush. then i open the little box and think, dude, they are jelly beans, meh. but i still appreciate it :)

so when we had our wedding, no matter how overblown the budget got, i INSISTED on having wedding favors! i was told to skip it by various friends to stay within budget, but i just couldn't. after noticing my obsession with having a wedding trinket (whoops, was i THAT obvious?? *cough*), my SIL was gracious enough to gift us our wedding favors.

the boxes were absolutely beautiful. there was a choice between the red and gold and although the red was pretty, the gold boxes were actually a lot sturdier.

we ended up going with the gold boxes because they were sturdy AND they matched my obsession with gold.

each box was filled with a chinese couple kissing keychain (that was a mouthful!) their lips are automatically drawn to each other when they get close. it was too, too cute!

and of course, they were assembled with love for our 180ish guest list. the wedding day went by so fast. it's pretty sweet to dig up these little details again for blogging purposes. *sigh*

blue boxes for my sistas

even before i asked my "sistas" to be my bridesmaids, i already had their presents in mind. seriously, that's what a jewelry whore-centric bride would do. and nothing will do for my gals unless it's wrapped up in a pretty robin blue box a la tiffany & co. so my younger sister, my SIL, and my old friend from high school who i call my "soul sista" became my trinity of gals. they were perfect for our wedding gala, so amazingly helpful and thoughtful. a little silver tiffany necklace was just a small token of our appreciation because they did so, so much for us!

each sista received a silver tiffany notes letter pendant to wear for the wedding. it was the perfect accent piece for their dark purple bridesmaid dresses. i also thought it would become a super wearable necklace on the daily. to this day, almost 2 years later, my soul sista still wears her pendant every single day. the other two, not so much. *sigh*

i definitely need to get one for myself though!! it is so dang cute!

married. soooo married.

i posted this a while back on my food blog, theroamingbelly.blogspot.com i'm going to pull a lazy move and repost it here so i can "move on" with my blogging.

dudes, i got married :0

on august 27, 2011 as a matter of fact. here's the top layer of my then day old wedding cake. the flowers were freakin' awwwwwesome on top don't you think? thanks to fleuretica for the beautiful burst of blooms...i wish they can fill my world with flowers EVERY DAY.

i also went on a horrible diet. i mean, it kinda worked and all...but a diet for a food blogger! that's like fucked up! but it was worth it not to souffle from the back of my white dress even though i still rippled in all the wrong places.

immediately afterwards, i went on an edible rampage...trying to fetch back the coat i was determined to shed for my wedding and what better way to do so than en route to vegas for our mini-moon (more posts to come on that one).

aria treated us well. we were upgraded to a mini-suite when they learned *cough* when i told them we were newlyweds. SCORE!

we were even greeted with a bit of sweetness. "yumz!" said my sugar depraved body as i INHALED and i mean INHALED most of it. no joke.

the mini-suite was spacious and awesome and let's not forget, an upgrade. wheeee!

the night view was uh-mazing.

so what does it feel like to be married? well, it feels just like living together except now everybody wants to know when i'm gonna get pregnant.

i can't sleep at night, i toss and turn....

there is something dangerous about waking up randomly in the middle of the night, then not being able to fall back asleep, then just thinking too much. it doesn't help that everybody in my wee house is snoring away, even my 3 dogs. *sigh* so off i go with the company of my overactive brain which should probably be engaging in some REM action rather than reminiscing and regretting....

tonight's random thought ran the theme of "picking up where i left off." i thought about a few things that i've left off kind of high and dry; friends, blogs, and travel plans. unfortunately, these thoughts made me feel a little unhappy maybe because in my heart, i probably wished the outcome was a little different.

i have a friend who i knew since high school. we were pretty close and i always pictured her in my wedding. about 10ish years ago, we had a falling out over some "you-are-not-being-supportive-to-me" kind of shit and we ended up never ever calling each other ever again and it's been like 10 years. i still think of her a lot. i think my nature is rather pit-bullish and once i hang on, it's hard to shake it off so thinking about her is hard to shake off. i'm sure i can try to contact her again and see how it goes from there, but i know i don't really want to because I JUST DON'T. i miss her.

i run two blogs, one food related and this one, my one and only shallow love. goodness. once in a while, i would click on old posts i've written and it will literally transport me back to the exact time and the exact feelings i had when i wrote it. not to mention that i crack myself up because i think i'm so funny, haha. through the years, i felt i neglected my bagnatic blog more and more because of life, because of the economy (and feeling paranoid about who knows what's in my closet and who's reading it), and because i have this really weird fixation about posting my life in order. like, ok, so i wrote about the first part of my pre-moon (but didn't finish part 2), then naturally i should post about my wedding after that, etc...and since i didn't do those, it was hard for me to write about other things. isn't that odd? i am odd. i am truly to the core, a blogger. i compose posts in my head all the time, but lately i've failed to execute them. i really need to carve out more time to be who i am on a platform like this. after all, for a very long time, blogging was my first love or maybe it was my bags....ok both.

i wish my husband and i traveled a little more, together i mean. i traveled internationally a whole hecka a lot in my 20s but with him, not so much. i blame it on our collection of dogs which we gathered quite early on in our relationship. they are the little loves of my life and need to be fed and taken care of and it's hard to do that and be in france at the same time. sure, we can board them somewhere and then go, etc....but that takes a lot of time, money, and planning. regardless, we will need to go to france though whether now or a few years from now. and maybe back to hong kong too. the travel bug was dormant, but sometimes it still bites and when i look at my husband i think he would love to travel somewhere internationally, too.

life is kinda short to be feeling these regrets. and i still can't sleep damnit.

loving your skin, part 1 of 7: clean it real good

(you can catch the start of my skincare regimen rant here).

i was pretty acneic when i was a teenager with those pimples lingering into my early 20s. i wasn't always like that. no baby is born with a face full of pimples right??? so when your mom tells you "when you were a baby, you had such beautiful soft pale skin like an egg shell (trust me, sounds better in chinese)" you feel the sting. ugh. but of course puberty had to happen and bless my parent's hearts for taking me to the dermatologist and the herbal doctor when puberty REALLY HAPPENED. holy shit that was no fun. nothing i did seemed to work and that kind of constant defeat just made me not care about my skin.

 
up until my wedding i held this same attitude. i cleanse with whatevers, i put whatever lotion on, and sometimes i used sunblock. SOMETIMES. my skin must have been a mess cuz my MIL actually purchased a facial package for me to use before my wedding, OK, I GET IT. dang.

so after becoming inspired by my wedding make up artist and also after acknowledging that science has advanced so much that there are many quality products out there that can make your skin become the best it can be (giving a nod to your gene pool of course), i went to search out the best for me and my combo asian skin.

cleansers: i've tried all natural jurlique ($23), shiseido purifying cleansing foam ($30.50), shiseido extra gentle cleansing foam ($30.50), and murad essential-c cleanser ($35).

jurlique is a good natural alternative. takes off your make up, but can leave your skin feeling tight. i use this in conjunction with my clarisonic. after finishing this tube, i'm not sure i will repurchase because of the tightness i feel in my skin after using it. however, i do appreciate the natural aspect of it.

shiseido is a great brand that's been around for a long time. i love their foaming cleansers but do not love that it's chocked full of parabens and artificial crap. their purifying cleansing foam has tiny exfoliation beads. their extra gentle cleansing foam is great if you have skin conditions that require a little tlc. my husband started developing a rash near his eyes and now uses this cleanser which has worked wonders for him. this is a good line to "fall back on" when my search for more natural alternatives takes a hiatus.

murad is paraben free and full of vitamin c. the cleanser has a nice orangey scent and works well as a morning cleanser. if you use it to wash off make up, you will find that it still leaves a trace of your bad behavior from last night. it also does NADA for eye make up removal. i will repurchase this cleanser to use as part of my morning cleansing routine.

Nailed

i think i went slightly nuts with the nail lacquer acquisition. got some sephora, OPI, and deborah lippman nail polishes to occupy my finger tips and toesies all within the espanse of....a week. i also have a deep fascination for gold and glittery nail polish so i picked up a gorgeous shimmery set by deborah lippman and "it's real" real 18k gold top coat from sephora by OPI. can't wait to try them out!

happy new years!

happy new years!! 2013 will be fabulous!