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In: Japan, Parenthood

Living in Japan, we’re bound to experience a few tremors here and there. Tonight, we had a semi big one. It’s Ellie’s first earthquake experience. How do I define semi-big, you ask? When the tremors last more than 10 seconds and it is shaking hard enough that the sliding doors are banging together and making loud noises.  Besides, according to the Japan Meteorological Agency, it was a 6.9 magnitude earthquake out in the ocean just south of Tokyo. We had one tiny one when I was still pregnant and it just made the sliding doors shake a little but nothing major. Tonight, the shaking actuallyRead More →

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In: Parenthood, Reflections

*Warning: the word boob appears quite frequently* I’m starting to feel tired of breastfeeding. Don’t get me wrong, I love to breastfeed E. I’ve put so much effort into it when I first began and I’ve been through hell just to get it to work that I’m very determined to breastfeed her for as long as I can. But breastfeeding is starting to wear me out. Ever since my parents came to visit and then left, E has been acting unlike herself. She is more clingy to me and has slight stranger anxiety. She tends to cry or fuss when Jason holds her or whenRead More →

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In: Random, Updates

I’ve been sidetracked a tad lately. I joined swap-bots.com and have been busy playing with it lately. The idea is that you make something and then you send them to random people and get things from other random people in return. Pretty fun idea if you ask me. Anyway, I was playing around with Google’s suggestion thingy. I’ve read about how you can type in “[your name] needs” and you’ll get a list of suggestions. I tried that with my name but I didn’t get anything other than “to” and “a” so I just clicked “to” just to see what I get. This is myRead More →

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In: Family

My parents visited us last week and they stayed at a nice hotel in downtown Tokyo.  Why did they choose to stay at a fancy hotel?  So we can take E on her first dip in the pool! Actually, in Tokyo, most of the public pools require that the baby be potty trained first before they can use the pool.  I guess they don’t like having diapers in the pool for sanitary reasons?  Anyway, my parents hotel didn’t seem to mind so on Saturday, we took E to the pool. I was hesitant at first about taking her into the pool.  She’s never been inRead More →

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In: Updates

Where has all the time gone? I’ve been wanting to write a post-labor story about our hospital stay but things just keep popping up. First, Ellie passed her cold to me. Then, my parents came to visit us. Now, Jason’s got her cold and we’re dealing with the aftermath of my parent’s visit. Ellie’s been acting a bit strangely since they left so we’re trying to get her back on track again. Hopefully, I can get back on track too. So much to write about, so little time in the day….Read More →

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In: Reflections

The following morning, the nurse came in at 9am to check on us.   She found that the foley catheter had worked and I was about 5 cm dilated.   It was then time to move me into the delivery room where I would spend most of my time until the delivery. The delivery room wasn’t too far from where my room was.  So it was a short walk down the hallway, which was nice since I was tired. I wasn’t allowed to eat all day but I was allowed to have something to drink to keep me hydrated.  I think it was to preventRead More →

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In: Reflections

Jason and I had about 3 1/2 days between my last doctor’s visit and the day I was to be admitted to the hospital.  We spent those last days the best we can as just the two of us, knowing that our lives will change really soon. On March 3rd, we spent the morning getting ready, mentally and emotionally for the days to come.  It was really strange looking at our apartment before we left, knowing that it was the last time we would be in the apartment alone.  This was the last photo we took before we left. So hard to imagine that IRead More →

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In: Reflections

I never really thought about writing out Ellie’s birth story. Not sure why. Maybe because I feel like I’ve talked about it to many people already that I don’t feel the need to. It wasn’t until Melissa mentioned to me that she’s never actually heard the entire event and would like me to write about it that I gave it some thought. Now it’s been 4 months since her birth but I can still remember the day she was born pretty clearly. For me, giving birth was a very traumatic event. I think it has to do a lot with the fact that so manyRead More →