13-16 Week Old

Time surely went by fast since I went back to work! I officially went back to work when baby Ethan turned 12 weeks old. One week after I had to travel to Minneapolis for a training and that week I was busy pumping milk during air travels and hotel stays. It is NOT easy to be a working and nursing mom! I do miss working though! Cannot imagine how bored I would be to be a stayhome mom.

Baby is growing fast every day! He discovered his right hand and enjoyed playing with the animals on our skip hop activity gym. Sometimes he can entertain himself for a good half an hour! He also loves his warm bath at night and would play with me and Derek on his bed before going to bed. At 15 week old he also started giggling sorta. Derek shower him this app infant zoo and he loves it!

In 3 more weeks we will have his 4-month check up.  Can't wait to see how he is then at the doc office!

7-12 Week Old

Baby Ethan turned 7 week old when we got back to SD on the 16th of Dec. The first few days were rough at night cuz his sleep schedule was complete "wacky"! I was taking care of him at night and he would want to be picked up and held every hour. A few days later I got Derek to sleep with us (so all 3 of us are in baby's nursery now) and it got easier. Over the following weeks Baby Ethan got better at having a clearer sleep eat play schedule during the day and night time sleep got better too. Between 11-12th week he went from waking up every 3 hr at night (9:30 pm, 12:30 am, 3:30 am) to every 3 hr (10 pm, 2 am, 6 am). That made it much easier for me and Derek and we felt more rested.

Since I was still on maternity leave I would take care of him during the day while having my MIL (mother in law) take care of him when I go out. There was lots of baby shopping and returning going on. It is hard to not buy cute clothes for him as baby clothes are in deed so cute!

At the time of writing this post I will be going back to work tomorrow (1/20) when he is 12 weeks old. I will be going on business trips when he is 13 weeks old and will be gone for 4 days. Hopefully he will do okay with Derek and my MIL. I will miss his cute little face! But I guess I will enjoy the 4 night of sleep too!

He is growing FAST! At 2 month check up he weighed 12 lb 12 oz. We will have his 4-month check up on 2/28...I wonder how much he will weight then.

我可愛的帥寶寶！

A rough two-month for us and the baby

I will never forget about Oct-Dec 2013 because over this 40-day period, I gained a family member (baby Ethan) but also lost one (my mom). My mom was diagnosed with unknown primary carcinoma back in Feb 2009, the year I was getting married. Miraculously her chemo worked and 5-month later she was able to attend my wedding in San Diego in Sept. The past 4 years we had such great time together and she was able to enjoy my sister's kids Kani and Ian. She and my dad have always wondered when Derek and I will have our little one. Finally this year I was almost done with school and she was thrilled when I told her I was pregnant in early March. Sadly two weeks after she was diagnosed with tumor recurrence in her pancreas. Pancreatic cancer is one of the most aggressive cancers and it saddens me every time when I read about it online and how most patients have poor prognosis and only have less than a year to live from diagnosis. From March my due date is Nov which is about 8 months from her diagnosis.  In June and late Aug I went back to Taiwan to cheer her up and was really hoping her condition can stabilize until 2014.  Her radiation and chemo therapy didn't stop the tumor from growing and spreading but her doc okayed her coming to the US to see me having my baby. 也許是天意 baby Ethan came two weeks early and we checked out the hospital the day my parents arrived in LA (10/30). My mom was able to spend some time with the baby before her jaundice worsened and they had to go back by 11/10. I had a hard time not to cry when she left our house on that Sunday morning and I didn't know that was my last time seeing her and talking to her with her full consciousness.

Her jaundice got real bad once they got to Taiwan on 11/11 Monday morning. She then had hepatic coma and lost some of her consciousness.  The doc recommended no more active treatment to minimize her pain. And they said Mom only had "weeks" to live from then. At this time baby is only two week old and I still have two more weeks to finish my 月子. It was so heart breaking knowing I will lose my mom in such a short time. We then had to go get baby's passport and book tickets. My mom fell into worse coma after Shirley went back and by the time we flew in on 11/28 late Thursday night, she had not much consciousness. I remember holding her hands talking to her with tears in my eyes. Dad had to start talking to us about funeral details and I couldn't imagine Mom can barely made it to her birthday on 12/15. The morning of 12/1early Sunday morning, Dad called us at home around 3 am saying Mom is almost there and we rushed to the hospital with 大姐. 媽媽就這樣地走了! In some ways she stuck around for a few more days so that I can see her once more before she passes! It was hard to not be sad but I am also happy for her that she doesn't have to suffer no more. 我親愛的媽媽, 我真的很愛妳啊！也許我們能來世再做家人!

Speaking of traveling with baby Ethan at his 4-week old benchmark, it was exhausting. But overall he was a good baby. We basically just fed him whenever he fussed. He was good at take-off and landings. Derek was a great dad taking care of him while I had to be out in the hospital and funeral stuff. On the day of the funeral he stayed at my cousin Tony's house and Joyce helped taking care of him with her own 4-month old Josh. On 12/14 we also took him with all Wang relatives to Shangrila hotel for Italian food at Marco Polo. On 12/15 my bday we had a nice afternoon tea in the lounge overlooking Taipei 101! This is my first bday celebrating with Ethan!

On 12/16 we flew back to CA and finally trying to get back to normal life. Baby Ethan is now at 7 week old. Check him out in the bassinet on the airplane on EVA air!

The little bundle of joy that came into our life

2013 is a significant year in Derek and my life because of the little one that came into our life. Since we got married in 2009, my parents always asked me when we will have a little addition to our family. Since I started the part time MBA program at UCI, there was no way I can be working and doing part time  school, AND having a baby at the same time.  Since I am a "planner" and always want to have things in control, I told Derek at the end of 2012 that 2013 is the year for us to have a baby. Moreover, we should aim to be pregnant by March so we can have the little one arrive by the end of the year. My school will be done around early March so that is a perfect time to "be" pregnant. As fortunate as we are, we did get pregnant in Feb and I started the pregnancy right when I was done with classes!

My pregnancy was fairly smooth and the 2nd month was a bit rough since I was sleepy all the time. But soon into the 3rd month I was feeling a lot better and we visited Hawaii to attend my friend CF's wedding in Oahu when I was officially 12 weeks preg. That was right after our ultrasound at UCSD to rule out the possibility of Down's syndrome and it was a relief to know he is healthy and growing. In June I went back to Taiwan to see my parents and it wasn't too bad to be traveling on air as a 5-month old pregnant lady. In late Aug I want back again as Mom was getting more sick cuz of her chemo and radiation treatment. This time I was bigger but I wanted to be there for my mom. We threw a baby shower on 9/14 and were excited that he was coming in a few more weeks! My due date was 11/11/2013 and we even thought maybe he will have a birth date of "11/12/13"! Then we finished our birthing  classes and felt more prepared as parents.

On the weekend of 10/26 and 10/27, we did our weekend shopping at 99 Ranch market and even took a walk to Von's thinking that we have two more weeks to enjoy before baby comes. At the late night of 10/27, I was napping on our couch and I jumped out of the couch to rush to the toilet when I felt some warm liquid coming out. This is NOT happening! We still have two weeks don't we?! We waited for a few more hours before we went to the Scripps hospital and YES that was my amniotic fluid coming out! We checked in around 3 am on Monday morning and I started emailing my work and calling insurance and breast pump company to get everything  lined up. By 9 am though my contraction was still not regular so the doc recommended I get pitocin to induce the contraction. Once pitocin was put in,  my contraction slowly started and I asked for the IV analgesic as well as the epidural before the pain got more intense. The doc broke my water in the afternoon hoping the baby would descend faster. I went through a few more hours of sleeping in a certain position and then around 8 pm I was woken up by the nurse since I have enough dilation and the baby is pretty close to coming out! I was able to feel his "hairy head" before I started pushing and the pushing actually only took 30 min before the baby popped out! At 9:30 pm on 10/28/2013 Monday night, here came our little bundle of joy, Ethan Satoshi Yano 矢野智!

This blog is dedicated to documenting his life from coming to this world and into Derek and my life. Even though I never think (and I am still not) I will be a very motherly mom, I do love this little guy and staring at him for minutes (haha maybe not hours) is fun!

I will try to document his growing details every week. As today is already 1/12/2014, we will start with Week 12 of his life!

Welcome to the world and we love having you in our life.
寶寶，弟弟，阿弟仔，胖胖，小豬豬，死胖子 You are Mommy and Daddy's little bundle of joy!