A letter to my unborn son.

Hi Noma,

It’s me, Mom!

In less than a week’s time, you will be in my arms, having just turned our world’s completely upside down. I am so so excited!

The past 8 or so months have been insane, as we were not prepared for the journey your little self would take us.

Leading up to pregnancy, I told myself I wanted to be one of those chill girls who doesn’t act like she’s the first person on the planet to get pregnant, but now looking back at 37 weeks, it kind of turned into that. J Oh well.

Your stay in my belly has been quite eventful, and I’m sorry if you felt all the turbulence that went on. The 20 insane weeks of vomiting and being sick were bearable, but I can’t help but think that all the stress that I dealt with had an effect on you. The doctor’s say there was no cause, but my mommy heart can’t help but constantly think to myself, “what if I just let those things go and focused more on growing you inside”. 

My hope is that you come out and you shock everyone by being a good sized, normal boy! If not, that’s okay too.  If all else fails, you can blame your Dad… who, until yesterday, told me you’re small because he was a tiny baby at barely over 6 pounds. Well guess what? We found his birth certificate yesterday and he was 7 pounds and 7 ounces! Bigger than me! Haha.

Noma, I hope you’re ready to come out… because we are ready for you to hurry up and join our family! This year, 6 of your cousins were born! -with one still on the way! Sure, they are all in different parts of the world, but it is definitely a record for us. I can’t wait for you to make relationships with them and to watch you grow up having so much fun with your cousins. J Not to mention your grandparents are super ecstatic about your impending arrival, and you are already so loved by so many aunties and uncles. Do me a favor and grow up chak-hae so you can continue to be easily loved. I will try to teach you all the Korean etiquette and manners, so you can blend those things in with your Dad’s ways that I’m sure you’ll take after. We saw your face in an ultrasound last week, and you look just like him already! He said you look like a weasel; little does he know he looks like a weasel, too. Hehe.

Oh! I forgot to mention! You also have a big sister that I hope you really really love. Right now I think she is feeling a certain way because she senses that something major is about to happen, but I think you guys will really really love each other. She is an awesome doggy, and right now she is Mommy’s best companion, but if you want to steal her to be your best friend instead, I can deal with that. What’s mine is yours.

Noms, I’m not going to be the world’s most perfect mom. I have enough trouble taking care of myself, and I was even voted “Most likely to never grow up” in high school. I’m super childish, immature, and often times still count on Grandma or Dad to take care of my crap. Hopefully these mother instincts kick in naturally. All I can say is that I will try my best. I will try to be patient and think of you before I think of my own needs, I will try to make sure you grow up eating healthier than I did, and I will try to create a happy and inspiring environment for you to flourish in. Dad and I already have so many things we want to teach you.  At times we may be lazy or short to anger, but please don’t take those things to heart. It will be a learning process for us, too.

Noms, my son! You are everything I ever wanted in this world! The love of our lives! I didn't know it until recently, but you are. I am going to love you so fiercely! Until it is time to let you go and be some lucky girl’s husband. Then I will try to back off and be a chill mother-in-law so your wife doesn’t give you crap. Please come out healthy and strong!

It's been a long time!

How are you guys? Haha.

We're good. Really. So, so much better.

As exhausting as the bi-weekly visits to multiple doctors have been, the constant checkups have been reassuring and comforting to my worry wart self.
Every week, we have been getting the "great news" that my placenta is calcifying (dying) more and more, and that the time when Noma gets to come out is nearing. The reason that such not good news is good news is because it gives us more confidence that his size is a nutrition issue and not something scarier that is irreversible. He is officially still growing *s.l.o.w.l.y. and at every NST, his heart beat is good and his fluids are stellar. So proud of Baby Boy for doing so great under the crappy circumstances and crossing my fingers that he will get to be 5 pounds by the time he comes out!

The high-risk doc said I can even make it to 38 wks before we take him out (if i'm lucky), but that is the maximum,  which means, the time is really near.. since I will be 36 in 2 days! We are thinking it will happen some time during Thanksgiving week. She can't tell us till a few days prior, but I guess there is a wait with all pregnancies anyway. Shoutout to my cousin who just had hers at 41+ wks. lol Crazy how time flies. I am definitely not as big as other preggos (well I am, but not my belly), but I am surely feeling all the discomforts of end of pregnancy. Waking up in the middle of the night from crazy charlie horses in my calves, in pain when I drive, and my little homie's rear end is stuck near my left rib cage. Most recently, I had a cold and horrible cough that lasted about 12 days and I can't tell you how annoying it was to have such frequent accidents from coughing so much. Tmi? Haha.

Anyhow, people keep asking if I am nervous. NOT AT ALL! Maybe I will start to be when the date is  actually set, but for now, I am SO ready for pregnancy to be OVER and to finally meet this little dude.  I am sure I will regret saying this when I'm a zombie from no sleep etc., but seriously, these last several months have been so hard on us emotionally, I can't wait to just see that he is okay with my own eyes and love on him. Yeah, total mama's boy in the making already. The stroller and car seat  are set up, the nursery is 90% done, and I am just washing his laundry daily prepping for his arrival. Gifts from friends and family all over the world keep coming in everyday, and it just makes me so happy that everyone is so excited for his arrival. Hopefully he grows up to be a good kid that knows how to reciprocate all this love. :)

What else. The weeks are long being unable to do much except go to the doctor (except for Tuesdays which is the day Mom comes over and basically does everything for me :) She is the absolute best.) , but the weekends have been pretty great lately. Brian took a day off last week and took me to Disneyland since our passes expire soon, and even though we only got to ride "Small World", it was nice and definitely made my week feel shorter. Then my nephew and niece were born- on the SAME DAY!- to their respective moms lol, and I spent Friday and Saturday visiting my brand new, gigantic but adorable nephew at the hospital. They were both quite eventful birth stories but I am so thankful everyone is okay and the babies are healthy.

The weekends have also been great lately because of friends. Friends seriously make the world go round. Living in Redondo is great for us but not really ideal for others and I have actually had friends joke that they'll only come hang out with us when we move closer to the freeway lol, and since we aren't really able to go out much ourselves, we haven't been reaching out to people or going out of our way to do anything. But unexpectedly, some of our friends have been spending their weekends coming all the way to South Bay to have dinner with us or just drink beers at home with Brian, and it really has done so much to take the edge off of everything. I can tell that  Blee is just so much giddier after spending time with people other than his jjing jjing wife, and we have really been able to enjoy this time we have left as non-parents. Yesterday, our friends dropped by to have dinner with us, and after dinner, we went to Target altogether and had the time of our lives. Then we went our separate ways, got home, and they were outside our door again. To use the restroom. We thought it was so weird, but appreciated the company. After a couple of beers and mindless conversation, it turned out they just wanted to spend some time praying for us. What the! I probably would have cried right then and there if it wasn't so awkward, but it was. This was a first for us, as our group of friends is not necessarily the most God centered group of friends out there. So I imagine it was much harder for them to approach us about it than it was for us to receive it. If you guys are reading this, thank you so much for that prayer. I am feeling so empowered and rejuvenated by it. Anyhow, after they left, I spent the rest of the night partially giggling at how they kinda Jehovah's witnessed us (Blee called it prayer-rape -_-), but also spent the rest of the night thanking my lucky stars -- God of course,  and reflected upon how he has really used this pregnancy to show me how blessed I am. I have really learned how to just rely on him and let him do the rest. When things are out of your  control, there really isn't much else you can do but have faith. Through this time, we have also really seen an outpour of love from our friends and our family, and on an even more personal level, I have grown more thankful and more certain that I made the right choice in marrying the dude I married, as he has been so optimistic and level-headed during this time. Sure he is annoying 80% of the time with  comments like "you seem to have all the pregnancy symptoms out of convenience" or "let me raise the volume on the radio so I can drown you out", and he is surely driving me crazy with all the links to portable heaters he wants to buy when we really don't need one, but he is fosho the man God hand-picked for me.

This will most likely be my last post before baby RJL comes to join us, (yes, we have a real name! stay tuned :P) but I hope to continue this blog after he comes out, too. Hopefully it can be more of a real entertaining blog and less of a pregnancy-mom blog, but I doubt it. Pray for us, friends! Spawn is coming!