Pregnancy Adventures: Things I did not know about pregnancy before I got pregnant

Just found out today that our friends Nate & Marissa are expecting, due in July---yay! This got me thinking to writing a brief post about things I didn't know about pregnancy before becoming pregnant...many things I discovered earlier on but couldn't talk about since I was still in the "non-safety" zone of the first trimester...so hopefully I can jog my memory a bit here. Now, there were a few things I knew about like how you shouldn't smoke, drink alcohol, etc...and some things I learned through some of the few friends that have had children in the last couple of years...but there are a number of things that I did not know until I got pregnant, got the "What to Expect When You're Expecting" book, and really started learning about the do's and do-not's of pregnancy. Here they are:

• No more hot baths. I knew that pregnant women weren't allowed in hot tubs based on all the signs posted around hot tubs...but I never really translated that to hot baths. Now, I LOVE my hot baths...but once I started asking about it, my OB was like "well, try to keep the belly out of the bath" or "keep the temperature not too hot". I'm like "what? what's the point then?" Now, I know there are many opinions on this...and like with almost any of the "do-not's" of pregnancy, it's more about doing things moderately and not excessively. Still, I can't help but worry about the temperature of the water when I take a bath now and try my best to just keep it short and not make myself sweat too much.
• What I shouldn't eat/drink. Now, I knew about things like tuna, raw sushi, alcohol, etc...but these are the food items (that I care about) that I didn't realize I had to essentially remove from my diet during these 9 months:
  • Lunch meat (this is one where I try to be "moderate")
  • Hot dogs (I'll admit I ate one German sausage while visiting Leavenworth)
  • Alfalfa sprouts (wah--salads and sandwiches aren't as good w/o sprouts)
  • Oysters (in retrospect, this should have been obvious)
  • Bananas -- this is just a Chinese thing---my mom and aunt practically ripped a banana out of my hand over Thanksgiving...I'm not really sure why bananas are banned. Again, this is something I'm more "moderate" with.
  • Caffeine -- I really had no idea about this. In reality, the advice is no more than 200mg of caffeine a day (a standard tall latte at Starbucks is about 75mg for reference) As a result, though, I've basically stopped drinking coffee (which was really tough for me initially) and have just substituted with an occasional chai latte or uncaffeinated herbal tea. It probably doesn't hurt to chill out on my bad caffeine habit anyway.
  • Unpasteurized cheese -- I LOVE cheese. Now, I have to look out to see if any cheese is pasteurized or not. Fortunately, most cheese in the U.S. is pasteurized...but what in the world do pregnant women in France do? Again, I'm sure this falls under the "be moderate" category...but it's not like there are any major cheeses I love that I can no longer eat. I just find myself paying more attention to it.
  • Items with "raw eggs" such as hollandaise sauce, tiramisu, mayonnaise. This is another "be moderate" for me....but again, most of these items are things I rarely indulge in anyway. Supposedly, pregnant women should also avoid runny eggs (such as sunny-side-up) but again, I tend to eat scrambled anyway so haven't thought much about it.
• Don't touch the cat litter! This is one that's worked in my favor. Pregnant women are susceptible to an infection called Toxoplasmosis. As a result, when you're pregnant, ladies, time to tell the husband to pick up after the cat.
• Dyeing your hair. Here's another "be moderate" for me -- but supposedly, pregnant women should be careful about the amount of hair dyeing that may do during those 9 months...and if you are to do it, better to do highlights rather than all-over hair color. I would also throw this into the "hold off on this during the 1st trimester" category but otherwise, I'm sure it's fine. Again, I have no plans for this.
• Lighten up on that reflexology! This I'm a bit bummed about. There are apparently pressure points in the feet that can lead to premature contractions...as a result, MOST massage therapists will either totally NOT touch your feet...or they will only give it a pretty light massage.
• Got acne? Just deal. Now, I knew that Accutane was forbidden during pregnancy...but I figured that I'd just dab the occasional salicylic acid or benzoyl peroxide over-the-counter acne treatment when I'd break out...but apparently, those are things I have to be careful with (not enough conclusive studies I believe...so some would say this is just hogwash). I think this also falls under the "be moderate with" category but I've just been too worried to choose my vanity over the baby's health.....and that lovely "pregnancy glow" that women get? Well, ladies that have a history of acne--expect it to get worse!

That's about all I can think of for now. Now, I'm not sitting here avoiding everything like the plague and truly take the advice to just do things moderately...but it's been really fascinating for me on this journey to learn about what pregnant women should or shouldn't do, can or cannot do, etc.

Only in recent weeks have I finally started feeling her kick...and just in this last week was I able to physically feel her kicks on my belly. Just a few days ago, Matt was able to feel her kick for the first time which was so awesome. The kicks come and go and they vary from a very light tickling feeling to a big jab right in the middle (it's a weird feeling, kind of like a major gas burp but in the wrong place and obviously without the gas) It will be eerie when she gets big enough that I can start actually seeing waves of baby movement on my stomach.

I still have a weird aversion to meat, particularly in the evenings. The feeling comes and goes but at times, the taste of meat can make me absolutely nauseous. One observation I made, though, was that I can almost always eat meat when made with an Asian-like preparation, such as Thai or Chinese...but for example, I wasn't able to eat much turkey during the Christmas dinner because it just sat with me the wrong way. I still can't enjoy a good steak and can only eat beef when it's stir fried with broccoli or chow fun it seems. Strange eh?

I'll sign off this post with a lovely baby picture of our friends Betina & Justin's recently born daughter, Madeleine Poppy, who came to this world on Dec. 19th---she's so cute!

Hello from sunny Florida!

Happy Holidays from Florida! It is so nice to be experiencing some sunshine down here...the weather has floated between the 60's and 70's...and will hopefully get warmer when we head down to Key West next week for New Year's. We spend every other year down here with Matt's parents who have a house down here. It's been a relaxing vacation so far and pretty easy! It actually started off with us taking public transportation to the Seattle airport for the first time ever-- a combination of bus and lightrail: the bus stop right in front of our house drops us off inside the downtown bus tunnel where we get off and just wait for the lightrail. Total cost--$1.75 (free for me since I already have an ORCA card through work). Sweet! Door to door -- about an hour..not bad! The flight went without a hiccup and then we were in Florida.

Of course, we had mortgage related drama...AGAIN...the day before leaving. I don't know how we coincidentally got ourselves into this predicament (remember, the day before leaving for Thanksgiving break, we had to sign papers for the house). Well, I refinanced the condo and the closing for that happened the day before we left. Around 4pm, I finally got a phone call saying "can you be in Kent in an hour?" Sheesh. So off to the bank I went, got a cashier's check, quickly stopped by the grocery store to pick up food and random gifts for a white elephant potluck we were attending later, and then off to deal with rush hour traffic down to Kent to sign papers. When all was said and done, we turned to each other and said "well, hopefully nothing goes wrong tomorrow since we're on an airplane all day!". Sure enough, I got an email in the morning from the escrow company, frantic because they realized they forgot to have Matt sign ONE document. One document! I then called them:

ESCROW: "are you at the airport?"
ME: "yes, but my flight is leaving in an hour"
ESCROW: "what airline?"
ME: "Southwest..but I'm not dealing with security again"
ESCROW: "our notary will go to you....hold on..."
[pause]
ESCROW: "okay, we're just going to email the doc to you and have you sign and scan it back"

Thank goodness that was acceptable! There was no way we were going to deal with leaving security just to meet a notary to sign one document with our flight leaving in an hour! Once we got to Florida, fortunately, Matt's parents own a printer/scanner so we were able to take care of everything that night. The next day, we got the official "YOU'RE FUNDED!" email--damn straight I better be!

All in all..very happy with the rates we ended up getting: 4.5% for the house and 4.625% for the condo (and keep in mind, I had to refinance it AS an investment property) All is well!

I had the walkthrough the tenant also and I think it went okay. I felt bad as he did notice the semi-crappy job on the walls (I decided not to paint as I thought spot painting with random "looks-like-generic-off-white-wall-paint" would just make it worse) I left him the walkthrough inspection papers...so we'll see what he writes when I get home and see the mail!

Anyway, I need to wrap up as we're leaving soon..afterall, it's football Sunday and apparently the Patriots game is not playing on local TV so we've got to leave the house...and I think Matt's mom is going to spend the afternoon with me in Venice. I just want to soak in some sun.

Onto new digs...

Whew! What a weekend with our move. We started bright and early at 7am with the professional movers who were awesome and moved so fast. Despite that, the whole move still took over EIGHT HOURS (yikes!). We just have so much stuff...it's going to take forever to unpack! We have our basics: master bedroom setup, TVs turned on with cable, and wireless internet flowing already. Our focus this week: unpack and prep the condo for the new tenant who will move in this weekend. It's eerie looking at this condo that I've lived in for 6 years -- my first place -- standing so empty the same way it looked when I stepped in the first time. Fortunately, there's not much left to do -- the cleaners and carpet cleaner came today. All that's left is touch up paint and random dings...which I honestly have a fear of dealing with. I've never been great with spackle and paint...and it's just one of those things that I can't bring myself to pay someone to deal with (the little odd jobs that is). I'm hoping this tenant doesn't mind my amateur-ish job of cleaning up the walls.

Already we're noticing subtle differences in living in this new house, such as how much quieter it is at night and just how huge the house is. We have to literally yell at each other in order to be heard on different floors---we've already separated our TV watching so that Matt can watch his football full on downstairs while I'm comfortable in the family room watching whatever I please. The most noticeable difference are the people in the neighborhood when going to the grocery store. Gone are the homeless teenagers, drunken all-night partygoers and that same heroine addict that we saw wandering up and down our street all the time. Here, there are just lots and lots of families and children everywhere.

We just met our next door neighbor tonight who came over with some chocolate chip cookies to greet us--I don't think I could invent more ideal neighbors for my parents to love: a Chinese couple with 2 young children, the woman speaks Cantonese (from Toronto) and they're both in the medical industry. Nice!

Can my life be any busier right now?

Sorry I've been quiet -- it's just been so darn busy! Well, since my last post, we DID close on the house on time (woo hoo!) although there was drama til the very end. When we went to sign the escrow papers, I signed the first two pages using my regular signature. At that point, the escrow lady said, "You should sign your entire whole name" (including middle name), even though it's not my real signature. For the rest of the documents, I did...and she didn't think it was necessary to re-sign the first 2 pages. I should've questioned her on that.....because the next day, WHILE we were in Vegas, I got a frantic call from her telling me that I needed to resign those pages AND that I needed to sign them on legal paper. Great -- that's easy for me to do at my parent's house in Vegas. Fortunately, I found a UPS store nearby and for approx. $2, I was able to print out the pages, sign them and re-scan them at the right size. Sheesh.

Thanksgiving was great as usual -- lots of family, tons of eating Chinese food and just overall relaxation. One thing we did which we hadn't done in a long time --- Aaron and I took our cousins to Circus Circus, which was our favorite casino to go to when we were children because of the child-friendly arcade. It was incredible how different it is compared to when we used to go there but there were still a lot of the classic games. We probably spent nearly $20 playing the "roll the ball into the blue/red/yellow holes so your horse can move as fast as possible" game so that our cousin could win a huge stuffed cow to take home. Mission accomplished.

Since returning, I've now also kicked off another loan process...moreso, I'm finally refinancing the condo since rates are awesome and we're going to hold off on selling it for awhile. Back to scanning tons of paperwork....

Our big move to the house is this coming Saturday (when we've hired the movers) and we've just been packing like crazy ever since. Although our "official move" was last Saturday -- per my parents, the 5th was an auspicious day for moving and the 12th was a bad day. To make it "official", Matt and I had to go to the house and bring in a houseplant, a container of rice, boil some water and then announce together "we've moved in!". Hee Hee. We had to spend half the day there anyway because we got deliveries from Sears, Macy's and Crate+Barrel that day--yay! Our master bedroom is setup and looks awesome now...which is great in that when we do move, we don't have to stress about putting the bed together in order to fall asleep that night. (our current bed will become the guest bed) I'm taking the day off tomorrow to complete packing---feels so close but there's still so much random stuff! I guess the good thing about packing and moving is the forced "have I worn this in the last 2 years? do I really need this?" We have trash bags full of clothes that are going to donation now. What's crazy is that we have a huge storage area full of boxes of stuff that we packed away for the purpose of putting the condo on the market---so in a way, that helped minimize the amount of packing we have to do now.

On top of all this, we have 1 week after moving out to prep the condo for the new tenant!!!! I have cleaners and carpet cleaners scheduled...and all that remains is random paint touch-ups...oh, and preparing some sort of move-in checklist.....oh, and making copies of the keys. I will miss this condo -- lots of great memories here. Most of all, I'll probably miss living right in the heart of the city, being able to step out onto my balcony and see the Space Needle and all of Capitol Hill walking past me. Given, we aren't moving far away and are still in the city of Seattle...just in a quieter, more residential area.

Lastly, we actually have some very exciting news to share, which I've kept very quiet on this blog: we are expecting a baby girl on April 26, 2010!!! Yup, I am now a bit over 20 weeks pregnant (half way there!) and it has been such a journey. We are completely thrilled over the news and can't wait to have a lil' one in our arms. The pregnancy so far has been wonderful: absolutely no morning sickness (apparently ~60% of women will experience morning sickness---one coworker of mine due 2 weeks before me threw up 5-6x/day and has "only" been throwing up 1-2x/day during the 2nd trimester--eeks!!) and my energy level has surprisingly remained pretty high. The only weird things for me were sensitivity to smells (during the 1st trimester, walking into the cafeteria just made me want to gag) and occasional food aversions (a filet mignon tastes like rubber to me---a filet! and I LOVE steak!). In the last couple of weeks, my belly finally "popped" and I think (I hope) I transitioned from the awkward "man, did she eat too many ho-ho's?" to the "wow, she's obviously preggers" phase. As a comparison, here's a picture of me at 20 weeks (this week) compared to when I was 6 weeks:



Also, here's a recent ultrasound photo -- this was taken at 17 weeks, 4 days (so right before Thanksgiving):


I have another ultrasound coming up next week so if I get a better picture, I'll post that too. That will probably be my last "full body" ultrasound...because the next ultrasound is somewhere in the mid-30's week? Anyway, the point is, the baby is big enough after 30 weeks that it's too big to fit within an ultrasound photo.

So now that I've spilled, this blog will soon become more and more filled with pregnancy stories and then soon baby stories. Don't tell me I didn't warn you!

So you can see: there's a lot going in my life right now! Buying a house, finalized a loan, refinancing the condo, learning to be a landlord, packing and moving and oh yeah, making a baby at the same time! It's all crazy and but it's all wonderful wonderful and I'm enjoying every step of the way!

Things are looking up

Just a brief update -- as of last Thursday, got the deposit and lease signed with the oncologist! Matt and I are ecstatic about this tenant and hopeful that he will stay with the unit for awhile. We met his two sons who are the nicest, well-mannered kids---which helped with our fear of rowdy boys bouncing around the place. What's even better: our new tenant was trying to break the lease on his current apartment (he's moving because it's much too small for him) and lucky him: 2 days after giving notice, his landlord already found a replacement tenant! So because of this, our tenant moves in literally 1 week after we move out --- no double mortgage payments!! We were prepared to possibly be paying 2 mortgage for 1-3 months, so to not have it be an issue at all is a huge bonus.

All that remains is closing on the new house. The loan documents were approved by underwriting late Friday so hopefully this goes to escrow first thing tomorrow morning and we can sign all the documents during the day......which we need to do because we leave first thing Tuesday morning for another Vegas Thanksgiving!

This is a good problem to have....

Well, we've only gotten 2 inquiries so far from the condo in the last 3 days....but lucky us, they were GREAT inquiries! The first was an oncologist with a great job, steady income, etc and loved our place. He dropped off his rental application the next day. The second was a married couple -- also steady jobs, incomes, good credit history and they loved it so much they filled out an application on the spot. We feel so lucky that both sets of applicants are rock stars. Such a tough decision!!! Who do we choose?! (and yes, this is a good problem to have....) We decided to go with our gut instinct and chose the doctor. He's swinging by tomorrow evening with his sons to check out the place--assuming his sons like (which he feels confident they will), he'll move in. He's confident enough that I know he's already given notice at his current apartment. I won't say we have him for sure until I've got a signed lease agreement and a deposit check, but I feel really good about him...and even if he didn't work out for whatever reason, we have this awesome couple as a great alternative. So exciting!

Speaking of this topic, I got a call tonight from a friend who's moving out of the country pretty soon (keeping mum until they make this news public....) and also looking into renting their place. I sent a long e-mail tonight with what I've learned in the last few weeks---in addition to sending some sample lease documents, I wrote:

As for tenant background screening, I ended up really liking SmartMove the most. It's a service of TransUnion and provides a pretty awesome secure environment for potential renters to enter their personal information without having to leave it with you (like their social security #). The resulting report is great -- you get both a credit and criminal report that's pretty thorough. What you don't get is any rental history. You can choose either for you to pay the fee or for them to pay the fee which I also found convenient. Now, even though the renters had to fill something out online, I still liked having them fill out an application form as it allowed me to ask questions I wouldn't otherwise get answers to from a basic credit and criminal check, such as "when do you plan to move in? how long would you live here? what's your residential history? give me personal references, etc.." The combination of having the application and using SmartMove was very helpful. Had I researched which website I was going to use ahead of time, I probably would've not asked for a SS# on the application form.

Other recommended websites I was given:

* http://www.e-renter.com This looked pretty thorough but they have this lame feature where if you want a credit check, the potential renter has to log in and then pay $1.99. Because of that, I didn't like this site. I know others that have used this site and liked it.
* http://on-site.com This also came recommended but after I signed up, they wanted me to fax something in to prove that I owned the property that I wanted to rent. Wha-a-a-? Super lame. Just a hurdle that was enough for me to not continue anymore.
* http://www.tenantverification.com I didn't check them out, so no comments...but supposedly you can get rental history from here.


As for advertising, all I did was put something up on Craigslist and I was really fortunate to get 2 (successful) inquiries within an hour after posting. Sadly, no one else has contacted us about the condo ever since...so I'm really happy that of the only 2 inquiries we got, they were all super awesome candidates that loved the place AND decided to apply. If I didn't hear from anyone or got dissatisfied with who I heard from, I was going to:
- lower the price on Craigslist
- start advertising at Microsoft
- ask someone to advertise at Amazon

I sought out advice from many friends that are landlords and most of them said that craigslist alone ended up being sufficient for finding great renters. The number one advice I got was to go with your instinct and rent to someone that you feel good about.

Anyhow, that's about the extent of research I've done so far. I didn't look into Property Management companies (though we did think about it) because I also got a lot of advice from folks that it was pretty easy to do on your own...but a consideration to do if you were moving out of the city (like you!). I can absolutely see the convenience and I would probably use one if we were leaving Seattle. I only spent one evening poking around at a few companies out of curiosity and found, typically:
- if you use their services for tenant screening and advertising of your property, they will charge either a flat fee or something like 50% of your 1st month's rent
- for management services, it's typically 10% of the rent
- the greatest convenient service I found was one place that would not only collect rent but also pay your mortgage for you to ensure everything gets paid in time (and just bill you separately). I thought that was pretty sweet

Again, you can always try to do this on your own at first...and then decide at a later time to use a property management company. Up to you. That's the way we are thinking---we'll try to do this on our own and if it's a total pain in the butt, we'll start looking into this. Thinking back now, knowing that it would've cost me more than $1000 to use one for the purpose of advertising, background screening, etc., I'm VERY GLAD I decided to do this on my own. Advertising was free and easy (craigslist), background screening was super easy with all these websites (like SmartMove) and I liked being in control of putting together the leasing documents. It would not have been worth $1000 at all.

Things are wrapping up soon....

It's been a busy few weeks wrapping up the home purchase, mainly in getting loan documentation all together. Man, I don't know if it's this lender I'm working with or just strict new Fannie Mae rules (probably the latter) but the amount of documentation I have to show compared to when I bought the condo in 2003 is insane. Anything that is even slightly off I have to sign a letter with a statement describing the issue. It's all worked out and nothing is going to stop this loan from going through (whew!) but man, it's been really interesting comparing the current experience to 6 years ago.

Yesterday, we had a walk through of the house with the builder, just to point out minor little cosmetic things that need fixing (fortunately, most of the issues are extremely minor---little paint chips or a sticky closet door). It was really exciting to go through and learn more about the house -- like that all of the main floor doors and windows are already pre-wired for security and that the family room has already been prewired for a home theater system so that we don't have to drill any more holes.

In the last couple of weeks, we also started shopping for some of the key things we will need immediately, like a refrigerator, washer/dryer, a new king bed and family room furniture. It's been exciting and we feel great about what we've picked out. There's certainly more we will need to buy over time (i.e. sitting room furniture, dining room, etc..) but those are lower priority and we'll just get those over time... I think I'm most excited about the washer/dryer as I've never had a front-loading washer ever. The current one in the condo is just a basic unit and does the job fine...so it was exciting just seeing what options exist out there in current, newer units.

Also, finally put up an ad for renting the condo today---and got the first inquiry about it only 30 minutes after posting! I ended up showing the unit this evening to one potential renter and have an appointment tomorrow with another. Hopefully all works out so that we have a renter soon! We were hoping to have a renter by Christmas...but man, if we have a renter by Thanksgiving, that will be awesome.