I cannot stress enough the extent to which time seems to be flying at light speed by us. It takes 10 months to make a baby but no one told us it would be the shortest-feeling year of our lives! As I write, I am into my 31st week and the baby is progressing very well. This is probably correlated to how I feel worse and worse with each day that goes by. Nothing serious, just the regular aches and pains and movement difficulties. It’s pretty tough to go from being a totally independent person to needing lots of help for even simple things like picking up the socks I drop on the floor.
So, what have we been busy with the last month? Since our last post, regarding the university entrance exam, our weekends have been packed with all kinds to do! First, we had an impromptu weekend trip to Seoul, to spend time with our good friend Neil. He recently finished up teaching in Mokpo and returned to Canada. Coincidentally, not long after he went home he was back again to visit, since his family was travelling around Asia to visit family. It was great to meet up with him and have some fun shopping and dining in Seoul.
The timing was actually perfect for me to go up again, since I had outgrown all of my pants. I was excited to do some final maternity wear shopping in the big city. That is until I got there and started looking around. I went to both of the major shopping districts and in the end I found ONE pair of pants that fit around the bulge and didn’t cut off my blood circulation. One. How is that possible? I’m not even that big, just average size, really. Out of lack of pants frustration, I decided that the only logical solution was to buy more shirts. My thinking was that if I had to wear the same pair of pants every day, I would at least have enough shirts to alternate between.
Let me take a moment for a side note here. I love the convenience of travelling by subway in the big city. It’s fast, it’s cheap, it gets you pretty close to where you want to be. But it is FULL of stairs. Stairs quickly became my arch nemesis in the early days of pregnancy and they aren’t getting any easier. It’s no wonder that the young women of Seoul have such awesome legs because they spend so much time walking up and down all the stairs and through all the hallways of the subway system, in their huge high heels no less. For me it was something akin to a torturous death march.
And then you add the heat. Despite recent 20 degree, summer-like weather, the heat is on full blast over here since it is “winter” season. It’s a really frustrating part of life here, that air conditioning and heating are based on strict start and end dates which no longer match the actual weather patterns. Back in October, while I was still in shorts and t-shirts, my students were complaining of a chill in the classroom and wanted the heater on. Ha! Yeah, right. And in the summer it warms up quickly in May or June, but some schools won’t allow teachers to turn on the air until the end of July, when we are practically swimming to school in the humidity! Anyway, same deal in the subways. The heat is on, the cars are jammed packed full of passengers and this poor pregnant lady felt like passing out several times while in transit. At one point I was fanning myself with some papers to create a bit of cool air on my face, visibly sweating and almost panting, and the old woman beside me had the audacity to tap my shoulder, and gesture to stop doing it because it bothered her. Screw you, grandma! I doubt the little bit of air I created would do anything to damage that stupid severely tight perm of yours anyway, and don’t try to tell me it was cold.
Well despite the stairs and heat and rude grandmother, we had a very nice trip to Seoul, visiting our friend and having some excellent dining experiences! Breakfast as SuJi’s, a lovely western style restaurant famous for their deli, then lunch at an Irish pub (note to self, never order their shepherd’s pie again!), Quiznos, Korean diner, French style bakery for mini pies…. Oh, I love eating in Seoul!
And then we went back to work. Sigh. I love my job but I am really feeling tired of going there every day with this huge belly on me. And sitting for long periods at my desk is causing me more and more discomfort. Luckily the days are going by pretty quickly, I guess, and next week is already final exam time. That means this week I get to give study periods at my discretion, and sit at my desk to write my blog. J
So the next weekend was the 19th and 20th of November, which was when we had our American Thanksgiving potluck dinner. I spent pretty well the whole weekend cooking various dishes and it was well worth it! We had around 40 people in total come out with all kinds of foods, ranging from the cheapest takeout pizza in the city and a platter of ants on a log celery sticks, to gourmet quality sweet potato casserole and cranberry sausage stuffing. The desserts were really impressive, too; someone made an excellent berry topped cheesecake, another person brought along delicious chocolate truffles, and my pumpkin pie wasn’t too shabby if I do say so myself! All in all we had a wonderful feast and it was great to try out other people’s cooking.
We’ve got another potluck coming up in December, for Christmas, which all of us are looking forward to. We’ll be ordering a turkey for that one, so it will be even more special than Thanksgiving. I’m not sure what pricing back home is like for turkey but we’re going to pay around $70 for a 14 lb bird. I saw another place that was listing an Australian turkey at $99 for under 10 lbs I think. Turkey is not common here in the least, so we’ll pay dearly for that treat.
And finally, the last weekend of November was spent mostly at home, but busy busy, as we took care of all sorts of baby business. Saturday we cooked and cleaned the house to prepare for a meeting with our doula, Stacy, who is going to be my birth coach. This is essential since we’ve opted for a natural labour, with no meds if possible. Her job is to help me with relaxation and breathing techniques to get through the pain of delivering and keep me away from the drugs! At least that’s the plan; we’ll see how it goes when I get there! Sunday was spent doing a big purge of all the clutter in our house. Somehow Joe and I have become very good collectors of …. well, everything really, and it was starting to make me feel really stressed that we had so much junk everywhere. I should have taken before and after photos. After a few hours of sorting, we did a great job to weed out the garbage and gather items to send home for later, all to make space for the baby and her gear. It was a big relief to get rid of so much stuff and de-clutter my life. In the afternoon we had our very artistic and creative friend Becky come over to do a photo shoot with us for some belly pics. She took some really great photos of us together and I’ll add a couple here for a sneak preview. This will also give you an idea of the size of this massive belly.
So that brings us up to date with today, the last day of November! I really mean to keep adding smaller posts more often, but life is getting in the way right now. I’ll keep trying!
...pictures coming soon!
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