Thankfulness Friday - Baker's Yeast

Saccharomyces cerevisiae under the microscope (40X).  They are stuck together after being treated with toxic drug (nocodazole).

 

I've been working with baker's yeast for almost 10 years now.  I use them in the lab to study genetics.  They are amazing single cell organisms that share many similarities with human cells.  This week was suppose to be vacation for me.  For a couple of weeks prior to Christmas, my experiments have not been working properly.  One quick email to Brad and a couple more email exchanges with former co-workers, I went into work to retry the experiment yesterday.  I think things finally worked!

Happy New Year, Readers!  May you find 2012 be filled with great many successes!

Merry Christmas!

May your New Year be wonder-filled!

Thankfulness Friday - Bunny!

Bunny followed me to work one day and took pictures of himself with my laptop.

Bunny was adopted from a gift shop in Louisville, KY.  I found him among his brothers and sisters at the Brown Hotel while I was wandering through its gift shop while waiting for the airport shuttle.  I was in Louisville for a G-quadruplex meeting back in 2009.  (More about G-quadruplexes later)  So, Bunny likes to read comic books, play video games, watch TV, and entertain.  He is a sensational singer-song writer.  He sounds very much like John... sometimes it's hard to tell them apart.  He travels with us and came with us to Europe and Taiwan.  He loved Taiwan with the celebrations of the year of the rabbit, in his honor, of course.  Since Baby Bunny's arrival, he's kind of been neglected although he has made friends with other stuffed Americans in the house, especially those living in the nursery.

Giggles

Baby Bunny had a giggle fest with Grandma (外婆, Waipo) yesterday!  I'm sorry I missed it.  I tried to make her giggle last night.  She was all smiles and happy, but no giggles.

We're still working on her sitting independently.  She'll get there soon.  She usually shows off to her PT.  So, I hope to have good reports this week.

Thankfulness Friday - Chubby Cheeks

Bun Bun smiling at Grandma (奶奶, NaiNai)

Thankfulness Friday - PT

Hi, Daddy!

This week, I am thankful for physical therapy and Rachel, our physical therapist.  Since late September, Bun Bun has been getting weekly PT sessions to help meet some milestones.  We would help her with bringing her hands together, lifting her head up with tummy times, gaining head control, rolling over, and sitting.  She's been making great progress.  With a little support, she is able to sit and roll over.  Methinks we will be baby proofing the house as a Christmas break project.  She may be crawling soon!

Thankfulness Friday - Growth Spurts

Same outfits for some perspective

Skinny girl in her preemie cloths (Summer)

Snuggle Bunny with chubby cheeks (November 28, 2011), that's her new Dolly

Even though Thanksgiving is behind us, I want to continue the Thankfulness Friday series through the rest of this year and the next.  For this week, I'm thankful for growth spurts.  Baby Bunny must be going through one right now.  She's been doing a lot of eating and sleeping.  She still looks small, especially when someone else is holding her.  But, in my arms, she feel heavier.  Looking back at pictures of her from the summer, she appeared so tiny.  She has grown so much recently that she will soon outgrow her 3mo clothes.  I am forced to go shopping for some winter 3-6mo outfits.  Normally, I don't mind going shopping for baby cloths.  Now that it's the Christmas shopping season, I much rather avoid all the madness.  Nonetheless, I am thankful that Bun Bun has a good appetite helping her to grow.

Thankfulness Friday, Part 4

1.  Parents.  I don't think I can ever thank them enough for what they've sacrificed for their children.  In the early 80's, my parents made a really tough decision to bring us to the US for a better education.  Mom would remain with us, and Dad would stay in Taiwan for his job.  We lived apart for 12 years with weekly phone calls (no Skype) and yearly visits (almost always in March).  Dad passed away in 1995, but I was grateful to have spend a month with him just months before that.  I dedicated my PhD thesis to them.  I sure can't imagine where I'd be without their unconditional love and support.  I see Dad's mouth in Bun Bun and wonder what he'd be like as a Grandpa.
2.  Mrs. Thoensen, 6th grade science teacher.  I don't remember much from the 6th grade or at least what I learned then.  I do remember writing a book report on seals in Mrs. Thoensen's class.  She was one patient teacher who noticed how much I loved science.
3.  Mrs. Kaulfuss, 12th grade social studies teacher.  She was a tough teacher who demanded a lot from her students.  I still remember tons of world culture I learned from her.  Mrs. Kaulfuss, sadly, passed away this August.
4.  Dr. Mbuy, college Immunology and Virology professor.  The first time I fully appreciated the wonders of intricate life at the microscopic scale was in Dr. Mbuy's classes.
5.  Professor Cullen, college Histology and Animal Development professor.  I still remember being completely amazed when I pierced down the microscope and saw the beating heart that had just formed in a fertilized chicken egg.  I remember thinking that this couldn't have happened by chance.  How does a clump of cells just haphazardly start to beat and form the heart plus the vascular system?
6.  Dr. Rossman, my first boss, sure had no business hiring an immature girl fresh out of college.  He took a chance and kept me around for two years.  I was later told that if it hadn't been Dr. Rossman and his wife, I wouldn't have been given a chance for graduate school.
 7.  Kate Sullivan, my PhD advisor, therapist, and friend.  She believed in me when I doubted if I could ever finish my thesis.  I learned much from her how to be a teacher, mentor, and friend for my own students now.

Daddy bought a new camera today!

Thankfulness Friday, Part 3

1.  Birthdays!  Today is John's birthday.  Happy birthday to the best Daddy and husband in the world.  Birthdays are another great day to give thanks and be grateful for another year past and the one to come.  Monday is my sister's birthday (Happy Birthday, Heather!).
2.  Seasons.  Spring is by far my favorite season.  That's when everything seems to wake up from deep winter sleep.  Everything is renewed.  Those new blossoms are always so welcoming besides being so colorful.  Summer is wonderful because we get long day light hours.  Fall is beautiful when the leaves begin to turn colors and give everything a yellow and orange glow.  I can probably do without winter, but I only like it because spring is just around the corner.  I suppose if Christmas isn't in winter, it'd be dreadful.
3.  Sunrise.  I'm not a morning person, but there is nothing quite like driving into work with the sun rising in the horizon.  It also reminds me of God's grace and unfailing love that are new every morning.
4.  Trees.  Not only do they provide great shade, they recycle the CO2 from our respiration and fix them into sugars and other organic goods.  Trees and plants complement us so perfectly.
5.  Food, glorious food.  I live to eat (rather than eat to live).  I love foods of all sorts.  Living in the greater Philadelphia metropolitan area, I've tried many of the hundreds of ethnic restaurants from Thai to Ethiopian.  I also love to cook.  I'm a better baker since it's like doing an experiment - throw everything together and incubate.  When Bun Bun was in the NICU learning to suck, swallow, and breath, it really made me appreciate all aspects of eating.  We take it for granted.
6.  Laughter.  I love a good hearty laugh, the ones that makes my stomach hurt.  It doesn't take too much to keep me amused.  God has surrounded me with people who love to laugh.
7.  Tears.  We shed tears when we're sad and when we're happy.  Even Jesus wept when he was here on earth.  I am thankful for them because I am thankful that we have the ability to show our emotions.  When we cry with someone who mourns, tears speak volumes.  I often get teary when I laugh really hard, so, see #6 above.

Wireless

Since the day Baby Bunny was born, she was hooked up to wires and tubes.  Wires were there to monitor her heart rate, respiratory rate, and blood oxygen levels.  Tubes and IVs were there to deliver fluids and medicine of all sorts.  When we brought her home from the hospital, she came with a monitor that would sound off when it detected bradycardia (slow heart rates) or apnea (low breath rates), both are common in preemies.  The alarms were as loud as a smoke alarm, ear-piercing.  Once a month, the medical equipment company would have us download data from the monitor that has recorded all the activities.  Once a month, the pediatricians would get the results and inform us if we needed to continue the monitoring.  This past month, the darn thing kept going off, and I thought for sure we would be stuck with it for another month, through Thanksgiving and perhaps Christmas, too.  You see, the wires are attached to sticky pads that sometimes slide off or a felt belt that sometimes come loose.  The monitor would go off because it couldn't detect anything.  Well, by the title of the blog, you may have already guessed where I'm going with this.  When the pediatrician's office called this week and left a message for us to call back, I sure didn't expected them to tell me that there were no pathological episodes detected.  That same night, I gave Baby Bunny a bath and said good-bye to all the sticky pads and belts and wires!  For as much as it was annoying and an inconvenience to lug around even though it was small and light weight, we were able to sleep better at night knowing that we would be alerted if anything happened.  So, thank you modern technology!  By the way, for about a week now, Baby Bunny has been sleeping in her new dig, her crib.  She looks so tiny in it.

Thankfulness Friday, Part 2

1.  Veterans...  Today (November 11) is Veteran's Day.  I am thankful for all who served, especially those who served in the Pacific during WWII.
2.  Technology...  I don't have every fancy gadget ever made and certainly do not wait in line for the latest Apple product.  I do own an iPod and an iPad.  Both have been wonderful gadgets.  I've owned my iPod for over 5 years now.  I listen to Podcast sermons during my drive to and from work.  When I stay up late at night with Bun Bun, I use the iPad to pass the time and watch movies.  I am certainly grateful for computers, without them, I'm not sure what I'd be doing every day.
3.  Science...  I love to teach and think about science.  Best of all, I get paid to do both!
4.  DNA... the blueprint of life!  See #3 above.
5.  Employment...  See #3 and 4 above.
6.  Weekends...  Thank God it's Friday!  I look forward to naps in the afternoons and walks around the neighborhood with Bun Bun.
7.  Sleep...  Something so necessary yet basic is very much taken for granted when we do lose it every now and then.  I am grateful that Bun Bun has been sleeping through the night for a couple of months now.  In fact, I often have to wake her up in the morning for her first breakfast.  This morning, I realized another gift.  She falls asleep after that first breakfast, long enough for me to get ready for work.  About an hour later, I wake her up again before I head out the door when she gets her second breakfast from Grandma.

Thankfulness Friday, Part 1

This is the month of the Thanksgiving holiday celebrating the first harvest of the Pilgrims in the new America.  It usually means family gatherings to share a meal with turkey, cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes, pies, etc.  Secondarily, people think about giving thanks and acknowledge the blessings they have received.  On Facebook, several of my friends have begun the 30 days of thanksgiving by listing one thing or people for which they are thankful each day.  I thought about doing that in my Blog but realized I probably won't be able to keep up with it.  So, I figure I'll do it once a week on Fridays and list 7 specific things and people for whom I am thankful.

1.  My savior, Christ Jesus
2.  My wonderful husband.  He keeps me entertained.
3.  Our precious gift, Bun Bun.  She makes everything worthwhile and will probably end up teaching me lot more than I am able to teach her.
4.  My mom who has been watching Bun Bun while I work during the day.  Plus, she makes delicious meals which helps us tremendously.  Her latest projects are making sleeping sacs for Bun Bun to keep her warm at night.
5.  My friends who send occasional notes of encouragement.
6.  My praying friends, many I probably don't even know or have never met, for praying us through the tough days.
7.  My work family.  I don't think I can find a better group of people to spend time away from my baby.

Cuddle

Safe and secure in Daddy's arms

Focus on the cute baby, ignore the grinning ogre.  Picture was taken by our friend Ilona... thanks for visiting us!

We're well into the fall season.  The leaves have changed colors and many have fallen.  It is getting cold!  Baby Bunny is nice and toasty warm though.  It's such a treat to cuddle up with her.

Yesterday, I heard a talk given by my colleague on global climate change due to human activity.  It was quite depressing.  The drastic weather patterns (severe thunderstorms and record snow falls) we've been experiencing have been primarily due to increase in temperature globally, perhaps better known as the green house effect.  We've been burning fossil fuel, releasing the CO2, but also cutting down the forests.  Trees complement us so well when they take up the CO2 and convert it to sugars and other organic matters.  Glacier ice in the Arctic have shrunken so significantly that it's scary.  Where we should all work together to salvage what we are able and reverse the trends, we've sadly made this really important issue very political.  Sure hope Baby Bunny will live in a world where we take better care of the resources given us.  In the mean time, we are preparing for another rough winter ahead.

Notice I'm wearing my Philadelphia Phillies sweatshirt. Another sad note...  The Phillies had the best season ever, winning 102 out of 162 total games this year.  They had the best winning record of all the baseball teams, too.  You think they would be playing in the World Series right now?  Nope!  They pathetically lost in the first round of playoffs.

I promise my next post will be more uplifting!

Live, Love, Smile!

Smile, Baby Bunny!

Huh?

Smile?  Like this?

This better?  Like my little dimple?

Baby Bunny has been smiling!  No giggles yet.  We're working on it!

By the way, at 3.5 months old, Baby Bunny has more than doubled her birth weight.  She now weighs about the same as a gallon of milk.  Yup!  We're getting a good workout picking her up and holding her.  Soon enough, we'll have to move her out of her bassinet and into a real crib, now all ready to go with bedding and lady bug mobile.  Don't grow up too fast, Baby Bunny!

Neglected!

Poor neglected Doggie!  Going anywhere with the baby takes a lot of planning ahead.  Before she arrived, our Sundays composed of going to church then to Mom's house for lunch.  That's when I get my fill of Doggie.  She gets a quick rub down and her teeth brushed.  We haven't been to church in about 3 months now.  I've seen Doggie here and there since we've been to Grandma's house several times, but sporadically.  Doggie and Bun Bun haven't officially met.  Hope they'll be the best of friends.

Grandma

There are pictures of Grandma back in 2006 when we visited Taiwan to celebrate the Chinese New Year.  The last time I saw her was just this past January.  She passed away a few days after Baby Bunny was born.  Grandma celebrated her 101st birthday in May.  Baby Bunny would never know her great grandmother.  But, they kind of have met.  I was barely 3 months pregnant when we visited in January.

Most of what I know about my grandmother are stories my mom told me.  She raised seven children, lived through the Japanese occupation & WWII, was grandmother to ten grandchildren and great-grandmother to two great-grandkids.  I got to spend one whole week with her in 1995 when I visited Taiwan after college graduation.  At that time, she still walked to the market and grocery store; I had a hard time keeping up with her!  She spoke the Cantonese dialect and had a thick Mandarin accent making her hard to understand sometimes.  That was a fun week nonetheless.

She is greatly missed.

Globe Trotting

One of my favorite preachers is Chuck Swindoll.  His sermons are broadcasted on radios and available on podcasts.  He loves to tell stories and jokes during his sermons.  One that I will always remember is his retelling of a Christmas gift he received when he was a child.  He had wanted and begged his parents for a basketball.  Come Christmas morning, he saw a round package under the tree.  When he unwrapped it, it wasn't a basketball but a world globe.

I thought of this story when we first learned that Baby Bunny has Down syndrome.  During the pregnancy, John and I talked about the hopes and dreams we have for our daughter.  She would rather be smart than pretty and a nerd just like her parents.

When I was pregnant, people always asked if the baby was a boy or girl.  Before we found out, we really didn't have a preference as long as the baby was healthy.  I thought then, well, even if the baby wasn't perfect, we would still take him or her home.  Perhaps I had a premonition that something maybe wrong.  After all, I am older, nearing the end of my child bearing years.  Children bore to older women have higher incidences of chromosomal abnormalities.

God gives perfect and good gifts.  Baby Bunny is none other.  We have no idea what her future will be like.  Down syndrome is exhibited differently in different individuals.  We are fortunate that our daughter does not have many of the physical ailments that often come with the diagnosis, like heart defects and gastrointestinal issues.  One of the biggest challenges is low muscle tone which makes daily physical activities difficult, even something as simple as sucking.  Baby Bunny actually has pretty good muscle tone.  The other biggest challenge is low mental capacity.  But, there are some Down syndrome individuals with fairly average IQ.  At this point, it's difficult to assess how Baby Bunny will do as she grows.  We're enjoying this wonderful gift God has given us for now and savor each moment.

Chuck Swindoll may have wanted a basketball, but his parents knew better how much more he needed the globe.

Over the river and through the woods...

There was a bad thunder storm the day Bun Bun came home from the hospital.  Thunder storms have increased in frequency and severity recently, most likely an effect of global climate change.  This summer, we've gotten most of our rain water from thunder storms.  We live in an area with lots of very tall trees and power lines, not so good mixed with heavy down pours and gusty winds.  So, soon after we got our daughter settled at home, the power went out!  If the power went out today, we would have just winged it.  That day, being on our own for the first time, without the help of NICU nurses, we started to panic very quickly.  The last time power went out after a thunder storm, it didn't come back on for 4 days!  No more time to lose, we packed up our preemie, grabbed the essentials, and literally over the river and through the woods, we all spent the night at Grandma's house.  In lieu of a crib, Baby Bunny slept in a cardboard box lined with a heavy wool blanket.  She was a trooper!

Picture of Baby Bunny at 10 weeks.  She's starting to react to faces and sounds more and more.

NICU

Olivia stayed in the NICU (neonatal intensive care unit) for the first 25 days of her life.  By the way, we rarely call her Olivia.  So far, she's been Baby Bunny, Bun Bun, and Little Monkey plus a bunch of other nick names in Chinese.  Born on a Thursday, she didn't have a name until Sunday.  John and I couldn't settle on a name for a long time.  We had a list, but I didn't want to pick one until I had met her.  I was to be discharged from the hospital 5 days after delivery and go home without the baby.  We had to name her and fill out paperwork before we left.  So, she was officially dubbed Olivia Anne.  Olivia was one name on our list.  Anne Shirley is one of my favorite literary characters-Lucy Maud Montgomery's Anne of Green Gables-Anne, with an "e"!

It was hard having to wait to bring her home.  The NICU nursing staff was fantastic and so supportive.  They pretty much taught us everything we needed to know about babies and particularly preemies.  For ten days, Olivia lived in an incubator.  For seven of those, she underwent phototherapy to bring down her bilirubin levels.  It was almost like tanning under the blue light.  The nurses would put shields over her eyes which she would promptly rip off.  They fed her intravenously until she was able to take in a few drops of breast milk by mouth.  It was a good day when she was moved out of the incubator and into an open crib where we could see her, touch her, kiss her, and change her diapers!  Oh, how tiny were those preemie diapers!  We visited her everyday and tried to hit the hours when we could feed her.  Preemies are very sleepy little creatures.  Technically, they should still be growing in the womb, not quite ready to eat on their own, maintain they own body temperature, and even breathe on their own.  Some days Olivia would sleep through our visit, and it was heart-breaking to watch breast milk being pumped down an NG (nasogastric) tube.  It's heart-breaking, because for her to come home, she needed to take in ALL of her nutrients by mouth.  On the visits when she was alert, her huge eyes darted around the room.  The nurses had nick named her the Mrs. Kravitz of the NICU.  Mrs. Kravitz was a character on an old TV show, Bewitched; she was an extremely nosy lady who would sometimes peer through the her neighbor's windows.  I guess Olivia liked to know what's happening around her.  Day by day, she learned how to coordinate suck, swallow, and breathe.  Day by day, she would gain a little more weight.  On August 1st, we brought her home.  Even then, she wasn't suppose to be born yet for another 12 days.

God is good, and He is sovereign!  The chromosome test confirmed the Down syndrome.  Reality has sunken in, but by that point, we were smitten by our little girl.  Everyone we talked to and confided in were very encouraging.  We immediately got the ball rolling in seeking help and resources for Olivia.  In this day and age, there are tons; a lot more is known.  What a blessing to be living close the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, one of the best hospitals for kids in the world; we got on the wait list for the Trisomy 21 Program.  We signed up for Early Intervention that provides infants with physical, occupational, speech therapies.  God is good, and He is sovereign!  The adventure begins!

10 Weeks, Part 2

Ten weeks ago today, we found out we are about to embark on an adventure.  We knew we were headed for the new world as we looked forward to parenthood.  John and I talked about giving our daughter music lessons, teaching her how to play video games on the Xbox, and taking her all over the world.  We will still do all of these things, but the adventure was going to be different than what we had expected.

When they wheeled me into the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) to meet my baby for the first time, one of the neonatologists wanted to speak to us.  He had suspicions that the baby may have Down syndrome.  He ratted off hallmarks of the syndrome, the mongoloid eye folds, brushfield spots in the iris, large protruding tongue, wide space between the big toe and little ones, and single crease on the palm.  He went on to tell us about the chromosomal abnormalities, three sets of chromosome 21 instead of 2, trisomy 21.  I had to cut him off and explain that I do know a thing or two about chromosomes and trisomy 21.  I teach this to my students.  I study DNA and chromosomes in my research lab.  My PhD thesis and post-doctoral projects were in molecular genetics.  During meiosis, for the generation of ova and sperm cells, the chromosomes separation events malfunction.  Instead of two cells getting one of each set of chromosomes when they divide, one cell gets both of chromosome 21.  Each cell in a Down syndrome individual has 47 chromosomes instead of 46.  The doctor told us that nothing was definitive until the chromosome tests are done.  Blood sample would be send out the following Monday, and results won't be back for another week to ten days.

I finally saw her.  It was so very bittersweet.  I touched her through the armholes of the incubator.  She was so soft.  She was much smaller than I thought and had a head full of soft dark brown hair.  She had all sorts of wires and tubing attached to her tiny body, IVs, monitors...  She had phototherapy to reduce bilirubin levels.  I called it the blue light special.  I studied her features and tried to explain away all the Down syndrome symptoms.  Her eyes are the typical Asian almond-shaped eyes.  I've got a big space between my big toe and the little ones; she inherited that from me.  I've met normal people with single creases on their palms.  This was going to be a long wait until the test results came back.  I was hopeful and was cautiously optimistic.

Even so, all sorts of questions went through our minds.  What will her life be like?  What sorts of needs will she have?  How do we tell people about her?  Do we tell people about her?  I thought about Becky and Sue Sylvester's sister on the TV show Glee.  I thought about Sarah Palin and her son.  Reality started to sink in even though I still held out hope that the test would come back telling us that she's normal.  It was a very long week.  The congratulations people offered us for the newborn seemed to sting.  But, how do we then tell the well-wishers about our daughter?  We smiled and nodded thank-yous nonetheless.  Most people didn't need to know.  Besides, the tests haven't come back.

10 Weeks, Part 1

Ten weeks ago today, Baby Olivia arrived.  I haven't had much time or inspiration to write about her arrival until recently.

On the early morning of July 5, I went into the doctor's office for a routine weekly check-up.  There, I learned my blood pressure had shot up almost twice higher than my normal.  It wasn't a complete surprise since my ankles and legs have been swollen for several weeks prior.

"We take blood pressures very seriously around here" was what my doctor told me.  He immediately marched me up to the Birthing Center for blood tests and monitoring.  Mom was with me that day.  She had another appointment at the health complex.

That was a Tuesday.  On Tuesdays, I meet with a group of ladies and pray.  We pray for just about everything under the sun.  That particular morning, with Wendy and Renee, I remember praying for the baby that she'll grow up to be a great woman of God.  That morning, a theme ran through the meeting.

"God is good.  God is sovereign!"

Renee even had a song; Renee always has the best songs for the moment.  It was just a typical morning that day until the doctor's visit.

I got to the Birthing Center.  One of the nurses made me change into a hospital gown and took several tubes of blood for analysis.  I asked her, "Will I be able to leave in a couple of hours?  I need to get to work."  She chuckled and answered, "If you're lucky..."

By noon, I was hooked up to magnesium solution by IV to prevent seizures.  Nope, I was there to stay.  I was coming down with preeclampsia.  I was to be induced.  The baby will have to be delivered to cure me.  I called John, "We might have ourselves a baby by the end of the week."  I called work, "Don't think I'll be in for the rest of the week."  I called Wendy, "God is good.  God is sovereign!"

From noon on Tuesday to the afternoon on Thursday, I was hooked up to saline and more magnesium.  Except going to work, John stayed with me in the hospital, through the beeping machines and the nurses stopping in every hour.  He's a trooper.  By noon on Thursday, my water broke, I was in labor and in intense pain.  By around 3pm, the nurses were having trouble monitoring the baby's heart beat.  She was going into distress.  Through the pain and grogginess, I heard, "Emergency C-section."  More doctors and nurses swarmed into the room and whisked me away into the OR.  The last thing I remember was betadine being poured on my stomach.

When I woke up, John was there looking relieved.  They had a hard time reviving me.  They told me the baby was fine and she was very cute.  I was relieved.

So, Olivia was born on July 7, 2011, the year of the rabbit, at 3:25pm, weighing 3 lb, 10 oz and measuring 16.5 inches long.  She was born almost 5 weeks premature.

Still groggy from the magnesium and very uncomfortable from the C-section, I had to wait until the next day to see my baby.  That's OK.  Daddy had already gotten to hold her and take pictures of his little Bunny.

Miss Olivia- 5 weeks

Here she is!

Six more weeks to go!

Images of the little girl who will make her grand entrance in 6 +/- 2 weeks. From my perspective, she'll make her exit. Her little legs have been busy kicking me. These images were from early April.

It's a girl!

It's been a busy winter! Trek through Taiwan in early January was spectacular. It was wonderful to see relatives (Grandma especially, aunts, uncles, cousins). It was great fun to show John around the Island and take him to the old homestead.

It wasn't so much fun to be in the first trimester of pregnancy though and traveling through Taiwan at the same time where it's an island of food, glorious food. It was actually quite miserable to have no appetite when there was so much good food to eat at all times of the day and everywhere! I still took in as much as I could.

This spring semester has been hectic. The students either have spring fever or senioritis. It's been hard to engage and motivate them.

Today, the baby is about 21 weeks old. The first ultra sound revealed that it's a girl! Here's looking forward to pink bows, puffed sleeves, and tea parties! I think she's going to look like John and will have lots of hair when she's born.