Q and A

31 May 2010 3 Comments

I’ve gotten some questions regarding baby No.3 from friends and I thought I’d just answer them here for my own record and to help you procrastinate if you have a moment to spare!

Q: How are you feeling?

A: I’m feeling Ok. I felt impossibly tired during the first trimester, and queasy a lot of the time (nothing horrible like the nausea I had with immi). Generally I feel pretty good during the day, and worse in the evening. But these symptoms have gotten much much better over past few weeks. Aside from these, I get heartburn, back pain, occasional migraine, cramps (which I’m told is normal for subsequent pregnancies, I had it with Ashland and I’m starting to get it now), dizziness, and sense of confusion (like the ones you might get when you take cold medicine). Todd claims that I have mood swings (I have no idea what he’s talking about ). I try not to complain about pregnancy symptoms at loud because I know that there are many people who suffer from actual illness or would give anything to have a chance to experience pregnancy — it just feels ungrateful for me to complain about something perfectly heathy.

Q: Any cravings?

A: I seem to develop aversion to food more than cravings during pregnancies. I haven’t been able to drink that much coffee/tea (which is really sad!) — it just doesn’t sound all that appetizing to me now. I don’t want much ice cream either. I also don’t want mushrooms or sun-dried tomatoes or cheese that’s not melted. I don’t really have any specific cravings, although Chicken Tikka Masala sounded like a good idea a few times when nothing else seemed appetizing.

Q: What do you think about age differences between Immi & Ashland (about 2.5 years apart) and Ashland & baby No.3 (will be about 16 months apart) who will be closer together in age?

A: Of course we are happy for exactly the way it turned out, but we had meant to have Immi and No.2 closer together in age — it just didn’t work out that way for various reasons. Immi loves Ashland but she treats him like a “baby” which is what she thinks he is. Immi likes to help me take care of Ashland, but she isn’t interested in actually playing with him. Ashland on the other hand really wants to play with immi but she is really too independent at this point. We are hoping that having a younger sibling (closer to his age) will get him the playmate he wants.

Q: How many kids will you have?

A: I’ve heard people say that you will know when your family is complete. I guess I can go along with this saying. When we were having Ashland, we though we might be done with 2 (after all, 2 is a really practical number of kids) but somehow it didn’t really seem right (for one, practicality doesn’t exactly sum up our personalities!). We are quite sure that 3 sounds like a good number though. Anyway, we had imagined that we’d have two girls (it’s not that we wished for two girls, we just assumed that’s what we were getting) but we ended up with a girl and a boy…so what the heck, we need a tie breaker don’t you think?

Q: There’s population problem in the world already, why have more kids at all?

A: When I was a teenager, I actually thought that when it came time for me to have kids, I’d definitely consider adoption. But you know, I think that I was naive. Most practically, in today’s world, adoption is actually a really difficult process (both time & cost). I also think that going through pregnancy and birthing is one of the most beautiful experience in life. Todd and I agree that while we loved our wedding, Immi’s birthday was definitely more special in many ways. And lastly, I believe that our world is in very sad state right now (environmentally, economically, spiritually) and we need new kind of leaders. It’s not my aspiration to raise politicians at all, but I hope that our kids — who were very much wanted from the moment of conception, and are loved exactly for what they are and what they aren’t — will grow up to be creative persons who will have positive impact in our world.

What can I say, we are doing our part in Keeping Porland Weird, and even better…making it weirder by +1!

And since that was lot of text, here’s a photo of very happy Immi & Ashland.

Tags: Family, No.3

Comments

Mary 01-06-2010, 06:27

Beautiful post, Kyoko, thank you for sharing your thoughts!

When I was a teenager, I thought I would adopt too (not because of ‘overpopulation’ but for other reasons), but my opinion has since changed too. It is really unfortunate that in reality adoption is such a difficult process. I also had no idea how beautiful and meaningful the whole process of growing and delivering a baby would be, and how ultimately grateful I would feel to have experienced it.

High-five on giving the world more creative individuals! The overpopulation argument never made sense to me. Reproduction rate is declining in so many countries – who is going to take care of all these old people and pay taxes?! Something my econ professor, Rustici, said (Todd remembers I’m sure), always stuck with me… Something to the effect of “Each human born is not just another mouth to feed. They also add two hands and a head to the world.” Basically, yes, humans do consume, but they also create, and by their existence, do more to add to the world than to detract from it.

I’m glad you’re feeling ok and don’t have the nausea you had with Immi. I can totally relate to your sentiment on not complaining about something that is indeed natural, but I think it is totally acceptable to vent sometimes! Just because something is natural, doesn’t mean it’s not still a pain in the booty sometimes!

By the way, I’m looking forward to seeing how you manage life with 3 little ones, and I know you will make it look so easy and natural, as is your style Thank you for the inspiration and showing it can be done!