Entries Tagged 'Children' ↓

Today I am done with my 28th week of pregnancy, and I am definitely a lot bigger than before.  The belly is really getting in the way and I am having a difficult time putting on my socks because it is hard to lift my legs up all the way.  These few weeks I have been getting a bunch of blood tests done and there will be more doctor’s appointments ahead.  The hubby has been able to feel the baby kick almost everyday and he talks to the baby often.  The baby is quite hyper and according to my hubby when the baby kicks me at night I would spasm a little and snore with each kick.  He thinks it’s funny, and I don’t remember it at all.

In terms of preparations, I am trying to document a lot of things at work about what I do  before I take leave in a bit over two months.  There are some things I do that are not really written down anywhere and it would be good for my coworkers to know where to find things necessary for releasing our software.  It has been busy, but I am making good progress.  The hubby and I also signed up for some prenatal classes offered by Kaiser that we will take in the first half of September.  There are four sessions that include breastfeeding and preparation for the birth.  There are also newborn care classes offered at the Kaiser health education center that we will sign up for.   Hopefully we will feel a bit more prepared after these classes even though realistically I know we cannot be completely prepared to be parents.  I am really just hoping that the hubby will be calm during the labor and delivery because he has repeatedly said that he will probably freak out.

In the meantime, I am also still working on my baby registry, and hopefully I will have time to go to some rummage/garage sales in the near future to scout out stuff for the baby.

As to my blogging, I am still taking the approach of writing whatever I want whenever I want to and that probably will not change when the baby comes.  I guess this is why this blog feels so random.  If you do not follow my other blogs, I have written some articles recently on Wise Bread that you can read.  Here are some of my favorites from the past few weeks:
5 Good Reasons to Keep Your “Clunker”
Top 5 Economy Based Board Games that Make You Think
How to Conserve Water by Harvesting Rain or Snow
Tips for Avoiding a Foreclosure Prevention or Loan Modification Scam

Finally, I think I have not completely digested the fact that I am going to be a mom soon.  Also I have found that researching about parenting is so much more difficult than researching  about how to save and manage money because there are just too many different opinions. For example, most people agree that it is good to start  a Roth IRA account while you are young, but I have found that some people actually think I am too young to have a child.  It is true that many people in my social circle do not have kids yet either due to graduate school or personal choice, but  I am 26 now and I think I am at a good stage in my life  to have a kid.  I actually wrote   a post here about the financial advantages of having children at a younger age and I still believe in what I wrote.  I have also found that  culture and customs also influence parenting decisions so it is difficult to say who is “right” in their child rearing methods.  Many people also get awfully defensive when you do not agree with their child care tactics and some folks can also get in your face when they do not agree with what you think is best for your child. (Rabidly defensive or well meaning women are both scary.)   So I guess it is best to just figure out what works well  for us on our own and  this child will just have to be an experiment since he is our first.

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Well, in the last month my belly has really popped out and I am noticeably pregnant now. Many people have asked me if we are now looking for a new place to live for the coming of the baby, and the answer is a definite no. We just recently got a reduction on our rent and renewed our lease at our current condo. Since so many people asked me whether or not I am moving it seems that people expect new parents to get a new place. However, is it really necessary to move a larger place for the sake of a new baby?

My husband and I already live in a two bedroom condo so if we wanted to give the baby his own room we could vacate our office, but I think it is pretty unnecessary. First of all, the baby is not going to be walking around right after he is born and he will spend most of his time sleeping. We have enough room in our bedroom for a good sized crib and we plan to just keep the baby in our room. Since the baby is going to need attention during the night so it seems silly to put him in a separate room. Most books I have read recommend that the baby sleep in the same room as the parents for at least a few months. I think that makes a lot of sense. Most babies do not start walking until they are almost one year old, and even then it seems that they do not need a whole bedroom to themselves.

Personally I did not really get my own room until I was in high school, and it was not really a big deal to me. Basically, I think it is kind of pointless to give the baby his own room because he will not be able to appreciate it until he is older anyway. I know that many expecting moms are into creating a beautiful and cute little nursery for their little ones, but I am really not into that. I think that is mostly for the enjoyment of the adults rather than the baby who is going to be half blind and sleeping 20 hours a day.

At this point we are not quite sure where we will be in a year or two. It is possible that we might move out of the area so there is no point in dealing with a move and the birth of a new baby. I think many people feel the need to get more space for a baby but in actuality they do not need the space since a baby is pretty tiny and immobile. Eventually the kid might get old enough to need his own bed and room, but it is going to take at least a couple years, and waiting to upgrade saves money.

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So before I forget I should write about the trip to see the baby on Wednesday.  My husband made me wake up more than a hour early and we headed  to the hospital after we took showers.  We walked through the little farmer’s market in the parking lot and got to the ultrasound department in the basement and sat down to wait.  The hubby gave me a bottle of water to drink because the doctor recommended that I should have a full bladder.

There was a bit of commotion as some paramedics wheeled in an old man, and then the radiologist called me into an examination room.   The hubby got a chair behind the doctor and I had to lie down on a bed, and unfortunately my head was behind the monitor so I missed most of the action.     All I could do was to watch the hubby’s face and he had this cute look that was a mix of amazement and amusement.  Apparently our baby was moving all over the place and it was hard for the radiologist to do her work.  My OBGyn ordered a regular anatomy assessment so the radiologist had to take pictures of almost every part of the baby’s body at specific angles.  Since the baby moved so much it was hard for her to capture the specific photos.

While the radiologist clicked and moved the ultrasound probe she kept on mumbling random comments like, “this baby is an absolute meatball”.  She also said, “this is the jumpiest kid I have ever seen, what did you eat this morning????”  I only had a bottle of water.

She also said to my hubby, “I don’t want your wife to get jealous now, you are having all the fun watching this kid here.”  The hubby later told me that he felt quite a bit of glee at that.  He thinks it is unfair that I get to feel the baby move all the time now and he still has not felt it.

So after 45 minutes of this she said, “mom’s bladder is getting a bit too full” and she allowed me to go to the bathroom.  She took quite a few more pictures after that and then turned the monitor over to let me see the baby.  It was actually quite interesting since I could see every little bone in the baby’s hands and spine.  It was also pushing against the walls quite a bit.  The heart was also very clear with all of its chambers and jumped very quickly.  I only got to look at it for about a minute.

Finally when all the pictures were taken the hubby asked, “do you know what the gender is?”

The radiologist said, ” oh yeah!”  Then she put the probe to show  an image that was right between the baby’s legs.

I saw it immediately and said, “well, it looks like a boy”, and she said, “yup you are right!”  The hubby was a bit disappointed, but I was happy that my guess was right.

Then I said to him, “well, it is your Y chromosome that made this boy!”

He said, “yeah I know, I messed up.  This means we will have another one!”

We took home a few pictures the radiologist printed out for us.  Several of them were profile pictures and one was of the baby’s face.  I thought that he really looked like the hubby.  He has the hubby’s nose and the bottom lip is shaped like the hubby’s, too.  Some people have said that I am nuts and it is too early to tell, though.   Later on,  we showed the picture to our moms and they could not find where the face was and the hubby had to mark notes on Flickr.   The hubby also said that he counted the little fingers on the baby’s hand and it looked good.  The radiologist told us that everything looked fine, and it seems that the ultrasound machine gave fairly good estimates on the baby’s size in relation to his stage of development.

Yesterday we told my hubby’s grandpa that the radiologist called the baby a “meatball”, and he laughed and said that should be the baby’s name.  I asked him what “meatball” is in Tagalog, and he said, “bolabola”.  I think that is a cute nickname actually.  Every Filipino kid has a nickname and now  the hubby’s family seems to be stuck on the “meatball” idea.   The hubby says that would encourage our kid to be overweight, though.

Anyway, we might go to a baby picture place in a couple months and take some 3D ultrasound photos of the baby.   By then the face would be better formed and we will see more clearly who he looks like.

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The hubby and I will be finding out the gender of our baby on Wednesday morning.  According to this Chinese gender prediction chart, I will be having a boy, but the hubby really wants a girl.  He made a bet with me that if it is a girl I will buy him a boardgame, and if it is a boy he will buy me some salted caramels that I have been craving.  Anyway, we have actually had this discussion before about how much it would cost to raise a son versus  how much it would cost to raise a daughter.  Here are some of our observations and other people’s research.

First of all, lets start with my family.  If you have been following this blog you’d know that I am an only child due to the only child policy in China so my parents had no one to spend money on besides me.  However, I do have a male cousin that was born just three days earlier than me.  He is really the closest relation I have to a brother and we played together almost every weekend when we were kids.  I came to the United States when I was nine and my cousin is still currently in China.  In China it is pretty much given that middle class parents would spend a lot more money on a boy due to education and wedding expenses.  Even though single female children are also prized in the cities they do not come with the wedding costs.  Middle and upper class Chinese parents of a son are expected to provide the wedding banquet, gifts, and in most cases a home for their son when they get married.  A girl just has to find a nice family to marry into, but urban families do spend quite a bit of money on the education of female children these days that rival their educational expenditure on a male child.  My family has met quite a few singleton Chinese females who are studying in the United States with almost of all of their parents’ money.  But overall,  in my family I would say that a male child is more expensive due to the Chinese tradition of providing a lot more for a son.  However, I did get married in America and the custom here is that the bride’s family pays for a wedding, and my parents were very generous, but the percentage of money they spent on me compared to their income probably pales to what my aunt and uncle have spent on my cousin.  In China parents really sacrifice everything for their only children, and the burden on parents who have a son is definitely greater than those who have a daughter.

Now the hubby’s family has one boy and one girl and both were raised in America.  From my point of view his parents spent a similar amount of money on both of them.  Both of them went to private schools for their entire sixteen years of education and the hubby’s parents provided money or equity towards real estate purchases for both of them.  I’m not too sure about the smaller expenditures during their childhood, but it seems that both kids were quite expensive regardless of gender. So in the hubby’s family it seems that gender did not matter.  I am sure that one of them cost more than the other if you added up every single cost line by line, but for the most part I think the big expenses were similar and the hubby’s parents sacrificed a lot for both of them.

According to an article from Britain last year, boys actually cost more than girls.  This was based on a survey conducted by a company called GE Money on 2000 British parents. Supposedly this is due to the fact that boys want more expensive toys like electronics and girls want cheaper toys.  We do see this a bit in the hubby’s younger cousins.  A girl cousin is happy with small things like lotions and nail polish but her brother usually loves getting video games and gaming consoles, which are a lot more expensive.  Boy’s clothing is also more expensive because there is less competition.  This is true of men’s and women’s clothes, too.  If you haven’t noticed, the women’s or girl’s departments are usually bigger at stores, and with more brands competing the prices are cheaper.  I think another factor in why boys would cost more than girls is that boys are more assertive in what they want.  When you ask a boy what they want for their birthday or Christmas they can usually tell you, but a girl can be less direct or less decisive.  So as a result, parents are more likely to buy things for boys because boys  made their wishes known.

Anyway, if we have a boy we might not have to spend extra money on  electronic gadgets because his daddy would have all the latest toys already.  We have already talked about a plan to rent out my hubby’s video game consoles to our kid.  For example, we can exchange gaming time for chores done.  That would be a while in the future, but the hubby is excited at the prospect of playing board and video games with our kid already.  We are definitely prepared for the kid financially regardless of the gender, but it is interesting to think that raising a child of one gender could cost less than raising one of  the other gender.

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Yesterday my friend had a lovely little baby girl. She is about a whole month early but she is okay! She looks a lot like her mom. Hopefully we will get to see her this weekend. Additionally, I received an advanced copy of the new Wise Bread book: 10,001 Ways to Live Large on a Small Budget . I really love how it is laid out. I only have a few articles in there because I don’t write many tips lists, but it is still pretty cool to see my name in it! If you are a financial blogger or press and would like to review the book you can probably request one here.

Besides these exciting developments, I am gaining a little weight due to my own pregnancy. My hubby keeps on telling me to prepare some maternity clothes, but I’m not quite big enough to need maternity clothes, yet. Today we went to Target and left the store with nothing, because most of the maternity section had capri pants that were way too big for me and the shirts were just like my normal shirts. Now my hubby says he’ll whine to my mom to buy clothes for me since I am horrible at shopping for clothes.

Since I’m in my 15th week now I have asked HR what forms I need to fill out for my maternity leave. I am planning to take leave two weeks before my due date mostly because all the moms I know that had their first babies in the last year had their babies 2 to 5 weeks before their due dates. I really don’t want to be at the office while I go into labor. The good news is that I found out that my employer has private short term disability insurance that I can use in conjunction with the state short term disability so I can get 100% of my pay during the pregnancy disability leave, which would be anywhere from 6 to 8 weeks depending on whether or not I have a C section.

As to child birth, I am hoping that I would not need a C-section, but sometimes it is unavoidable. In the case of my friend the doctors determined that her baby cannot tolerate a normal delivery due to various issues. I was in the room when they told her that she probably needs a C-section and one of the doctors was really quite scary. She said that if my friend attempted a normal delivery it is possible that the baby might go into distress and then they would need to perform an emergency C-section and “slash and cut and burn”. While the doctor said those words she was making motions of brandishing a scalpel. I was just speechless, and after she left the room my friend’s husband said, “What was that?? She was making some scary motions.” I really feel that sometimes doctors tells people the worst thing that could happen, but I guess it is better to be safe than sorry.

Anyway, this year is going by quite quickly. It still feels a bit surreal that we will be having a baby, and I don’t think it has hit us yet because everything is going along just as before. I am not getting sick at all and work is not overly stressful right now since we just finished a big release. The hubby and I are still spending a lot of time watching TV and playing games. I think I am playing more games now since I feel like once I am a mom I will have much less leisure time.  In terms of preparing for the baby so far I requested a free sample of diapers and a free sample of infant formula.  I think that is good enough.

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