The "Grand Opening" of 2nd Trimester

The second trimester finally arrived as expected, wait, too early to cheer up. It is coming with a cold first and hay fever followed. In order to avoid the allergen – pollen, I have to chain myself at home with windows closed. New England just entered into summer, sunny, mild weather, the pleasing breeze, the balmy smell…the best season in a year. All I can do is to watch it through a closed window. Sigh!

As every pregnant woman desperately looks forward to, the second trimester is supposed to be the best part of pregnancy, even the most joyful part in a woman’s life. I definitely haven’t tasted a bit of it with the cold and hay fever. My nose has been running and I have been sneezing so hard that I am afraid I could almost shoot the baby out of my body every time I sneeze. The most annoying thing of hay fever is that it lasts LONG, as long as there is pollen in the air. It has been 2 weeks in my case and there is still no sign of the end. The pollen allergy also does damage to my face. It caused red rash all over my face, which not only ruined my “maternity glow”, but also itches really bad.

Hopefully, as traditional wisdom said, the best part comes later.

Celebrity Maternity Looks in One Day

Angelina Jolie without any doubt is the most famous young mommy in the world; a mysterious, stylish, sexy and versatile movie star; a humanitarian and Goodwill Ambassador for the UN Refugee Agency; one of the most reported movie stars in Hollywood.

With 3 adopted kids and a biological daughter, she is expecting twins again. Check out her stunning maternity looks in one day:

We Saw You, Baby!

As I am approaching the end of the first trimester, (yeah!), things are gradually looking up like they said in the books indeed. Nausea is already a remote word to me. As a meat lover, there was some time between 7th and 8th week, I couldn’t even bear smelling the so-called “slaver-inducing” flavor of meats. It is all gone by now. I started to enjoy cooking and eating meat again. The tiredness and sleepiness, however, are still with me day and night. I am still very unproductive on anything I do daily. Really look forward to the days coming that I can be active, spirited and energetic again.

We have been to the hospital and seen the fetus' ultrasound picture twice, last Tuesday (5/6) and today (5/15). Obviously the fetus is growing very fast. I hardly saw anything last Tuesday when the OB checked the heartbeat of the baby. XJ did see some tiny electric waves as he sat closer to the monitor. We both felt so CALM that we started to doubt that we are both retarded on this parental intuition thing. Today, only 8 days later, in my 12 weeks and 1 day pregnancy, the size of fetus doubled! I finally saw it clearly, especially when the operator enlarged it on the screen. She (as XJ referred it) was moving violently (as XJ described it) with arms and legs all over the place. The heartbeat was very obvious and quite powerful. It was really amazing to see a moving creature inside my body. We were definitely amused by her performance. And as “retarded” parent, we still haven’t felt that flush of desperately thrill and joy as people described. Just as one close friend puts it, she is more thrilled for us than we are.