During lunch today, I was sitting with several of my students and the topic of conversation found its way to Mrs. Ramos’s baby.  There has been quite a lot of hype in school about it.  First, the fierce debate of whether the baby was a girl or boy (the girls are still suffering from that one) to the daily prayers that go up during worship asking the Lord to help Mrs. Ramos’s baby grow and be healthy.  (I think God is answering the “growing” part!)  I get daily tummy rubs from Kelsea one of my 2nd graders and royal treatment from all of the kids.  It especially manifests itself when I happen to drop something on the ground and I need help picking it up.  Anyhow, during lunch today, Andrew, a 3rd grader asked me how the baby comes out.  It was a great thing that all of the students love talking at once and haven’t really understood the concept of pausing to wait for someone else’s answer.  A 2nd grader responded, “the stomach opens up and the baby comes out!”.  The others just kept talking about whatever they were talking about.  But Andrew kept asking, “But how?”  Then, Andrew asked, “How do you make a baby?”  This time, the entire table was silent and all four of them looked at me.  I responded with a nervous laugh, and said, “Well, you need a mother and father and then God gives you a child…and…”  They all looked confused.  Uh oh, I thought, they’re not buying it…  Then Kelsea respnds, “So, you were a mother already?”  I laughed.  I told them that the only kids I have are Bentley, the cats and the fish.  But bringing up Bentley was enough to change the entire topic of conversation.  Praise the Lord.         

This entry is dedicated to Stephanie Quick.  🙂

So, my pregnancy is at that stage where it’s getting old.  Israel was telling me this morning as he dropped me off at school that he thinks the baby is never going to come out.  I’m more thinking that if the baby doesn’t come out soon, he’ll just grow and grow until…I don’t know!  I can definitely tell that he’s growing at a more rapid pace now.  I’ve also developed my first battle scars around the lower periphery of my belly.  My skin just couldn’t take it anymore!  The baby likes to play this game where he tries to see if he can cram himself on one side of my uterus…either the right side or the left.  My tummy often looks lopsided.  He doesn’t really kick as much since he’s running out of room in there.  It’s more like he slowly turns into different positions to find one that’s the most comfortable, not thinking of his mother whose skin ends up being stretched like a drum.  It’s not really all that bad though.  The kicks and movements are not painful at all.  He’s never kicked at or stuck his limbs into my ribs or jabbed at my lungs.  Nothing like that.  I think the worst part is when he’ll move into a certain position and suddenly, I have to pee and unless he repositions I must be on a toilet within 1 minute!  That’s embarrassing AND uncomfortable.  When I lie down and feel my tummy, it’s easier now to get an idea of the different body parts.  I’ve been trying to pay attention when the nurse practitioner feels the baby and tells me how he’s positioned.  I can feel the head pretty well and the back is pretty obvious as well.  That’s been neat. 

I think my biggest struggle has been trying to stay positive and not let my emotions get the best of me.  For those of you who haven’t heard, my grandmother passed away last week and I attended her memorial service and funeral.  It was a very painful time and I have many regrets.  She always wanted me to visit her.  She would always ask my mother how I was doing and why I hadn’t come to visit her yet.  I took her for granted, thinking she would always be there.  So, I put off visiting her.  I would pray for her pretty much every day…but she wanted me to visit her.  I would often think how neat it would be that my child would have a great-grandmother still living.  Unfortunately, that will have to wait until Heaven.  It’s so difficult to grapple with the idea that how I feel and what I’m thinking affects the baby.  It’s forced me to depend on the Lord to help me overcome my weaknesses and to help me in times of temptation…for the baby’s sake.  Everything I do, I want to make sure it’s in the best interest of the baby.  Love is a powerful thing.  By God’s grace, it can bring our carnal natures into submission.  That has been one thing that I’ve experienced as a pregnant Christian.  If I am so willing to change areas of my lifestyle – devotional life, sleep habits, diet, demeanor, attitude, for the well-being of my child whom I don’t know, how much more should we be careful with our thoughts and deeds knowing that the King of the universe desires to dwell within us?  Are our bodies fit to inhabit our Lord?  I often pray for myself, that God will help me to love Him more and treat Him better.  God is so merciful to us.  I’m so grateful that we serve a God who loves us so much and entrusts to us the responsibility of raising His children…because I know that in doing so, He is trying to save us as well.    

Last night Israel and I watched 2 videos that I had checked out from my hospital.  One was the birth process, and the other was on Lamaze.    It was…interesting.  I think what we saw was very helpful and it helped us understand what was going to happen, and different techniques that may help block some of the pain.  There were some parts of the video that looked really cooky…like when all of the couples were doing a relaxation technique and they were all sprawled out in the living room.  It almost reminded me of hypnosis.  Overall, I think it was good though.  I think we may have to watch it again just to remember the exercises.  I think at times Israel was having trouble staying focused.  Here I was, trying to learn the different techniques, and then Israel would make some comment like, “Look at that girl’s neck!  She looks like a giraffe!” or, “I think Bentley is doing some relaxation techniques too, because he just farted! HAHAHA!”  So yeah, we’ll probably have to watch it few more times so we can remember all of the information that they gave us.     

I can’t believe the baby is due so soon!!  I’m almost in the 35th week which means that in a little over a week, if the baby is born, it wouldn’t be considered a premie.  In a little over 3 weeks, the baby will be full-term…and could be born at any time from that point!  We along with our friends have been praying that the baby waits for Israel to come back from Australia.  We’ll see what happens.  I am glad, though, that my in-laws are coming to help us!  Juan, Evelyn, and our nephew Jacob will be coming soon to spend time with us and help us prepare everything before the baby comes.  That will be exciting.  

Well, I need to get going because my students are starting to come in for Math…until next time… 

Before I even begin, I’d like to start by addressing Israel’s last comment made in response to the entry entitled “Preparation for Parenting”.  We visited my parents last night with my little bro and of course the conversation meandered its way to baby talk…and more specifically labor & delivery talk.  My mom was sharing with us how there are some women who begin speaking very maliciously about their husbands…one in particular that she mentioned was how she recalls a women repeatedly saying, “Kill him!” throughout the labor process.  Israel, the baby still has several months before he needs to eat solid food, so I think Food Network can wait.  So, let’s not unnecessarily lead your laboring wife into temptation. 

This past MLK weekend, Jen, Kelly, and Steph helped us get the baby room cleared out and organized.  I’m feeling much better about the coming child’s living environment.  Israel’s parents also bought us some of the necessities that we didn’t have yet so we were able to do some more furnishing and assembling of stuff.  I’ll try to post some pictures of the room if I remember.  I’m so grateful for our friends who so willingly gave us baby supplies that they don’t need anymore…and also for those of you who have given us baby stuff as gifts!  As of now, we already have 800+ diapers for newborn until 15lbs, lots of the cutest clothes, almost all of the large baby necessities (walker, strollers, swings, pack ‘n’ play, car seat etc.), and lots of little things.  God has been so gracious to us!  Probably our largest investment will be when that lucky big-booker comes to our door.  Israel insists that we buy the Bible Stories from a colporteur.  He won’t hear of finding a used set or searching ebay. 

Well, Israel is off to New Zealand today with Chester.  I’m praying for safe travels because it is blizzarding outside!  Last night it was wet and rainy, and this morning everything was covered in snow.  I guess winter woke up from his nap.  Hope all is going well with you guys!  I can’t wait to introduce the baby to all of you…       

It hit me yesterday.  Israel and I have not been preparing for the baby to come!  The problem is that we work in spurts.  We’ll have a baby-phase for about 2 days…and then we’ll let a month or so slide by.  Needless to say, we haven’t been very diligent in the preparation part.  So, yesterday, I received a phone call from Melinda (from DKAY) because she was wondering if we wanted some of her baby stuff that she doesn’t need anymore.  I told her that we could use whatever she didn’t need.  Then she went on to asking what baby stuff we had already, if we had our baby showers yet, etc.etc. and it hit me…I’m in the eighth month of pregnancy, the baby’s room is a wreck, and I have no idea what I need to do to prepare!  So~, yesterday Israel and I made a trip to the baby stores and in the process of registering, we got a better understanding of what we still need.  We went home and we went through the baby room which hadn’t seen the light of day in a few months and began sorting and organizing.  Actually, it was more like that’s what I did.  Israel was on the phone pretty much from the time we got into the car to drive home until we went to bed.  (I filled him in on everything before we slept though.) 

It’s so interesting how time goes by so slowly and so quickly at the same time.  Each day seems to go by so slowly as I lug myself around from work to home to the store to let the dog pee/poo.  But I can’t believe I only have 7 weeks until the baby is due!  The baby will actually be considered full-term in only 5 short weeks!  If we were to go by the original due date, that would mean the baby could possibly be full-term in 3 weeks!!!

So, my point is this, I hope we got our act together and start getting ourselves  ready perhaps a little at a time each day, rather than letting inertia push us to the limit and then frantically go on a rampage driven by fear.  May the Lord help us be diligent each day to prepare for the soon coming of baby AND more importantly, Jesus Christ! 

PS:  We’ll try to add pics sometime soon to make our posts more interesting…right, Israel?

It’s so interesting how life is so fickle.  I had a wonderful day at school yesterday.  God really blessed and I could see that my students were progressing.  I also got caught up on EVERYTHING.  Papers were graded, lesson plans set to go for the week, classroom reorganized and neat…everything was going great and I was praising God.  Israel stopped by school on the way home from work at around 5pm and then we drove home to eat dinner.  At 6:30pm we had a hospital tour scheduled.  We had already missed our last scheduled appointment the previous week so we were both carefully watching the clock to make sure that we left on-time so we’d get there early.  At 5:50pm, Israel was ready to go and kept sarcastically telling me that if we were late this time, I couldn’t blame it on him.  I laughed.  I quickly finished dinner by stuffing the remaining tater-tots into my mouth and got my coat and bag and ran out the door.  While walking down the porch steps, Israel asks me if I know where the car keys are.  I replied with a, “Yeah, they’re in the ignition…you turned the car on!”  Then it hit me, he had locked the keys in the car!  I started laughing because he had done the same thing just last week…thanks to the brilliant people who thought of the idea to make cars lock automatically when you change gears.  Anyway, we both went back into the house and began looking for the spare key.  We couldn’t find it anywhere.  It was now 6:15pm and we had to be at the hospital by 6:30 or else they would start the tour and we’d miss it again.  We were supposed to pick up our friends from the airport at 7pm, and we had a Bible study at 8pm.  Israel called AAA and they said it would take them an hour to come by.  I was so frustrated that I just grabbed the keys and said that I’d go by myself.  I sped off to UM hospital and made it 2 minutes late, but in time before the actual tour of the maternity ward began.  All of the other couples looked at me with pity because they didn’t see a ring on my finger and I was all alone.  After all, the tour was more meant for the spouse…where to pull in the car, where to park, where to take their laboring wife upon arrival etc.  And there was me, just soaking in all of the information on how I should admit myself into the hospital when I’m ready to deliver.  After the tour was over, I snuck out as quickly as I could and drove home upset.  I couldn’t believe I had to go through the humiliation of going on the tour by myself.  Israel ended up waiting an hour for AAA to arrive and he was 40 minutes late to pick up our friends from the airport.  On top of that, we missed the Bible study.  We both came home within 10 minutes of each other.  How such a perfect morning/afternoon had turned into a stressful, upsetting evening!  Before we went to sleep, I began reflecting on my life.  Satan is always there to make life a little more gloomy, a little more stressful, a little more discouraging.  It’s so easy for me to think about the countless women who don’t have to work during their pregnancy, who have a husband who has time to help clean around the house, who don’t support a zoo at home (particularly the Jack Russell Terrier species), who don’t suffer from a mild case of OCD…and the list goes on.  But at the end of the day, the Christian will look at one’s life and by faith admit that if we could see the end from the beginning we would have it no other way.  If God is for us, who can be against us?  I want to live believing and trusting that God is leading each step of the way.  He will take care of us!

PS:  With that said, pray for me as Israel travels to New Zealand, New York, and Australia this upcoming month!            

Wow, I can’t believe GYC is over.  (This is Judy, btw.)  It seemed to go by so quickly.  I didn’t catch many of the meetings nor was I able to attentively listen to many messages since I was backstage with 3ABN, but the little that I was exposed to, was so inspiring.  God really blessed through the speakers/messages and so many people responded to the appeals that were made.  I sense that something huge is going to happen very soon…

On a lighter note, I want to thank Sarah Shim and Daniel McGrath for being the best first-time stage managers in the world.  They are the ones who made the programs run so smoothly.  Israel was telling me yesterday how proud he is of you two.  I hope you guys agree to do it next year! 

It would be nice to actually watch the GYC programs on 3ABN if we had a satellite.  OH WAIT- we DO have a 3ABN satellite!  How could I forget?!?  It’s been sitting in our basement for the past almost 5 months now just waiting to be installed!  Hmm, perhaps “Now is the Time” to get that put up…(I hope Israel reads this soon).     

PS:  Hope everyone has a happy new year!

Here is a description of a typical morning in our home:

6:00am SHARP- Aroe (oldest cat) starts pounding on the basement door, demanding that he be released from the basement and fed.

6:01am – Bentley (our puppy) wakes from his slumber and begins barking in his play pen, demanding that he be let out to pee.

6:02am – Judy nudges Israel in bed, reminding him that Bentley needs to pee.  Israel moans…

6:10am – Judy nudges Israel again (as the cats continue to bang on the basement door, and Bentley continues to bark) and reminds Israel that we don’t want Bentley to get a bladder infection and that the cats are tearing up the expensive basement carpet.

6:15am – Judy nudges Israel and Israel responds with an, “I’m up, I’m up!”  and abruptly gets out of bed, uses the bathroom and goes downstairs to let Bentley relieve himself.

6:30am – Baby Ramos starts kicking Judy to wake up.  Judy uses the bathroom, spends some time with God, and goes downstairs to help feed the animals.

7:00am – Israel is on the couch spending his time with God while Bentley bites at his bone at Israel’s feet.

7:01am – Bentley stays in the leash with Israel while Judy feeds Aroe his food downstairs, and then brings Chance upstairs where Judy feeds him his special food.

7:10am – Bentley by now is going crazy, so Judy puts him in his play pen to eat. 

*Special care must be taken that each animal eats their own food so they don’t get sick…although each of them prefer each other’s food more.  This makes things tricky…   

7:15am – Chance finishes his food first and runs downstairs to see if he can steal the last few pieces of Aroe’s food.  Judy is there, of course, to regulate.  Chance is sent to the basement until Aroe is done eating.  Bentley starts barking because he’s done with his food and thinks he deserves to play now.  Aroe is still eating.

7:20am – Bentley is released and plays with his bone again while Judy makes her breakfast and lunch.  She has to make sure Bentley doesn’t go to the basement to mess with the cats’ litter box and also that he doesn’t eat the rest of Aroe’s food.  Aroe is still eating.

7:25am – Chance starts banging and meowing to be let out from the basement.  He already went to the bathroom and wants to salvage the rest of Aroe’s food.  Bentley sticks to bone-biting so he doesn’t get sent back into his play pen.

7:30am – Judy is late for school.  She grabs her things together.  Aroe can’t finish his food so she puts his food back into the pantry to save for dinner and to protect it from the other 2 carnivores in the house.

7:35am – Israel opens the garage and starts Judy’s car to warm it up.  He helps put Judy’s things in the car.

7:40am – Judy runs to the car as Israel tells her not to slip on the driveway (like she did a couple weeks ago) and she’s off with breakfast in hand.

7:41am – Israel goes back into the house and plays with Bentley and keeps the peace with the animals until he’s off for work…

And HOW do you think we are to manage our lives when the baby comes???!!!  Somebody better be praying for us!

A couple weeks ago, we found out that my younger cat, Chance couldn’t pee pee.    We found out he has a genetic disease where he accumulates crystals and stones in his pee area.  He was completely blocked!  He kept squatting and trying to pee all around the house and he’d sit there for a minute or so, but nothing would come out.  He even started moaning.  Israel called the local emergency animal hospital and they told us that if we don’t bring him in soon, he could die.  So, (without insurance, mind you), we took Chance into the pet emergency room.  We had different options that they gave us after the kitty analysis.  We could go with the bare minimum to keep him alive and then take him into our own vet (the cheapest plan), OR, we could go with the platinum treatment, keep him in the ER for 2 days (over-night) with the best possible treatment and pay $2500.  We prayed in the animal ER and then by faith, we went with the cheapest plan, hoping God would preserve His precious creation.  The vet wasn’t too thrilled, nor did she think we were being responsible pet owners.  That was a blow to my pride.  Anyway, they went in and stuck a catheter in his area and flushed out all of the stones/crystals and we took him home the same night.  Then, the next day, we took him in to see our vet.  So after all of that, we had good news and bad news.  I’ll share the bad news first.  Chance has to be on a special prescription diet for the rest of his life so he doesn’t accumulate crystals/stones again.  The good news is that we caught it early on, he’s still alive and with us today, and he gets another “chance”.  Praise God!

Here’s a profile of the baby.  He’s laying on his back with his head is on the right side. You can even see part of his brain (the white mass).  It’s kinda blurry because I tried to laminate the ultrasound pics, but didn’t realize that the type of paper would get ruined by heat…so, after laminating at my school, it turned black!!  I almost started to cry, but contained myself because I had to go back into my classroom to teach.  John Yoonie came to the rescue though, and he helped photoshop the pics back to decency.  (So, FYI, if you guys ever get ultrasound pics done, don’t try to laminate it!) 

Here’s a pic of the baby’s foot.  The other foot was also pressed against my uterus like a split second before the lady took the picture but then he backed it away, so you can kinda see part of the other foot to the right. 

There are two other ultrasound pics that didn’t get ruined, but Israel keeps those in his wallet.  I’m not sure if he wants to share those pics with us. 

Wow, we just put up like 10 posts today.  I hope our bosses don’t find out that we’re wasting the day away by updating our xanga page!