hazel's thailand

I wanted to get one or two things for Hazel here in Thailand that have a sort of East Asian or Thai flare to them. And then everything else, I can get in India. But on the advice of my friend Kelley, I also bought some onesies to take back with me. Thailand has this big Wal-Mart type store, and so as I was looking at onesies, I got sidetracked and ended up buying 3 little dresses as well. Two of the dresses are for size 1 year old, but I justified it because 1, Thai babies are smaller than American babies, and 2, they were cute.

Here is just one of the dresses. It says, "I [heart] Mom," in Thai. Now before you start thinking I'm a genius who can read Thai, I should mention they also had these in English. Now that you have all the facts, feel free to still think I'm a genius.


We saw these little baby kimonos at the night market and couldn't resist.


After buying Hazel's kimono, James and I realized how cute (dorky?) it would be to dress all the 4 cousins up in little kimonos when we get back next year. So these are for Boston, Olivia, and March Baby W. By then, they should all fit, except for maybe the younger baby's. Since we're on the subject, I should mention that Hazel will only be youngest grandbaby on my family's side for 3 months before Andy and Christi's newest one joins us! Pops and Mimi's grandbabies are about to double in number!


Just in case Boston still thinks these kimonos need a little butching up before he dares to wear his, the inside of all of them has this super manly dragon on them.


Hazel's nursery will be way more functional than fancy, but I do want to put a few pretty touches in there with her, so I bought this pillow cover for her nursery.


And this is us eating at Hazel's favorite restaurant here in Thailand. I tell you, she is lucky to have such cool parents. :)

halfway!

I feel silly posting this after my rant about being called big. Because...well, after seeing these pics, I realize I am big. And now none of the commenters will feel comfortable ever telling me I look big! haha So anyway, here are pics from this weekend. I am almost 21 weeks now...I've past the halfway mark!



This one is for Alison...now you can really tell my size. :)

big fat clash of cultures

Yesterday, James and I went to the northern border of Thailand and stepped foot, however briefly, on the soil of two other countries - Laos and Myanmar. Really cool to think that Hazel has been, in utero, to 6 different countries already. I know that really doesn't count, but she's a pretty well traveled fetus, wouldn't you say?

The trip was fun, but I had a bit of shock and humiliation. I've heard that Indians will tell you very bluntly if they think you're fat. They will say you are looking healthy, but we all know that's code for fat, especially since they puff up their arms and cheeks when they say it. Well so far, I've never had that happen, so I wasn't expecting it from the Thais or Europeans on the tour with us yesterday. I know I'm getting bigger, obviously, but I thought for being just a few days shy of the half-way point of 20 weeks, that I haven't grown some drastic amount. "You're only 19 weeks? I thought you were 32 weeks!" "Are you sure there aren't two babies in there?" "You are so big!" And yet another, "Is it really just one baby?" (and also a "You're too young to have a baby," although that really doesn't fit into the same category) I was practically in tears by the time we finished the tour. I'm not sure why I had to bear remarks that wouldn't be right to tell any perfect stranger, pregnant or not. I felt like justifying that I was wearing loose clothes because of all the van-riding we did. I mean I was wearing gauchos - no one looks amazing in gauchos except models, we all know they are a comfort item. And hey, loose clothes at this stage in the game must be a good thing, right? Oh well. Looks like I need to grow thicker skin.

This past week at our big meeting, one of the big jokes was just how fertile our region is. I was really hoping that we could line up all the pregnant women and take a picture of us. If I had to guess, I'd say there were around 20 of us. (Those of you who were there, do you think that's accurate?) I know of at least one lady who found out she was pregnant during our week of meetings! Here is a picture of just four of the many pregnant ladies on the 4th of the July. At the time of the picture, we are, left to right, 18 weeks, 20 weeks, 16 weeks, and 24 weeks. All of us but the girl on the right will be delivering in the same city, less than a month apart. And all of us but Andrea know that we're having girls - she's going for the big surprise at labor. Thanks, Andrea, for the picture!

the big ultrasound

In India, it is illegal to find out the sex of the baby.  So last week, while we're here in Thailand, we took advantage of their lack of rules and went to find out exactly what Baby Roberts is...a girl or a boy?

This is me, on the way to the doctor.  I'm 18 weeks in this shot, btw.

This is the ob-gyn, Dr. Reallylonglastname.

And this is the sweet ultrasound technician who told us that we're having a girl!  (as if you couldn't already tell from the sickeningly sweet new pink template on the blog) We watched in awe for about 20 minutes as Hazel moved around like a wild woman. She kicked, punched, covered her face, and did all sorts of crazy things.  I drank coffee before the ultrasound so that she wouldn't be sleeping, and now I know what my morning jolt of caffeine does to her every day.

One cool thing about this particular hospital is that they gave us a free DVD of the ultrasound, so we're gonna try to cut it down to a few minutes and upload it on the blog.  We finally got to hear the heartbeat too!