PeNsIvE

Yes, 20 weeks, we’re halfway there!!! Don’t get me wrong, even with all the challenges of this pregnancy, believe it or not I am enjoying every moment of it. But then again, I am at my second trimester so I am pretty much at the smoothest part so my opinion might be slightly biased.

Even at this point I still can’t believe that I am growing a life in my body. I’m still pretty much amazed at how all this works. Somehow, my lack of understanding of how biology works seems to just make it all the more magical. Bobby’s been doing a lot of reading…on the Internet, books my sister-in-law lent — the best one is: "What to Expect when You’re Expecting". I’m really glad coz it doesn’t compel me to read so much about pregnancy — I just end up being more paranoid than I already am.

Okay, let’s head back to the important details:

1) We just got the AFP screen results last February 9, and the results are negative…woohoo!!! Don’t know much about it but it checks for a variety of neural defects like Down Syndrome and some other defects. Even if the test has a false positive rate of 5% — so they usually say don’t stress so much about it, I’m just so relieved that it is one less thing to worry about.

2) We just had our 2nd Trimester Ultrasound on February 16…they checked all the vital organs, fingers, size and weight  — the baby is doing great!!! I am 20 weeks and 1 day, the ultrasound showed the baby’s size is 20 weeks and 2 days. The baby is slightly bigger, on the average, 20 week babies are 10 1/2 oz. our baby is 14 oz. Though ultrasound technician says its nothing to worry about. I wonder what our nutritionist will say once they get a copy of the results. Maybe that is why everybody’s been saying my tummy is so huge…they keep teasing me that my tummy is even bigger than our friend who’s already 27 weeks pregnant.

3) And finally, Bobby is so happy to announce that … we are having a boy!!! Of course we both are…but I’m sure you know what I mean.

A month ago, I saw a poster of Mountain View Reads Together at the vegetarian restaurant we go to Garden Fresh. The recommended read was Malcolm Gladwell’s Blink . I’ve read his other book The Tipping Point before and I loved it which got me really curious about this one. Yeah, yeah…I know you’re curious what we’re doing at the vegetarian restaurant?!? Ok, sometimes, we eat at that restaurant when we cannot think of anything to cook. Believe it or not, their Vegetarian Chicken Curry is good, yeah I still find it funny everytime I think about it. Oh by the way they use soy glutein as meat substitute, so its really healthy and they serve it with brown rice too.

Anyway, back to my story…

Bobby and I always go to Borders or Barnes & Noble after dinner when we have nothing to do at home. We usually just stay there for 2 to 3 hours reading books and/or magazines. Recently, I’ve been looking for Blink and for 3 times it has been out of stock. It would take me at least 20 minutes looking for it. It kinda dawned on me that there were thousands of books at the store, why was I wasting my time looking for that one book they didn’t have?! For some time, I just stopped looking for it…and read other books instead. When it was finally available, it didn’t turn out to be as good as I was hoping it was gonna be.

I know this is a bit of a stretch, but I kinda realized, most of the time, we always ache for the things we do not have. It keeps us blind from seeing that we do have everything else — minus that thing we’ve been looking for.

I think maybe God intended that nobody gets everything they want. Otherwise, what else will we have to live for? I’m not saying that we should stop dreaming — I also believe He gave us that ability to dream so we can learn to aim high or higher.

I think nothing explains my thoughts better than the the Serenity Prayer: "God, Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference."

Discernment is our biggest challenge in preventing ourselves from dwelling in disappointment nor settling for something less than what we can achieve. As they say, life is what we make it — which means our happiness is all in our hands. Life is too short. Don’t waste it.