More to Come!!

Hello everyone!! Look for more posts this weekend :) Some new & exciting information will be here shortly!!!

thanks for reading our silly blog!

A Very Exciting Day!

Today was a very exciting day! It started off with our 20 week doctor's appointment! We met the 2nd of three Doctors in the Practice, Dr. Zhou. She was great!! And...we were able to hear the baby's heartbeat -- it has gotten so much stronger since the last time!!

About the same time that we were at our doctor's appointment, my dad was getting prepped for his surgery at Kaiser in Hayward! He finally had that big "Hunchback of Notre Dame" lump removed from his back! I think he was afraid his grandchild would think he was SCARY with that monster lump on his back -- ha ha ha!! Dad was released around 12 noon and went straight to Denny's to have a Senior omelet...and of course a Diet Pepsi :)

After our morning appointment, I headed up to Crate & Barrel in San Francisco where Giada De Laurentis was doing a book signing! I was lucky and ended up being about the 15th person in line! woohoo! It was GREAT to meet her!! She is also pregnant, so we "talked shop" for the little time I had in front of her :) She's so cute and little in person!! For those of you who don't know who Giada is, she's the host of Everyday Italian and Giada's Weekend Getaways on the Food Network. So exciting!!

We weren't allowed to take pictures with her (couldn't slow down the book signing line!!), but we were allowed to take pictures of her after we were through the line...

AND...last but certainly not least, we had our ultrasound appointment today!! I drank about 3 gulps of Guava nectar before we went into the women's center...and sheesh was Baby ever so active!!! He was quite a squirmy little worm in there -- even the ultrasound technician, Rachel made a comment about how active he was.

Yes...we found out the sex of the baby -- he wasn't shy!!!

WE ARE HAVING A BABY BOY!!!!!

Here's his heart -- See the 4 chambers???

And...here are his little fingers...

Last, but NOT least... Boy Parts!! Hee hee!!!

We are so excited!!! There was only one setback...the baby's room will have to be repainted, as right now it is a fabulous Martha Stewart shade of "lustreware", aka pinkish-lilac!!!

That's it for now! What an exhausting day!!!!

Sharing the News

From the day we found out ourselves until we first told someone, we were dying to say something. I had more restraint than Michelle of course. We waited until we were pretty sure things were going well to say something. Edit from Michelle "ummm...actually Brandon is the one who wanted to start calling people THE DAY we took the pregnancy test!!" I have more restraint than he does :)

The Parents...

We decided to tell our parents first. It was the Sunday after Thanksgiving and we took them to a restaurant in San Mateo to have Dim Sum. We are lucky enough that we both like each others in-laws and that they get along together. Maybe they get along too well. We had to be careful that neither knew too much information or the other would find out. We were just about finished with our meal when we decided to present the parents with a photo album. The photo album contained pics of our trip to Oregon and at the end...pics of our first ultrasound. I think they suspected because my mother in law was flippin through the pages like a crazy lady who didn't seem to care about pictures of our trip. I could tell she wanted to get to the end. She almost foiled our plan to tell them simultaneously but I had to slow her down. When she saw the last page, she stood up, and I believe she started slapping my back and yelling "Oh my god, oh my god!!!". I think she was happy. Meanwhile my Mom was a little slower letting Shell control the pace. She heard the commotion, got to the end, and began to tear up as well. Everybody cried... but me. It was definitely was special moment. I hope they allow us to eat at that restaurant again. It was good.

The Siblings...

Now that we took care of the parents, we had to tell our brothers and sisters. We still wanted to wait a few weeks before we told them. Christmas Day seemed like a good time. We decided to have Christmas brunch at our new home in San Mateo. We invited both sides to come which was a first. Early that morning, Michelle went to the local store to find some mugs. Our plan was simple. Michelle decided to make some Grandpa mugs and have the Dads drink from them during brunch. Hopefully, the idea was to have somebody notice the mugs and say something. Our Dads even went so far as being blatantly obvious with the mugs, trying to turn them so people could read the mugs, drinking from them far too many times. Up and down, up and down. I couldn't stand it any longer. Our introverted siblings wouldn't speak up even though I noticed some of them looking at the cups so I decided to break the ice. Everybody had a good laugh about the situation...but my sister and brother, Lisa and Don, seemed shocked. They looked at each other. They whispered quietly, having some secret words and whispers. I was wondering what was going on. Why were they so weird? After the hoopla died down, the congrats given, my brother and sister had some news of their own. My parents were going to be Grandparents...twice! My sister Lisa is due a few weeks after Michelle. Congratulations Don and Lisa. This was truly a special Christmas for us.

The extended family... (as now told by Michelle!)

As you can imagine with the size of our family, Brandon & I had to have an entire STRATEGY DOCUMENT to share our wonderful news! First the grandparents...but wait...Brandon's Grandma & my Fong Grandma know each other...we will have to tell them on the same day, or we could be in BIG T-R-O-U-B-L-E!!!

Although everyone was very happy to hear our news, I wanted to at least share the story of my two Aunties on my Mom's side (SHOUT OUT: Aunt Cindy & Aunt Ginger!!). While Aunt Cindy, Uncle Paul and Hui-Hui were in town, I wanted to be able to share our news with them in person. At Christmas time at Por-Por & Goong's house in San Lorenzo, everyone has a stocking along the sliding glass door. While we were still waiting for Hui-Hui to come home to Aunt Cindy & Uncle Paul, she had a baby "placeholder" stocking. Now that she has come to join our family, she has her very own REAL stocking!! SO...I asked Por-por & Goong if we could use that little red stocking to "mark" the place of our new little one, and let's see if anyone would notice. WELL...similar to the coffee mugs from Christmas morning, it wasn't noticed right away. BUT...after some "nudging", you can just IMAGINE my two aunties standing in the living room, pointing at the stocking and SCREAMING!!! LOL!! Gosh what I would do now to have video footage of that!! It was a great time!!!

Here's a picture of the "famous" stocking

The Zygote is Alive!!!

Shell has been feeling the baby kick for several weeks but I haven't felt a thing. I think she has been making it up until today. She tells me it feels like bubbles in her tummy. I usually get that feeling everytime I'm hungry or after I drink a beer. I guess I'm pregnant too. I think I'm gaining the same amount of weight at the same rate as she has. Around 10 am this morning, the zygote was stirring. On the off chance that I might feel something, I placed my hand and closed my eyes to concentrate. All of the sudden, I felt a slight "bump" against the palm of my hand. I always imagined it would feel like the scene from Alien where the monster erupts from the man's belly but it was a slightly less dramatic. Needless to say, I was pretty amazed. Today made it that much more "real" for me. Can't wait for more.