Monday, February 10, 2014

First Trimester of Pregnancy


Glimpse on our second baby. The baby is now 10 weeks and 1 day.

Going through a lot of physical changes during the first trimester of pregnancy can be more than just dramatic. It could also be traumatic or emotional stress for some women. NV or Nausea and vomiting on pregnancy vary from one woman to the other. This is also commonly known as morning sickness. So, what are the causes of these?

First, we have the change in hormones. In my research, I have found out that there is a change in hCG or Human Chronic Gonadotropin. It arises during pregnancy. It is responsible for nausea and vomiting.

Second, we also have estrogen change. It also arises during pregnancy and another hormone which doctors suspect to be another reason for nausea and vomiting.

Third, we have change of sensitivity level. By sensitivity level, this means very sensitive in all five (5) senses especially hearing, smelling and tasting. That’s the reason why other pregnant women like me, tend to hate noise because even how far our gate is from our bedroom, I can still hear who are coming in and out. Plus I could smell the foulest odour around me and even vomits and have allergies on the most wonderful scents which I usually love when I wasn’t pregnant. The sense of taste is probably the worst sense I have had during the entire pregnancy period (as it varies from one female to the other). Everything I eat makes me vomit and every foul smelling viand would make me feel dizzy and weak to my bones.

During my first pregnancy with my son Kurt, I never had much trouble with eating. I, in fact, eat tons of food and gained much weight. I reached 1 sack of rice when I was about to deliver Kurt. But on my second pregnancy, the first two months of the first trimester were hell for me. I could barely eat. Everything just made me felt to nauseated and I got dizzy all the time. I tried to help myself with some soup (not too intense flavour) but it really didn’t help. I tried to calm down my stomach by drinking only warm and hot water. I cursed soda and coffee (too bad because I really love coffee and I am a coffeeholic until second pregnancy took place).

Aside from the senses, I had trouble sleeping. It felt as though, it’s warm and humid although our AC’s on. I never wanted to see people whose existence easily irritates me. I never wanted lame reasons for lame reasons. I want reasonable and justifiable answers when I ask questions which I only did during my teaching career but its back because of pregnancy.

Patience is another issue. Oh men! I never used be patient but I tried to develop it somehow when I was raising Kurt but this time, I am only patient with kids and not with adults.

These changes are really hard to bear. It is even unbearable for others who cannot understand and who haven’t gone into pregnancy.

What do you need?

You need more patience. It’ll be over when the first trimester is over. Baby’s brain in developing so be very careful.

You need to be strong and courageous so you would overcome this kind of endeavour only given to those worthy being moms.

You need a family and husband who will be there for you no matter what and no matter how hard it will be for the next months to come. Seriously, this is hard to find. I’m too lucky to have one good husband who understands this development.

If your vomiting and nausea gets worse, go to your OB immediately.

That’s it for now, I hope you learned something from my experience.





Tuesday, February 4, 2014

Self Discipline Starts with Small Responsibilities



Toys. Toy cars. Robots. Toy Planes.

All kids love playing with their toys, at least I think all of them. But after they play can lead into such big chaotic state and can be pretty irritating for moms who are always on the go or always in a hurry. Believe it or not, there is no other way to make this simpler than to start giving them with small responsibilities. Easy duties at an early age will discipline them and before you knew it, you are training them how to deal with their mess when they grow up!


After scattering all the toys all over the whole area, children just hate keeping their toys. And some moms tolerate them by not correcting them or by simply calling all the nannies to take care of the kids’ unwanted job. That is a big NO, NO for me. What I had been inculcating with son is this “It’s your mess. You made it. You clean it.”

The more parents or grandmothers distribute this workload to nannies or house helpers, the more they teach children how to be extremely LAZY. They always go like “Oh don’t worry sweetheart, yaya will clean it up for you because we’re paying them for that.” (Believe me because it happened to me and we got nannies when we were younger. It didn’t help me become responsible. It helped me how to sit on the couch and look at the helpers clean my mess for me which I believe isn’t good.)

Here’s a short step on how to make them reliable:

1.       Start giving sweet and yet effective orders to your little ones before they open toy boxes. “If you will play, you have to promise that you will keep your toys when you are done.”

2.       Let them enjoy playing until they had enough. When it’s already time for them to take nap or to keep all the toys in the boxes, you have to remind them of the promise they gave. “Baby, you promised me earlier that you will keep your toys after playing. Now, show me you can do that.”

In my son’s case, I don’t give his milk if he can’t clean up his mess or I don’t give the things he want after playing if he can’t fix everything. This is what we call conditional strategy when teaching kids in school. I don’t really go for cute puppy eyes. It doesn’t work for me because I’m a strict mom. Plus it’s more like BEEN THERE, DONE THAT, NOT BUYING IT!

3.       When they’re done fixing everything, compliment them all the time! Do not forget to tell them how nice or good they are for keeping their toys back in place. Once you tell them nice words, they will be encouraged to clean up again after playing because they love seeing moms or dads happy with what they are doing.

4.       Once you have started, do not miss a day not reminding them. And one day will come, you never have to tell them over and over again because they will fix it without you ordering them in an instant.

Well, self discipline starts with small responsibilities at an early age.


Have fun mommies!!!