On Baby A's birthday, the c-section surgery went as planned. I walked into the OR around 9:30am and was pushed out around 2 hours later. W was instructed to wait outside while the team was getting me prepared for anesthesia. He then got invited to come in and sat next to me while the team worked on getting Baby A out of me 😂. W was a good DJ and Baby A was born while Taylor Swift's Shake It Off was being played. So...did I feel any pain during this life-changing surgery? No, I didn't. I had a spinal block. I never felt any type of pain during the surgery. Getting the anesthesia injected - however - was the most uncomfortable part of the surgery. There was a lot of pressure. I felt my back being pulled or pushed, or something. It just felt very uncomfortable, not painful, but very uncomfortable. It was also hard to try leaning toward the source of that uncomfortableness. Learning to relax while being uncomfortable was a very hard thing to do. But it was necessary. Once it...
Ten days after our friend D's visit, another friend Almond (Al) from Colorado flew here for a visit. We visited PDX and chilled in our home in Beaverton. It was during Thanksgiving week so, naturally, we turned Thanksgiving dinner into Friendsgiving dinner. Al's flight arrived super late on Tuesday night (near midnight). So we began our Friendsgiving week on Wednesday. Al stayed with us until Monday night (she had a red-eye flight the next morning like 1am 😵)
11/24 Wednesday
We started the day with a big brunch in the city. Pine State Biscuits! It's hearty and it's packed with people. Luckily we found a spot before the food was ready. Then, we walked to Freakybuttrue Peculiarium. It's a small "museum" of strange and creepy exhibits and arts. We have heard about this place before and were all eager to see it for the first time. The museum also had photo props for pictures (see pictures below). To be honest, it is super tiny and wouldn't take more than 30 minutes to finish seeing most stuff (unless you're reading every word on everything you see there). The experience is well worth the $5 admission ticket, though I wouldn't drive to the city just for this. We still had fun here and Al even bought a cool kitty shirt here as her souvenir. Then, we went to OMSI Planetarium for the afternoon. We saw Black Hole at the domed theatre and had a great time solving the puzzles/challenges at the innovation stations (seriously, we had so much fun)! We also saw the special exhibit: Mandela. We learned about the history of Mandela, civil rights, and institutional racism in South Africa. The afternoon at the planetarium was more educational than we had anticipated. Dusk was setting in as we left the planetarium. For dinner, we had ramen at Afuri. Al had tsukemen with pork belly and she was in heaven 😃. W and I had shoyu yuzu ramen. We finally went back home after dinner and I began prepping things for Friendsgiving dinner. I made chocolate acorns!
11/25 Thursday
Friendsgiving day! We didn't go anywhere on this special Thursday. We just cooked, watched movies, ate yum food, and repeated that sequence for the whole day!
11/26 Friday
Black Friday - of course, we went out shopping! This also was the day that we shared our big news with Al. In fact, she's the first person that we shared this news with - that we're expecting again! To be honest, it was getting really hard for me to pretend all was fine with me. I was feeling uncomfortable day and night. Also, I was getting nervous because Black Friday was also the day I had an HCG draw for the first time with this pregnancy. So, the first task of the day was to stop by Westside Medical. Then, we headed our way to Woodburn for the outlet. I bought 4 pairs of shoes 😎 (Backstory: just about a week before D's visit, we had a burglary incident...someone came into our garage and stole 8 pairs of my shoes including all of my sneakers and some boots, favorite grocery bags, and went through our car but luckily nothing of high value was stolen). What can I say? I needed shoes. I was 8 pairs of shoes less. It's on the police report. Along with the shoes, I got a new fluffeh fleece jacket from Columbia (for my ever-growing stomach). Al had a shopping spree at the outlet as well. She flew in with just her backpack - no carry on, no extra clothes other than pajamas, so the need was great even though it was intentional 😂. After HOURS of walking and shopping, we decided to pig out at a Korean restaurant (Nak Won) in Beaverton. The wait for dinner was long and I experienced my first pregnancy-induced nausea while feeling starving at the front of the restaurant. Finally, a table was ready for us and we ordered so much food! Korean bbq (pork belly and brisket), seafood soup, and jajangmyeon. The service was great. I'll write a separate post about this restaurant later :)!
11/27 Saturday
Alpaca farm was the highlight of the day! We first went to Farmer's Market at PSU for brunch. Got some fresh produce and then we headed toward the alpaca farm. It rained all day so the ground was muddy to say the least. However, we had fun at the farm! Will share more about the alpaca farm in another post later.
11/28 Sunday
If memory serves right, this was the last day I was able to do any activity due to my ever-lacking energy...We kicked off the day by going to the Japanese Garden in Portland. Walked around the garden and saw an exhibit there. Surprisingly, the garden was also a nice place for viewing the city. While visiting the garden, my energy quickly faded away and nausea was kicking in strong. There were many times that I thought I was going to throw up in the car at some point that day, but I didn't. We left the Japanese Garden around 1:30pm and I was starving and that made nausea worse. I had brought some crackers but it wasn't helping much. We had to quickly decide where to go for lunch. Without much hesitation, we agreed on getting Chinese food for our late lunch. We had dim sum, bbq pork fried rice, and seafood congee at East Harbor. By the time we were done with lunch, it was already near 3:30pm. I quickly went to take a 3-hour nap and W took the duty of entertaining our friend and took Al out for dinner at BG Cartels later that evening. I was just out. My whole body was so uncomfortable and non-stop nausea really hit me like a truck.
11/29 Monday
This day is like a blur in my head...I know W had work all day on Monday. We had takeout from Koku Ramen for lunch. W went back to work after lunch and Al helped me with setting up the Christmas tree in the living room. We watched a movie on Netflix and then I had to go lie down by 2 or 3pm because of this stinky nausea. Then, I saw her again around 7pm when I was feeling a little better. Al and W were playing Wingspan and I watched them play for about 20 minutes, then I had to go lie down again. That was the last time I saw her. W drove Al to the airport close to 11pm. I was in the bathroom, literally on the toilet when she was leaving the house. I texted my goodbyes to her from the toilet upstairs instead of saying goodbye to her in person who was just downstairs. I felt awful. Just felt very bad for not being able to spend more time with Al on her last day with us 😞.
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