38th Week

I've been having such an easy time of pregnancy until this past Monday, when I got a bad cold from a co-worker. Running nose, low fever, coughing, low energy ... The doctor didn't seem to concern about it. His prescription was to drink lots of liquid and rest. I had planned to use my afternoons to prepare for the upcoming childbirth. Now I ended up doing nothing except sniffing the nose. David said it was funny to see my belly dancing up and down every time when I laugh. Now with the lung-deep coughing, Emily must have thought she was riding a roller-coaster inside! Hope the cold will pass soon, at least before Emily arrives ...

Tuesday David and I had another car seat check. It was at the hospital this time. Both David's car and my car have a car seat now - his is an infant car seat (Graco) and mine is a convertible car seat (Britax). Using a separate car seat in David's two-door car made it easier to take the baby in and out.

Wednesday was Friend Speak Day. David had two readers scheduled that night. But he didn't feel well - I must have passed the cold to him. He ended up canceling both sessions.

Thursday night David and I had booked the seats at the Bible Institute benefit dinner. I was still having the bad cold. David went although he didn't feel well either. He had to go because two other couples who were on our table went there because we planned to be there. David came home before the program was over. He said he liked the speaker's message very much: very persuasive and authorative! We also had the 38th week checkup. Everything seemed to be fine. Emily is at the right position and she has dropped. No infection of any kind. The cervix effacement (thin out) level is 75% and no dilation (open) yet. We'll see next week ...

Friday was the "Trick or Treat" Day!!! That was David's favorite day growing up. We had trick or treat in the office from 1:00-3:00pm for the kids downstairs. Our cubes were all decorated with pumpkins and baloons. Some co-workers brought wii games for kids, the tossing balls, etc. Others dressed up in costumes. I missed it because of the cold - it's better not to pass the germs to the kids! Here are a few pictures from our office - my group was disappointed that there was no pictures of our decoration ...

David bought lots of candies and chocolates. He said when he was little, when he saw the houses with lights off during Trick or Treat, he would connect that with the people in the house being cold and distant. He wanted to be the light to the kids and give them the biggest and best candies! So he cooked the dinner well ahead of time so that it wouldn't interfere with the Trick or Treat. We put the fall decoration and the candies out and saw a few neighbor's kids in their costumes already. The temperature was perfect outside. We waited and waited. Finally the first door bell rang - he was a ninja warrior! Then more kids came - we had about 20 kids in total for the whole evening. I remembered we had around 50 kids last year at David's old house. David said it might be that our neighborhood is international. Many Asian, East European people don't do Trick or Treat. That may be true. One kid was so excited to see us waiting for the kids at the front porch with the candies. He probably didn't see many houses with the lights tonight. But I know another reason that not many kids come out for Trick or Treat was there are many organized trick or treat activites from churches or city because of the safety reason. One benefit of having the candy leftover is that David got to have a big Reeses in the middle of the night. He normally doesn't get that treat!














Here are the belly pictures of me this week (it becomes difficult to lean over for food at the table):












Here are some wontons I made to be freezed for the first couple of days after Emily is born:












Here are some dishes David made:











Here are the abundant peppers from the back yard. David made his own pepper sauce out of them: