The 2nd Trimester Blood Screen Results

Well, we did not receive any phone call from Dr. Kenneth Chan's office yesterday, and I took that as a positive sign! This is because Dr. Chan told us last week during the consultation that if the blood test result is good, his office won't even bother to call. So today, I have decided to call Dr. Kenneth Chan's office to find out the result myself.

It turned out that all the Tuna Sashimi (food), Bacardi Mojito (liquid), and skydiving (exercise) that Amy did in the past few weeks had helped! Amy passed the blood test with flying colors!

If you can recall (click here for the details), Amy's 1st Trimester blood test wasn't that flashy! Although the baby scored a 1 in 10,000 chance of Trisomy 18, the test result for Down Syndrome was a 1 in 86.

Thanks to all the prayers and support from around the world, Amy's 2nd Trimester blood test came back as follow:

Trisomy 18 - 1 in 100,000+

Down Syndrome - 1 in 500

This is absolutely an excellent news for Amy and I, our Family, and all our friends from around the world!

During these past few weeks, Amy and I have received a lot of emails and phone calls from friends and family telling us positive and encouraging information in regards to this 'topic of concern.' We want to take this opportunity to say 'Thank You' for all your effort, prayers, and support!

We are relieved! And we are now ready to take-on the 2nd Trimester with strength!

:-)

Disclaimer: The special diet and exercise prescription of Sashimi and Mojito do not work for everyone. Please consult your physician before altering your current diet plan.

Baby's Third Photoshoot!

We had our round of Doctors' Visit today!

We first visited Dr. Albert Chen and here's the summary:

• The Baby's heartbeat is very strong! (Dr. Chen applied the Doppler again.)
• The Baby seems to be moving quite a bit because the Doppler couldn't catch the heartbeat from a single position.
• All the blood tests, and urine tests, came back as normal.
• Weight gain is progressing normally.

We then visited Dr. Kenneth Chan and here's the summary:

• The Baby does not have any birth defects.
  
• All the arms and legs are there.
• All the internal organs are there.
• The size of the brains, skulls, and arms are normal. But the legs are a tick short, but nothing to be concern of.
  
• Per our request, the Doctor told us to look aside when he was scanning the genital area... just in case "something pops up!"
• The Doctor also drew blood for the 2nd Trimester Down Syndrome test. We'll find out the results in about 1 week. (The doctor said if the result is good, he won't even bother calling me.)
• The Doctor also scheduled us to return for another scan in a month's time. He wants to take a look at the Ultrasound of the heart. Right now the heart is too small that he can't really tell if it is in good condition.
  

Last but not least, below is an image of the Ultrasound. (Click on the image to enlarge.) You can tell by looking at the image that the 1st shot is at the skull level where the skull, the eye sockets, and the jaw bone is clearly visible. The THIRD shot is almost at the skin level, where you can see the profile of the face, the nose, the mouth, and the chin. And the 2nd shot is somewhere in between.

Visitors Update!

I started this Blog on March 1, but I didn't make the announcement, via this Blog, until May. During the month of May, this Blog received 213 visits from around world. The geographical breakdown of our visitors are as follow:

There were 21 cities among these 213 visits. The significant ones are listed below...

But what prompted me to publish these stats is because of the LACK of responses in our Guest List and Voting Department.

Among these 200+ visits, only 13 made an entry to the Guest List, and 18 casted the Boy vs. Girl vote. Where is everybody? Come on! This is my first Father-Child project, and the responses that I have received so far does not proportionally represent the intelligence of the Dad!

On a different note, there are about 10 Readers who have signed up to receive an email notification whenever there is a new post added to this Blog. However, my report shows that a few of those who have signed up, did NOT confirm the subscription. Remember, once you have entered your email, and pressed Subscribe, you will immediately receive an email in your inbox. From such email, you must click on the link provided in the email to confirm your subscription. Without confirming the subscription, you will not receive email updates. (For those who have subscribe, but did not follow-up with the email confirmation, you may re-enter your email address and Subscribe again. I will clear any duplicated email addresses from the back-end.)

To sign the Guest List, please click here.
To cast your vote, please direct your attention to the side-bar on the right.

The Nominees for the Best Parents of the Year

Nominee #1 - Duct Tape Parents


Nominee #2 - Beer Mommy


Nominee #3 - Sandwich Daddy


Nominee #4 - Microwave Mom


Nominee #5 - Sex Toy Daddy


Nominee #6 - G-String Mommy


Nominee #7 - T-shirt Mother


Nominee #8 - The finger Mom



Now please cast your vote! Who do you think deserves the Best Parenting Award?

Street Dancing could be dangerous!

All along, I thought this video was about someone going to break his/her arm or leg while street dancing. I don't want to ruin the ending... watch it for yourself and let me know what you think.

Cost of Raising a Child

Only had I read this Newsweek article a little sooner, I would have learned that...

To raise a kid to 18 costs $191,000. Throw in lost wages for a stay-at-home mom or dad, plus the cost of college, and by adulthood the little bundle of joy really will be a million-dollar baby. A $1.6 million baby, to be exact, according to the USDA.

Also found in this article, is that how a couple thought that they can save money on baby products, but it turned out that the baby just knows better...

It started out with little things—inexpensive diapers gave him rashes, prompting an upgrade. The Baby couldn't tolerate standard $3.99 baby wipes, either, and now his mom stocks up on an alcohol-free, hypoallergenic brand at $10 a pack.

The bright side, I supposed, is that my wife could be earning a 6-figure income before I even realize it...

Stay-at-home mothers just got a little more ammunition against their working counterparts in the mommy wars. It seems that if homemakers were ever paid for the myriad jobs they perform—from chef to chauffeur to psychologist—they'd command a whopping $138,095 annually, several times what most working mothers earn in the workplace. This according to a new survey from Salary.com, which based its calculation on a 92-hour workweek and the median national wage for the assorted jobs that mothers must perform each day.

This should give Amy one more argument for quitting her job after the baby is born.

Is it a Boy or a Girl?

Ever since we have announced that we are expecting, the most often asked question is...

"Have you found out if it's a boy or girl yet?"

Well, I have the answer for you today! And the answer is...

"We do not plan on knowing, but rather, we want to be surprised when that big day arrives!"

Although people around us have been warning us that the nurses at the clinics might just slipped and used phrased like "Look at his/her heartbeat" during the Ultrasound, leading us to discover the gender of our child, Amy and I have decided to try our best not to find out.

For those who want to buy baby gifts for the baby, and hoping that knowing the gender of the child ahead of time will help, may I suggest you to consider some gifts that are suitable for both boy or girl. For example: BMW, Dell, Bang & Olufsen, Nintendo, to name a few... are all companies that focus on products with unisex appeal.

If you need help with finding these products, please leave a comment here, and I (or my readers) will respond back with a few links for you to get started.

Before you move on to read the next post, don't forget to cast your vote on your Boy or Girl pick. The voting window is located to the right of this post, further down in the sidebar.

Does Baby Gender Affects Your Due Date?

According to the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology...

If you know the sex of your baby, you might be able to better prepare for his or her arrival. Asian and African-American girl children tend to arrive before the mother's due date. (Caucasian women usually have longer pregnancies.) Boys usually come after the predicted delivery date. And women who are pregnant with multiple babies or already have children typically give birth before the due date.

This Little Piggy... is now live!

Last night, I sent out an email to our family members to inform them of this Blog. It appears that almost everyone did click the link and visited this Blog. However, only 1 person signed the Guest List. I'm hoping for a more overwhelming responses, but it appears that I might have to wait till I have notified more friends and family members later. The good news is, I haven't heard back from them, which means that they must feel 'okay' about this Blog, or they just don't know what the heck I'm trying to do here.

Anyway, I think I'm going to send another email out later this weekend to announce this good news to the remaining family members.