Melanie is just 10 weeks old now. We are thinking of introducing her to the bottles. Turned out that there may be disadvantage to waiting too long. Babies might not take bottles if you introduce to them too late. Whether that's true or not, this is about the right time to do it for us, as I'll be going back to work soon The thought of returning to work is not amusing at all. I won't get to spend the morning with Melanie just playing and chatting and laughing together. I know I'll miss her very much. Hopefully, starting her in the daycare center near the office helps. I can stop by a couple of times during the day to visit her. Anyway, back to the bottle, I read many customer comments on this Breastflow bottle and people were very happy with it, especially for babies who are breastfed. The nipple is made differently than any other bottles. John picked one up at Babies R Us yesterday and I was fascinated by it. It is really cool. It is made to simulate the real breast and the milk is supposed to come out exactly the way it would from the breast. The nipple has two parts, an outer one and an inner one. This is revolutionary! Bottles really have come a long way. I remember back in 90s when little brother was a baby, his bottles weren't this complicated. It was just a yellow nipple and a cap. I don't think there were even different types of nipples. Nowadays, for some reason, the bottles seem "fatter". They are used to be slimmer. I wonder if it's promoting babies to hold them with two hands instead of one.

With all the great reviews on the bottle, I am hopeful. There are also too many stories about babies not liking the nipple. It just sounded exhausting to switch to bottles. Also, she seems very adaptable. I think Melanie will like it, hopefully.

I found a new way to put Melanie to sleep. She usually just squirms around when i'm holding her upright to shush her to sleep. I used to have to walk in a certain to simulate a car ride with bumpiness, in combination with a long shush. She grew tired of that. Yesterday, I accidentally bounce her while I walked like a graduation progression with a pause in between steps. That seems to calm her down completely. Yay!! I was so proud that I was able to put her to sleep more quickly. Let see when she'll get tired of that, I hope not.

Melanie started smiling a couple of days ago. She usually smiles while she's dreaming, unintentionally I guess, but it was precious to see. But seeing it when she's awake while I was talking to her, that's really priceless. It's such a sweet smile. I still yet have to find a way to get her to smile when something's funny. But she seems to smile when I talk to her, maybe something I said tickle her funny bones.

Yesterday Melanie took her first FOUR vaccine shots. OMG, when the nurse told John and I that they were planning on giving Melanie four shots, I felt like a knife stab into my heart. My first reaction was why so many. These are routine shots and I was contemplating whether to let them give her all the shots on the same day. After much agony, I was convinced that having her take all the shots was a better idea because she would only have to suffer the needle pain just once instead of multiple times. When the nurse asked me to hold her hands so that she can give the shots in her thigh, my heart sunk. I was more afraid of them poking the needles into her tender skin. John was asking if I wanted to see needles poke into her, but I wanted to be there even though it was absolutely heart breaking. I wanted to be there for her no matter what. As soon as the nurse put the first needle in, Melanie gave this loud agonizing cry, then all there was was her open mouth, with absolutely no sound coming out. Her eyes were shut tight. She couldn't let out a sound for the longest time, well...maybe just a couple of seconds, but it felt like forever. I felt my tear started to fill my eyes. My heart was in pain. Such cruelty!! Soon afterward, Melanie stopped crying. I was surprised that she stopped so quickly. I guess she's tough. She can take the pain like a big girl. I started feeding her just so she quickly forget and distracted her with some pleasant feeding. Sucking is supposed to calm babies I think. Then we all went for a long stroll home and stopped by a greek restaurant in upper west side for lunch.

Melanie started burning up last night. It's normal to be feverish after taking the shots. I was worried sick. She was just sleeping since we left the doctor's office in the afternoon and only woke up once when we got home, then she went back to sleep for hours and we started waking her up for feeding. She didn't have much of an appetite, but she should be kept hydrated and she was. It was worrisome that she behaved completely not herself. I pretty much kept checking up on her the whole night and set the alarm to wake myself up so that she got fed. Most of the time, I let her slept on my lap on top of the boppy pillow after feeding. I felt much better that way so I can kept a closer eye on her. I felt asleep as well, but didn't have such great sleep. I didn't want to slip her into our bed. It was a night of worries. Life, as a parent, is indescribable. It's tough, but the happy time just outweight the rough time.

Melanie seems to be doing better today. Her temperature has come down and she was more active. She stayed up a little bit in the afternoon to look around and listened to me talking to her. She still isn't completely herself yet, but I'm less worried now. I'm glad that she took all the shots on the same day. I surely don't want her to go through days like this four times instead of just once.

Can the Yankees play any worst than losing to the lowly Tampa Bay Devil Rays? yesterday's game was absolutely horrible. With the rocket on the mount, they still manage to lose to the worst team in the AL east. The more disturbing fact is that Roger Clemens' record is 2-4. I guess his decision to come back to the Yankees was wrong. He said his goal to come back was to win the next championship. Well, it looks like they won't even be in the fall classic. I really hate to admit that their chance in the playoff is super slim. That sucks! People keep raising question if the Yankees will do better in the second half. Why would they if they didn't in the first half?!? They are still the same team. It's not like after the all-start game, they just turn on a switch and start playing better out of the blue. Both their defense and offense are just not there. One day, the defense is sharp, but the offense is dead in the water. When the offense is there, the defense just fell asleep. They play like they are lost. What a shame to play this badly when it likely will be Torre's last season with the Yankees. This is not the way it's supposed to be! Torre's era is over. The Yankees need some new faces. I hope this doesn't mark the era when they stop winning like in the 80s. And where is Steinbrenner anyway? You don't hear about him or reporter drilling him about how bad the Yankees play. As a fan, this is frustrating. The team has so much potential, but you just don't see it in their games. Well, i can't go to games anyway, i guess they pick a good year to suck. I hope they'll do better next year when John and I can take Melanie to games. We'll go anyway, even if they suck, hope they won't.

A pregnancy usually lasts about 40 weeks. My journal lasted about 38 weeks. My little bundle of joy, Melanie, arrived 2 weeks early. She was all prepared to make her grand entrance at about week 35, but waited until week 38 to make her debut. It was really a miraculous experience that no words can truly describe. You really don't know exactly how it feels to be pregnant unless you've been there.

For me, my pregnancy was considerably easy. I didn't really have pregnancy symptoms. No vomitting, no craving, no nausea, no morning sickness, no crankiness, no swollen. I guess my husband got lucky All went pretty well except toward the end when I got super paranoid that I wouldn't recognize the sign that my water broke. I was paranoid for about 3 weeks until Melanie was born. Now that I think of it, I did have some craving for fruits. I remember wanting to pay a visit to the fruit lady outside of my work building. I would get a medium fruit salad and eat it for snacks, on top of drinking some fruit smoothie in the morning. One doctor visit when I gained 7lbs in a month, my doctor told me to stop eating too much fruits because of the high content of sugar. That was brutal that I had to cut down on fruits. Another thing I missed was that I wasn't able to sleep on my back or stomach. I would always have to sleep on the left, as they recommended. Turning from side to side was difficult some time, especially toward the end of the pregnancy. Other than that, it was a smooth ride all the way to the end, even labor was short, even though it felt like an eternity at the time. More detail to write later about labor.

Oh on the note of water broke, like I already mentioned, I was super paranoid only because no one seems to give a definite sign when it happens. I searched online so many times, the description was never clear. Some site describes how it smells like, some describes the amount of it. What it is is that there are 2 ways to tell that your water broke. The obvious way is that you'd feel something popped. You will know it, you'll feel like a champagne bottle being popped, then came a bucket of water running down your legs. This is unmistakably the sign. It's not pee. The less subtle way is that water trickles onto your panties. This is very paranoid. You don't really know if it's pee or it's water. They said it has different smells, but trust me, if you drink enough water like you should during pregnancy, you won't be able to tell. One way to tell is that your panties would keep getting wet, even though it's just a little spot. One trick to distinguish it between pee and water is to lie down. If you still feel water coming out, then it's a good sign that your water broke. But of course, you won't be 100% sure unless your doctor or hospital confirms it. Another way to tell is if you sit up or walk around, your water shouldn't come out because these two positions block your water from coming out.

At around week 21, we went to the hospital to get the sonogram done. It was amazing to see the baby for the first time. Everything was there! The spine, the little feet and hands, all the organs. We were able to hear the baby's heartbeat. That made it felt so much more real that we are having a baby. I took a day off that day hoping that we'd be finding out whether we were expecting a boy or girl. But to our disappointment, they weren't sure. The baby was in a bad position and the technician wasn't able to tell for sure. She was guessing a girl.

At around week 35, my doctor told me that the baby was ready to come out. I was already 2 cm dilated. I freaked out when I heard it. First, because it was too early. Second, because I wasn't ready it. I thought I had another 5 weeks. I didn't even have the home coming clothes for the baby to wear. After the doctor's visit, I was supposed to get back to the office. Instead, I swung by the baby store and started shopping for things to bring to the hospital. At the same time, I was hoping that the baby would wait it out for a couple more weeks until she was full-term. I still commuted to work hoping that if I continued my usual routine, it would help the baby waited it out. And it did. At the end of week 36, my husband, John, a picture of me and I looked so big that it looked like the baby was ready to drop out. Then I started to realize why people on the subway were jumping out of their seats for me. I was finally convinced that I shouldnn't be walking around with the big belly. It scared people. I worked from home that week and even that weekend. At around mid of that week, the baby was moving down even further. It was starting to feel uncomfortable to sit down. I would always have to sit in a sland, even that position was not entirely comfortable. It felt like the baby was pushing against my pelvis. That was probably the most uncomfortable feeling during the entire pregnancy. The monday after that weekend, the baby made her debut. More about her debut later.