Baby shower

Some of Keiko's friends from church through us a baby shower. We had a great time. Here are some picture from the event.

Baby decorations abound

We had 3 Japanese families (not including Keiko) and 1 Korean that attended. The food was spectacular.

Here is the diaper cake that was prepared by Keiko's friend.

Keiko made this dessert.

This is a Japanese cake. I like them a lot more than American. They are much lighter, less butter.

I'm all ready to go. This little fella is also half Japanese.

Hand made baby blanket.

Thanks everyone!!! We had a great time!

see details at Keiko's blog: http://ameblo.jp/jkfamily/

The car seat

Thanks to the kindness of our friends, we are slowly losing any extra space in our studio apartment. So, I decided to put the car seat in the car. After all, the baby could come in day.

When I went to the parking lot after work today, I was looking for my car and couldn't find it. Seeing the car seat through the window of our little red Corolla, it just looked like it couldn't be my car. I'm not old enough to drive that car. It made me laugh a lot as my key unlocked it and I entered the car.

(Keiko's blog has pictures)

Full Term

Our baby is now full-term as of today. Last week, he was estimated to be about 6 1/2 pounds. So it looks like he can come at any time. Bring it on; I am as ready as I'll every be.

The baby and pyelectasis

For those who are curious about how the baby is going, I am going to be lazy. Please read Keiko's blog. She has been great about consistently writing her blog. It has lots of pictures, including recent ones shower her belly:
http://ameblo.jp/jkfamily/

On a related note, a few weeks ago, the midwife casually told us we would need to get another ultrasound because they notices a blip on the ultrasound months before. As a patient, I scrutinize the doctors and nurses quite a bit. They only told us enough to make us worried.

So I spend hours looking up pyelectasis. It's a when part of the kidney gets dilated. There are many causes but most of the time it goes away on it's own. At our next ultrasound, it did go away.

It left me thinking, how would I handle this situation or how should they have handled it. 1) They should have told us about it in the first place. When our 20 week ultrasound was done, they said it was all normal even though it wasn't. That is not okay. 2) They should know enough about it to say that most of the time it goes away on it's own, but it may need to be looked at again after the baby is born (which is still true). I had to look through multiple medical journals to find this stuff.

I know it's kind of common to speak fancy medical terms to patients, but I learned a good lesson of the need to explain any words you use or not use them and about the need to explain the prognosis of any problems given.