Maternal / Paternal Leave

Sandy and I have been doing a little research on Maternal/Paternal Leave of absence with our repective companies. It seems that neither of our companies provides paid parental leave on their own. While each complies with state law that gurantee's return to work and allows leave of 12 or 13 weeks, the leave is entirely unpaid from the company's prespective. As the employee, we do still get something, available through the State Disability Insurance (SDI) which we grudgly contribute to without choice every paycheck. Well, I guess it's not for nothing, as it will cover some portion of the loss of income during the pregnancy and paternal leave. However, the payout is only 55% of salary (up to a max of about $900 a week, so if you earn over 83K/yr, it's going to be less than 55%). Sandy becomes eligible for disability leave 4 weeks prior to expected date and will be able to stay on it for 6 weeks after delievery. Then she can go on "parental leave" which is used for bonding with the baby for another 6 weeks. This is also the part where I'm eligible to get paid too.

Anyways, overall, the research results were a bit disappointing as we've heard other friends and family whose employers either provide some amount of full pay leave (1~4 weeks) or provide pay on top of the SDI for an additional 20~45% so that there is less or no loss of income during the leave. But I guess it's nothing tragic, we'll just have to make do and plan ahead. In fact, there's a decent chance that I won't even be employeed at that time as I'm currently applying for business school so there's lots of other things to consider. We'll just have to ride things out and as we know more, make the most apprepriate decisions and live with it.

I am really pregnant with all the symptoms I am having...

If I never go to Walgreens to pick up the animal cracker because it was on sale, and one can't find it in Safeway or Luckys, I won't end up picking up the home pregnancy test kit on January 3rd, 2008. I simply bought it just because it was on sale, and I thought one day I might need it.

I guess I will not find out that I am pregnant until this week or last week as my period comes irregularly, and it is hard to say that I miss a period because it always comes late. I should say it comes semi-quarterly, haha...On January 11th, John urges me to do the pregnancy test when my period was about 5 days late, which was no big deal because it has always been that way. I told him there is no way that I am pregnant before I did the test. After I did the test, John was so excited that he wanted to put the pee strip into the cup himself. Anyways, we both watched the signs to turn into a plus sign, which means Pregnant!! We were surprised but happy! I immediately went Kaiser the next day and did the pregnancy test, and the result came back in 24 hours confirmed that I am pregnant on January 13th! Wow, I can't believe that it is really happening. I should say it is the best gift ever for myself (my birthday is January 14th).

A few days after that or maybe one week after that, I feel different than the normal days. I get tired easily at work even though I had 8 hours sleep, and I feel nausea around noon time. I also get leg cramp around noon time so I guess I am having noon time sickness instead of morning sickness. I find myself feel hungry more often, and I start to like bananas and cereals, which are not really my favorites before. And my all time favorite food such as broccoli, apple, and oranges seem to give me no appetite at all. For some reasons, I don't like to cook anymore because certain smell makes me feel sick. Before I was pregnant, the kind of book I read the most is recipes!!

I am greatful that I haven't started throwing up or really felt ill. I just don't feel that I am at my best condition, but luckily these symptoms don't last all day long. I wish I can speed up the first trimester!!

Mom and Dad, thanks for all the support and care so far, we can't wait to see you!! John, thanks for being considerate about me not wanting to cook and being tentative about my strange "cravings." I will try not to grow these cravings to something too fancy =P But you know, little wuster might be the one driving me for these cravings =P

I got my CPA license approved!

John has encouraged me to write the blog page everyday, and I have been lazy about it mainly becuase I am more tired recently from work and pregnancy, and I don't want to sit in front of computer after I come back home. Today, I got a great news in the mail. I have been waiting for my CPA license to be approved by California Board of Accountancy, and it finally arrived after 146 days. It actually came back earlier than I expected =P After all the hard work in public accounting industry, the only thing I am waiting for is this CPA license. However, I don't feel quite ready to leave public accounting yet. I complain about work mainly because of the long work hours and tight budget, but I do learn a lot of different things from each new engagement. I also get to work with different team in every engagement so figuring out the team dynamics is a good lesson for me as well. If one day I leave my company, I will definitely miss my coworkers, but I won't miss the long hours and long commute.

Big Oops!

Looks like no one caught this.. but I totally goofed..

This year is the year of the "earth" rat not wood rat! So bunch of stuff I had looked up for wood is all useless. Oh well, not that I believed it anyway. Since this mistake was so big, and kind of covers 2~3 earlier blog posts, I guess I won't try to go back and "edit" my earlier entries. I wonder what earth rat is closest to, field mouse? ground hog? Anyways, I guess they're both pretty cute (at least in pictures) :) Picture to the left is that of a field mice and picture to the right is that of a ground hog, aka woodchuck.

Interestingly, the field mouse is also known as the wood mouse while the ground hog is also known as the woodchuck. I guess wood and earth are pretty close in most people's mind and probably why no one caught the mistake :)

Origin of a Chinese Proverb

haha.. received some email about my improper usage of chinese proverb. I had 木已成粥 in my prior post (now corrected), which means wood has already become porridge, but the real expression should be 木已成舟, wood has become vessel(boat), and to mean things cannot be undone.. A little research found that the expression came from 鏡花緣..

Chapter 34, 「... 如今木已成舟，也是林兄命定如此了。」
Chapter 35,「到了明日，木已成舟，眾百姓也不能求我釋放，我也有詞可託了。 」

鏡花緣
清李汝珍所作，一百回。寫唐武后時，百花獲天譴，降為才女，百人會試同上榜，以及秀才唐敖遨遊海外，歷經諸多異境而與諸女遭遇的故事。

Actually, it's a question I had too.. I though it might have been 米已成粥 but it just didn't sound right, and when I tried to search for the term using google and baidu, I found 木已成粥, which sounded right but looked wrong.. But it seems everyone was using that instead of the proper one, so I copied it. I thought maybe there might have been some strange fable associated with the proverb that actually turned wood into porridge.. little did I know it's actually just due most people using it wrong (perhaps 粥 comes up first when you using pin-ying chinese input?)

Oh, by the way, for these type of things, you can also just comment it directly on the pages. I look forward to all your comments and it makes the blog seems more active :) I guess when we share the news with relatives and friends there should be a lot more people visiting and hopefully leaving comments, but for now, I hardly get any comments and it feels a bit lonely :(

More Chinese Astrology

More research into Chinese Astrology.. :)

Beyond the basic animal zodiacs, there is also the constallation pattern or 紫微斗数. Like most Chinese, I have of course heard of it, but don't really know what it's about.. I stumbled up on it trying to look up the Eastern Dragon (東方青龍) that was supposed to be assocated with the wood element.. I guess they're all inter-related somehow. I like the sound of 東方青龍, as it almost sounds like something out of kung fu novel, which I was (and sort of am still) a big fan of.

Anyways, I don't really believe any of this Chinese astrology or any other astrology for that matter, but just jotting stuff down because I thought someone might be interested. It's good writing topic and I'm trying to get into the habit of writing blogs frequently still, so sometimes you'll find me just looking for random stuff to write about.

By the way, for the record, I am a wood tiger (木虎) and Sandy is a gold monkey (金猴), I wonder if our signs match and we make a good couple? Anyways, I found a site that checks this type of stuff at http://astro-services.com/chineseastro/
and this is what it says:

These two are so different that their chances of creating a solid relationship are slim. As lovers, constant arguing may diminish the potency of their bond. Their overall compatibility rating is 20%.

Err.. Gee, that doesn't sound like us.. Well, too late now, 木已成舟. So far so good anyways :D

Chinese Zodiac

Today I decided to do a little research about Chinese Zodiac and what it says about the Rat. I'm not a big believer in this thing, but it's just something interesting to look into. Anyways, it looks like the little wuster will be a wooden rat (土鼠).

Chinese Zodiac is based mostly on birth year based on the Chinese Lunar Calendar. There are 12 animals and 5 elements, and basically they each rotate independently with the animals on an annual basis while the elements change every two years.. There's bunch more info else where that explains all this a lot better than I can:

• Chinese Zodiac
  
• 60 year cycle
• Origins of the Chinese Zodiac
  

So, based on what wikipedia says, rat is supposed to be: Forthright, disciplined, systematic, meticulous, charismatic, hardworking, industrious, charming, eloquent, sociable, shrewd. Can be manipulative, cruel, dictatorial, rigid, selfish, obstinate, critical, over-ambitious, ruthless, intolerant, scheming. (ok.. seems a bit self-contradicting.. forthright yet manipulative? maybe it's the translation from Chinese to English or maybe it's just a way for the fortune teller to explain all the different behaviors :P)

And wood element is supposed to represent:

• The East
• Spring
• Azure Dragon
• The Planet Jupiter
  
• The Color Green (oohhh.. Sandy's favorite color)
  
• Liver and gallbladder (uhmmm... what dah heck is this supposed to mean?)
• Generous, Warm, Persuasive, Co-operative, Seeks to Expand and Grow
• Idealistic, Ethical, Enthusiastic, Seeks to Explore

Mostly good things, so I'm happy to read about it, but what does it really mean? Probably nothing at all. It's pretty interesting reading, but obviously, not everyone who is born in the same year will have the same traits, so this whole thing is pretty bogus in my opinion. Of course, it's supposed to break down further into months, hours and such, but again, that's just to make things confusing and to make fortune telling a "career" that requires lots of expertise. On the other hand, little bit of background reading on it is pretty interesting and I think it does make for good story telling to the kids when they're growing up. I still remember so stuff like Mom telling me about traits of Taurus and stuff like that and I always liked tiger when I was young because that's my Chinese Zodiac.. Looking ahead, year 2010 will be the year of the golden tiger. Since gold (金) and tiger (虎) are generally considered good and powerful signs, I predict lots of Chinese babies this year.. Who knows, maybe it'll also be the year of little wuster #2.

Just say no to Starbucks!

Wow.. Kaiser Permanente just came out with a rather definitive (or so they claim) study on just how bad caffeine is for pregnancy.
http://ckp.kp.org/newsroom/national/archive/nat_080121_caffeine.html
2 cups of coffee a day (200mg/day) = 2x chance of miscarriage and for those consuming less (but still consuming compared to none), 40% greater chance. Also it seems that the caffeine can come from tea, soda, and other source so it's not really coffee specific. So, I decided to look up just how much caffeine there is in some of the daily stuff we consume and found this link to the caffeine content..
http://www.cspinet.org/new/cafchart.htm

And voila, no wonder Starbucks is addictive.. A Grande Starbucks coffee contains a startling 320 mg of caffeine, or about 1.6x the amount that was considered "high" in the KP study. It's about 160mg per standard 8 oz serving, which is apparently higher than the average of 133mg. The chart is pretty useful in that it also shows the caffeine content in a bunch of other food, so it's quite useful since the KP study pointed out that the key link to miscarriage is caffeine and not coffee.

Fortunately, Sandy is not a big coffee, soda, or tea drinker and doesn't like dark chocolate,. If it's up to me to give up caffeine, it may be much more difficult. It's also interesting that over the counter drugs such as Excedrin (2 tablets) can contain as much as 130 mg of caffeine.. If you take 4 or 6 of these pills a day, it can get to some dangerous levels. I guess if I get drowsy at work next time, I can take a couple of them with my coffee for the extra kick :D

And yes, I'm blogging at 4 AM in the morning.. Maybe I had too much caffeine in my diet :(

Information Overload

Today, Sandy and I dropped by the library to pick up some pregnancy and childbearing books. We feel we got some pretty good titles and have lots of "homework" to do ahead of us. I wonder how all the people in the past got by without all these reference materials, but I suppose it's mostly common sense and there weren't so many drugs and supplements and other things.

This weekend is actually a long weekend, with Monday being Martin Luther King Jr. Day. So we'll be able to get some good rest and relaxation in along with the reading. This is also the conference championship weekend for NFL, so I'm sure I'll be watching some TV tomorrow.

We also went out for dim sum (Sandy's appetite hasn't really increased any and she didn't eat too much) and shopped at Safeway afterwards. At Safeway, I was reminded that Superbowl is coming up with all the softdrinks and chips being on sale.. Not sure what to do for Superbowl yet, was kind of tempted to throw a party, but I think it's a bit too much trouble, and it'd be awkward to "hide" the fact from all our friends, especially as host, since we're not quite ready to tell everyone just yet. So, hopefully, someone will be throwing a nice party and we'll (or maybe just me) drop by and watch the game, or I might end up just watching the game at home.

Sandy mentioned that she did feel a but queasy on Friday. Maybe she is not immune to morning sickness or similiar synptoms afterall. Fortunately, so far it's an isolated incident and it wasn't that bad (she's also wondering if it was just psychological). Anyways, for now, we're pretty much keeping to the same routine as before the pregnancy, other than slight change to the diet on Sandy's part. (cutting back on caffine, taking prenatal vitamin, and a few other thing).

Countdown calendar :D

Found some cool baby countdown calendars and altered the site look/feel somewhat. Just a very rough estimate of what the date is, have it more for the interesting look and tips.. Now if I can just get the overall site to have a 3 column layout I'd be happy.. (seems like all the default templates are 2 column style.. pls don't make me write my own code.. I do that enough at work)..

learning more about blogging

Still learning more about this blogging stuff.. was looking at Mike & Yoko's site http://linnakao.ning.com and tempted to switch over to ning, as that seems a bit fancier and can involve more people. I did created my "social network" there too, http://thewcc.ning.com (hehe, it's "The Wu-Chang Clan") but for now I'll stick with blogger. I did find out that you can invite "co-authors" in blogger.. So Sandy is now an author here too, but not sure if she's inclined to post things or not..

Also the entrepeneurial me couldn't resist, so I added ad on the blogsite, maybe I'll get a couple bucks from google a month hehe.. Actually, it's really more for experiment for myself as I want to get familiar with all this AdSense and Amazon affiliate stuff for my other project, sifog (site for gamers) which hopefully will be unveiled around the same time we announce Sandy's pregnancy to most of our friends/families. On the other hand, if for some odd reason my blogs draws interest beyond immediate friends and families, maybe I can start on little wuster's college education fund.

Anyhow.. Sandy's home, gotta run for now..

Wow, 5 or 6 weeks already

Learning more about pregenancy everyday.. It seems that Sandy's really 5 or 6 weeks pregnant already!!! I guess the time starts counting when the egg is release or something so that when it's ready for fertilization it's already 3 weeks and by the time you can detect pregnancy it's already the 4th week..

So.. I guess the baby is about 5mm to 1cm big now and look kind of like this.. Hehe.. rather alien looking at this stage of life..

Feb 7 will be the first real prenatal checkup so by then the baby will be around 9 weeks.. Hmm time to go look up what 9 weeks is like and figure out if they'll do some ultra sound or still too early. I'm pretty sure sex cant be determined for another couple months yet though.. but can't wait (although I'm really ok either boy or girl). Ah yes.. here is the picture for week 9.. a bit less alien looking :)

Anyways.. I'm getting way ahead of myself.. but at the same time there is so much to plan and figure out. Just hope everything will work out smoothly..

Sandy's Bday

Today is Sandy's Birthday.. BIG 27! Well.. for now I'm only 6 years older than her hehe.

Not doing anything too special, but I did buy her the taro she likes from Sheng Kee bakery.. Wondering if cake is good for the baby.. Well, she is supposed to consume some 300 more calories a day so at least it'll help on that end..

Grandparents (Sandy's side) are visiting 2/6-2/16 while my mom will be around 3/1-3/14 or so, so I guess Sandy will get pampered :) Not telling any friends or family of the news yet, but since we already told the grand parents, it's not really under control any more, chances are the news will spread like wildfire.

News Flash

Jan 13 - Sandy received confirmation from the lab that she is indeed pregnant..

Lots of changes happening in both of our lives recently, this one will probably change our life style the most out of all the recent events (dating, moving in together, moving again, getting married)

There might never be a perfect time for having a baby, so we decided to give it a try pretty early, having known too many people who decided to wait until later and are having difficulties having a baby. However, the possibility of me going off to business school out of state is out there and that will create a big headache. Well, hopefully I can get into Haas or Stanford so there won't be a conflict.

It's very exciting time for us, just informed grandparents to be and they seem even more excited than us. Anyways, just something to start the chronicles of the little wuster to be... I'm gonna need a lot more practice..