May 11, 2008
No one is ever born into Life alone. Everyone has shared the bond of family, at least at birth, and for many people it is a bond that will follow them throughout life. For many people it is the most important bond of all. For us, it’s a golden treasure that we are so lucky to have and cherish. Thank you for being our parents and for your enormous love that you have given to us so often.
Happy Birthday to Marcello and Happy Mother’s Day to Virginia!
Nick & Yuliya
May 1, 2008
We finally and officially moved into our new condo! It was very not easy to move this time for some reason, even though we did hire from “Starving Students” company to help us out with our move. Also, we tried to pack a lot beforehand, somehow, it turned to be the last two days before the “Big Monday Move” that we put almost all our stuff in boxes and ready for the movers. When we were hiring movers, I was sure that Nick checked all their prices and he gave me a rough estimate of $300 or so for the guys to come and move all our stuff. Not only it turned to be four times more than that, but also we got two traffic tickets on that day. The movers were really slow and it took them 8 hours to do the work. We were trying to help carrying out the boxes to only angry the movers. He hated us being on his truck and trying to move the boxes. I am still not sure why. They came early at 9 and parked on the Monday cleaning side (that side gets cleaned every Monday from 9 to 11 am an dif you are parked on that side, you’ll get a ticket). So, we did get a ticket because they parked on the Monday side and he made us pay for it. In addition, the truck is considered oversized for that street and we had to get permission from the City Hall, in order to park such a vehicle on our street! Who knew?
My mom and I cleaned the old apartment and the owner seemed to be happy with it, so we are hoping that he will return our deposit that we paid when we moved in. Having lots of boxes lying around, we are slowly unpacking them. All of us are extremely tired and exhausted from moving. The bedrooms are smaller than at our old apartment, so it’s a tight fit but it feels incredibly nice to live here. We gave the bigger room to my mom, since she is going to be the one, who is going to take over the baby once I am able to work again. We also bought a bassinet for our little one for at least the first months that I am going to be with her all the time. It looks so cute and matches our room oh so well! J
From now on, I am seeing the doctor every week until the baby’s born. Everything seems to be okay, except that my legs and feet are very swollen and feel like they are on fire a lot lately. She is moving less but each her move is very strong. It’s funny to see my stomach make all kinds of shapes, when she moves. Nick and I are also attending prenatal classes to prepare for the baby. Next week we have four of them in a row! Last Sunday we had one, where they showed us a film about giving birth…OMG! I wish I did not see it now. The only thing I can say is that it was very descriptive and graphical. They did not miss anything to show us. Okay…I think I can do it…Not really, can we go back in time, so that I could change my mind? 
April 8, 2008
Starting today is going to be our last three weeks appointment at the doctor’s. After these three weeks, we will have to visit the doctor every week until the baby’s born. My weight still fluctuates a lot. I was 141 my last visit and today I am down to 136lbs. I keep puzzling my doctor with my weight changes every time I come there. Everything is good with the baby, which the most important. I managed to drink some of the flavored coffee milk in the morning and the baby’s heart rate was faster than usual. When I told the doctor that it was probably because of that little caffeine drink I had earlier, she got really mad at me and said that I should not drink anything caffeinated whatsoever. She assumed that I actually drink it every day and this is why my weight changes so much, goes up and down. I tried to explain to her that I never actually have coffee; it’s just, for some reason, I really wanted a little bit today and put just a few drops in my hot milk. I am not sure that she believed me, but from now on, I am going to stay away from coffee for at least until the baby’s born.
We got the keys for our new condo on Sunday 6th! It was a really great feeling to finally get the keys and know that we have our own place here. 
We are planning on buying a new fridge but we can’t decide on colors: my mom wants black, Nick insists on stainless, and I wouldn’t mind having a nice white one… anyway, we will have to decide soon. We have already hired movers to come and help us move. Unfortunately, I feel like I am not going to be a huge help when moving but at least I will try as much as I can.
March 31, 2008
What a week!!! I got really sick with flu. I had to go to my family doctor only to hear the answer that at my state, 31 weeks, I am not allowed to take any medicine whatsoever. So, pretty much I have to just suffer through my illness. My mom is trying all the natural remedies on me. She’s been cooking and making lots of juices, using lemons, limes, and cranberries. So, I am getting better with every day. I still can’t breathe much and cough a lot, though. For some reason, not that I am not happy about it, neither Nick nor my mom got even a little bit of my sickness. Strange, but I am happy that both of them are okay.
The baby has been more active than ever! It feels like she changed her position with her head down and she is really low, but I will have to ask my doctor about that on April 7th. Kind of getting scared now, as I am having only a few weeks left till the baby comes. Now, Anya not only responds to the music, but she also tries to kick to the beat of the music. It’s so funny sometimes. She also kicks for 20-30 minutes straight non-stop, as if she has nothing better to do but to torture her mommy (especially while I am working and need to concentrate really hard on something). It’s also getting harder to do stuff around the house. Bending became so difficult and moving too much causes me to be sick, so Nick is helping me a lot. I think he finally realizes it that he is going to be a dad. Today, while driving from the grocery shopping, I was telling him about the baby’s movements and he was listening so much to me (which rarely happens! ) that he missed our street by several blocks!
March 23, 2008
Everything has been signed and the condo is ours! All of us can’t wait to move into our new place; however, none of us actually want to pack and move all the stuff. I’ll make some pictures to upload on Flickr for y’all to see soon. We are really happy about this big event, especially since it came up to be right on my mom’s and Nick’s birthdays! We are planning on moving out by the end of April. It came up so nicely that we don’t have to make any payments until May, which is so perfect, since we have to pay rent for our old apartment in April.
I also uploaded a new video on our youtube channel. See how big I am now, being 7 months pregnant. I am officially 30 weeks now!
March 20, 2008
Website: I made some significant changes to our main website. My work has been challenging me with various tasks about web design and I try to implement into our main web everything that I learn. The idea is that I have several accounts for photos, videos, blogs and I want a little single news feed on my main page that shows all the recent updates that I have done. Say, if I upload a photo on my Flickr account or a video on our youtube channel, I want people to see that change and even get notified by e-mail via subscription. So, instead of having one subscription for my blog, like I used to have, I have one for all my sources, videos, photos, and blog. That was quite a bit of programming to learn, which I never even thought I could do! So, if you feel like it, I would suggest unsubscribing from previous news feeds that was on my news page and resubscribing on my main page to all of our news.
Baby: Spring is certainly time for babies to be delivered! My doctor says that she has to take on several babies a day now. My appointment on Monday was rescheduled several times because of that, but I finally saw my doctor after 5pm (my poor doctor, she was so tired!) So, I am officially 141 pounds now (more than I’ve ever been in my entire life!) and approaching my 30th week of pregnancy. That means that only about 10 weeks to go till the end! Anya is really active now and with every new day she becomes more and more eager to get out. Nothing makes me happier than Nick, every time before going to bed, cuddling me and my big tommy and saying, “Yep, she is moving a lot all right,” then kissing me and falling asleep.
Anya loves music so much! Every time she hears a melody, she starts moving like crazy. I now have to count her movements. My doctor gave me a form to fill out: every evening after meal, I have to lie down on my left or right side for an hour and see that she moves about ten times. The doctor says that it usually takes about 20 minutes for the baby to start moving and it has to be no less than 10 times in one hour or something is wrong. Yeah, sure, Anya starts moving immediately after I lie down and she finishes the “10 times kicks” in just about 3 to 5 minutes (and I count only her biggest kicks!)
The only thing that was not normal during my visit to the doctor is that she noticed that I have more than normal amount of protein in my system. This means that I might have a bladder infection, so they ran some tests and should let me know soon if I do have it or not. It’s all this constant going to the bathroom, I think! I hate doing it and I try not to sometimes, but it’s not good evidently. I also have some signs of premature labor, so the doctor told me to rest a lot and watch for more signs and limit my stress. Oh, well, we will see… so far so good.
New home: We are closing today at 4:30pm!!! Well, kind of… We are signing all the documents that entitle us to call the condo, that we’ve been trying to get for so long, ours. A few more things have to be done, but the condo is finally going to be ours!
March 15, 2008
Both my mom and Nick are having their birthdays on the same day! It’s on the 22nd of March. Nick and I have been trying to set the closing date for our new apartment in Van Nuys and it seems that the date will be next week. I could not have thought of a better present for them! But I still think that I will need to pick out some little things for them as well; I have no clue what to get them just yet.
Even though we are probably closing next week, we are planning on moving out there only by the end of April. It seems that here in CA, it is quite difficult to negotiate with your lender to ease out on your lease terms. So, since we will have to pay rent for the April on our old apt, we are staying till the last day here then. It will save up us some gas and my mom would continue going to her ESL classes as well.
My baby and I are doing good. I woke up today at 5 or 6 in the morning, thinking I was having contractions, because my stomach felt like it was on fire and the baby girl was moving so much! I woke Nick up and told him that I was in pain. Still being sleepy he got scared and started thinking that we don’t have anything ready for the baby if we had to go to the hospital. That idea crossed my mind as well, but, thank goodness, it did not have to go that way. It seems that since I slept on my left side for so long (I am limited to only left or right side for sleeping now ;( ), she pushed on some of my nerves and that caused me pain. The baby also was hungry and this is why it moved so much. Right after I ate a banana, she calmed down and I was able to sleep more. This next Monday we are having our three week appointment with the doctor, Carole Jordan-Harris. I will make sure to mention this little accident to her and see what she can advise me. I so can’t wait 2 and a half more months!
March 7, 2008
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