HRH Prince George of Cambridge

Yup, a follower here. My husband was rolling his eyes whenever I'd switch the channel to CNN or BBC to get royal baby updates. In the middle of the night, while nursing my son no less. My Royal "interest" began when I got hold of my Lola Ima's biography of the late Princess Diana. My Lola was one of Lady Di's biggest fans (she called Camilla "Kabayo" back then). When she's home, she'd bring her stash of People magazines with snippets about Lady Di. And we'd gossip (well, she'll talk and I'd listen) about Diana updates as if we knew her personally.

Fast forward to 2011 and I was one of the many who felt great interest on the details of the royal wedding. I mean, come on, this is as close as we can get to a modern day fairy tale. A future king marrying a commoner, for love! Important to note though that almost all heirs to European royal houses are married to "commoners". Denmark's Prince Frederick is married to Australian Mary Donaldson, Netherlands' Queen Maxima is from Argentina, Spain's Crown Princess Letizia is a former newscaster, Norway's Queen-in-Waiting is also a commoner. Let's not forget Crown Princess Victoria of Sweden who married her one-time trainor. Monaco's Prince Albert married Charlene, a South African Olympian. And the list goes on and on....

But I digress, last week, royal watchers all over the world were agog when Kensington Palace confirmed that Duchess Kate was admitted at St. Mary's, early signs of labor. I am sure a lot were also tuned in to CNN or BBC to get updates. I was! And I am not even from a Commonwealth country.

And so, everyone was pleased when after a looong wait, the Duke and Duchess introduced their newborn son, Prince George Alexander Louis to the world. Here are pictures from hellomagazine.com:

The new Mum and Dad

The little boy who, according to Prince Charles, will most probably be called "Georgie" at one point

Kate, showing how a woman looks like a day after giving birth

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Noah Turns 1

Our little boy turned a month old today.

With his bday cake

 With his Kuya (who adores him...)

 

 Snoozing...

 

Sleeping and awake times are getting longer these days.

Kuya still kisses him like there's no tomorrow.

He still cries the loudest when he's hungry.

He makes this cute sound when he yawns.

He's getting bigger eveyday.

 

 

Happy First Month birthday dear Noah. I pray everyday for your continued good health. We love you much much bunso.

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What's in a Name?

I just want to share how we decided on Asher Noah for our second baby boy. As most parents know, choosing your child's name is probably one of the most difficult decisions that one has to make. Would my child like his name or would he always think "What were Dad and Mom thinking???".

Lucas's name was pretty easy. We both loved LUCAS and just had trouble coming up with a second name. Good thing Dadi G came up with ETHAN one morning at breakfast. From what I know, he slept at 2 AM that name-searching night (err, morning?). So, LUCAS ETHAN it is.

I've loved the name Noah since I was pregnant with Kuya. But at that time, there was this Piolo Pascual teleserye playing on ABS CBN and his character was named Noah. I thought that a lot of kids might be named Noah due to the show's popularity then. So, Noah was shelved that time.

When we found out that baby no. 2 is a he, JJ immediately sent me an SMS saying "ASHER LEE". I remember thinking, "Nyikes. Saan ba niya nakuha ito?". I told him,  "I like biblical names and mukhang hindi papasa si ASHER LEE." So imagine my surprise (shock is more like it) when I googled "Asher" and this came up:

Nyak. So much for insisting that we can't have Asher because I want a biblical name. I guess you cannot get more biblical than the name being given to the tribes of Israel.

But I really wanted Noah and JJ was gracious (pretending to be gracious???) enough to say we'd go for Noah instead. We spent months coming up with second names. Aiden and Jase were pretty strong candidates. But JJ was not too keen on Jase. Lucas daw might ask why Noah has daddy's name and he doesn't. Okay. So Noah Aiden... but still, it doesn't sound right to me. I wanted JJ to have a say in this too.

I started bringing up Asher Noah. JJ said, "But he'd be Asher in school...". And I am like, "Well, look at Lucas. He is Ethan in school right?". Still, no final decision yet. We decided to make a poll and asked our friends to vote. Asher Noah won hands down but still we were undecided.

Then came June 16. I gave birth na and it was time to write our baby's name in the hospital's forms. No turning back now. I told JJ, "Asher Noah it is..." and looking at our little boy, the name just felt right. And at least Daddy's also happy :-)

Here he is now at more than 3 weeks...

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And We're Four

Lucas is officially a new Kuya :-) Our second baby boy, Asher Noah, was born last June 16, 2013 (Father's Day).

 Crying lustily... Noah has thick hair, like his Kuya

 

He weighed in at 3.586 kilos (7lbs and 14oz). JJ said Noah is bigger than Kuya because of my penchant for cola during my second pregnancy.

 

 

June 14, 2013 (Friday)

I went to the office and around 930AM, I started feeling a little pain in my lower abdomen. I timed it and noticed that it was coming every 30 mins. Come 11:00 AM, I was still feeling it. I decided to leave the office and call JJ. I picked him up from his office (yeah, I was able to drive pa) then we decided to go to the hospital. You see, with Lucas, I didn't know that I was in labor already and I was  6cm dilated when I got to the hospital. From what I have been reading, labor after the first pregnancy usually is faster. I was afraid of giving birth in the car or at home that's why the hospital was our immediate option. When we got there, I was strapped to a fetal monitoring system and another machine that tracks my contractions. After a while, a doctor came to examine me. Surprise! I am just 1 cm dilated :-( I was sent home and was asked to walk around and come back again in 6 hours if I continue feeling the pain and if said pain intensifies.

 

We had lunch and decided to watch a movie, so we'll be near the hospital in case the pain progresses. Unfortunately, I didn't feel anything during the movie. Pain just stopped. False labor.

 

June 16, 2013 (Sunday)

Saturday afternoon, around 5PM, I started feeling a little pain on my lower abdomen. But given what happened the day before, I just wrote down the time and duration of the contractions. They weren't that painful really because I was able to prepare dinner pa. But the pain continued and I noticed around 12MN, it started to intensify. Again, given the Friday experience, I still waited before I woke JJ up. Around 230 AM, it has gotten really painful. JJ's first question was, "Kaya mo pa mag-drive?". Me: (What???) "Hindi na no!". JJ: "Ah yan na nga yon... lika na...".

 

We dropped Lucas at my in-laws first and I tell you, the short drive from my in-laws to the hospital was a painful one. When we got to the ER, the nurse on duty was poised to ask me questions. But the manner by which I replied to his first query ("how many weeks na po kayo?"), a terse-are-you-really-gonna-interview-me-pa-I-am-in-pain "38 weeks" reply made him call the lady nurse and ask her to bring me to Genesis asap.

 

The OB-Gyne-on-duty checked me and said that I was 6cm dilated already. Wow. Same with Lucas but I honestly didn't feel the same pain then. This one was more intense. I was already crying when the anesthesiologist came in to help me. Numbness was such a welcome relief. (I think I broke several of my husband's fingers during the wait for the epidural). But, it was really painful. After the epidural, everything was easy breezy.

 

I was fully dilated in an hour or two and we were transferred to the birthing room already. We just had to wait for baby's head to come down. After a while, my OB decided to have me practice pushing. While I was "practice-pushing", the baby's head came down with every push, to the delight of my doctor. After three (or was it four pushes), Asher Noah, our darling little bunso was out. He had a loose cord coil which made it more challenging for him to descend. He was immediately brought to me for him to latch and it was such a great feeling when he did. After a few minutes, the pedia took him for the clean-up. I stayed in the birthing room for another two hours. Hubby decided to fetch Kuya from my in-laws while I was recovering. A little after  two hours, I was brought up to my room already. Little Noah had to stay in the huggery until after lunch so we had to wait for him. By early afternoon, little guy was brought to our room already, with his paternal grandparents, aunts and uncles waiting for him.

 

The second one was more painful, yes, but thank heavens it was as textbook and as uneventful as his Kuya's delivery. Thank you Lord. We are truly blessed.

 

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