All About the Baby

Seventeen weeks down, but July 17th still seems quite a ways away. We have tenderly named the baby to be "Parasite" for now. He or she is around 4 inches/10 centimeters long with the head of an alien. We had a check up last Friday, February 5th and everything is looking good. Yoko has been doing quite well physically. She has an increased appetite and of course is more tired with headaches here and there. Weight gain in closely monitored here, so Yoko has been keeping active with walking and ballet. She is still teaching with an average 4 day week and 3 hours a day. She is beginning to show and finding some pants coming close to unwearable.
Erik does his best to keep Yoko happy; as we all know, "Happy wife, happy life" : )

We decided on a birthing clinic that is within a mile of where we live. In Japan, the majority of babies are born either in the hospital or in a birthing clinic. We chose Iwasawa Clinic for its size; it is smaller with a more personal touch. Another plus is that we can make an appointment to see the doctor where all the other clinics are first come first serve.

Thank you for your continued prayers; we value them greatly. God has been so gracious to us during this time and deserves all our praise and honor. The creation process is truly an amazing thing.

A New Find

Saturdays are often very relaxing days for us. We have a quiet morning which is often followed by us getting out of the house. We may do shopping or just go for a walk. This past Saturday, we had a peaceful morning which was followed up with an hour and a half walk. It was such a beautiful day that we wanted to take full advantage of it. After lunch Yoko headed off to her ballet class, and Erik went for a bike ride. On this particular ride, he road in an area that he hadn't ridden before and ended up finding a really nice park. He was all jazzed about this since it was very large and had actual hiking trails. We didn't waste any time in exploring it. The next day, Sunday (yesterday), Erik's sister came to visit, and we all headed over to Sakatagaike Park. We had a great time walking around feeling like we were far away from everything. We look forward to visiting it again. Sarah, Erik's sister, was visiting us because she had a training session to be at in the Tokyo area on Monday, today. For dinner we took Sarah out to a great ramen restaurant that we found. Ramen here is an art form with secret family recipes. We had tantanmen which has a miso soup with chili sauce and ground meat in it. Oishii!
This coming Friday Yoko has a checkup. We are looking forward to seeing what we can and checking on the growth of our child. Yoko continues to feel well and is beginning to show a tiny bit. Look for photos and more info to come on this exciting topic. As always, thank you for your prayers.