Breast Milk or Formula? And Other Thoughts During My 3rd Trimester

I'm 33 weeks now. My last pregnancy post was the 20 week gender reveal. We have a name picked out for Princess #2, but we won't be sharing until she is born. 😃

Benjamin really understands that I am growing a baby, and that she will be born soon. About a week ago he said, "Mommy, I want to go to the hospital and see the baby come out of your tummy." I laughed and told him that he has to wait until after Christmas, and grandma and papa will bring him to visit. Benjamin loves rubbing my belly, hugging it, and giving the baby a kiss. He also seems to understand that baby girl moves and kicks and that it sometimes hurts me. When I suddenly gasp or cry out in pain Benjamin will ask, "Is (her name) kicking you?"

I'm still not sure if Luna understands. When I was pregnant with her, I know that Benjamin didn't understand, but Luna has developed faster than Benjamin, so she might. She doesn't talk about the baby as much as Benjamin does, but she does like to look at and tickle my bare belly. Every once in a while she does hug my belly and say, "baby" so she might know what's going on.

Baby girl started moving and kicking for Gerson a couple of weeks ago. Benjamin moved for Gerson super early, and Gerson simply putting his hand on my belly would cause Benjamin to start kicking and dancing. But both Luna and this baby have been a bit more shy and Gerson can only feel them if they are already moving and I get his hand on my belly in time.

Despite my attempts at exercising, I am the biggest this pregnancy than my other two. I've been told that you get bigger with each one, but I'm not going to pretend that it doesn't bother me. I just was so spoiled with Luna. I wasn't sick,  I was able to exercise, and I gained the least amount of weight. Right now I weigh as much as I did with Benjamin at 39 weeks! Gerson said that only my tummy is bigger than the other two times. He doesn't think my face, arms, legs, or back look bigger than my previous pregnancies. I'm glad  he sees it that way, whether it's true or not, it makes me feel better.

I get cramps and heartburn, and sleeping comfortably is a nightmare, so I'm physically ready for her to come even though I still have 7 more weeks! (give or take) But our apartment isn't ready. I still need to go through all of Luna's clothes and bring them in from the storage unit, and bring the bassinet in and the swing, and it doesn't feel like we have room for any of it. (Related side note: we just finished watching How I Met Your Mother and when Marshall and Lily are pregnant with their third Marshall says, "Marvin and Daisy are good sharing a room, and we'll put the baby's crib in... the shower." That's EXACTLY how we feel right now! But in reality, baby girl can fit in my and Gerson's room for now.) So since I have so much organizing to do, I'm glad I still have 7ish more weeks. (knock on wood)

As we get closer to my due date, I've thought about how I'm going to feed this baby. I didn't do anything to prepare for Benjamin, because I thought that breast feeding would come natural and it would all be good. It wasn't. After two weeks I switched to pumping. After a couple weeks of pumping, I wasn't pumping enough, so I did formula and pumping. And when Benjamin was 3 months old I switched to just formula. The whole process was really emotional and depressing. And when my milk dried up, I felt a huge weight lift off of my shoulders. (I know all of the opinions about "trying harder" and how much milk production really is enough. Just please accept that you were not there during those sleepless emotional nights, and so any "you could have/should haves" nipple nazi mantras mean nothing to me and my individual situation.) It was really embarrassing to feed Benjamin formula in public. One lady at church asked me if I nursed him at home and the bottle was just for public. I was so embarrassed that I lied and said yes. So when I got pregnant with Luna, I was determined to do things differently.

During my pregnancy with Luna I prayed every day that I would be able to nurse her. I asked my mom to pray for me, and I asked one of my cousins to pray for me. As I got closer to  my due date I read every article I could find about breast feeding, and explained my hopes with my OB and asked for advice on what pre-labor prep I could do to insure my milk came in. When Luna was born she latched right away and nursed for an hour! I had zero problems with her. No latching fights. No bleeding nipples - they weren't even sore, ever. When I did pump, zero problems with producing enough. I truly believe that my prayers were answered. And I also wonder if part of it is simply Luna's personality. She eats anything and everything we put in front of her, she even steals from our plates. Getting Benjamin to eat is still an exhausting battle. So maybe from the start, both of  their eating personalities affected how nursing went.

With this baby I haven't felt stressed, worried, or determined when it comes to feeding them. I haven't felt the need to ask God for it to turn out a certain way. I trust that things will turn out the way they are meant to. Of course plan A is to breast feed, but I'm hoping that if that doesn't work out, I won't be as emotionally devastated and embarrassed this time around.

I can't believe we are almost there! I'm so excited to meet her!

Be the First to Give Respect

Family Search's question for November 4th was: What motto or creed do you live by?

The first thought that came to my mind was, "You give me all of you and I'll give you all of me." That was my dating motto. But I don't really think that's what Family Search had in mind, and I don't really want to rehash old break up stories because I gave that ultimatum, and the only guy willing to accept it and follow through was Gerson.

The second thought that came to my mind was two memes about respect that I saw on facebook that I heavily disagreed with. Both, in summary, sent the message of: "I won't respect you until you respect me." Although I understand, and to an extent agree with the mentality that respect must be earned; I feel like if everyone is waiting for others to show respect first, no one will ever give respect.

So I have recently started working on making sure that I treat everyone around me with respect regardless of how they are treating me, on and offline. Being respectful is a variety of attitudes and characteristics. It's holding my temper when someone makes me angry. It's showing genuine love and care for someone when serving them. It's using kind language when disagreeing with someone. It's accepting someone's different opinion and valuing them as a human being.

In the most recent women's session of conference President Uchtdorf said:

"When someone opposes or disagrees with us, it's tempting to assume that there must be something wrong with them. And from there it's a small step to attach the worst of motives to their words and actions.

Of course, we must always stand for what is right, and there are times when we must raise our voices for that cause. However, when we do so with anger or hate in our hearts - when we lash out at others to hurt, shame, or silence them - chances are we are not doing so in righteousness."

He later goes on to say:

"We are responsible for our own discipleship, and it has little - if anything - to do with the way others treat us. We obviously hope that they will be understanding and charitable in return, but our love for them is dependent of their feelings toward us."

I'm not perfect at being respectful 100% of the time, but I'm working on it and doing much better. I think it would be beneficial for everyone to work on being respectful without the condition of others respecting us first.

Values for My Children

Family Search's question for October 28th was: What values do you feel are most important to pass down to posterity?

I decided to go back through my old posts and see what I had wrote about what I wanted to teach Benjamin and Luna. This is what I found:

• I want to give them the opportunity to make their own choices when it comes to school, extra curricular activities, work and other interests.
• I want to teach them to work hard in school, and that will lead to working hard in life.
• I want to teach them to eat healthy.
• I want to teach them to make the right kind of sacrifices. Sacrifices that help them follow God's plan for them.
• I want to teach them to value a temple marriage.
• I want to teach them to value families.
• I want to teach them to value education. (That one might be mentioned several times because it's that important to Gerson and I.)
• I want to teach them about money the way my dad taught me: a little bit of responsibility at a time.
• I want to teach them how to build their own testimonies.
• I want to teach them to value friendship and to be kind and inclusive.
• I want to teach them to find joy in service.

And the most important:

I want to teach them to build a relationship with Jesus Christ and to follow His example.

Ode to Ortega Halloweens

Halloween is my favorite holiday, and this Halloween is bittersweet for me. I love putting my whole family in matching costumes! And it is super easy to do when your kids are young and don't have a strong opinion on what you put them in. Benjamin goes to kindergarten next year, and so I figured this would be our last matching year. I was wrong, last year was. This year Benjamin insisted on choosing his costume. I decided that it would only be fair to let Luna pick as well. This makes me happy and sad. I love that Benjamin wants to be involved in his Halloween costume, but I'm also going to miss all of us matching. So I decided to write this post that goes back to look at the past four Halloweens of our family matching.

2013 - Monster's Inc.

This was Benjamin's first Halloween. He was 7 months old. We came across his costume at the Disney Store, and picked our characters and costumes around him. Benjamin was Mike, I was Boo, and Gerson was Sully.

2014 - Sesame Street

That year Benjamin's favorite parts of each Sesame Street episode was the letter of the day with Elmo and the number of the day with The Count. Benjamin was Elmo, Gerson was the Count Von Count, and I was the Count's girlfriend (who appears in a few episodes), the Countess.

2015 - Classic Halloween

This was Luna's first Halloween. She was almost two months old! We decided to recycle old costumes since we had just spent a lot of money to bring Luna into our family. I wore the same dress from the previous year and put a witch's hat on. Gerson wore his witch hunter's costume from 2011. We put Benjamin in his church clothes and added a vampire cape. And we put Luna in a black onsie and pants that she already had and added cat ears. We actually look pretty great and it's one of my favorite costume sets! My mom also tries to match with us when it works out, and she was a zombie.

2016 - Pokemon

With the release of Pokemon Go, we thought it would be fun to have a Pokemon Halloween. Gerson and I were Pokemon Masters, Benjamin was Charizard, and Luna was Pikachu. My mom and brother matched with us that year as well. Michael was Ninetails and my mom was some fairy pokemon from generation 6 that I can't spell or pronounce.

2017 - You'll have to wait until tomorrow!

This year Gerson and I are wearing old costumes again. Since I'm pregnant, I didn't see the point in spending money on a new costume - especially because I really do not like any of the store bought maternity costumes. I do have a sewing machine and the capabilities to make my own, but I just didn't have time with being sick earlier in the pregnancy, and then preparing for a Disneyland trip! I did take the time to make Benjamin and Luna's costumes, and I'm super proud of myself! Watching them get excited about their costumes as I've measured and tried them on throughout the sewing process has been pretty priceless. They are so excited for tomorrow, I'll post pictures then. :)

My faith inspires my values

Family Search's question for October 14th was: What personal values do you hold most dear?

My faith - my religion - that I have had my whole life has inspired my values. I believe in following the example, teachings, and values of Jesus Christ. I believe in being compassionate, forgiving, and non-judgmental. I believe in keeping my baptism and temple covenants, and raising my children in those covenants and the gospel and doctrine of Christ. I believe in service. I believe in families. I believe in preaching the gospel to all. I'm not perfect in any of these things, but it's something I work on every day.

What kind of teacher I want to be

Family Search's question for October 7th was: What valuable lessons have you learned from school that have helped you in your life?

Well the first valuable lesson I learned was to work hard, but I basically talked about that in my previous post about earning my straight A's. Another lesson I didn't recognize until years later was what kind of teacher I want to be when I am back in the classroom.

I want to be encouraging

A couple of posts ago I talked about my high school chemistry teacher and how she encouraged me to stay in her class and give chemistry a try. I want to be like that and positively encourage my students to give school a chance and work hard. I want them to know that I believe in them, and that not only do I want to help them, but I have the capabilities to help them.

I want to be a safe person

The majority of the seminary teachers at my high school were very focused on befriending the cool and popular kids. I think it was to keep them from ditching that class. There's nothing wrong with that, all students need their teachers to care about them; but sometimes it felt like other students were ignored at the expense of this focus on one particular group. Seminary especially should have been the safest place in the entire school, and unfortunately there were times where it wasn't. One semester there was a boy in my class who constantly verbally harassed me both under his breath and loud enough for the teacher to hear. The teacher never did anything about it. One day I had had enough and met with my teacher after school; he gave a bunch of excuses for the boy's behavior and wanted me to sympathize with him for his own difficulties in school. I did feel bad that boy was having a hard time, but that didn't mean he should get away with saying the things he was saying, and I was extremely disappointed and hurt that a seminary teacher would allow such language and behavior to be exhibited towards another student.

I want to be a safe person. I want my classroom to be as safe as possible. I want students to feel safe coming to me about anything. I also want to be able to stop such instances as mentioned above if they happen in  my classroom before the hurt student needs to meet with me after school. I understand that sometimes teachers miss things, they have 20-30+ students in their classroom. When I was doing my student teaching somethings I caught and took care of something right away. Some things I waited until class ended and pulled the involved students aside privately. Unfortunately, some things I did not catch, but it's something I plan to constantly work and improve on. Being a safe person, and working towards a safe classroom is very important to me.

I want my class to be survivable 

A couple of posts ago I talked about how the math department was set up so that students who weren't that great at math could still pass. I want my classroom to be similar. Not in the way homework and tests go; but the way I teach the content, and how class assignments/homework go. I want students who don't like history to walk away saying, "I don't like history, but Mrs. Ortega made it so that I could survive her class."

Obviously there are other aspects to teaching like the presentation of the content, the type of activities and lessons, etc. But outside of the actual subject matter, being encouraging, being safe, and being able to survive have always been important to me.

Sports, Music, and Dance

Family Search's question for September 30th was: What extracurricular activities did you get involved in?

Growing up my parents encouraged us to choose one extracurricular activity each season/year. Dance eventually became my main focus, but looking back I actually did a lot: gymnastics, swimming, piano, flute, soccer, just to name a few.

In elementary school I took swimming lessons every year. I zoomed through the lower levels, but had to retake the upper levels twice before moving on. I thought it would be fun to do the swim team in middle school and high school, but my level seven teacher said that I didn't have enough endurance. I did gymnastics in 1st and 2nd grade. It wasn't at a real gym. It was through the Parks and Rec department, but it was good enough for me as a beginner. I did three seasons of gymnastics before switching to soccer in 3rd and 4th grade. I also did soccer through the Parks and Rec department. The teams were determined by which elementary school we went to. The organizers didn't keep score, but the players and parents sure did!

I was in my elementary school choir 4th-6th grade. It was a sign up choir, no try outs. We sang a lot of fun songs, and got to sing at the airport to arriving athletes for the 2002 Winter Olympics! I took piano lessons from 6th-9th grade. I know that's pretty late compared to most people, but we didn't own a piano until then; and it's not a true, full scale piano, it's a keyboard. In 7th grade I played the flute and French horn in intermediate band. My middle school had beginning band, intermediate band, and advanced band. Intermediate band was for those who took at least one semester of beginning band or took summer school band the summer before. I took summer school band and got to do intermediate band for both semesters of 7th grade.  I didn't continue music after 7th grade because I chose to focus on dance from 8th grade onward. I also made it into the school play in 8th grade. We did Alice in Wonderland. I was cast as the White Queen. It was my one and only play and it was really fun.

I took various styles of dance classes throughout my life. In 1st grade I took jazz and ballet. In 4th grade I took tap and jazz. In 5th grade I started my ballroom training. I took classes 5th-7th grade, made my school's performance team in 8th grade, JV I'm 9th grade, and Varsity 10th-12th grade. In high school I also took private lessons for competition. I also took hip hop in 7th and 8th grade, and modern dance in 12th grade. Basically from 5th grade on dance defined my extra curricular activities.

Because I was given the opportunity to try so many different things, I want to give that same opportunity to Benjamin and Luna. I want to let them choose, and I don't want to pressure them to stick with one thing too early.