About me

I am a scientist working in a medical research institute in the DC area. After my daughter was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes 5 years ago I shifted my area of research to diabetes. I am married to the most supportive and loving man that comes from the hotel management industry and am a mom to three wonderful kids; 10 year old girl, 8 year old and 2 year old boys and a dog, a real energy booster... I am also a children's author and have one book published in Hebrew titled Tal and the Secret Treasure.

Friday, September 28, 2012

'Delivery Package'

Back home in Israel, we were always reluctant to buy or prepare anything for the baby beforehand. Totally against the nesting instinct, I agree, and it also takes away part of the fun but who wants to argue with the fear of bad luck?
All the baby products shops there are well prepared to accommodate that and in order to not interrupt with the shopping spree of the new parents' to be, they all adhere to the 'delivery package' concept; you choose anything you want to buy, all the items are packed together and stored (at the back of the store) just for you until the day the baby comes. The most important part is that you don't pay (maybe because most stores in Israel don't have the greatest return policy), but mostly because this is a one sided obligation. They will deliver everything to your house on the same day that the baby is born and the money is paid. It worked great for us as it does with most parents that choose to go this route and in Israel it's probably the majority. But on the flip side it leaves hubby to deal with all the assembly, instructions reading, decorations, package unwrapping, tiny clothing laundry and folding (and much more, the list is pretty long) alone, when he is mostly needed by your side or with the older kids, while you could enjoy doing all that together say a month or two before the new addition to the family. But again, who wants to argue with bad luck... So I thought, to just myself of course, that since the return policy is so great here in the U.S. (at least for the first 90 days), buying everything and storing it at home, in the original packaging of course, could work almost as good as the 'delivery package', only with a different geographical storage location. It does require some degree of creativity in order to sense the similarities but you get to keep the one sided obligation benefit and hopefully keep the bad luck away.


Thursday, September 27, 2012

Not really a beer belly

Although it really looked like one at the earlier stages.
This time, as with my older two kids, I was surprised. NOT REALLY SURPRISED, after all it was me who started taking the prenatal vitamins before hand, who discarded the old packs of pregnancy pills and made plans with hubby. I actually thought that after doing it twice it should be pretty difficult to catch me by surprise, especially after I have dealt and familiarized myself with all those signs and symptoms. Women just know (?) when they are pregnant, even before they quietly step into the drugstore and choose between a digital (quite confusing I must add) or old fashioned blue or pink stripped stick to confirm their suspicion. So I had all the symptoms for several months, probably a strange side effect of getting off the pill because they all disappeared once a month, every month. So intuition can sometimes mix up with positive thinking and that could be confusing.The first month I knew for sure that I wasn't pregnant was the first month I finally got rid of all these symptoms. But I guess that every time is different or maybe my memory is just not as good as it used to be (for sure, plus pregnancy is thought to play a role in that too) or a combination of both (probably) and some other factors, but I am happy to say that it is still possible to surprise me, especially when it comes to good things!