bonnie & jason

Archive of “Biggest Loser” Page

New year, new “resolutions” page. So I’m archiving the old Biggest Loser page here.

May 2, 2009:
In the months since dropping my weight down to nearly 150, I’ve relapsed a bit back up to 157. I blame the twins. And Bonnie’s penchant for chips that I seem to have no will power against. In any case, it’s time to publish the new goal like I did last year. This time, however, I’ve managed to lasso in two others into the fray… Dennis and Eric.

So what’s the deal?

By September 1,
– I will be at or below 145 lbs (about 12 lbs less than I am now.)
– Dennis will be at or below 160 lbs (about 25 lbs less than he is now.)
– Eric will have a six pack (He’s already lost 30 lbs… now looking to get all cut up!)

And on September 1, we celebrate reaching our goals by hitting up a prime rib place. (House of Prime Rib, Broadway Prime, or San Mateo Prime.) Whoever doesn’t reach their goal gets to pay a little extra as penance.

So there you have it. Consider the gauntlet thrown. See you all at 145!

5/3/09: 155.5 lbs
Went for a run around Lake Merced. About three miles. Felt pretty good. Went really slow though.

5/5/09: 155.5 lbs
Same 3 mile run around Lake Merced. Went a little faster, felt much worse.

5/10/09: 156 lbs
31.6 mi bike ride with Eric.

5/21/09: 155 lbs
Kinda been slacking lately on both the exercise and diet thing. Stalled out… need to get remotivated.

5/24/09:
Another ride with Eric:

5/31/09:
Another ride with Eric:

First time up old la honda road (1500′ of climbing over 3.3 miles.)

6/27/09:
I seem to have plateaued at 154. It’s pretty difficult to find time to exercise more and I don’t think I can eat too much less. I guess this is a good weight to be at considering the other priorities in my life at the moment.

My first visit to Dr. Snip-snip – *warning* lots of stupid euphemisms and puns

Today was step #1 in eliminating any remnants of manhood that are left after first, getting married, second, having three girls, and third, finally admitting to myself that my dream of racing cars for a living probably isn’t going to happen.

So what does step #1 entail? Well, it’s basically just sitting in a room with a Urologist (Dr. Edward Collins in my case) and listening to him explain the procedure itself, what the risks are, and what to expect post-op. We also talked briefly about the possibility of reversal (in case Bonnie leaves me for Brad Pitt and my new 24 year old supermodel bride wants kids) as well as what the next steps are to get the ball(s) rolling so to speak. Finally, Dr. Collins did a cursory “inspection” to make sure everything was where it was supposed to be and wrapped up with the classic, “turn your head and cough” hernia check routine. (Incidentally, the turning your head part is just so you don’t cough on the doc.)

So what is the procedure? It’s pretty simple. You can read all about it in the link above, but in short, after some local anesthetic, they just make a couple small incisions in your sac, cut the tubes that shuttle your boys up from your balls, and tie them off and tuck them away. By the time they’ve sewed you back up, about 30 minutes will have gone by.

As for potential risks and complications, they’re all rare and not particularly serious. The interesting one happens in about 1 in 10,000 when the cut tubes spontaneously rejoin. Then you’d be back in business without really knowing. Now that’s a scary one!

To mitigate this particular risk, they actually make you provide samples after you’ve had a chance to “flush out the pipes” in order to do a sperm count to confirm you’re actually “shooting blanks.”

I’m expecting to do the deed sometime before the end of the month so rest assured there will be follow up posts. Don’t worry, I won’t be posting any pictures.

Moment by Moment

Some of you know that I volunteer my photography services with the non-profit group, Moment by Moment (click logo above for details.). It’s little more than a some time and a few dollars for me. However, the organization is managed by a few very dedicated people who really put their blood, sweat, and tears into this endeavor. Unfortunately, blood, sweat, and tears aren’t enough to keep the lights on so to speak. So if you happen to be looking for a great group to invest your charitable contributions with, please consider Moment by Moment. As it turns out, they are actually having a fundraising event September 12 if you’re interested in attending (contact me for details.) Otherwise, you can simply contribute by check or credit card. For checks, please make payable to Moment by Moment (Tax ID 55-0896956) and mail to Moment by Moment 1499 Sunnybrook Road Alamo, CA 94507. For credit card, you can submit via fax (925-407-2737) with the following info:

Card Number __________________________Exp. Date ______Code_____

Signature __________________________Total Amount Charged $_______

As a semi-unfair tug at your heart strings, here’s a picture of Amanda when she was in the hospital a few months ago.

Amanda and Ashley are 6 months old

Went to the doctor for their 6 month checkup today. Ashley is 14 lbs even and 24″ long. Amanda is 12 lbs even and 23.25″ tall. They’re just barely on the charts at around the 3rd to 5th percentile but continue to creep up the curve. Otherwise, we got a clean bill of health.

Stop and smell the flowers

The last few weeks have been kinda crazy with work and travel and sick kids and such. Things are starting to die down and bit and we’re looking forward to the long weekend. No big plans… just hoping for a nice relaxing few days. As a matter of fact, it should be a good time to stop and smell the flowers a bit.

Why the sentiment you ask? Well, the main trigger is actually the final (I think) insurance claim from Amanda’s hospital stay. Although we’ve been outside our out of pocket maximum for quite a while now (pre-natal care is really expensive for high risk twin pregnancies), I still pay attention to the claims to make sure everything seems appropriate. And just last week, I saw a single claim that was in the hundreds of thousands. That’s right… hundreds of thousands. At first, I thought it was a typo as I had already seen tens of thousands worth of claims get processed for that two and a half week period. I even emailed the insurance company about it. But they assured me that it was correct and it had been paid for. Yay health insurance! All of a sudden, I don’t feel so bad about my premiums. Especially considering the additional prenatal care, delivery and hospital stay for the twins, all the other doctor visits we’ve had, and who knows what other medical services we’ll be using before the end of the year. But I digress. Ultimately, the reminder of Amanda’s dire circumstances from just a few months ago has put me in the frame of mind to try to take it all in for a little while. Also, Bonnie and I are realizing that we will probably not (99.999% sure) go through this stage of parenthood again so that’s contributed a bit to the sentiment as well.

Well, I’m way over my normal text to picture ratio for this post so I’ll end with a couple pictures from yesterday:

And one from when Alissa was about the same age:

We’re coming back from the hospital

Hospital?! What?! For those of you who were wondering about my lack of posts over the last 2.5 weeks, we’ve been busy taking care of Amanda at California Pacific Medical Center. I was going to blog about it along the way, but we didn’t want anyone to worry so I figured I’d just post a summary at the end. Here we are, near the end (just waiting for final discharge arrangements now) so here’s the day-by-day-ish diary of our not so fun ordeal. (There’s a lot of detail so I apologize for the minutiae… but it was helpful for me to internalize everything and I almost consider the blogging process a bit therapeutic.)

I took a couple pictures almost every day. She definitely looks very sad in the beginning with all the tubes for the ventilator, feeding tube, IV, O2 monitor, etc. in the beginning but as the apparatus is removed, she starts looking more and more like our little girl again. (As an aside, these kinds of pictures are very similar to what I do when I volunteer with moment by moment. If you’re looking for a local non profit to support, let me know and maybe we can figure out how you can help with either services or donations. www.momentbymoment.org)

EDIT: Saturday 3/28/09

Before anyone gets their undies in a bunch, Amanda is stable and being cared for by some of the best medical professionals in the world. Also, Ashley and Alissa are doing fine.

So what happened? As you know, we’ve all been sick for a number of days now and Ashley and Amanda actually went to see our wonderful pediatrician, Dr. Langston on Thursday. At the time, Ashley was the one we were more concerned about as Amanda seemed less sick. But on Saturday morning, Amanda seemed a bit pale to me, but I didn’t think much of it as she was still able to eat a couple ounces every three hours until the 2:30pm feeding. At that point, she refused the bottle outright and I noticed that not only was her color off, but her breathing seemed a bit erratic. But no fever, and no weezing or anything like that.

I wasn’t super concerned, but I did call the nurse line that we have available to us through our pediatrician and they made an appointment for us to go see the off hours pediatric referral group at 4:50pm. By the time we got there, Amanda still refused to eat and she seemed a bit cold in addition to her other symptoms. We eventually saw the doctor she immediately became concerned because not only was Amanda’s temperature low, but her oxygen saturation (O2 sat)was low, and she seemed both lethargic and not all that good about breathing deeply and regularly.

She immediately put an oxygen mask on her and called the hospital next door to admit her. Shortly thereafter, one of the hospital doctors arrived to escort us to the emergency room. They were waiting for us when we arrived a few minutes later and all of a sudden, we were amidst a flurry of activity.

First of all, there were a lot of people around from the ER doc and nurses, to the PICU doc and nurses, to the resident, and other support staff. Second, it was near shift change so there were practically double the people who would otherwise be around. And finally, since Amanda was not doing very well at all, they had a bunch of tests and procedures they wanted to execute ASAP.

First, they worked on making sure she was getting enough oxygen. This started out as just an oxygen mask, but she soon got a CPAP (continuous positive airway pressure) which was supposed to help keep her breathing regular as whatever was making her sick was causing the erratic breathing. (As an aside, they called the erratic breathing apnea which you may have heard of in the context of sleep apnea where many adults literally stop breathing momentarily while sleeping and don’t start up again until the brain basically wakes them up for a second.) The CPAP ended up not being sufficient as her O2 sat still wasn’t consistently near the 100% range so they ended up intubating her. (If you’re a fan of medical dramas, I’m sure you’ve heard the term “bagging” where they basically put a tube into the lungs and put a balloon type device on the end to help force air and additional oxygen in and out of the lungs.) This was a bit of a stressful time just because we were reacting to all the activity and the O2 sat monitor kept on alarming. Plus, the idea of not breathing put all sorts of bad thoughts into our heads.

Second, they worked on figuring out a diagnosis. This was a four pronged attack. First, they draw blood to look for infections. Second, they did a lumbar puncture or spinal tap to check the cerebral fluid for meningitis. Third, they collected urine to see if she had any urinary infections. I suppose that might also reveal any kidney problems. Finally, they did a chest x-ray to not only look for pneumonia and other infections, but also to check the position of the chest tube to make sure it was not too far up nor too far down. (They don’t show that part on House or ER.) Along the way, they also noticed another symptom. It seemed like Amanda was having small seizures periodically. More fuel for the scary fire.

So what were the results? First, she was positive for RSV which is a specific kind of cold virus that is not particularly dangerous for adults, but can be very dangerous for immune compromised people such as infants. One of the manifestations of RSV is erratic breathing or apnea which Amanda was certainly exhibiting. Second, the chest xray showed a little bit of bacterial infection (pneumonia). Finally, she also had low sodium levels which could also contribute both to the breathing issues and the seizures and was likely caused by her not eating much over the last number of hours.

After the flurry of activity, we were moved to the PICU (pediatric intensive care unit) where they worked on getting her breathing tube situated and started the antibiotics prophylactically in case any of the tests came back positive for bacterial infection. Since then (around 8:00pm) she’s been pretty stable with just some minor adjustments to her breathing tube, some more tests, IV fluid with D5 (5% dextrose for calories), antibiotics, and finally Adavan and some other drug I can’t remember right now to help keep her comfortable and calm and also reduce the seizing.

In the meantime, we talked to yet another doctor, Dr. Tsukahara, who is the attending physician for the PICU. He thinks Amanda will be on the respirator for at least three days and maybe more depending on how her lungs are doing. Also, he expects our hospital stay to end up between one and two weeks, again, depending on how quickly she bounces back.

So now it’s 12 hours (Sunday, 10:30am) later and Bonnie spent the night at her parents’ house with the rest of the clan while I stayed at the hospital with Amanda. Bonnie will come back to the hospital while I go home and shower and we’ll figure out the plan for the next few days.

All in all, it’s been a very stressful time, but I feel very lucky to live in a place with top notch medical professionals and services. Hopefully Amanda makes a quick recovery and has no long term effects. In the meantime, I’ll try to keep you all updated via the blog. (There’s a family room with a computer down the hall where I’m typing this now.) And thanks for keeping us in your thoughts!

EDIT Monday, 3/30/2009 10:22pm:
Not much has changed over the last day and a half or so. The meningitis test came back negative so that’s good news. Another chest x-ray yesterday showed her lungs were slightly worse than the previous day. Per a consult from the pediatric neurologist, they did an EEG today to check her brain out to make sure that the seizures weren’t caused by any brain problems. Also, she’s been on a bronchial dialator to additional support her breathing. Otherwise, she’s been doing ok on the ventilator with just a few episodes where she needs a little extra attention. Also, her IV needed to be moved which was a bit difficult as she has apparently inherited my “difficult” veins. It ended up in her scalp… not pretty, but that’s not the point. If they think she’ll be on the respirator much longer and the IV continues to be problematic, they may put in a central line instead. That’s when they find a larger vein, like the femoral vein, that is deeper and requires a sterile procedure to insert. Poor baby… she’s like a pin cushion.

As for feeding, she’s been getting 18mL of breast milk every hour through a feeding tube. Hopefully, she can get off the respirator in the next couple days and we can start feeding her with a bottle or even at the breast.

EDIT: Thursday, 4/2/09 9:00 am
Amanda continues to get better as her chest x-rays clear up. The pediatric neurologist, however, wanted to rule out any brain issues given she had seizures when we first came in. So they did an ultrasound of her brain. It showed a couple small cysts which could be perfectly normal, or could be from something inutero. It’s probably not related to the RSV, however. In any case, they’re going to do an MRI later this morning to get a better look and make sure nothing is really wrong.

Also, her blood cultures and spinal fluid cultures remained negative so that’s good. However, it turns out she has a urinary tract infection, again, unrelated to the UTI, so she’s going to remain on one antibiotic to treat that. Poor baby.

Otherwise, she’s still on the ventilator but they’ve turned it down gradually over the last couple days so we’re hoping that after the MRI, they’ll take it out.


EDIT Thursday, 4/2/09 7:42 pm
Well, the MRI showed a small abnormality on the right side of her brain which may or may not be an issue. It could be something that happened as a result of the seizures she had when we first came in. It could be a result of ongoing small seizures that aren’t apparent. It could be a result of a defect in her heart that results in blood not going where it’s supposed to (through the lungs) so that unfiltered blood gets into the brain and causes a clot. So they are currently doing another EEG, this time for 24 hours, to see if there are any seizures going on underneath the surface so to speak. Also, they will do an ultrasound of her heart tomorrow to look for any defects there.

She also is was a little hypothermic when she came back from the MRI which is not uncommon with kids with RSV. Plus, coming back from the MRI may have made her a little cold.

Otherwise, her chest x-rays continue to show improvement so that’s a good thing. She’s still on the ventilator though, since the MRI itself was delayed by an hour or so and they would prefer to take her off the ventilator earlier in the day when there’s more support around. She still has moments where she “Brady’s” (heart rate drops) and desats (O2 level drops) and it’s unclear whether those are caused by irritation from the tube or inflammation of the lungs, or just her overall weakened state. Every time that happens, I think I lose a month off my life. Damn kids…

Alissa and Ashley are doing fine though. Both seem to have completely recovered from their colds. Bonnie is also over her cold although her emotional state could use some relief. I’m handling the stress ok. Work is actually a bit busy right now as well but I seem to be juggling it ok. It’s actually nice to have a bit of a diversion from staring at Amanda all day.

So, I’m hoping the next 12 hours go by with no episodes and we can get Amanda off the ventilator finally. Also hoping the EEG comes back entirely clean and the heart ultrasound doesn’t show anything scary. Fingers crossed.

EDIT: Friday, 4/3/09 3:00 pm
Good news is that both the EEG and echo cardiogram came back clean. Bad news is that Amanda didn’t do well without the ventilator so they had to intubate her again. The current thinking is that she still has some inflammation and irritation in her lungs that needs time to improve. They’ll also increase the bronchodialator dosing from once every six hours to once every four hours. So at this point, we need to wait for the frequency of her episodes to go down significantly before we feel confident in her ability to breathe without the ventilator. Hopefully that happens soon. But it’s really just a hurry up and wait kind of situation.

EDIT: Friday, 4/3/09 10:10 pm – random thoughts
Over the last six days, I’ve spent at least 20 hours a day at the hospital and use the remaining hours to drive home, take a shower, play with Alissa, hold Ashley, and then drive back to the hospital. I feel bad for not spending much time with Alissa in particular. She’s becoming such a big girl. It’s to the point that I spend enough time away from her that I notice the little changes during those few hours that I do see her. She seems to have grown a bit. Her hair seems longer. She has new words and phrases. She has a new game or habit. And this is all in less than a week! They really do grow up fast. Even Ashley is different every time I see her. Man is she getting chubby!

All of the cliches about these kinds of situations are true. Life is fragile. Cherish the little things in life. You have nothing if you don’t have your health.

I’ve probably lost about five years off my life expectancy over the last week. That’s not so bad since I plan on living to 100. 95 isn’t too shabby. Then again, I still have three teenage daughters to live through so maybe I should just focus on making through my late forties first.

I need to be a stronger advocate for my kids. This means stepping out of my comfort zone and not just letting things be as they may. I need to be pushy, adamant, insisting, demanding, and an asshole if that’s what it takes.

Hopefully we can take Amanda home from the hospital next week sometime and I can get back to being a daddy to all three of my girls (and a husband to my wife).

EDIT: Monday, 4/6/09 9:20 pm
Over the weekend, Amanda continued to get better and tomorrow, the plan is to take her off the ventilator. The doctors feel she is physically ready for it, she just needs to do it. There is a process to this extubating apparently and Amanda will have a couple extra steps. First, around midnight tonight, she will be taken off the Fentanyl drip that she’s been on for a while now. The Fentanyl is a pain killer and sedative as well. It has a pretty long half life though, so that’s why they’re going to take that out of the equation tonight. It will be replaced by Propofol, which is a sedative that is fast acting. This way, once it’s time to extubate her, they can stop the Propofol and it will apparently leave her system in a matter of minutes, which should make her ready to take her first breaths completely on her own. Also, they will stop her feeding tube a few hours before hand as well, to make sure she doesn’t have anything to throw up. Otherwise, there is risk that she would aspirate whatever she puked into her lungs which we just spent so long trying to clear of any fluids. They will compensate with IV fluids so she has plenty of energy. So hopefully, around 10:00 am tomorrow, she decides she wants to breathe on her own and her heart rate, breathing rate, and oxygen levels all look good. Docs and nurses are optimistic so we’re feeling good that tomorrow will be a good day. We shall see!

EDIT: Tuesday, April 7, 2009 6:00 pm
Good news! Amanda came off the ventilator today and is doing well. She isn’t even on oxygen now. I tried to bottle feed her an hour ago, but it took almost 30 minutes to get her to take 10 cc’s. As such, she’ll go back on the feeding tube later and we’ll get some help from some specialists tomorrow. She’s also off all the meds now so she just has the IV now for fluids. Both Bonnie and I got to hold her a little today which really helped our psyche along with the fact that she doesn’t have a big tube taped to her face anymore.

Hopefully, she can get the hang of eating again soon and we can go home before the weekend.

11:00 pm
Forgot to mention that Ashley had her 2 month appointment today. She is now 9lbs 9oz! So she gained 11 oz in a week! Little chubster.

EDIT: Thursday, 4/9/09 8:20 pm
Amanda had her follow up MRI today and it looks like the effusion is clearing up. The pediatric neurologist also thinks that she’ll be fine as she’s good with eye contact, tracking things, and other basic neurologic basics. He did say that she’ll probably lose a couple weeks in development compared to Ashley since she was sedated for most of our time here. No big deal in my mind. I figure my own development is at least a decade or so behind.

Otherwise, she’s still continuing to get better at feeding, but still hasn’t gotten back to normal yet. So she stiill has the feeding tube in. One change that will happen tonight though, is that instead of feeding her continuously into her intestine, they’re going to bolus feed her into her stomach. I think they’re starting with 44cc’s every two hours over a 45 minute window. Hopefully she tolerates that well and doesn’t throw up or anything. She’s on Zantac to help reduce the risk of reflux.

EDIT: Friday, 4/10/2009 9:08 pm
Not much changed today. Amanda took 20cc without spitting it up though, so that’s good. Still not exactly back to normal, but we have high hopes that we’ll go home this weekend.

EDIT: Sunday, 4/12/2009 10:51 pm
Amanda has been taking the bottle at every feeding today but still not taking as much as we would like. And not as efficiently as we would like. We’ll see what the doctors say tomorrow about what criteria we need to meet to go home. In other news, we did move out of the PICU to a room upstairs. Nice for me since I have an actual bed to sleep on now.

I haven’t taken any pictures of Ashley and Alissa since this whole saga began. I’ll have to make up for it later. Today, Alissa got an Easter present from Benita including a Dora the Explorer backpack which she insisted on wearing to the hospital today when she, Bonnie, and Ashley came to the hospital. She looked very cute with it on. And of course, it held precious cargo… goldfish, coloring book, crayons, and an Easter egg for Amanda.

EDIT: Monday, 4/13/2009 9:20pm
Amanda made some more progress with feeding today. We’re trying to get the docs to let us go home. Hopefully soon!

EDIT: Tuesday, 4/14/2009 5:52pm
Amanda took the whole 66cc’s this afternoon! Hoping she keeps that up. Also, we think the docs are letting us go home tomorrow. We will have the feeding tube and pump just in case.

EDIT: Wednesday, 4/15/2009 2:48pm
Looks like we’re going home soon! Just need to schedule follow up appointments now. I’ll post some pictures when we get settled at home.

We’re all sick

Alissa got sick a number of days ago and proceeded to get the twins and Bonnie sick. I thought I had caught it and summarily kicked it away a few days ago, but I’m a little sniffly now too. The lack of sleep and a bit of a stressful week at work probably didn’t do me any favors in that regard.

Despite the plague, stress, sleep deprivation, and other “life stuff” going on, I figure it was time to post to the blog. I told myself that I would not be any less prolific with the arrival of the twins, but now I realize that was an unrealistic expectation. At least in the short term, while they are feeding every three hours 24 hours a day, it seems that my camera and my computer will have a bit of a respite.

That being said, I do have a few pictures to share today. As many of you with kids know, when the house is quiet for more than a few minutes at a time, you can be sure that nothing good is happening. Well, this afternoon, after one of said quiet times, I went hunting for Alissa, the #1 trouble maker and discovered this:

She had gotten into Bonnie’s purse and helped herself to some Burt’s Bee’s lip something or other. I guess she was feeling a bit chapped.

Archiving 2008 resolution

Just archiving my old resolution as it’s now 2009 (For the record, I ended the year around 152). Haven’t figured out the 2009 resolution yet… maybe I’ll try to get abs of steel.

They say that if you write a goal down, your chances of meeting it increase dramatically. I also learned that goals should be S.M.A.R.T. Specific, Measurable, Actionable, Realistic, and Time constrained. So, this is me, writing down my goal.

Get to 160lbs by September 1, 2008 by managing portions, eating healthy, exercising 5 times a week.

That’s pretty smart I think.

I’ll be posting updates here so check back to monitor progress if you’re curious.

6/11: Ran 4 miles
6/15: Played 3 hours of tennis

WEIGH IN: 171LBS
6/16: Worked on the yard for 2 hours
6/17: Worked on the yard for 1 hour
6/18: Ran 3 miles
6/19: Walked 1 mile, ran 3 miles
6/20: Ran 3 miles
6/21: 2.5 hours of tennis

WEIGH IN: 169LBS
6/23: Walked 1.5 miles, ran 2 miles
6/24: Ran 3 miles
6/25: Ran 3 miles
6/26: Walked 5 miles
6/27: Walked 5 miles
6/29: 2 hours tennis

6/30: Walked 4 miles
7/1: Walked 4 miles
7/2: Walked 5 miles
7/3: Walked 3 miles
7/4: Walked 2 miles
7/5: Rode bike 10 miles, Tennis 3 hours

WEIGH IN: 168LBS
7/6: Walked about 2 miles
7/7: Rode bike to BART for work
7/9: Rode bike to BART for work, walked 3 miles
7/10: Rode bike to BART for work, walked 3 miles
WEIGH IN: 166LBS WOOT! ABOUT HALF WAY THERE!!!
7/11: Rode bike to BART for work, walked 3 miles

So it’s been a month and I’ve lost about 5 lbs. My pants are starting to fit a bit better again but I still have a ways to go. The last 6 lbs will likely be a bit more difficult than the first 5 lbs. That being said, I think the biking to work thing will be a nice surge in activity and I’ve been pretty disciplined in not overeating. It’s not like I’m starving, I just haven’t been doing any of the random opportunistic eating that I have had a bad habit of doing. Anyway, time to kick it up a notch and make sure I can get to 160 by Sept 1 per my goal. That’s about a pound a week… doable, but I’ll have to stay focused. No lapses!

7/12: Ran 4 miles with Alissa
7/13: Rode 16.6 miles

7/14-7-17: Just been riding my bike to and from BART for work.
WEIGH IN: 164LBS
7/18: Ran 4 miles with Alissa
7/19: Rode 9 miles (to Ranch 99 and back)
7/20-7/24: Just been riding my bike to and from BART for work. A couple walks to the store and back.
WEIGH IN: 162LBS
7/26: Walked 1.5 miles, ran 3.5 miles with Alissa
7/27: Biked 37 miles

WEIGH IN: 160LBS!!!
So I officially reached my goal today a month ahead of schedule! The biggest difference I think has been not eating to extremes. I eat when I’m hungry, BUT STOP when I’m not. That’s a simple but not so easy thing to do I guess. I’ve been pretty good about exercise as well but it’s not like I’m hard core about it. Ultimately, it’s not so much that I’m on a diet, but more so that I’ve made a lifestyle decision to not overeat. I think I can keep it up although I may cheat a bit more now that I feel like I have some buffer. It’s not that I haven’t been cheating already. Pizza and dessert at the Chiang’s last weekend didn’t help. But even then, I could have eaten an extra slice of pizza or had a few more brownies.
Anyway, with a month left to go to the official “deadline” I think I may try to get down to 155. I’m pretty happy at 160 given my pants are fitting nice and loosely now. But I might try doing some more weight lifting in addition to the cardio to try to get a little stronger. Maybe I can get my gut to go away entirely at that point… although I think I’ve had this gut since elementary school. We’ll see. I’ll likely maintain this for at least the next month and then re-evaluate at that point.

7/28-8/1: Nothing serious, just biked to work and did some walking to the store.
8/2: Played three hours of mixed doubles (but then ate too much BBQ.)

WEIGH IN: 160LBS
I seem to have plateaued… slacking off after reaching the initial goal.
8/6: Ran 3 miles with Alissa
8/9: Mountain biking at Skeggs Point: 5.5 miles, 3000 ft of climbing, 1600 calories burned

WEIGH IN: 159LBS
8/15: I’ve been reverting back to some old habits but seem to be maintaining the weight. Time to inject some new vigor into my motivation!

9/17: Hmm… still slacking a bit on the exercise front but weighed in at 157 the other day. Eating habits are doing ok I guess. Went for a 25 mile ride today though, so that should help. Still think I can get to 150 if I just try a little harder. I’ll try to make that happen by the end of the year.

11/10: Well, I weighed myself yesterday and came in at 154.5. So I guess I’ve reached my goal. In all, I’ve lost almost 20 lbs which seems like a lot although I think I can probably get to 150. Not that I feel like I need to lose more, but it’s such a nice round number. Plus, I feel like I need a little “holiday buffer.”

11/27: 153.0 today! But that’s probably back up to 154.5 after today’s Thanksgiving dinner.

New project – the beginning of Jason Wang Bicycles

With the bike done, I find myself craving another project. Not that I don’t have enough to do around here as it is with Alissa, Bonnie on bedrest, and some photography stuff here and there. I guess maybe I just need a diversion from all the adult responsibilities that come with a growing family. And since I can’t afford a Lotus, I figure I’ll expand on the bike theme. But instead of just building up a bike frame, this time, I’m going to build a bike from scratch. Crazy you say? Crazy like a fox! =)

It’s actually not that big a deal although I admit that the scope has grown. How? Here’s the evolution:

1. The last bike project aggravated the lumbar radiculopathy that hasn’t bothered me for the last two years so I need a proper work bench.
2. Work benches are expensive though, so I’m going to build my own.
3. To build a proper work bench, I need a compound miter saw. (Ok, I don’t absolutely need one, but any self-respecting DIY homeowner should have one.)
4. While I’m at Home Depot, I might as well get the closet rod that Bonnie wants me to add.
5. Yet to be identified projects that will be born from here.

And of course, to build the bike itself, I need some other tools that I don’t already have (bench grinder, hole saws, hand files, vice, gas torch, etc.)

So anyway, no post is really complete without pictures, so here are a few quick ones.

Here’s the bench holding up the mitre saw I used to build it:

It has wheels so I can put it in the middle of the garage when I’m using it and then roll it against the wall when I’m done.
I got the miter saw for $60 off at Sears.

Here are the bike pieces:

I got them from Nova Cycle Supply. Many of the parts are from their November special.

Here’s about how they’ll go together:

Of course, I still need the chain, wheels, saddle, seat post, handlebars, stem, pedals, and brake lever. I already got a crankset, freewheel, and brake caliper.

So, hopefully, before too long, all these parts will turn into a ridable, safe, and cool bike that fits me perfectly.

Alissa has some big news… and some REALLY big news!!!

I have news and I have NEWS. The news is that Bonnie is pregnant again! Yay! We were hoping #2 would come about when Alissa turned two and as it turns out, Alissa will be around 26 months. Now, for the NEWS! It turns out that #2 is actually #2 AND #3. We’re having twins! Can you believe it?! We are still taking it all in.

Since we’ve known for about a month now but haven’t been able to share broadly, I’ve kept a journal on what’s gone through our heads.

Twin Journal
August 1, 2008
July 28, 2008 will now be notable date as the day that rocked our world with the news that Bonnie was pregnant with twins! Here’s the play by play:

Dr. Huang: Let’s take a look… try to relax, you’ll feel some pressure.
Bonnie: *Sharp breath*
Dr. Huang: Uh oh…
Jason: (I don’t like “Uh oh…”)
Dr. Huang: You’re having twins!
Jason and Bonnie: What?! Are you sure?!
Dr. Huang: Do twins run in your family?
Jason: Um no… how did this happen?
– State of shock and disbelief continues for the next few days -

My guess is that this kind of exchange happens with most people when they do not expect to be having twins. We don’t have a genetic predisposition for twins (my mom’s cousin is a twin but as it turns out, it doesn’t matter on the father’s side anyway), we weren’t doing fertility, and finally, we were not thinking we would have more than two kids. So over the last few days we’ve been slowly absorbing the reality, alternately forgetting and remembering that twins are on the way, and alternatively panicking and being super excited about all the things that we need to consider given this big surprise.

We told our immediate family and our best friends already as this secret was too big to keep to ourselves despite being only eight weeks along. Truthfully, I’ve been tempted to tell more people in order to share the excitement, nervousness, angst, and all the other emotions that I occasionally feel the need to offload. However, (so far) we’ve been disciplined and have not broadcast the news. Instead, we’ve spent a lot of time independently googling things like “best strollers for toddler and twins,” “nutrition when carrying twins,” “wiki twins,” and “probability of identical vs. fraternal twins.” We’ve even started batting some names around although we won’t know the sex for quite a while (week 20 I believe.)

As well, Bonnie seems to have more symptoms this time around as apparently happens a lot with twins vs. singletons. Nausea and heartburn are the two most bothersome. Also, although I don’t know this for sure, the fact that we’re having twins may have caused our confusion at the “pee on a stick” phase of our journey. We kept on getting one really strong first line (the test line) with a very faint second line (the control line). Since a “negative” is the absence of the first line but a strong second line, we weren’t quite sure what was going on. Apparently, if you have a lot of the pregnancy hormone, all the dye gets dropped into the first “test” line and there isn’t enough left to make a strong “control” line. We ended up taking three tests to make sure. This one was the most clear one:

Anyway, more to come as we continue down this exciting new adventure! We’re accepting donations on all fronts (diapers, double strollers… tuition) and would also welcome any advice.

August 3, 2008
We had Jeff and Xiao Yi along with Benita, Calvin, Deeann, and Abigail over yesterday for a BBQ. Bonnie did her best to seem like she had a good appetite and successfully evaded some questions from Xiao Yi about whether or not she’s “eating fish.” And we heard from Benita after the fact that Deeann was poking around asking about Bonnie “looking pregnant.”

Otherwise, we’re continuing our research into what we need to do to prepare for twins. Bonnie is doing her best to “eat for three” while taking her prenatal vitamins, folic acid, calcium, and Expecta supplements. Heartburn has been less of an issue lately but the nausea persists. Hopefully it goes away before the second trimester comes around.

August 6, 2008
With news like this, I’m anticipating lots of questions from folks. So here’s a quick FAQ that should take care of some of the items which we were wondering as well as some facts specific to our situation.

1. Do twins run in either of your families?
The short answer is no. Bonnie’s side of the family has no twins that we know of. My mom’s cousin is a twin and he has twin boys, but as it turns out, the father has nothing to do with the chance of having twins. (And I thought I had some kind of super sperm!)

2. If twins don’t run in Bonnie’s family, what are the chances of having twins?
Discounting the effects of fertility treatments (which we were not on, incidentally), the probability of a twin pregnancy is 1 in 89. That rate doubles if the mother is over 35 (which Bonnie is not). However, most of those pregnancies are fraternal twins which, as I mentioned previously, can be influenced by the mother’s genetics. Identical twins are apparently random events that are not influenced by genetics at all. The probability there is about 4 in every 1000 births… much more rare. Taking it to another level, the most common twins are boy/girl fraternal twins at about 40%. The least common are boy/boy identical twins (couldn’t find the percentage).

Interestingly, the probabilities are different for certain ethnic groups. For example, twins in Japan are much more rare. On the flip side, if you’re in Linha Sao Pedro, a tiny Brazilian village, you’re chance of having twins is about 10%! Also, if the mother is vegan, she’s five times less likely to have twins.

3. Do you know the sex and whether or not they’re fraternal or identical?
First, a primer from wikipedia:

fraternal twins = “two fertilized eggs are implanted in the uterine wall at the same time. When two eggs are independently fertilized by two different sperm cells, DZ twins result. The two eggs, or ‘ova’, form two zygotes, hence the terms ‘dizygotic’ and ‘biovular’.”
identical twins = “single egg fertilized to form one zygote (monozygotic) which then divides into two separate embryos.”

We won’t know the sex until the 20 week ultrasound which will be in the beginning of October. At that point, if they’re different sexes, they’re obviously fraternal twins. If they’re the same sex, we may not know ever since many fraternal twins look so much alike that they can pass for identical twins. I believe there may be some clues at the ultrasound that could potentially reveal what they are. For example, if they share one placenta and/or one amniotic sac, then they are identical. However, identical twins can also have their own placenta and amniotic sac in which case it would not be clear if they are identical or fraternal. Confusing, I know. Here’s the wiki if you’re interested in further reading.

4. Were you trying to have twins?
Umm… no. Actually, we had always joked about having twins. Before Alissa was born, Bonnie thought it would be nice to have one pregnancy and get a “two for one” deal so to speak. Then, we saw how much work twins were through my cousin Anna and decided that it was hard enough handling one at a time! We also had been debating about whether we wanted two or three kids at the end of the day. I was in the two camp, Bonnie was in the three camp. But in the first few weeks of this pregnancy, we were both in the two camp since Bonnie was having more nausea and heartburn issues. Who knows if Bonnie would have selectively forgotten those issues later on but for a while there, two was going to be it. Now that we’re having twins, that decision has been made for us and we’re actually both super excited about it! Of course, we’re still nervous at times and there’s a ton to think about, but at the end of the day, we feel very lucky.
On another note, I was joking with Bonnie that our kids reflect what she watches on TV. Before Alissa was born, Bonnie watched a lot of the reality show, “Little People, Big World” which is about Little People parents and their kids. As such, Alissa is in the single digits in terms of percentile height. Lately, she’s been watching a lot of the show “Jon and Kate, plus Eight” which is about a family of twins + sextuplets. And now, we’re having twins. Thankfully, she’s not a fan of the show “Jackass.”

5. Where are you going to put all the kids?
No idea… I’m open to suggestions! Actually, we’re considering expanding the house at some point. Not sure how much it would cost or how we would do it but it’s an option. There’s also the room downstairs that can be turned into a real bedroom but Bonnie isn’t a fan of that idea. For the time being, while the kids are young, I think we can get away with just the one room for a while. We’ll have to see how things go with public vs. private school and a bunch of other factors before we decide what to do.
We’re also glad that we opted for the Honda Pilot vs. the CR-V at this point. Although it may still be a challenge to squeeze them all in the Pilot, we’re far better off than if we had the CR-V. The Lexus will likely get even less mileage than it’s getting now but it will be fine once the kids get older I think. Besides, it’s not like we can afford to switch cars at this point anyway! Worst case scenario, we’ll just pull a Britney Spears and put the kids in our laps. KIDDING!

That’s about all I can think of at the moment. There will probably be additions later on.

August 14, 2008
We have our combination screening (screens for Down syndrome and some other genetic diseases via blood test and ultrasound) tomorrow at SF perinatal. We were there to get the cool 4-D ultrasounds when Alissa was about 20 weeks. (We didn’t do the combined screening with Alissa as it was not as standard a practice as it has now become.)

We’re both a little nervous as well as a little excited. I don’t know if they’re going to be able to tell us the gender or the zygosity (identical or fraternal) but at the very least we should be able to see their size and heartbeat. Assuming everything goes well, we’ll likely start telling more people. The big reveal will be at the big family BBQ August 24th. Bonnie already has the plan on how to break the news. Alissa will be wearing a shirt that says “Big Sister – x2.” It will be interesting to see how people react.

August 15, 2008
Well, our appointment at SF perinatal was fine but apparently, we need to go back in a week because the babies are just a hair under the size that they need to be for the results to be reliable. There are no indications that anything is wrong at this point though. And we were able to see a bunch of things while we were there. For example, both babies are about the same size (about 3.5 cm), and are dichorionic/diamniotic (di/di in medical-speak). In other words, they both have their own placenta and are in their own amniotic sac. Thankfully, di/di twins have less risk of complications so we’re lucky on that front. That doesn’t indicate whether or not they’re fraternal or identical however. (However, given the probabilities for di/di twins, my guess would be fraternal.) Also, it’s still too early to tell the gender. But it was cool to see them move and to see their heartbeats. And finally, last but certainly not least, it’s good to know that there are in fact “only” two!

The technology, as cool as it is, simply doesn’t have enough resolution to create very good 3D (excuse me, 4D) models. In talking with the staff, apparently the machine they were using is just a few months old and the latest and greatest. It’s made by GE and does seem to have some improvements vs. the machine that I remember when we there last for Alissa’s ultrasound. For one thing, it seems quite a bit smaller. Also, we were given a CD with the images and video (formatted for Mac by request even) instead of printouts. Finally, everything seemed to be a bit snappier. Switching views, zooming in and out, going from 3D to 4D, etc. (Sorry for the geekout – back to our regularly scheduled programming…)

So, long story short, so far so good! More to come.

August 20, 2008
We’ve started telling our family and close friends and are looking forward to the big reveal at the family BBQ this weekend with the accompanying blog post (this one). As you would expect, everyone has been very supportive and almost as surprised as we were when finding out about the twins. And it seems like there are babies everywhere! We have three sets of friends who are expecting babies before the end of the year. And another three who just had babies in the last month. Must be something in the water.