17 weeks



Newly hatched baby butterfly at the Butterfly House



Manger scene at Rancho Baiguate



hanging out with one of the burros at Rancho Baiguate, I look like I'm trying to model my water bottle

Our baby is the size of a turnip!


Do I look big to you?  Cause even though our doctor said I wasn't gaining enough weight and put me on the ensure diet, everyone else is saying how I am getting really big really fast (Dominicans are honest people).  I went out shopping the other day and in a period of one hour, two people said I looked so big for 4 months that I must be having twins.  Nope, just one baby on the ultrasound.  Between that and starting a pinterest account where all the expecting ladies have professional looking bump pictures but really flat stomachs with no bump when they're as many weeks as me has made me decide to stop my weight gain diet that the doctor recommended.  Oh yeah, that and I gained 4 pounds over Christmas vacation already - if I keep gaining at that rate I will have gained 52 pounds by the baby's birth in June.  No gracias.  So back to normal eating without all the extra ensure as part of the diet.  Though now I am craving food much more than before.  No pickles and ice cream, but more than anything lately I am craving CHOCOLATE.  We were sent down bags of chocolate chips from America that were supposed to be used for baking but I haven't been baking anything and I just can't keep my hands off them!


What's happening this week:


We're still on Christmas break until Tuesday but it has been rainy and dreary here, so not much has been going on, but here's a few items:


Visitors - First we had Dave's sister Pam and her friend Brooke come up to stay with us for a few days after we got back from the beach.  Dave took them out to climb the moutain El Mogote, see the waterfalls, and we did some local Dominican shopping but other than that it was pretty tranquilo.  Oh and did I mention that Pam brought us down TONS of treats even though they didn't fit in her suitcase, so we are really grateful to her for that.  Like I mentioned before, I got LOADS of new maternity clothes, which I'm already wearing everyday, did I mention maternity pants are downright heavenly?  And I've been using my tummy rub cream and doing my new pre-natal yoga DVD which I wish I could find someone else pregnant to do it with.  The other night when I tried it out, the women on the DVD were exercising their "kegel muscles" while I totally misunderstood and was flexing and releasing my stomach and chest, oops.  I'm still learning these things, but how am I supposed to know what to do when they sit on their mats and do nothing but say flex and release.  It's not the yoga I'm used to.  Also, we had a couple of teenage boys over to do respite care for some friends of ours that we work with who took them in a few months ago off the streets when they were in need.  For being two fifteen year old boys, they were some of the most well-mannered and helpful boys I might have ever met and very fun too.  Since it was a rainy couple days, we spent lazy afternoons on our patio playing dominoes and UNO, (conversations mixed in English, Spanish, and Creole) and nights putting up the projector (thanks Jessica Ensing!) to watch movies and play old school video games that were donated to Dave (umm I mean our ministry), like racing, James Bond, and Sonic the Hedgehog.


Rancho Baiguate - Today we took a motorcycle ride out to Rancho Baiguate to see a butterfly house and lounge around their beautiful property full of flowers and other vegetation.  I loved the butterfly house, we got to see every step of the life cycle, and even though I've both learned and taught the process many times, it still doesn't cease to amaze me - and I LOVED having a baby butterfly land right on my belly when I had my own life cycle going on right inside (okay well it took a little encouragment to "land" there).  I think I'm going to plan a field trip to take my first graders here soon since we're going to study life cycles this semester (or at least I think that's what I will teach them.. since we don't have standards here I teach pretty much whatever I want as long as the kids are learning English in the process :) 


Yeah so other than that, just playing catch up and slooowly chipping away at the long to-do list I made myself for Christmas break.  Remember how I was excited last week about my CONANI visit (a huge government agency here) and them wanting to come up to visit and get involved with the safehouse?  Well, six unreturned calls and emails later and I am still waiting to hear back from them.  Everything in this country takes so much time and patience!  Please continue to keep us in your prayers!


Love, Dave, Kristin, Santa, and Baby DeYoung xoxo




 



16 weeks

At our hotel "Casa Regular" in Las Terrenas

Our baby is the size of an avocado!

What's been happening this week:

We went to the beach!  Our friend Donna coordinated for a group of around 16 of us to go to the beach for a few nights to celebrate New Year's in Las Terrenas (quite the task I imagine but she did it well).  It was my first time at this beach and it was really beautiful, especially the drive to and from, weaving through mountain roads along the coast was breathtaking.  We stayed in a hotel called "Casa Regular" Hotel, which you probably guessed means "Regular House" Hotel.  My sister-in-law Paola asked why they named it Casa Regular and the owner said well, it's not a good hotel necessarily but it's not a bad one either, it's just regular.  Dominicans are funny like that sometimes.  This week I finally went off my hormone pills, which was really scary for me cause I think the extra progesterone is what's been keeping this baby going (that and all of your prayers too :).  What I didn't know was all the side effects from going off of them and that you're supposed wean yourself off instead of going cold turkey, which I didn't realize til I was in the middle of nowhere, so I've had some major migraines and insomnia this week.. but it's getting better now, and I guess where better to go through that than at the beach where my only responsibility is laying under a palm tree and listening to the waves.  Oh and I did want to get a picture of me on the beach instead of our hotel room because it is such a pretty beach, but since all I wore was my bikini you'll have to email me if you really want to see (cause I'm guessing most of you don't).  I swore I would never be a pregnant woman who wears a bikini but this is not the kind of place you can just run out to Sears and pick up a tankini so I figured when in Rome... and just let it all hang out Dominican style. :)  Other symptoms this week have been really sharp pains in my abdomen and sides, is this what kicking feels like?  Anybody?  Anything I tell my doctor he just writes me a prescription for Tylenol (not that you need a prescription for it here, you can get serious narcotics right over the counter), but I never take it cause I'm trying to make it through this pregnancy med free so I just grin and bear it. 

Oh and the best news of the week (which I got by phone at 1a.m. last night so my grogginess probably didn't express my true excitement) is that my dad is getting married!!!!!!  Debbie, who I worked with this summer, will be an awesome step-mom and I couldn't be happier for both of them.  I've already inquired about planning a Dominican beach wedding on their behalf but haven't heard back yet - stay tuned. :) 

 Congratulations love birds!! 

15 weeks

Christmas dinner in Los Alcarrizos with Tim, Paola, Ana Leah, Rachel, and family!



Going to the Escuela Caribe Christmas Banquet



Our baby is the size of an apple!

What's been happening this week:

I got my third ultra-sound this week and the baby is looking good, he/she (couldn't tell which yet) was moving around a LOT, all over the place, Dave said it looks like a DeYoung baby, always moving and can't wait to get out already, which made me start laughing and the ultrasound machine started going crazy, jumping around and making all these loud noises, and Dave didn't know why and he was like are you farting Kristin, right in front of the doctor, which made me laugh even more and make the ultrasound make more noise and go even more crazy, and all the while the doctor did not think it was one bit funny... on top of that, while Dave was late getting to the appt., I told the doctor about all the things I've been reading in my pregnancy book that doctors are supposed to do at appts. (like take my weight and blood pressure, so he did, but looking a bit irritated about always being told by the high maintenance American girl how to do his job) so after all of that, the doctor charged us more than double what he usually does and was not in the cheerful mood he usually is (but I have to be careful cause he's the best doctor in town and a parent of a student from school so I don't want to mess up that relationship).  We tried to leave on a good note by saying Feliz Navidad, but I don't know if that really helped... He also was concerned that I haven't been gaining any weight, I have only gained 2 pounds in the whole 15 weeks so he told me to take Ensure, we went to PriceSmart in Santiago yesterday and bought a big $28 container of it but the directions are confusing and in Spanish, they say 6 scoops for each shake and 2 shakes a day, but Dave is scared I'm taking too much and will be like 200 pounds by the end of next week (and I am getting pretty fat from it already!)  For those who don't know Pricesmart is like the Dominican version of Costco or Sam's Club, so I was drooling over everything I saw... including Totino's pizza rolls which I have been craving badly so Dave bought a box of 160 of them for me for Christmas - I was a happy camper. :)

I have been feeling a lot better lately since my transition into 2nd trimester but there are still some of the same symptoms... the weird dreams are still vivid and super weird, like craaaaaaaaazy stuff, lots of dreams about alien invasions and UFO's and that kind of stuff lately, really trippy kind of stuff.  Also lots of headaches and still super tired, but better than the first trimester.  The doctor gave me the go ahead to go off the hormones I've been taking for the past 3 months, so I'm wondering what that will do to me, we'll find out.. And like I mentioned before, I have started having cravings, in the beginning I didn't want to eat anything at all, but unfortunately for Dave I usually crave things now like PF Changs and Applebee's or things you can only buy from a Meijer's - he got to point the other night where he was like "Do you want me to make you some Fiesta freaking lime chicken, sit down cause I'm going to make you some" cause I was talking about it all day, but I fell asleep like 10 minutes later before he had the chance to.... seriously he has had the patience of a saint always trying to accomodate to all my needs and I don't know what I'd do without him.

This week we had lots more Christmas activities and fun, we were invited to the Escuela Caribe Christmas Banquet at the boarding school where we used to live, which we didn't realize was a very formal affair, girls had prom dresses handmade in town and poor Dave showed up in flip flops and blue jeans, oops (I wasn't that much better in leggings and a sweater dress).  Then we took the bus down to the capital on Christmas Eve and stayed just outside the capital in Los Alcarrizos where I used to volunteer and live in 07 and got to see family and old friends, and the most exciting part was meeting my new neice Rachel who is absolutely gorgeous.  Meeting and spending time with babies has become all the more exciting when you know you have your own swimming around inside.   Christmas Day we spent with family and friends at the old "camp" where I used to live and it was a very multi-cultural dinner since most of the dinner guests were doctors from different countries who volunteer at the hospital there, we had a mix of Ethiopian, Indonesian, Australian, Bolivian, and American dishes for Christmas dinner then lounged around poolside.  We met another couple from Ethiopia who are expecting this summer who we enjoyed spending time with, talking pregnancy and baby stuff (I really wish I had some pregnant friends here!).  On the 26th my sis-in-law Pam flew in to visit from Boston and whoa did she bring the Christmas treats, so a big GRACIAS to all of you who sent them, especially my mom who sent me an entire new pregnancy wardrobe, which I'm already loving, maternity pants are the most amazing thing ever.  Also I had a meeting while in the capital with CONANI, which is the child protective services agency here in the DR and also licenses NGO's here, about the safehouse and they were eager to get involved with us (which is exciting, if they actually follow through :)  Okay that's it for this week since this was an extra long update.  Love and miss you all!

14 weeks

Our baby is the size of a lemon!

What's been happening this week (it's been a REALLY busy one with Christmas around the corner!):

Miss Luedtke's going away party - We said good-bye to my student teacher who left to go back to the US then her home country of Switzerland, I was soooo sad and so were the kids :(

Wyldlife Christmas Party - Dave dressed up again like a "hipster Santa" (costume rental was too expensive) for his youth group Wyldlife where he's a leader and held a party for the kids.

Hotel Yunior Christmas Party - We had a Christmas party at our house for women from the brothel down the street, we had 15 of them come, they decorated Christmas cookies, played games, and I got to know the women better, another former prostitute who is now a Christian shared her testimony and really inspired some of them to do the same (so maybe we'll be getting some of them to come live with us soon! :)

JCS Classroom Christmas Party - We decorated Christmas cookies, made angel tree toppers, water color painted gingerbread men, made cotton-ball Santa Clauses, listened to Christmas music, and more... the kids were very sugared up by the time they went home!  Oh and two of my students accepted Christ after we shared the Christmas story about why Jesus came to earth to save us. :)

Teen girls Christmas Party - We had teen girls from at-risk barrios in the area over to do a Christmas party as well as prevention work for the sex trafficking org.  We shared the Christmas story and one of the girls accepted Christ which was awesome, and then we talked to the girls a lot about their rights as females (the right to their own bodies, the right to say "no", etc.), many of them had stories to share about times men had tried to rape them and things like that, one shared that she was being abused, and it showed me that there is so much more work to be done here, sometimes I don't know where to start!  They followed up by painting nails, doing hair, and playing games.  Oh and the funniest part... we made like an assembly line of cookie decorating stuff, DR version of what you can get here, so like frosting, sprinkles, raisins, fruit loops, candy, etc.... they dumped the cookies and toppings in the bowl, crushed them up, added a scoop of frosting and then stirred it up and ate it like cereal... I was like um hey girls, you're supposed to uh decorate the cookies like this.... lol oh well.... 

Church Christmas Banquet - You'd think we be all Christmased out by now right?  Nope.  We had a potluck and I helped in the kitchen of our new feeding center to serve more than 130 people from the community, it was tiring but fun, with lots of smiles and full bellies.

JCS Christmas Cookie Exchange  - Dave organized this at school and I think he has made about 2238947 Christmas cookies by now.  He did a great job bringing lots of delicious cookies and Christmas cheer (I sound like the movie Elf) to share with people we care about!

13 weeks

Posing with baby Jesus on stage at the JCS Christmas program :)

Our baby is the size of a medium shrimp!

What's been happening this week:

School Christmas Program, Dec. 9 - We made "ponchos" out of butcher paper and wore cowboy hats and the kids sang and danced to a song in Spanish about riding their little donkey to Bethleham... the funny thing is in Spanish little donkey is "burrito" so there were Americans who thought the butcher paper meant they were actually supposed to be wrapped up like burritos (the food) and that's what we were singing about, hahhahahaha.

OANSA Christmas Party at Church, Dec. 10 - We had a lunch, gifts, games, and the Christmas story for over 60 OANSA kids (the club that I teach at church), most of who are very poor and were very excited, most likely was the only Christmas present they would get, and they each got an apple, which are expensive here so was a really special treat for each of them, it was a really heartwarming day.

OANSA Christmas Program at Church, Dec. 11 - I made up a little dance to a Christmas song here called Din Don Din and taught to my 3-7 year old class at church which they were super precious performing for our church Christmas program.

We also hosted a team of 12 in our house this weekend from the anti-trafficking Defender's Foundation from Florida and California for a few days during their mission trip to the DR and hosted them on local outings such as waterfall hikes and souvenier shopping.

12 weeks

Our baby is the size of a lime!

What's been happening this week:

Dave's bday - I made a cake for him to eat at school, then we went out for pizza, what else?  I'm kinda a lame wife I know, but our beach trip over Christmas break will make up for it... ;)

School Christmas Banquet - Dave and I dressed up as Mr. and Mrs. Clause again and got lots of photos with scared kids and passed out lots of candy canes.



11 Weeks

In Barahona at the Christian Reformed World Missions Retreat

Our baby is the size of a fig!

What's been happening this week:

Fall Festival and Thanksgiving Party at school - We put on a show at school singing a song called "Tanto Tanto" which meant so much to give thanks for, and one of my super cute 6 year olds Natanael did a solo rap, all dressed up gangsta style, the whole school went nuts, it was hilarious, then we played lots of turkey games and did turkey crafts, fun fun (I have it on video if I can get it to post).

CRWM Retreat - Thanksgiving vacation we went down to Barahona about 6 hours from here to the beach for the Christian Reformed World Missions retreat... we found out last minute that we were in charge of childcare which meant less rest and more wiping runny noses and playing with play-doh, but I got to work with the babies and toddlers which was a fun switch and good prep for me, but I did have to take Monday off work after vacation because I was sooo tired and had a killer sinus infection by the time I got back, so not exactly a retreat but a good experience anyways and always fun seeing new places.