Pregnancy Books

I've read quite a few including What to Expect When You're Expecting, Your Pregnancy & Birth, Planning Your Pregnancy & Birth, Miracle in the Making, The Expectant Father, The Pregnancy Journal, Soothe Your Baby the Natural Way and a few others that I read and put back on the shelf (on my lunch breaks).

While comprehensively they contain loads of information, it's essentially all the same. The only one that I've read, liked and would highly recommend is The Pregnancy Journal. The name is deceiving, because it's not a journal in the sense we think of a journal. It is a day by day account of what's going on with your body, what's going on with baby's body, what you should be thinking about, what kind of growth you should expect and even gives insight into cultures around the world telling what other countries and tribes do at certain times. The one that came most highly recommended to me was What to Expect When You're Expecting. By the volume of this book that gets sold back to us at Half Price Books I'm sure every pregnant woman in America has owned or will own this one. I was disappointed and left feeling anxious and worried every time I read through the month by month chapter breakdown. It seems to focus more on the possibilities that CAN happen to you and your baby listing problems, don't's abnormalities, pains, defects, etc. While all of this can be very helpful at times, especially if you are facing one of those issues, I found it to be disheartening and found The Pregnancy Journal, by contrast to focus more on development and growth.

Stem Cell Research and Cord Blood Banking

We were given the option of banking our baby's cord blood privately ($$$$) and then found that it can be banked publicly in Texas at no charge. It's nice to know there's another way to get stem cells than from the undifferentiated cells of aborted fetuses. In the continuing debate of stem cell research funding this one's a no brainer for me and it seems like more of our efforts should be focused on spreading the word about getting stem cells from cord blood than fighting the issue of using aborted fetuses undifferentiated cells, which just seems to be stalling research and funding.


From the Texas Cord Blood Bank Website:


What is cord blood?
Cord blood is the blood that remains in the placenta after a baby is born. Cord blood has been found to be a rich source of stem cells and is currently being used as an alternative to bone marrow in treating a number of life-threatening diseases. Because these cells are normally discarded after birth, this is the ultimate recycling project.

Why do we need the Texas Cord Blood Bank?
Sadly, this potentially life-saving option is not available to everyone due to the high costs associated with the testing, processing and storage of umbilical cord blood cells. The Texas Cord Blood Bank (TCBB) allows families the opportunity to donate their infant’s cord blood, regardless of socioeconomic status, to ensure that all patients needing a bone marrow/stem cell transplant are offered this opportunity.

More than 70% of children and adults requiring a bone marrow transplant do not have an immune matched sibling who could be a donor. In their case, the only option is to find an unrelated donor through the national bone marrow and cord blood registries. Because immune types are specific to ethnic groups, it is important to collect cord blood units from donors of all backgrounds especially Hispanics, African Americans and Native Americans.

Benefits of cord blood:

There is no risk to the donor.
Since cord blood immune cells are less mature, they are more easily accepted by the patient when used in transplantation. As a result, patients with a less than perfect immune match can now be treated
There are fewer immune complications after transplantation.
Since cord blood is banked and ready to use, it is immediately available when a patient needs it.
Some of the diseases currently treated with cord blood:

Leukemia & other blood cancers
Aplastic anemia
Lymphoma
Deficiencies of the immune system
Genetic disorders such as sickle cell anemia
Goals of the Texas Cord Blood Bank:

To build a cord blood bank that captures the rich ethnic diversity of Texas
To develop a program that results in the highest quality units that exceed national and international standards.

How you can make a difference:
There are few public unrelated banks in the United States, each represents an ethnic mix unique to their geographic area. If you would like to make a contribution to the program, please send your donation to the Texas Cord Blood Bank, c/o South Texas Blood & Tissue Center.

Facts about the Texas Cord Blood Bank
Specially approved by the Texas legislature and unique in the state, the Texas Cord Blood Bank - managed by South Texas Blood and Tissue Center - is a source of ethnically diverse, life-saving umbilical cord blood.

Cord blood, donated following the birth of a healthy baby, is rich in blood-making cells which can be used, like bone marrow transplants, to treat children and adults with certain cancers and otherwise fatal blood disorders.

6,000 units of cord blood must be collected to make the program self-sustaining - and that effort will require philanthropic support in order to match a $3.5 million state grant.

Who benefits from your donation?
Zachary is a bright, sunny three-year-old boy with alabaster hair and twinkling blue eyes. For the first eight months of his life, Zachary’s therapy and illness required many transfusions of platelets and whole blood to keep his fragile body going. Shannon and her husband, Matthew, tried to keep a positive attitude, supported by loving friends and family and a dedicated team of physicians.

After eight months of treatments, doctors said the agonizing treatments had not worked; he would need a stem cell transplant. In January 2002, he received his lifesaving transplant, thanks to a mother who donated the cord blood from her own child’s birth. “We were so scared, and we are so thankful,” Shannon says. “Because some mother selflessly donated a little bag of cells, my son is alive and well. She saved my son’s life, and I’ll never take anything for granted again.”

Before the transplant, every day was a fearful vigil at a sick child’s bedside. Today, Shannon says, “the worst things we deal with are colds and sniffles. He’s very healthy now.”

Math Midterm

Just aced a math midterm that I fretted over for days, but didn't actually study for until this morning and skipped 2 classes to cram for it. Here's what I had to know: formulas for the probability of an event, mutually exclusive events, conditional probability, properties of probability, tree diagrams, odds in favor and odds against an event, expected value vs. theoretical value, permutations and combinations, quartiles and the formula for Interquartile Range (IQR), pie charts, variance and formula for standard deviation, how to read a normal curve, properties of points, lines and planes, formula for the sum of the measures of the interior angles of a convex polygon with 'n' sides, definition of a regular polyhedra, formula for the measure of a single interior angle of a regular n-gon.

This is a class consisting of 40-45 lower elementary education majors (grades K-4). Now, I love math and before I decided what to do with my life have taken loads of credits worth of upper math-major level math classes including Trig, Cal I and Cal II at the college level and I can understand the relevance of needing to know those upper level maths if you are going to be an engineer or scientist or if you want to know you're doing your taxes correctly. I fail to see the relevance of having future teachers learn concepts and formulas which they will not be using in their own classrooms because they are not grade level appropriate. Mind you the name of the class is Math for Elementary Education. This is the second semester of this class. The first semester was more about how to teach math concepts, exploring different methods of teaching math, as well as ensuring we are competent enough in those concepts to teach them. Even if we were planning to teach at the age level that this class is directed toward (maybe 6th grade or middle school) I would still expect to be taught methods of teaching this to students-just by the name of the class. Hmph. And we wonder why teachers are lacking in science and math instruction.

October Birthday Celebration at Martinez'

Last night the Shepherd/ Dorsey/ Plagge clan met for dinner in Mesquite at Martinez' Restaurant. The family owned restaurant recently opened their own stand alone facility in the same parking lot as the old building they used to rent. I've only eaten there for graduation banquets in the past and had always been served buffet style, so this was a new experience to be able to choose what I was going to have from their menu. It's authentic Mexican food, not the tex-mex we're used to and it was fabulous. Walker and I shared the Mexican plate which had a beef taco, tamale, cheese enchilada, rice and beans. Walker made the rounds last night also sharing the beef fajitas with Annie and then collecting leftovers from Tony and Aunt Elizabeth, managing to clear all of our plates. George ventured out and ordered eggs and pork chops with rice and beans. Mom ordered chicken enchiladas and Grandpa got chicken fajitas. The hot sauce was excellent and proved to be hotter than most, a definite plus from my end. Amidst good conversations and smiles and laughter we topped the evening off with sopapillas drenched in honey. Tony and Annie spotted what they call a 'quarter machine' on the way out and lost their life savings worth of quarters trying to win more quarters. I do think they won a couple of times, but I'm pretty sure they put in more than they got out.

The Negotiator

by Dee Henderson.

I bought a 6 book series of Dee Henderson books, so I hope I like the first one. I had trouble getting started on it, but I think that has more to do with my recent obsession with reading pregnancy and parenting books than the storyline being dull.

Party Punch

Served this at a wedding shower recently. I came up with it myself, using the basic idea of a sangria. Everyone loved it, so I'm sure I'll use it again.

2 2 liters of ginger ale
2 bottles of chardonnay
2 bottles of peach champagne
1 pkg of frozen peach slices
1 pkg frozen mango pieces
1 cut up orange
1 cut up lemon

Baby Day!

Today we're trying again to get a good clear picture using the 3-d sonogram. Hopefully I'll be able to give a full report and post some pictures this afternoon. Also, Penny and Curtis Haskins find out today what the sex of their baby is! They are due in February...can't wait to hear the news!