Begin each day with Folic Acid

I started taking Folic Acid last year. Folic acid is a vitamin found in many foods and multivitamin supplements. It's especially important for women who are pregnant and also for women trying to get pregnant because folic acid can help prevent birth defects. Folic acid can reduce certain birth defects of the brain and spinal cord by more than 70 percent. These birth defects are called neural tube defects (NTDs). NTDs happen when the spinal cord fails to close properly.

The most common neural tube defect is spina bifida. This occurs when part of the baby's spinal cord remains outside the body. The baby may have paralyzed legs and, later, may develop bladder and bowel control problems. The most serious neural tube defect is anencephaly. The baby is born without part of its skull and brain, and eventually dies.

Folic acid also may help lower your chances of getting heart disease and some types of cancers. It may help protect you from having a stroke, as well.

There are three ways women can get enough folic acid. They can choose to:

• Take a vitamin supplement containing 400 micrograms of folic acid daily, or
• Eat a fortified breakfast cereal daily which contains 100% of the recommended daily anount of folic acid (400 micrograms).
• In addition, increase consumption of foods fortified with folic acid (e.g., "enriched" cereal, bread, rice, pasta and other grain products) in addition to consuming food folate from a varied diet (e.g., orange juice and green vegetables).
  

FOODS WITH FOLIC ACID

Enriched Breads and Grains

Breads and grains contain added folic acid.
Serving size is 1 piece.
All kinds of breads, rolls, muffins, tortillas, bagels, nan, pizza rust, waffles, pancakes. Serving size is 1/2 cup.
Rice, pasta, bulgur, barley, millet.
Wheat germ (2 tablespoons).

Fortified Cereals

Excellent sources.
Read the nutrition label on the cereal box to learn how much folic acid is provided. Many cereals, both hot and cold, generally provide 25% of the daily recommended amount of folic acid.

Fruits and Vegetables

Serving size is 1/2 cup unless otherwise noted.

• Spinach, cooked
• Asparagus
• Turnip greens, cooked
• Artichoke (1)
• Collard greens, cooked
• Orange juice
• Mustard greens
• Broccoli
• Corn, fresh, frozen or canned
• Orange (1)
• Green peas, fresh, frozen or canned
• Beets
• Brussel sprouts
• Parsnips
• Okra, sliced

Serving size is one cup unless otherwise noted:

• Spinach, raw
• Iceberg lettuce (1/4 head)
• Romaine lettuce
• Raspberries, frozen
• Turnip greens, raw
• Celery
• Pineapple juice, canned
• Swiss chard, cooked
• Sauerkraut
• Cauliflower
• Papaya
• Bean sprouts
• Green pepper
• Blackberries
• Tomato juice
• Cantaloupe, casaba orhoneydew melon
• Winter squash, including acorn,
• Hubbard, butternut;
• Baked Green or wax beans
• Italian green beans
• Plantains
• Strawberries
• Cabbage, raw

Beans and Peas

They may be purchased dry, frozen or canned. Serving size is 1/2 cup unless otherwise noted.

• Cranberry beans
• Lentils
• Pink beans
• Adzuki beans
• Black beans
• Chickpeas (garbanzos)
• Pigeon peas
• Great Northern beans
• Black-eyed peas or cowpeas
• Navy beans/white beans
• Pinto beans
• Split peas
• Kidney beans
• Soybeans
• Lima beans
• Tofu, firm
• Peanuts (1 ounce)
• Peanut butter (2 tablespoons)

Protein Foods

• Whole eggs (cooked), one egg
• Liver

Convenience Foods

The following are good to very good sources of folic acid:

• Instant Breakfast (powdered mix added to milk)
• Bean with bacon soup (canned)
• Chili with beans (canned)
• Refried beans, canned or homemade
• Pork and beans or baked beans (canned)
• Spaghetti sauce (jar or canned)
• Lentil soup (homemade or canned)
• Black bean soup (canned)
• Bean burrito
• Frozen waffle (Nutri Grain or Eggo)

So for wanna-be-mothers like me, start loading with folic acid! Baby dust to all!

It's a New Day! It's a New Hope!

It's been a while I haven't been here... I felt so sad these past few days. It was a failed month again. I thought it was already positive since i was delayed for 2 days. Hubby and I was so excited, only to find early morning of Saturday that i already had my period. I kept on crying for days... hubby kept on hugging me, murmuring everything has a reason, maybe it's not yet our time to become parents... and maybe God is still wrapping the best one for us. Hubby's telling me that maybe God wanted us to go to Iloilo and Boracay. It was hubby's condition that if I am not pregnant we will attend our friend's wedding in Iloilo but if I am pregnant, we will not attend.

I was really in pain... pain in my heart and in my tummy (i was having menstrual cramps for 3 days). Well, right now I am doing fine. Acceptance is the key and it's a new day, a new hope for us! I keep praying hard that if it may not be the right time for me, i hope i can accept whatever is really for me. Hubby and I wanted to enjoy every moment... I don't want to think right now of getting pregnant, I don't want to look at the calendar. I wanted to relax and have my daily routine without any stress and pressure. What we do now is eating healthy foods (it may help our reproductive system healthy), exercise and relax, watch movies and teleseryes, and enjoy each others company. We may not have what others have, but i am happy and blessed with what we have. At the end of the day, I know that we have each other to face tomorrows with hopes.

Bambino

This is an image of infant Jesus in a crib.

I hope i can find this one... though they say that it is better if this is given as a present to couples who wants to conceive. People say that once you have this by your bedside, you will be gifted with a child. Oh! My ultimate wish! It has brought luck to some. I hope this brings good luck to me, too! Baby dust to me and to those who wishes to have!

Gender Predictor – Will Your Baby Be a Boy or a Girl? - Results

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Just wondering... i'm hoping and wishing that finally my dream of becoming mother will come true! Dear Lord... i know that YOU know what my heart desires. Let Your WILL be done.

all about pregnancy issues

Last Sunday, hubby and I just stayed at home... cooking, cleaning the house. This is our bonding moments with hubby. Hubby cooked mongo beans with malunggay leaves, hmmm, one of my favorites! I have read that this is also good for the health especially for those who are trying to conceive. It was a lazy afternoon... i locked myself watching tv on the sofa after my turn of washing the dishes (since hubby was the one who cooked). =) And hubby stayed in front of the desktop computer playing his favorite NBA game. I'm a multi-tasking person and i felt bored just watching tv doing nothing. I grabbed my bead's kit and made some accessories for our store. I finished 2 sets of earrings and bracelet and one pair of earrings.

We had our merienda before going to the church for Sunday mass. And again, i watched tv. To my surprise, all the evening tv shows i watched was all about pregnancies! Is this a sign... oh here i a m again obsessing.

Rated K is one of my favorite shows, hosted by Ms. Korina Sanchez... one of its segments was talking about 9-month inside mother's womb. How the baby develops inside the mother's womb from day 1 after the conception. It's really amazing how the baby grows inside... and it's really a miracle. Wishing, wishing, wishing for that miracle too. After that show, I switched the channel.

Mel and Joey... again about pregnancy. I watched that there is now a dance for pregnant mothers which is called "sayuntis" (sayaw ng mga buntis). It's like belly dancing, but before doing this dance, you have to get clearance from your doctor. And this usually done after the first trimester of the pregnancy. Another issues discussed was about postpartum depression. I never thought that this is really happening... but based of what i have watched with the interviews, it's really happening. New mothers should be taken cared of just as like the newborn babies. Husbands and new fathers should show how they appreciate and love their wife and should be there in every way to support them.

Sundays wouldn't be complete without watching this TV sitcom... FUL HOUSE! Vic Sotto and Pia Guanio's (Ful and Grace) are married couples having hard time conceiving. Of course I can relate what they were going through especially when they are being teased by the people around them. And to my surprise with their episode last night, Grace (Pia Guanio), after the long wait of conceiving is now finally pregnant! I felt I was Grace and hubby was Ful while watching... for sure i would also be feeling what way when our time comes to be pregnant. I tried to hide with hubby, but really tears rolled unto my face.

Right now, I wanted to keep myself busy... and i wanted not to think about getting pregnant. But how can I? When all I want is to become pregnant... and soon be a mother. I'm keeping my faith high... that soon I will also have that miracle inside my tummy.

the 2-week wait

The two week waiting is emotionally stressful for me. I'm on my 1st cycle of Clomid after my long rest period of 6 months from my work ups for 2 years. Today is my 1 day past ovulation. Hay, it's making me crazy... looking for signs and symptoms that I'm already pregnant. I really wish my period won't come, and finally have the big fat positive!

Right now, I'm busying myself with work. Though I am thinking to buy PT kit later. I don't know if this is just psychological maybe because I am just sleepy. The symptoms of early pregnancy and when one's about to have her period are almost similar. Here I am again obsessing...

For those who are trying to conceive just like me, let's just keep on praying for a miracle in our tummy. Baby dust!

Follicular Monitoring

I went back to my OB Gyne yesterday for my follicular monitoring (it's the 11th day of my cycle). Good news, the sizes are good and the dominant follicle is on my right ovary. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that this will be the month and hoping to have the big fat positive!

Follicular monitoring is done through transvaginal ultrasound. Follicles are fluid-filled sacs on the ovaries that enlarge as eggs ripen. Each follicle contains an immature egg. Each egg in the ovaries is enclosed within a resting follicle. Every day, thirty to thirty-five of these resting follicles begin their eighty-five days of development toward eventually trying to ovulate. At any time, a view into your ovary reveals follicles (with their enclosed eggs) in every stage of resting or growing. There are early primordial, or resting, follicles; there are somewhat larger primary follicles; there are larger pre-antral follicles (which are beginning to form a fluid-filled space); and there are antral follicles, which are just becoming visible under ultrasound at a size of approximately one to two millimeters in diameter. In addition, at midcycle, on day fourteen, there is normally a dominant pre-ovulatory follicle. After ovulation, that follicle becomes a corpus luteum, which begins to secrete progesterone.t is often erroneously thought that just one follicle develops every month, during the first two weeks of the cycle, ultimately culminating in a large, twenty-millimeter follicle from which the egg is ovulated at approximately day fourteen (in a typical twenty-eight-day ovulatory menstrual cycle). Development of this single, dominant follicle every month with its increasing production of estrogen, and the entire regulation of the monthly cycle via the pituitary hormones of FSH and LH, only gives a tiny part of the picture; it only shows what is happening to one egg in an ovary that contains, in a fertile young woman, as many as 200,000 eggs. That one egg that was destined to ovulate, developed as the single dominant follicle out of the thirty or so much smaller pre-antral and antral follicles, which had been developing in the ovary for as long as seventy days prior to the beginning of the current twenty-eight day menstrual cycle.