Since you all know, I love to cook. During our late NY Celebration, I did a feast for Pau**lo and I. I selected the best recipes and I will share it with you in the next few weeks. As for today, I will share the pork ribs recipe. It is a really simple, easy and extremely YUMMY recipe.
Ingredients:
3 lbs of Pork Ribs;
1 cup of soy sauce (I used light, due to low sodium)
3 TBS of Brown Sugar (known in Brazil as Açucar Mascavo)
3 TBS of chopped almonds
1 pinch of salt.
1 lb of small potato
1 TBS of Olive oil
For the sauce: whisk together the soy sauce, the brown sugar, almonds and salt. Marinate the ribs for 2 to 3 hours.
Put the ribs on a baking sheet, throw the small potatoes at the marinate with the olive oil. Put the small potatoes in the pan with the ribs and back in a medium oven for approximately one hour (given or taken).
Yesterday, we came back home. We took our time, with no time restrictions or appointments late in the day. So, on our way home we stopped at the Aparecida's Shrine to the 10:30 am Service, we ate lunch in a really nice restaurant (no pics, because I forgot my camera in the car). When we entered the city, it was pouring cats and dogs around here. It took us 2 hours to get home, after we entered the city. It should take us no more than 30 minutes. When we got home, there were 4 huge trees on the ground on our street. Thankfully, there was no incident with people, or houses. Just one car was hit. It was a minor incident, if we consider the size of those trees.
Today, we will celebrate the New Year. I will cook the same dinner that I would have cooked on Dec 31st, if I didn't have to rush to the hospital.
I will be back during the week with pictures and recipes.
I went back to work on Tuesday. I had a really nice chat with my boss and we both agreed that the best option was for me to work from home. Since I am not emotionally stable to be "shot" with lots of questions about what happened. And on top of that, I am feeling extremely tired. We agreed work from home would be the best option for this week. But, Pau**lo was supposed to travel to join his team for the last phase of the new car development. In a "joint venture" of my husband, my mom and my doctor, they decided I should come with Pau**lo and work from his hotel room. I was a little reluctant in the beginning, but in the end I agreed. So, I spent the last few days working on a hotel room, in my own pace. It has been nice and I am really enjoying Pau**lo's company for breakfast and dinner every day. Since these occasions have been only possible on weekends. We will be heading back home tomorrow morning. I am feeling better, not completely fine, but better. The tears are becoming more far apart, the "Whys?" are slowing down on my mind. And last, but not least: I am restoring my faith in God and I have been able to pray again.
My Dad just called me to say that my Mom is out of the recovery and she is on her hospital room. Her doctor said the surgery was a success. He will be back to check up on her by the end of the afternoon.
I have a prayer request. Tomorrow my mom will do her surgery to remove the cancer tissue on her left breast. She is very positive and really optimistic with her doctor's prognosis.
Could you please, say a little prayer for her to keep her spirits up as well as to her doctor be guided by God during her surgery?
As soon as I have news that she is out of the OR, I will update this post.
As I wrote on Wednesday afternoon, the doctors couldn’t find the babies heartbeat on the ultrasound. My doctor was notified immediately, and as soon as she finished her appointments at the office, she went to the hospital to see me.
She explained all the procedures that have to be done for me. About 8:00pm, they started to give me the specific medication to induce labor, since my body wasn’t giving any signs of a “natural labor”.
By 11:00 am, on Thursday the ordeal was almost over. During the afternoon, I was submitted to a D&C.
Around 8:00pm (24 hours later), I was already up, eating, showering and so ready to go home the next morning.
On Friday morning, I was finally released from the hospital. I still have a few restrictions, like take it easy at work; avoid driving, stress and no exercise for the next 3 weeks.
My medical leave is until today, so tomorrow I will have to go back to work. Am I ready? Of course not. Am I ready to stay home alone, since Pau**lo has to go back to his normal schedule? Of course not.
But, as BG wisely wrote to me “Every word that you pray needs to be in the positive...thank God for the opportunity to know what it is like, and for Him to bless your future children. See yourself with children and it will happen!”
Let's leave my personal history aside and let's talk H*aiti's tragedy. Bra**zil has a really close connection with H*aiti, due to the fact that the Brazi**lian army is the head of the NU Especial Forces over there. The Brazi**lian Army is doing charity and safety work over there. And there was Mrs. Arns. She was a pediatrician who was a co-founder of the Pastoral da Criança. I think I can translate it as Children's Ministry or something like that. Her ministry helps really poor comunities with children's mortality as well as under nourished (under fed) children. Her work has affected more than 2.000.000 children. Her work was done in several coutries like: Angola, Moçambique, Guiné-Bissau; Timor Leste, Filipinas, Paraguai, Peru, Bolívia, Venezuela, Argentina, Chile, Colômbia, Uruguai, Equador e México. She was nominated for a Nobel Prize in 2006.
She was in Haiti promoting her work with the Catholic Church to help this devasted country.
May she rest in peace and we all can keep her wonderful work.
Yes, you read it right. Today is my 14th day at the hospital. Needless to say, my patient is on the limit. The baby is still active and my body is going strong as ever (according to the nurses and doctors this is the best news). So, we are still waiting.
Life is going back to normal to everyone around me, but me. Pau**lo is back at work, my friends and faithful companions too. So, I've been spending the days by myself. I only get company of my doctor ( a few minutes a day) and the nice nurses that take care of me.
I am trying really hard to keep my spirits up. Some days is harder than others. But I am hanging in here.
After a really nice talk with my doctor yesterday, she advised me to try to go back to work from the hospital. Yes, you read it right. Then, I had a heart warming conversation with my boss. She was finally convinced that she should send me something to do.
So, today, I will start to do something light (work wise) and I will keep playing F@rmville at FB - as my new addiction ; )
It is been 10 days since this ordeal started and I am still at the hospital. The baby is still alive, even though there is no amniotic liquid left. I have no contractions, only a little bleeding to indicate that I have a (a slow) miscarriage process going on. Under Brazilian law, the doctors can't do anything to induce labor, unless my life is at stake or we get a court order. So, we still have to keep waiting.
On Thursday, I did another ultrasound. I went on a wheel chair to the ultrasound room. I passed by all those decorated doors with birth signs like: "A prince sleeps here", "Princess Beatriz has arrived" and I went through the nursery windows with all those newborn babies. It is sad, it is devastating, especially because for now my situation does not have a happy ending, but I am still at hospital. This is not fair, I keep asking myself: why this is happening? why this is happening to me? I know this was a fatality and this wasn't my fault. But it is hard to not ask those questions, especially because I am still at the hospital.
I want to thank you again for all the love and support.
**Update: Since I've been on line for several hours, while I am on the hospital, I found this awesome giveaway here and enter to win your very own blog design!
First of all, Pau**lo and I want to thank you for all your prayers, prayers request, love and support. We are still here at the hospital. My situation hasn't change much since my last post. Since last night, it looks like my body is starting a miscarriage process, but there is nothing really strong going on yet. For Pa**ulo, things are going a little easier, since he went back to work on Monday. He has been calling almost every hour and he has been leaving the office, around 5:00 pm (he normally leaves the office at 8:00 pm). I've been trying to take my mind of things, I am browsing the internet, I have been reading the Bible, I've been reading self help books, I've been praying hard. I've been rethinking my life and the way I live (workaholic style), I am looking for a new gym, I am even starting to plan a week away for Pau**lo and I. Some people might think some of those things are vain, but I want to keep my spirits up, so I won't get depressed.
On Dec 31st, around noon, I started to lose a lot of fluids. I called my doctor’s cell phone and she asked me to go to the hospital to make a checkup.
So, we went. They did a lot of tests and what they discovered where not good. My water had broken at 16 weeks.
I was admitted to the hospital immediately and I was put on bed rest for unlimited period of time. They started to give me a lot of fluids, antibiotics and anti contraction medication.
This morning I did another ultrasound and they discovered that all the efforts to recover my amniotic fluids were not enough and all my amniotic fluids were gone.
The baby is still alive, but he/she won’t survive on this environment. There is nothing the doctors can do, other than keep me at the hospital and give me a lot of antibiotics, so I won’t get any infection. Now I have to pray that God and Mother Nature act fast and I effectively have a miscarriage, so the baby and I won’t suffer more than we already are.
We are DEVASTATED. I can’t stop crying. Pau**lo is much more rational.
It has been a rough begin of 2010. I know God does not give the burden heavier than we can carry. But this one is the heaviest for me and Pa*ulo.
Hello, I’m Fabiola. I'm a wife to a great guy and mom to Heloisa. I am also a working mom. Grab a cup of coffee and enjoy our lives in the crazy city called São Paulo.
