The birth story no. 2

On 9/12/13, I started to dilate - 2.5cm with random contraction. As my gynae was going away on 13/13/12, we had no choice but to schedule to induce the baby on 11/12/13. 

10am - induced with a tablet. Just like the first time, we were whisked off to walk around and have our lunch. We ended up in Ippudo Ramen.  Somehow the ramen tasted better with contractions and anxiety. 

1pm - checked into the hospital. As the midwife was about to administer a bottle of Fleet into my rear-end, I got a call from daddy M from the registration counter telling me that there was no single ward (not even the suite) available because 11/12/13 was an auspicious date!! I was not prepared to share a room with a stranger and not having daddy M to spend the nights with me. No way Jose!  "I don't know, do something about it!" was what I could say before the effects of Fleet took over.  

2pm- Delivery room. Midwives: "What's your pain score upon 10?", SK:"1.5, but I would like to request for epidural. You know, just in case..."

2.30pm- there was a suite available and we immediately snatched it! Think of the $$ later... Apparently there were 42 babies born on 11/12/13 with 18 scheduled c-section! 

3pm- happy-dural'ed and numbness came.

From 3-6pm I just rested, whatsapp my progress to friends and watched a weird show on channel 5 about speed dating!

6pm - fully dilated! But baby's heart beat started to drop and I was given an oxygen mask to breath in/out. Everyone in the room looked stressed- the midwife, the gynae, daddy M but nobody said anything much but "Just breath..."

6.30pm- Pushing started but I couldn't really do it right because of the effects of epidural. I was shivering too (another side effect of epidural). Gynae tried foreceps but baby refused to come out! So she tried vacuum. The room's atmosphere got a liitle more tensed ( I was still on the oxygen machine)...  And at 7.02pm, she finally arrived!! 2.595kg and 47cm. No tears of joy though but sighs of relief that she came safely without the need for emergency c-section...

It took us 2 days to decide on calling her Lauren which means victory of wisdom. Other contenders were Maxine (the greatest) and Rebekah (the captivating one).  So now we have 3 wise men at home including daddy M :)

It was a painless delivery according to Isaiah 66:7 - Before she was in labour she gave birth; before her pain came, she gave birth....

Thank you Jesus!

Major milestone

We were never really bothered that S was still wearing diaper to sleep at night. Someone once told me that when a child is ready, we'll know.

Two nights ago S insisted that she did not want to put on a diaper to sleep. I was not convinced (or prepared), so I proposed to her that if she kept her diaper dry the next morning, we could go diaper-free the next night.

1.40am: "Mommy, I want to pee,". Alright.

5.40am: "I didn't pee in my diaper!". Very determined. 

Last night I kept my diaper-free promise and voila! It's dry in the morning!

A big sister in the making... Not fully yet till she kicks her milk-bottle habit! 

I am glad anyways :) 

Family train

A couple of years back, I had a dream shot of our family- me hugging on to daddy M from behind and S behind me, like a train. Finally the day came that we took this shot, well, somewhat like how I have imagined... Thank you Chris!!

Super gear

It's been awhile since daddy M had to travel for work. So the moment he left for London, I was transformed into a bimbo (again). It's a BIG adjustment, especially logistics arrangement - who to send S to school, my commute to/fro work etc.

He has left a big hole in my daily life.

Today is the second day out of the two week period of me playing single-parent and I need to attend a church event after work. After much contemplation, I decided to drive to work in view of the potential difficulties to get / call cabs because of F1 road closure. 

Roadblock #1:  Where do I park? How do I get to MBFC tower 2 car park where daddy M has a seasoned parking? - CLEARED. I did it by leaving the house at 6.30am to buffer for lost of direction!

Roadblck #2: Isn't it too far for a pregger to walk from MBFC to my office? - CLEARED. I put on my super gear- running shoes with work attire. I wouldn't say the walk was a breeze but definitely much better than if I was in my working shoes! My personal shopper would have violently objected if she saw me but it was 7.15am when I reached Raffles Place and I was pretty certain that I was not going to bump into anyone familiar faces!

Moral of the story: I can do all things through Christ and pay attention when daddy M drives!!

Call it forth

There is power in our spoken word (or name being called). Her name means wisdom. And indeed we are seeing this being manifested every day, bit by bit.

Last night, in her usual nightly bargain-not-to-go-to-sleep talk, she asked why some of her friends don’t attend full-day school everyday?

S: “Why is Gabriella (her best friend in school) on half-day everyday? I want to be on half-day and not full-day…Her mommy picks her up everyday…”

Me: “Because Gabriella’s mommy doesn’t work.” (And I was prepared for her to ask me not to work and  be like Gabriella’s mom)

S:…. (pause) “Sometimes you also don’t work right. Sometimes we go holiday together right?” (with her eyes all lit up).

I was touched. Thanks babe. For understanding that mommy has to work. And I will spend every moment that I can with you when I’m not…

I’ve got the power

I’m not a techno geek. I don’t have the constant need to be equipped with the latest gadget in town. BUT the recent addition of an ipad mini 2 (to replace my hand-me-down gen 1 ipad from daddy M) is life changing! I feel POWERFUL. Technically, I can take pictures, I can check emails, I can blog with this all-in-one handy gadget! More importantly, gone are also the days of s.l.o.w-m.o.t.i.o.n downloading of Cantonese/Chinese/Korean drama from the net – maybe this is THE ONLY life changing experience !

Thanks daddy M!

Now… I can survive the upcoming confinement month better (I hope)!

Sisterhood

I guess daddy M will be surrounded by THREE girls who love him all the days of his life!

We are expecting a girl! I’m expecting similar journey… well sort of. My mom-in-law always tells me, no finger is of the same length. As it is, there have been so many unexpected traits of this pregnancy/ new member of ours. Firstly, the 1st trimester was more trying. She started moving much earlier than S. And she’s also slightly bigger & longer than S... I do wonder if her character would be very different from S??

Guess who is the happiest person to learn that the baby is a girl? None other than S! She’s been prophesying that it’s a sister from day ONE.

I’m comforted that S will have a sister to share her joys and challenges in life… Just like my sis, who has been one of the pillars of my life, always there for me (more so since I became a mom). Note: we fought like cats and dogs when we were growing up!

Sisters don’t need words. They have perfected a language of snarls and smiles and frowns and winks – expressions of shocked surprise and incredulity and disbelief. Sniffs and snorts and gasps and sighs – that can undermine any tale you’re telling.
Pam Brown

Family of four

I’m 15 weeks pregnant! I’ve been trying to sit and get this post written for weeks now, but it was always pushed aside because other things felt more important…I know I may regret it if I don’t write about my pregnancy, as if I owe it to the baby. You know, some years down the road, a little voice may question me: “mommy, why didn’t you write about me but you wrote about jie jie?”. Oh well.

Queezy was my first name during the first 3 months, which explains the lack of posts… Most of the days were spent in bed and feeling grumpy as almost no food could go down well with me. My sense of smell heightened as I resented strong food odors especially garlic (my love)!. The peak was when I found daddy M smelly. It was difficult for him.. poor daddy. We couldn’t even sit together to have a decent conversation, without me covering my nose! It was not body odor but if I had to describe, it would be similar to old furniture in a damp room full of spoiled moth balls. The weirdest thing was, two of my colleagues started to develop the same smell!!! Bizarre.

Thank God all these are OVER! I’m back to being NORMAL! My appetite is back and my bump is showing!

Difference between the 1^st and the 2^nd:-

- I had minor bleeding during the 5th week.

- I teared when I saw the sonogram. I was clueless during the 1st.

-Morning sickness extended to 24 hours vs. only puking at night during the 1st pregnancy.

- I’m more sentimental – cherishing my days of three more – the last Mother’s Day / Father’s day with one kid, the last birthday celebration as a family of three, the last trip to Penang for 2013….

- We are more relaxed and less paranoid (aka more slacked?). We tracked the baby’s growth weekly during the 1^st!!

This is an answered prayer and we just KNOW that all will be well! It shall be a smooth pregnancy with painless delivery. The baby shall be sweet natured, healthy, beautiful, intelligent and we will have a easy post-partum with more than sufficient milk! Amen!

Happy Mothers' Day

 

What S thinks of me as a mom:-

I play with her - do I really? I always think that I don't play with her 'enough'.. so there is such a thing as quality time vs. quantity.

I cook - erm... not as often as my maid?!

I read stories - yes! no dispute!

Seoul eats

2013- a year of open doors. For the first time, work has brought me Seoul and M tagged along for some R&R time. It was a good break, without S!. It’s been 3 years since our last ‘couple’ trip...

The food was SUPERB! BBQ, pancakes, kimchi stew were unforgettable that we continued to reminiscence for Korean food even after 2 weeks after our return. Shopping was over-stated for me, perhaps I’m not used to the Korean fashion.

I think we will go back to Seoul very soon !!

My family

Daddy M found this in S school bag! We're not sure when she drew this but I believe this is her perception of "My family".
The big face is Sonia, two at the top are both daddy M and I. The bottom is her as a baby.



I can write!

S was very proud to show off that she could write her A, B, C!
I was excited when the vertical line for "B" was written , "Wow, that's a big B!" I said.

But, it turned out to be mini-B!


And this is her C (inverted).

When’s my baby coming?

Since the first time S saw Yvonne’s tummy (pregnant) a couple of months ago, she’s been asking me when is her baby coming!

“Issit coming tomorrow?”,

“No dear, not tomorrow, but it will come…”

Recently it’s getting more ‘rampant’.  “Mommy, your tummy is getting bigger like aunty Yvonne” (gasp). She started to share everything with her baby- saving her favourite raisins, biscuits, for her baby! She would look at the pram and say, “I will stand behind the pram to push my baby, she will sleep in the pram!”. Her face lit up every time she talked about the baby…

Last night she brought me to tears when she said her baby’s clothes are very small and I should get bigger ones because the baby will grow very fast…

Her faith is stronger than mine. It’s a timely reminder that we adults, should have faith like children. They say what they want to see. But we often say what we see…

Sunrise @ Penang

My love for sunrise started when I was a teenager. I would stop along the famous Gurney Drive  in the morning to catch a glimpse of the ‘egg yolk’ before heading to my school nearby.
Fast forward 20 years. My love has not subsided.
Daddy M and I went for a morning walk along the newly developed marina-front living Straits Quay in Penang during CNY and GOSH, I was blown away. The sunrise. The view. The yachts. The fresh air. It was like the Mediterraneans, and not my little hometown... It felt a little strange yet nice …
But everything fell back into place when we ordered a a spread of tasty hawker food for breakfast!! I felt at home all over again.

Mommy can cook, daddy and granny can read

 My mom-in-law takes pleasure in reading to her grandchildren. Over the years, she has taught the nieces and nephews how to read, using her collection of the traditional Ladybird’s Peter and James series. S will be her new protégé soon, I think.

Reading is department that I'm lack in. Apart from the usual bedtime stories and monthly visits to the library, I have no grand plans in the pipeline to teach S the how-tos. Perhaps my MIL can take over!

Oh dear Lord, let S will take after daddy M's love for reading and my passion for cooking :)

Rainbow and God's promises

 Spotted: rainbow appearing in our home!

Last Saturday afternoon, S and I were playing at the car porch when we saw a stripe of RAINBOW, from the tiles of the pond to the grass. I was thrilled! How cool is it to have rainbow in your own yard? We started to jump on-and-off the rainbow, touching it, taking pictures, fearing that it might disappear soon. You don’t get to have a rainbow under your feet everyday! By the time we alerted the rest of the household, the rainbow was gone. It was a little miracle for me, a confirmation from God of His promises of good treasure for us...I hope the rainbow stayed in S’s heart, just like it did in mine.

“The Lord will open his good treasure, the heavens, to give the rain to you in its season, and to bless all the work of your hand. You shall lend to many nations, but you shall not borrow. And the Lord will make you the head and not the tail, you shall be above only, and not be beneath, if you heed his commandments of the Lord your God…” (Deuteronomy 28:12-13)

Soul nourishment

Perhaps having quiet time by myself, reading the word of God in the morning is what I miss most since my return to work after a long break. I could sit in the kitchen for more than an hour with a cup of coffee, sandwich and expound on daily devotionals. It also gave me the chance to embrace my neighborhood. It is almost certain that by 8.30am every morning that I would hear footsteps of stilettos walking past the alley. The old lady next door would also start to hum the same tune, plucking flowers from her garden or doing her laundry.

No wonder George Muller the evangelist said that the most important thing that he had to do every morning was to give himself to the reading of the word of God and to meditate on it, so that his heart might be comforted, encouraged, warned, reproved, instructed…

I know that the peace that I felt during these times (although not having to work played a big part) definitely derived from having my soul being nourished. Again, quoting Muller- “How different it is when the soul is refreshed and made happy early in the morning, fromwhat it is when the service, the trials, and the temptations of the day come upon one without such spiritual preparation.”

The Never Land Pirates

I had not planned to dress S up for the school’s pirates party until the teacher reminded me to do so.

“Mommy, please make sure S comes in a pirate costume tomorrow, it will be fun”, I grimaced.

“No need to buy, just improvise”. Right.

I was consumed by slight guilt on the journey home from school, thinking that I should have done something considering my do-nothing-but-watch-TV schedule over the past 2 weeks!

So I redeemed myself.

In 30 minutes, we whipped up a Captain  Hook look with a scarf, red ribbon, plastic cup wrapped with aluminium foil and pipe cleaner (left over from her 1st birthday party!). I was impressed by myself.

But S was not satisfied and kept demanding that she wanted to be “Easy”!?? What??

“I want to be “Easy” the girl”. We finally googled and found the character “Izzy” in Jake and the Never Land.  Gosh, I didn’t even know this cartoon existed. 

 

Alright alright. Let’s cut a pink T-shirt, reuse the red ribbon earlier, find something yellow (play-doh mould) and there we have it!

 

Mommy is fully redeemed.

Family tree

At the beginning of the school term, parents were tasked to work on a home project with the kids – to create a family tree.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We plucked a few leaves from the potted plant to create a ‘real’ feel :) Then we outlined the trunk and started painting!

We printed pictures of grandparents, uncles, aunts, cousins from all three continents and stuck them by the leaves. Voila!

Note the additional family member named “S mei mei” whom S insisted to paste next to our family portrait, by the tree trunk. I was dumbfounded. She called herself “jie jie” in the family portrait.  Speaking of strong faith from children!!!

This is S, showing off her family tree to the class (pic taken by the teacher). I’m not sure whether she did talk about the additional family member though.

Psalm 8:2 From the mouths of children and nursing babies
you have ordained praise on account of your adversaries,
so that you might put an end to the vindictive enemy. (NET)

2013: Key of David

My pastor has envisaged 2013 as the year of key of David – God opens door that no one can shut and when He shuts, no one can open.  I'm full of expecations.

I literally lived up to this message with a "key"hole surgery to remove a cyst. The doc wanted to give me a 30-day hospitalisation leave, but I declined politely, fearing that my brain may just s.l.o.w. down after the relaxing December and with this! Besides, reporting season is just around the corner.

It’s day 1 at home today and I’m feeling a little edgy. S will be starting her full-day session in school tomorrow. What shall I do at home alone with restricted physical accessibility?? Just how much TV can one watch, how many books can one read and how many things can one buy online in 2 weeks?

We shall see.

 

Beautiful

My sis-in-law emailed us a long-overdue picture taken by the talented bro-in-law during our last visit to Melbourne in April 2012. I couldn't stop staring at it. This marks a great post to start 2013!