30 November 2014

(I resolve to stop writing titles. I will just write the date I start writing each post.)

Ihsan

Ihsan is now almost 4 months old. I am so very grateful that he has been an easy child to take care of. I only realise just how easy he is when he was cranky this morning, possibly because he had very little sleep yesterday.

He,like Middle Sister (as she would like to be known as now) Farah, is extremely curious about everything. Yesterday, when we were at his paternal grandfather's place, he stayed up during the entire 6 hours or so that we spent there taking in the sights and sounds which are less than familiar to him. I let everyone carry him, only taking him back to feed him, as I'm afraid that in the coming months when he can recognise faces, these faces that he does not see as often would only be howled at should they carry him. So, now, when I can enjoy some freedom and can have my arms to myself, I better enjoy it. The moment we left, at about 9 pm, he fell asleep in the baby carrier only to be rudely jolted awake at about 10.30 pm as I insisted on bathing him before changing him into his pyjamas. 

This morning, he was not his happy cheerful self when he woke up. He normally just whimpers softly for his milk. When he's ready to wake up for the day, he coos and smiles; such a happy camper! But this morning, he cried each time he was put down. It was the first time in his entire life that I had to carry him, pacing back and forth, to calm him down. Not typical at all. But after a long afternoon nap, he was back to his calm, cheerful self. 

Ihsan's Schedule

He normally wakes up 2-3 times a night for his feeds. He normally sleeps by 8-9 pm. He sometimes wakes up at 11pm for a round of milk, but not always. His next feed will be around 1 am followed by another one around 4.30 am. Around 8 am, he wakes up for a brand new day. 

He takes naps throughout the day. A few hours in the morning and a few more hours in the afternoon. 

When he's awake, and if I'm not busy doing housework (of which there is no end), I will spend the time talking to him. Well, errrr, I hope that's enough stimulation for the boy. He doesn't need colorful objects et al hung above him, right? He does see the rotating fan when he lies down on the sofa. Hur hur. 

Me & Birth Control

When I was first admitted to the hospital last July, Dr KT Tan had a long conversation with me and strongly recommended ligation as another pregnancy could very well end my life. But, after that long conversation on Day 1 of my hospital stay, I had too much time to google the side effects of ligation and came across websites upon websites of women who supposedly suffered from Post Tubal Ligation Syndrome. So, in the end, I decided to go for Intra-Uterine Contraception Device (IUCD). As Dr KT Tan didn't visit me anymore after that, there was no one to tell me that IUCD wasn't suitable for me. All the other doctors I spoke to seemed to be okay with IUCD for me. Unfortunately, during the C-section, they found that my womb was paper thin. I suppose that was why after I delivered, Dr Tan came to visit me and chided me for changing my mind about ligation. Prior to this, I had been a model patient, always listening to her. 

In the follow-up appointments, another doctor from the team of doctors who treated me, Dr Sim recommended Implanon. Research shows that among all the birth control methods, this has a very high success rate, higher than ligation and IUCD. 

And so, Thursday came - the day for me to be fitted with the Implanon rod. 

I have a tendency to over-research (that's how I came across Post Tubal Ligation Syndrome) so I did not want to do that again. I kept strictly to the medical websites, steered clear of forums. But I couldn't help googling 'Implanon and breastfeeding'. Official research shows that the volume of breastmilk was not affected and only an insignificant amount of the hormone seeped into the breastmilk. But, some women complained that their supply was affected. 

I became wary. 

So, I prayed and prayed for this Implanon to have no negative effects on me. Please please please. 

Day 1-2 of Implanon insertion - my milk seemed to take a beating. I have always felt very engorged when I wake up in the morning but the first two mornings, I felt rather, well, just slightly full (of milk) when I wake up. I remembered what one of my friends told me, "The breasts can be trained" and fed the little boy non-stop. I knew my milk supply was affected when one side no longer sufficed. Prior to this, each feeding session required only one side. But on Friday and Saturday, I had to feed him from both sides. I didn't press the Panic Button. Yet. (Panic Button = "TheHusband, we need formula milk!"

Day 3 - I woke up to a wet top and damp bed sheet that smelt of milk. Hooray! The milk supply is back. Insya Allah, I will always have enough milk for my baby.

Other than the slight reduction in milk supply for the first 2 days, I have not had any negative side effects and I hope for it to remain that way. Amin!

Back to Implanon. It's a small rod, the size and length of a matchstick that is inserted just below the surface of the skin. The procedure does not take long. The doctor will first clean the site with alcohol, then inject a local anaesthetic to numb the skin. That will be the most painful part of the procedure. 1-2 minutes later, the doctor inserts the Implanon rod. If you wear long sleeves, make sure it is loose and can be pulled all the way up. After that, the nurse will clean the site. She will place a plaster where the rod was inserted. A piece of gauze on top of it. And a bandage that goes round and round your arm. You can remove the bandage after 24 hours. The plaster has to be changed and TheBraveHusband is tasked with this job. TheBraveHusband said that the insertion point looks like a tiny pimple now. 

I do not know if the rod will show. I have not really inspected the site. If it does, there goes my swimwear modelling career. Not. It will be somewhat interesting to have this matchstick-like protrusion on your skin. Oh the tales I can weave with this to scare little people! (I came up with some fantastic tales to frighten innocent little people when I had braces once upon a time. Hee!)

Big Sister & Middle Sister

I am actually now quite wary about writing too much about them. Especially the Big Sister. She is a big girl, after all, now, and I don't want to embarrass her in future. I want to be honest here and write about everything, not just the good stuff. 

(I can always delete the entries, right?)

Until I have discussed this with her extensively, I think she will only make occasional appearances in this blog.

Now, the Middle Sister is all of 5 years old. Feisty like what-lidat (to copy my nephew's favourite simile; I can feel all EL teachers rolling their eyes). You don't want to cross her path and make her mad. First, there is her scream. Very loud. Not a girlish shriek, mind you. She does not have a girlish voice. Then there is her piercing stare. Even a hardy cactus will wilt under that glare. And finally her stomping which attempts to wake the dead. 

When does she employ this? When she perceives that injustice is done (more eye rolling). It's terribly annoying what they see as unfair: "You only want to play Kakak's game; you don't want to play my game!" (We've been playing Snap/Memory Game/Snake and Ladders almost every single day. One day, Kakak wants the family to play Monopoly. After a fun game of Monopoly - which went past their bedtime - she takes out her Snap cards and wants us to play Memory Game.)

"You always let Kakak carry Ihsan. I don't get to carry Ihsan!" (Never mind the fact that after 5 seconds of carrying Ihsan, she will ask somebody to relieve her. Or the fact that she tends to squeeze Ihsan too much. Or the fact that she just carried Ihsan in the morning.)

"You always sit beside Kakak. You don't sit beside me."

And a host of other "You always... You don't..." 

I really dislike that adverb, always. Don't you?

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But she is also the more expressive one between the two. Huda is not one to open up and share her emotions with others. Farah is very expressive. She declares her love for one and all. "Bye bye Nenek! I love you!" She hugs me when she is going to school and when she comes back. She openly declares that she misses me when she's in school. When I tell her I love her, she asks, how about Ayah/Kakak/Atok/Nenek/insert family member. So now I tell her, I love you and Kakak and Ayah and all our family members, near and far. 

The Big Sister is quite different here. She is not as expressive as her sister. Outside her school, she doesn't want to hug me. Huaaaaarrrggghhh!!! The Big Sister is growing up too fast! 

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Sometimes, I ask them, if you can exchange me for any mother, who will you choose? They are pretty undecided about this one. I have yet to hear a name being mentioned. What I am so grateful for is that they are very close to their cousins and all my siblings and in-laws are as neurotic as I am. Since we are all about the same, swopping mothers with their cousins does not seem to bring any benefit to them. (There will still be highly limited screen time. So, no fun.)

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All righty! Must stop now before I accidentally write so much about the Big Sister without consulting her! 

November 2014 Updates...

I have a few hours to myself now. Ihsan can nap for 2-3 hours in the daytime now. Huda has gone off for a Tarbiyah Programme conducted by sister-in-law's company, Little Muslim Readers. Farah is at the childcare centre. I'm supposed to straighten out the big store room but this blog requires some updates. Heh.

In no particular order and with no organisational skills/planning put into this entry, from the top of my head...

1. November 24

I turned 37 yesterday! Alhamdulillah, I'm still alive, in pretty good health, blessed with a good husband, lovely kids, a supportive extended family, very good friends, in decent financial state.. what more can I ask for? Alhamdulillah. Allah has been really kind to me and I am always grateful. (Forgive me, Allah, when I sometimes complain and whine. I  try to cut it out but I am a weak human.)

I complain sometimes about insects which find my home extremely attractive. Like these creatures that decided to wave at me and (according to Haryati) wish me a happy birthday yesterday..

Stuck on the outside of the living room window. Yikes.

Talking about homes - I have stopped looking for a bigger flat. I like the view outside the window too much to give up this place. What we'll do instead is to renovate the entire house sometime next year or year after next. There will be lots and lots of hidden storage space, airconditioning and there should be no need for window dressings. I actually hate curtains and it's such a waste of greenery outside when it's all covered by curtains. We have to engage an ID consultant for this. TheHusband and I only have vague ideas of our dream design and we need a professional to make sure that it happens.

Of course, a key thing that we will have will be some kind of 'invisible netting' to prevent all the insects from coming in. Yes, all those greenery come hand in hand with creepy crawlies but surely there is a way to tell them to stay out of my house!

2. Ihsan

He is now almost 4 months old! 110 days; 3 months 18 days to be precise. (I didn't count. I used an online duration calculator.)

He smiles and laughs a lot. He is quite a guzzler, drinking milk noisily as if he is famished. He wakes up 2-3 times at night which is fine by me. He sleeps in a cot beside my bed but always ends up on the bed with me  because I tend to fall asleep while feeding him.

He used to poo about 6 times a day. Small amounts of poop but boy, are they stinkbombs! Now he poos once or twice a week only. But it's a whole lot of poop which requires many many wet wipes and a complete hose down after all the wiping.

Knowing that this is most likely my last and final child (and perhaps the fact that I am an older mom therefore calmer, less kiasu etc), I am a lot less uptight about many things. I am not checking developing milestones every other day and ensuring he meets them. As long as he is developing well, I am fine. So what if he is not turning yet. Eventually, he will. I remember what a worrywart I was with Huda. I was concerned that she was taking a long time to start walking. But, it doesn't quite matter at which point you start, because you will get there someday. And so by the time Farah came around, I had made some realisations so I was relaxed about her toilet training. No point forcing it on her. When she's ready, she's ready. And so Farah practically toilet-trained herself.

And then, there's this poem I read recently. It was one of those poems which made the rounds on Facebook. About how this particular thing you do for your child could very well be the last time you do it for your child. No, not in that morbid way that you or your child will die. But, the fact that your baby grows up so fast that today, you are bathing him in his plastic bathtub and tomorrow (okay, more like many months from now), he will be standing up without the need for a tub. So I don't grumble (much) and just enjoy the moments.

Anyway, this boy enjoys his bath time very much. He kicks the water, smiles and coos during bath time. Absolutely adorable. And here are random pictures of him.

Must take pictures of him crying. Heh.

Kakak Farah squeezes and squashes him on a regular basis.

Kakak Huda and Ihsan look alike, yes?

Kakak Farah boring him to tears, no, sleepyland with a book about fairies. 

I took all three kids on a long MRT ride all by myself. Felt accomplished.
Hehe..

Actually, I wanted to write about the girls too but I think that has to wait because I absolutely must must must do housework now. So, goodbye for now!

New Throne Room!

HDB has kindly selected our area for the Home Improvement Programme.

Initially, TheHusband and I were not at all keen on getting new toilets as our almost-12yo toilets were still in pretty decent condition. So, we said Yes to a new door and a new gate but declined to change our toilets. A month before our block was due for the renovation works, they did a watertest for all the units which said No to the toilet upgrading. One of our bathrooms failed. So, since we were going to do one, we might as well upgrade the other.

And that's how we end up with this story for today.

My 'ol common bathroom. In perfect working condition and it had that mini floor trap. But this bathroom was sacrificed because "since we are going to put up with dust from the hacking of one toilet, might as well do the other one."

This is a story for all those who are going to go through this. On the day before the works started, I googled for experiences of people who had gone through this but did not find much info. Hopefully, for anyone who's going through this, this info would be helpful.

We were assured that if you do the toilet upgrading, it will take 10 working days (Sundays & public holidays not included). You should be present on Days 1, 9 & 10. On other days, you can just get anybody to housesit. If you are working, it will be good to take Days 11 and 12 off too so that you can give your house a complete scrub down.


This is a step-by-step guide on what to do and how to survive the upgrading process.

PRIOR to the works:

1. Find alternative homes for your pets, children and any sick or elderly persons for about 3 weeks. (You wouldn't want them to come back immediately on Day 11 what with the dust still floating about.)
(Thank you, Mak & Abah, for taking us in for 2 weeks!)

2. Get your new bathroom fittings. You are getting a new bathroom. Don't be so kiam siap, try to save money and reuse your old, mouldy, rusty fittings in a new bathroom. If money is really tight, the grab bars (up to 8 per bathroom, if I'm not mistaken) can be used to hold your shampoo bottles, towels etc. But you can get pretty cheap and nice stuff from Ikea. We got ourselves stuff from the Grundtal range - nice, stainless steel stuff.

3. This is the most important. Get many many big black trash bags (unused, of course) and wrap up all your belongings in them. Every single thing. Your kitchen? Don't even think of cooking in the 10 days. The toilet in your kitchen will be spewing dust on every horizontal and vertical space in your kitchen and beyond. (Beyond = Living room, corridor etc)

Pack your cutlery, your plates, your kettle, your rice cooker, your recipe books etc. Pack pack pack them all in those black trash bags. Pile them up neatly in one corner. Cover your fridge (unless you want a cloud of dust to descend into your fridge each time you open it). Cover your oven, toaster, washing machine, stove, microwave oven. Cover your bed, your TV, your computer table, your dining table. Cover everything.

On Day 9 of the renovation works, I realised that the paint shop near my house sells huge 9 feet x 13 feet plastic sheet for only $1.50. I wish I knew about this. It would make the post-renovation clean-up work so much more manageable.

Choose a room which will be your sanctuary during those 10 harrowing days. Pack up everything and only have the necessities out.

Your home will look like a cross between a war-torn area and an Ebola zone. That sanctuary for you to retreat to is absolutely essential. Otherwise, you will get so depressed by 3pm of Day 1 that you might need to check into the Institute of Mental Health.

4. If there's any 'special order' that you want, go to the office prior to the renovation and tell them what you want. I wish I had asked them to rearrange the placement of the wall tiles. I will regret this decision for the rest of my bathroom's life.

They also said that the bathroom doors are fixed to open on the left side. We wanted the hinges to be on the right side and TheHusband had to speak to the contractors and be very firm about it before they relented. And that's another thing. If you want any 'special orders', make sure the one who does the talking is the one who is more firm. Me? I can't do it. I can only talk to students and parents. Talking to contractors require a special skillset which I do not possess.


OUR STORY: We were both reluctant (read: lazy) to do much before the renovation. We covered some stuff in the kitchen and that was it. We were also under some false illusion that the dust level will be tolerable.

 Day 1 is the most horrifying day. At 8am, the supervisor and his team came, explained to me what would happen and then, very quickly, they put up their own plastic sheets. I was naive enough to think those sheets were enough. They stuck the sheets (which had been used many times in previous homes and therefore already had a thick layer of dust) to the ceiling using rolled up masking tape. The sheets would provide some kind of barrier between the rest of the house and the path that the workers would take to the bathrooms.

They lay out these vinyl sheets on the floor and protect your doors first. See the toilet there? That's my bathroom which had a little leak when they did a watertest but no leaks during regular use.

The plastic sheets around the bed. Covered the wall fans with huge plastic bags.

By 10am, full blown hacking of the old toilets had started. Oh boy. I stepped out of my sanctuary into a cloud of dusty gloom and doom.

Goodbye toilet - the one with the mini floor trap and tiles I like, even if they look dated.

By 12 noon, I was miserable. I thought those plastic sheets which gave the whole house an enhanced gloom factor was going to stay up for the entire 10 days of renovations.

Kitchen - everything was pushed to one side and they put up these plastic sheets which might have helped a teeny weeny bit in reducing the amount of dust on the surfaces.

By 3pm, I thought I was losing my sanity.

Huuuaaaarrrrggghhhh!! My good common bathroom that had no problems...

By 6pm - the scheduled end time - the work was still not done!

7.30pm. Finally, they were done. They said the bathrooms in my house were made of batu - stone - and were particularly difficult to hack. One of the workers said that was the first time they had to stay that lack for the hacking process. Errrrrr... Then what? Make my bathroom out of paper and plastic? But I do sympathise with the workers. I hope they are given overtime pay.

And I was depressed. The house was in a dusty mess. The kitchen had unforgivable dust everywhere. All I wanted to do was stay at my mother's house for the entire duration. But TheHusband was working so I had to be there on weekdays.

Day 2 was a Saturday. TheHusband had the Housesitter duties for that day. There was more drilling and dust but nowhere near as bad as Day 1.

The works for each block were done in stages. For my 4-storey block, my flat, the flat beside mine,  the flat below mine and its immediate neighbour started first. The following day, the next four units started theirs. So, for the first 4 days, hacking was going on all the time and there was a free flow of dust.

The dust was depressing. I decided to clean the kitchen as best as I could on Sunday. TheHusband said that it would be a futile process but I insisted. So I wiped what I could, covered up the stove and various other appliances in the kitchen, washed the plates that were not covered and when they were dry, packed them all in plastic bags. After all the reno works were over, I was so glad I did this. It made the post-reno clean-up a lot easier.

Days 3 - 6 were mostly cement work, waiting for it to dry, more cement work, applying some waterproof material and more cement work.

Our previous toilet had a shower kerb. To send the waste water from one side to the other side, we had a mini floor trap. Water from that mini floor trap was sent to the main sewage pipe via a pipe that was placed beneath the tiles. Now they told us that they could not make the mini floor trap as that is not what they are supposed to do. We can still have our shower kerb but we will have a hole in the shower kerb and water will flow from the wet area through the supposed dry area and then into the main floor trap. NOT what we want but that was the way HDB decreed things to be.

Later on, somewhere around Day 7 when all the cement work was done and tiling work had started, a neighbour said, if we had put our foot down, we could get our mini floor trap. WHAT???

(insert choice expletives)

In the meantime, one pleasant outcome of this was the kampong spirit it caused among the neighbours. We were mostly milling about along the corridor and we often pop into each other's flats to check on the progress of the work. Most of us do not exchange more than a hello but during this period, we become best buddies and chit chatted along the corridor. I could also count on my neighbours to take care of Ihsan while I used the replacement toilets at the void deck.

So it was Day 7, another Saturday, therefore TheHusband's turn to housesit. It was the day of the tiling and we had already regretted not visiting the office earlier so that we could rearrange the placement of the wall tiles. There were three different tiles used for the walls: light cream tiles, yellow-ish tiles and small narrow tiles often used as dividers. We wanted the top half of the walls to be light cream, bottom half yellow and the divider tiles separating the two. But, we did not visit the office. So, we have to contend with HDB's artistic, stylish designs for the rest of our toilets' lives. Hopefully we will outlive the toilets.

Shower kerb - for some reason, the tiler decided that he would put the hole for the shower kerb in the middle of the shower kerb. (insert choice expletives) TheHusband was monumentally upset and as the tiler could not understand a single word he said, he got our neighbour to do the translating. The tiler insisted that that was what he would do and so TheHusband called the supervisor. Supervisor came, spoke to the tiler and tiler had to redo half of the floor tiles.

Also, prepare your own tiles that match the kitchen tilesthat shall be placed at the entrance of the toilet. Otherwise, you will have a sudden explosion of yellow tiles in a sea of grey tiles.

See that sudden appearance of yellow, and not even nice yellow. A dirty yellow. Sob.

Day 9 - Husband had taken the day off so that he could tell the workers exactly where to place the bathroom accessories. This was also a day to find out all that you are upset with and for them to fix whatever you find troubling. So after the entire day was over, TheHusband thoroughly inspected both bathrooms so as to spot all issues that could be rectified the following day.

Day 10 - Handover day. At least 4 different workers came to fix the issues we had. By 5.45pm, all was done and I signed the various documents to signify that everything was over and I would no loner have these workers coming in and out of t he house.

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Post-Renovation Clean Up is a mighty headache. 3 to 4 rounds of sweeping, vacuuming and mopping cleared up the dust in the living room and bedrooms. But my kitchen tiles are an absolute nightmare. The tiles we chose some 12 years ago have very rough surface with so many grooves and tiny crevices. The dust that gets trapped in there simply does not want to come out. I swept the floor, vacuumed at maximum suction power, went down on my knees to wipe every stubborn tile. But the dusty feel is just too strong. I think I have to wash the kitchen. But the cleaning that I did had caused a sprain in my back. (Tip: If you had not exercised for a year, do some stretching and warming up before embarking on the cleaning project. Seriously.) So until my back is okay, the kitchen will remain depressingly dusty.

In the days to come, I have to open up every cabinet and wipe the dust off everything. Dust entered through the tiny sliver of a gap between the doors and settled on the shelves inside. (cry cry cry)
So, please please please get that big plastic sheet from the paint shop and cover everything.

Post-renovation clean up is still ongoing, especially in the kitchen. There is really no shortcut to the cleanup process but if you had put in a lot of effort prior to the works AND if you do not have tiles with rough surfaces, your clean-up process will be that much easier.

The End.

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Final Verdict (after using the toilet for a week or so) - (will be updated periodically)

1. 5 days after the works were completed, we had to get the workers to redo the grouting in the bathrooms. Just 5 days later, the grouting had turned greyish. The grouting was not flush with the tiles so dirt collected in the crevices. It was annoying having to spray all the dirt into the floor trap after every use of the toilet.

2. Never, never have a shower kerb if you are not getting a mini floor trap. Due to the absence of an underground path for water to travel, I could never have a completely dry half in the bathroom. It is a major annoyance.

And TheBoy is Born...

This will be one long entry which will take days or more likely, weeks (more like months) to write.

28 July 2014

Hari Raya.

First day of Hari Raya is usually the mildest for me. We'd go to the mosque to perform our special Hari Raya prayers, go home for a short spell, then to my mom's, to my SIL's and finally to my FIL's. This year, thanks to TheHusband's NS-going nephew who had to report back to camp by 10pm, we ended the visiting much earlier, at around 8pm instead of the usual 10pm.

So, back home we went. After getting all items for work and school ready for the next day,  TheHusband and I turned in at around 11pm. As always, it was a restless sleep for me. In the final stages of pregnancy, all women complain of the same thing: no sleep position is ever comfortable. What I normally do after turning this way and that multiple times is to move to Alternative B: the sofa in the living room. When that fails to bring me my much-needed sleep, Alternative C is the extra bed in the kids' room. So, I migrated to the sofa and sleep came soon enough.

29 July 2014, 3.15am

I woke up feeling some pulsing sensations down below and with every pulse, out came some fluids. I thought it was heavy discharge. I touched my bottoms and it felt wet. Could this be blood, I thought. I switched on the light - I honestly do not know how I did it, considering that so much blood was coming out but I did.

There was blood on the throw which we used on the sofa. And as I stood up to look at the damage, more blood gushed out.

I called out for TheHusband, loud enough for him to hear but not so loud that it would cause an alarm. Thankfully,  he responded the second time. I remember being so calm at this stage. I told him, calmly, "I am now bleeding. KK's number is on the fridge. Can you call the hospital and find out what we are supposed to do? I am going to take a shower and if I have to go to the hospital, I'll call my parents later to tell them we are depositing H & F over there."

All the while, blood was running down my legs.

I grabbed the throw, revealing blood-soaked cushions underneath the throwp. I used the throw to stem the flow of the blood so that I would not be dripping blood on the way to the bathroom.

As I showered, more blood gushed out. TheHusband, following my instructions, took some pads (thank God I had not chucked them out when I found myself pregnant!) and the work pants that I had prepared. After the shower, I got dressed and sat down on some towels and made the call to my parents. The first call to the home number went unanswered and the second call to my sister's phone went unanswered too. I called the home number again and this time, my sister picked it up.

In the meantime, TheHusband started stripping the cushion off its covers and dumped the covers in the washing machine together with loads of VanishO2 (not paid for this product placement ad).

My sister informed my parents and according to her, my parents literally jumped out of bed. My mother has always been a bit worried about my pregnancies because of the difficulties I faced in my previous pregnancies. Receiving calls like this in the wee hours of the morning was something she feared.

My sister called again to say that my father would be fetching the girls. The girls woke up without much of a fuss and when my sister appeared at the door, they followed her. My parents, thinking that we were calling an ambulance (I did not; I was just planning on calling a taxi), then got us out of the house and took us to KK.

29 July 2014, 4.30am

At KK. We had to decide on a ward class. I wanted KT Tan to continue being my doctor so I initially opted for the lowest private class - B1. But even with B1, the admin office said that seeing that the baby was premature, I would expect to pay about $50,000 in hospital bills. No way jose. So, I settled for the cheapest subsidized class, C, and left the rest to Allah.

The doctors soon came and I was categorized in the high risk group. Besides being a confirmed placenta praevia major case, I was also a 'suspicious placenta accreta' patient. Placenta accreta is a condition (in my layman's terms) in which the uterus is stuck to the old C-section wounds. At birth, the placenta is supposed to come out on its own after the baby is born but in this case, the placenta had to be pried out and it might cause some heavy bleeding. I was told that if this is indeed placenta accreta, the way the delivery is approached would be very different. First, the incision will not be a horizontal incision at the bikini line. But it is a vertical incision starting from below the ribs. Prior to the birth, I would have to have a surgery to insert some catheter/balloon-thing from my thighs so as to stop the expected heavy bleeding during the birth. They may have to remove my womb during the surgery if they couldn't stop the bleeding and I may need a stay in ICU after the birth.

I wanted KT Tan to continue treating me and as my good luck (somewhat strange to call it this considering the circumstances) would have it, despite being a subsidised patient, KT Tan was in the team of doctors who treated me. As a high risk patient, not only do I have my preferred doctor, I also had a team of doctors and professors looking into my case.

30 July 2014

The first 2 days were filled with worries and fears. I had an MRI scan and 3 ultrasound scans, the second and third attended by the head of the OB/GYN department himself. I didn't have to worry about quality of care as a C-class patient.

Groups of doctors came to explain my situation to me. I got the idea of how grave a situation I was in. All of them warned me that death was a likely scenario. I had reached the point of leaving everything in the hands of God. If I were to die, it is not something that I could avoid. I wrote a simple will for my husband to execute in the event of my death. In Islam, I can will away up to 1/3 of my estate in whichever way I want but a minimum of 2/3 must be given away according to faraidh law. (If you are interested to know who will inherit your property, check out the faraidh calculator on MUIS' website.)

As my situation was still uncertain and I could be wheeled to the Operation Theatre at any time, I was not allowed any food. Throughout the pregnancy, I was eating 6 meals a day, except during Ramadhan of course when I miraculously could withstand the hunger. On the first day, I was only allowed to eat close to 7pm. Considering that my last meal was at 8pm the previous day, I was completely famished by then. Every doctor or nurse who came in after 4pm was asked the same question, "Can I eat now?" While I understood why I could not be given food, my stomach couldn't take it! Eventually, the combination of hunger plus missing my daughters and the worries I had made me break down in tears when a doctor asked me how I was. "Why are you crying?" she asked. "I'm so hungry," I answered. And I immediately got my dinner.

The next day was the same. I was not allowed any food. It was only around dinner time when they were sure that I was not going to bleed anymore did they allow me food. By that time, I was sure I could fast in Iceland, the land of 23 hours of daytime, if I had to.

All the scans also showed that my condition was 'mild' which in medicine-speak, means that it might be an accreta, it might not be one. But, I was told that I must stay at the hospital until I deliver. The plan was for me to deliver on 22 August, sometime after I hit Week 37. 3 weeks away. Oh. My. God. 3 weeks stuck in the hospital followed by at least 3 days post-maternity. Oh. My. God. This has to be the longest I ever stay in the hospital.

31 July

I was sent to the normal ward! Yippeeee! But I also had some trepidation as it was a C-class ward I was going to. My last experience in the C-class ward 8 years earlier was not pleasant. I was wheeled to Ward 34 and upon arrival, I was not greeted by any staff. Predictable, I thought. But, that was okay. I have already prepared myself for a care-less ward stay. I was just glad that I got a corner bed, Bed 16, not along the corridor and by the window. Behind me was a wall instead of a low partition separating each group of 6 beds. Some minutes later, Nurse Lisa came, introduced herself and asked me to give a urine sample. I did as was told and minded my own business at my bed.

It wasn't long before my impression of the C-class ward changed. During change of shifts, the nurses introduced themselves. The midwives made small talk with me and the nurses treated me like a person instead of just a digit. I actually felt comfortable there.

31 July to 7 August

The next week or so was a blur of excessive boredom. One boring day blended into the next and I learnt quite a few things about some groups of people which is of interest to some of my siblings who work in certain lines. Hur hur hur. I put my friendly self forward and got to know other long-stay patients. I did not want to get too close to those who just gave birth because they get discharged so quickly that it gets depressing  when one person you develop a liking for leaves.

Throughout my stay, I was constantly visited by groups of doctors and medical students seeking interviews. It was reassuring that my case was looked into by so many doctors. Sometime during my stay, I was told that my delivery date (after I begged them) was pushed forward to 15 August. Hooray! One less week!

In the meantime, us antenatal cases were moved to another part of Ward 34 and so I found myself in Bed 9. My fellow neighbours in Bed 7 and 8 were also long-stayers like me and our due date were just days apart. The nurses called us the 35-weekers.

8 August

2am. There was a flurry of activity in Bed 8 and my neighbour was rushed to the Operating Theatre. 6am. She came back looking somewhat weak with a slightly smaller stomach. She delivered!

I had a chat with her on the way to the toilet to take my wudhu' for the morning prayers. She was initially concerned that the date her C-section was planned for was not a particularly good date. I congratulated her cos now her son had chosen a good date to be delivered. 8/8 which is extremely prosperous sounding to Chinese.

I went to the toilet, passed urine and saw blood. It was nowhere near the gush that I experienced more than a week earlier. I wondered if I should inform the nurses about this. Hmm. I shall wait, I thought. I took my wudhu', performed my prayers (while sitting on the bed which was how I performed all my prayers throughout my hospital stay), sent a message to my husband and sisters. I still was wondering if I should tell the nurses.

It all happened quickly. I clicked 'send' on my phone and off my message to my sisters went. Then, I decided to press the call button. A nurse came. I told the nurse. And before I could send another message, the porter was there to send me to the Delivery Suite.

On the way there, I saw Dr K T Tan and Dr Sim standing by the Operating Theatre. A roomful of doctors came by and Dr Shiphali and Dr Ann Wright said I would be delivered that very day, as planned earlier. What time, I asked? Should I ask my husband to come here? By 10 o'clock, the latest. I was told.

I informed TheHusband and he got off his train at Buona Vista and took the train back to Novena. (Will he even reach the hospital on time?)

In between sending messages to so many people, I decided that I had time to read Surah Al Kahfi. I had a feeling that by the time I finish reading the surah, that was when things would really happen. I had to stop reading many times to attend to messages, doctors coming in to get my consent for various things, nurses getting me ready etc.

The nurse attending to me had no help. It was at this point that TheHusband had taken the train instead of a taxi. The OT is calling, I kept hearing people telling the nurse. TheHusband was nowhere around. I haven't finished reading Al-Kahf. Husband still hasn't reached. I finished reading Al-Kahf. The porter came to wheel me away.


8 August. 9am.

The one needle I feared the most is the needle for the anaesthetic to numb the lower part of the body for C-section. I don't know why I fear it so much. Yes, it's long. But, I could only feel a prick before the numbing sensation set in. I don't know how long the pre-surgery preparation was. Possibly half an hour? After the anaesthesia kicked in, I was ready for the surgery.

A short while after it started, then doctors congratulated me. "It's a boy! Congratulations!" But I didn't hear any cries. The anaesthetist who became my BFF during the surgery told me not to worry when I asked him about it. He said the baby doctor would settle it. Some time later, I heard cries and I felt relieved. A nurse came by showing me Ihsan. She brought Ihsan to my face so I could kiss him. Be a good Muslim, I whispered to him. And off he went.

----

With Huda and Farah, the arrival of the child was the climax of the story.

After that, it was just time to stitch up and go.

Unfortunately, with this surgery, it was like a scene from ER. I was given jabs after jabs and I heard doctors asking me to be given this medicine and that. I had three drip plugs on my arms and all three are active with various stuff poured into me. I could only feel jabs on my shoulder but I could not feel the jabs on my thighs.

I was feeling sleepy but my BFF did not allow me to sleep. He told me, you are losing a lot of blood. That was one of the things I was told might happen. They had 4 pints of blood on standby for me throughout my stay.

Later on, I would find out that I did not have placenta accreta and the loss of blood was due to something-I-still-cannot-comprehend. Hysterectomy would be an option but they could not do that as they realised, upon opening me up, my bladder was stuck to the womb.

I was beginning to feel really foggy at that point and I tried to stay alert because I am a kepoh by nature and I must know what was happening at all times.

At some point in time, the surgery ended.

I heard the doctors saying that I was going to the ICU. I asked my BFF and he confirmed that I was indeed going to ICU. Why, I asked? You lost a lot of blood. 1.2 litres of blood, he said. At that point, I didn't realise how much 1.2 litres of blood was. I thought we had many many litres of blood in us and 1.2 litres is not significant amount. I later learnt that a woman of about my height and weight has about 3.3 litres of blood. And in a surgery, a loss of 500ml of blood is considered a huge loss. And then, my mother put it in perspective. 1.2 litres of blood could fill one huge PET bottle. Oh.

8 August. 11.45am.

I was sent to the ICU and I was extremely foggy by then. I wanted to sleep but the nurses kept on slapping my face (gently) to wake me up. I had no control of my bottom half and was shivering uncontrollably. TheHusband came in but I was too drugged up to realise what he was saying. He showed me photos of Ihsan and I could only smile weakly at them. If I smiled at all. A couple of doctors came in and told me that the surgery went well. I tried so hard to focus and understand what they were saying but I was too drowsy to comprehend much. It was only a day later that I managed to piece together enough to understand how the surgery went.

TheHusband went off for his Friday prayers. When he came back later, he brought bad news. Ihsan was in NICU because he had breathing issues. Oh no no nooo.. I had the steroid jabs to strengthen his lungs. His lungs should be mature enough. We were just 2 days short of Week 36. He's not that premature, my mind screamed. But the after effects of the surgery meant that I only had enough energy to nod at TheHusband.

I spent the rest of the day and night sleeping and staring out of the window. The ICU has a pretty view. And in the glass reflection on the building's facade, I looked at cars going from one window pane to another. The view was hypnotic and I didn't even miss my mobile phone which had been my constant companion throughout my stay there.

9 August

I was less drowsy but still in much pain. I could barely sit up but I was glad when one plug drip after another was switched off and pulled out of my arm. In the evening, I was sent to the Post-Operative Area and the next morning, I was sent back to Ward 34.

10 August

Going back to Ward 34 was like going back home. Delivery Suite, ICU and POA were pleasant enough but Ward 34 with all the familiar nurses and patients was like home. It was heartwarming when the nurses and midwives stopped by my bed and said hello.

It was a Sunday and H & F had joined their cousins for Hari Raya visits. So TheHusband was my companion for the entire day.

12 noon. Afternoon visitation hours for NICU came.

Another thing that made me fearful of C-section is the pains of the first step. To go to NICU, I had to get out of bed and walk to the wheelchair. With help from TheHusband and a nurse, I managed to make those few steps to the wheelchair.

10 August, NICU

Ihsan.

There he was, attached to tubes and wires. My heart broke. But, I know that everything will be okay. Eventually. I was not allowed to carry him so I could only look at him and touch him. In some ways, I was grateful that I had experienced something similar with Huda so at least, there were areas that I could prepare myself for.

But still, I was a wreck. I was just so emotional; I felt so pained by all that he was going through.

12 August

About 10am, I received a call from NICU.

Earlier they had removed the breathing tube from Ihsan but in the morning, he had turned blue and his oxygen level was low. They did not understand why that happened so they wanted to do a spinal tap to rule out infections as well as a scan of his heart.

I was beside myself with grief. There I was, sobbing away as I sent messages to TheHusband and sisters.

I could not wait for TheHusband to come in the evening to take me to NICU and so I asked to be sent there at noon. As luck would have it, the scanning team was there and so I had the results immediately. I was given relatively better news. The problem was the foetal duct between the walls of his heart had not closed. In most infants, this duct would close on its own a few hours after birth. But for him, it was taking much longer.Ever an optimist, I was sure that the hole would close soon and therefore, my tears and incessant worries in the past 3 hours or so were completely unnecessary. Thank you, Allah.

18 August

Ihsan was discharged. Alhamdulillah.

Thus began my career as a mother of three.


(Psssst... finally finished writing this on October 23. Hm.)

Week 33

My belly is huge. I feel heavy although my weight has not increased by much.

TheBoy is very active, kicking and making his presence felt all the time. In the past, the girls will just tap gently to inform me that they are in there. But TheBoy is difrent.

At the last check up at Week 32, his estimated size is between 2 - 2.1kg. The placenta hasn't moved up. The sonographer said it's not likely to go up but the gynae will wait for Week 34 before making any pronouncements. If it doesn't go up, a C-section will happen anytime after I hit Week 37, which is anytime after 18 August.

Hari Raya is this weekend, and as always, we are not ready. I've given away our 8-year-old living room curtains. That was in May. And I was supposed to look for some light day curtains but until today, I haven't even started looking. I really like my curtainless window. The view is beautiful. But, lessons in Housekeeping 101 says that there must be some kind of window dressing for the windows. Aiyaaaaaaaaaaahhhhh...

Most of the Raya unreadiness is related to housekeeping issues. Curtains for living room. Bring down and clean and put up curtains in other rooms. Wash and change bedsheets. Organise kids' bookshelves. (Problem: Too many books; Additional problem: More books keep on appearing in the house.) Get plastic sheet for dining table. Clean the toilets. Clean window grills and sills. (Gonna cry now.)

TheHusband has gone back to work. It was a good almost-1.5 years of him not working. And when I became pregnant, it was even better having him around. He did all the cooking and housework (except vacuuming; he claimed his feet could not feel any dust.) I went to work and then became a vegetable upon my return. With him back at work, house chores is once again divided (though not equally, given my present condition) but I do wish he was still a stay-at-home-dad cos he could settle all the housework issues!

I'm feeling excessively sleepy now.

The pregnancy has made sleep difficult and as much as I know that I should sleep, I could not. So, the sleepy bug attacks me at all odd hours. Mostly when I'm in the staff room working away. But, never in class. Strange, right? There's also some kind of queasiness going on now. I always have the urge to vomit but when I do, it's mostly phlegm and saliva.

Gonna catch forty winks now.

Tata!

Huda Discharged & Reaching Week 27

Pregnancy-related news - I am going to hit week 27 on Sunday. Alhamdulillah. So far, everything has been good. The duck waddle has started. So inelegant, my walk. My cravings are terrible. Last night, I wwoke up at 1.30am and stayed up for 3 hours thinking of parmesan-oregano bread - the kind that Subway serves. It's almost ridiculous how the need to consume something just completely overwhelms me! Since no one was going to JB to get the halal version (and in any case, they dont just sell the bread), I contemplated making my own.

Yes, I decided to bake my own bread. I spent a good part of the afternoon kneading the dough, let it rest, kneading again and the effect? Unfortunately, it was a bit too dense. I should have let it risen a while more. It was nice eating it fresh from the oven but I know that tomorrow, it will be as hard as rock. I may feed them to the pigeons.

Now this baking frenzy has been fuelled by the recent purchase of a big fat oven. I will definitely try to bake this bread again or perhaps make dinner rolls. One of my colleagues has been most encouraging in my baking pursuits and I will need to consult her about the aforementioned dinner rolls.

Another craving that I have is 2 roti prata kosong, mandi, bungkus. That, is prata-man-speak for wanting your 2 prata kosong doused in gravy and wrapped in brown paper to be eaten at home. So far, there are two places that are capable of fulfilling this need - one, a prata place near my workplace (hooooray!) and another, at Woodlands Central.

This craving business is all new to me because I had no cravings in my previous pregnancies. But if it helps to put on weight, that's all the better!

And, just to confirm - there is no issue with gestational diabetes. Alhamdulillah! I can eat everything and anything. Strangely, however, my need for chocolates was completely gone after the test.

----

Huda News

She had her 8th year check-up with her neonatologist yesterday. Along with it, she had to be assessed by a psychologist for something that was like an IQ test, to ensure that there were no issues before she was discharged. The assessment showed that all was okay but verbal reasoning was not somewhat lower than average. The psychologist assured us that this was common among Asian, bilingual kids because the test was designed by Americans for kids who speak English from birth.

That made me wonder about bilingualism. How do I make my kids be effective at both languages? It's so difficult. As I had long stated, she used to be a very proficient speaker of Malay until she went to nursery and picked up Singlish from her classmates. TheHusband and my ears were in too much pain and that was when we switched our home language to English. While we avoid code-switching in speech, we occasionally go back to Malay from time to time. And we tend to chide the children all the time for their Singlish use, for eg  - "So pain!"; "I never do this eh."; "Have something over there." and the list can go on til just about forever.

I find that my children's command of Malay is extremely lousy. While some may say that this is a common issue facing kids in Singapore, I do wonder if this is really necessary. Isn't there some kind of magic formula to ensure effective bilingualism? Some suggest that each parent speaks exclusively in one language to the children. But, such a suggestion assumes that parents are robots and are highly disciplined. I am in neither category.

Okay. Now, I promised the kids that I would bake some chocolate chip cookies. Dough is in the fridge. Just have to bake them. So, must go now.

Tell me if you find that magic formula for bilingualism, okay?

Week 23, Day 2

Come Saturday, I'm going to have my next appointment with my gynae during which I'll have to take a gestational diabetes test. Reading up more on it, out of 4 risk factors, I qualify for one which is, I'm above 35yo.

I am scared of this test. I don't want to test positive for it. Especially because, I have lately been having a strong need to consume chocolate daily. Initially, I tell myself I'll stop at one square of a chocolate bar. One square becomes a row of 4 squares and before I know it, the entire bar is all gone!

And then, there's this penchant for sweetened drinks. But I dilute my sweetened drinks. I normally drink one part of 100 Plus with about 3-4 parts of water. So, that should be okay, I hope.

So, from tomorrow (today's a public holiday so it's a bad time to start on diets), I will cut out chocolate and sweetened drinks from my diet. I'll drink yucky plain water and low fat milk all the way til Saturday.

Hopefully, I'll test negative for GD.

About All the Other Stuff

Here's an update about everything else.

1. Blog Condition

Sometimes, I'm ashamed of my blog. It's so bare-bones, compared to everything else on the Internet. But, I'm doing practically nothing about it. My updates are erratic; most are done when major things happen - like a pregnancy. Hur hur.

But I am not going to spruce up the blog. Other than putting more words here. Because I'm lazy like that.

2. Scrabble

I have downloaded a Scrabble app. And my Scrabble kakis (ie, my brothers) and I are playing too many Scrabble games in a day.

3. The Girls.

They fight and fight. Then play together like best friends. Then fight again. TheHusband and I are impervious to their frequent fights. Sometimes, one party will exaggerate and cry for an extended amount of time. Generally, they will still be ignored. Heh. Such excellent parents we are. Examples of their fights:

a. Farah took Huda's rubber band. Then, she sat down on the sofa and started reading a book. Huda wanted the rubber band back but Farah completely ignored her. She focused all her attention on the book she was reading, ignoring the sister. Huda got increasingly agitated by the second and started shouting, screaming and wailing. Farah remained cool, calm and collected. The wailing reached fever pitch and when my ears finally hit the threshold of pain, Huda got the bigger share of the scolding. Huda's response? "Farah always takes my things so that I get scolded for the rest of my life."

b. Huda is a law abiding citizen and gets upset when the sister does things which are socially unacceptable - like speaking at loud volumes. Farah has a naturally loud voice and it is quite a challenge for her to speak softly. She has been scolded numerous times for not using a lower volume. Her loud voice is always a source of pain for Huda and many, many quarrels result from Huda's failed attempts to make Farah speak softly. Huda's way of showing her anger at her sister involves pinching her or mouthing some banned words like "crazy" and "stupid". Farah would retaliate by shouting back at her sister - her speaking voice is already too loud; imagine her shouting voice. It's a miracle the neighbours had not complained to us about the noise we generate.

4. Kids Reading

The girls are avid readers. It's a good thing (sometimes). Whenever we go out, they will insist on bringing a book each. (Actually, they want to bring more but we don't allow them to. The bag will be too heavy.) Farah, at 5 years 3 months, is a fluent reader. Many times, quarrels between both girls break out because the older sister refuses to lend the younger one books she has borrowed from the school library. When they are not quarreling, they can sit down for hours reading one book after another. Often, this results in crying fits. They don't want to sleep because they want to read. Or they wake up too early in the morning and insist on switching on the light to read. Farah has been caught a couple of occasions reading by the bedroom window in the wee hours of the morning. We hope Ihsan will also be as voracious a reader as his sisters.

5. Huda's Progress

When Huda was born, her prematurity and low birth weight were major shocks for me. The more I read up, the more worrying it got. So many things could go wrong. The only solution lies in prayers. And effort. That was part of the driving force that strengthened my resolve to eliminate (now it's simply reduce; elimination is just not possible) screens in the first few years of her life. Another thing I did was to make sure that she had a good diet in her first few years. But she was such a picky eater in those first few years so all those salmon, kurau and cod that I regularly prepared for her ended up in my tummy instead.

Given this background, I am very proud of how far she has gone. Last year, she was a prize winner during the annual prize giving day. It was a prize for Malay Language. (Which actually is somewhat questionable considering her command of English is better than Malay.) But a prize is a prize and it should be commended. And last year also, she was nominated to be a prefect. This was amazing because she has always been very timid. (At the end of her K2 year, worried about her fear of public speaking, we talked about this with her neonatologist whom we still have to see annually. She suggested seeing a psychologist. Fortunately or unfortunately, the earliest psychologist appointment was on the first day of her P1 life. We didn't want her to miss such a momentous occasion so we decided to put the psychologist appointment on hold. Now, I can safely say that she no longer needs such an intervention. As long as Allah wills it, of course.)

 This year, she is tasked to lead the afternoon session pupils in pledge taking every
Wednesday. Imagine that. My premature little girl who used to have major problems with Show and Tell can now confidently stand on stage before all the P1 and P2 pupils.

6. Oven

I have a microwave-convection oven but the convection oven is only partially working. I can't set the temperature I want and I can only choose from three preset settings. That is terribly annoying. Last week, I went to Farha's house and she served the most delicious roasted chicken.  It is so delicious I couldn't stop thinking about it. As a result, I am going to get a proper oven. Now, I really really regret not having a built-in oven when we did our kitchen some 10 years ago.

Actually, we made some rather poor decisions when we renovated our flat before we moved in. That's why we are considering having a major renovation in 2 years or so, after HDB is done with the Home Improvement Programme. This is, provided, we still cannot find our dream home within the next few years. I'm hoping for us to move out because I cannot imagine the headache with renovating a flat we are presently living in. All the packing, having to move to a temporary location, choosing enough items to last us for that 2-month stay at the temporary location, then blah blah blah... you can imagine the headache involved. But, the problem is, that perfect unit is elusive. The one and only unit that spoke to us had been sold to someone else because Malays couldn't buy the unit. Boohooohooo.

Anyway. Coming back to the oven. Farha told me that I could buy a built-in oven and place it on the countertop cos some of these companies like Mayer can provide boxes for built-in units so that they don't look too strange sitting on the countertop. But, it might be a bit too big on the countertop. So, maybe I'll get a medium-size oven instead.

I fantasise about oven-baked chicken and chocolate chip cookies making regular appearances during my next round of unpaid leave.

I just hope that the oven does not become a white elephant.

7. Work

I think, after many, many years, I can safely say that I like my work. There are aspects that I don't enjoy, of course. But I love the core aspect of my work. And for that, I thank Allah for guiding me to this route. (It helps that I can take a few years off and still be assured of a job when I come back.)

---

That is all.

And it's a...

...boy!

I wasn't fussy about the kid being a boy or a girl. I just want a healthy baby. Of course, administratively speaking, it's easier to have kids of the same gender. But, really, ultimately, a healthy child is more important than a child of a particular gender.

The two big sisters soon got round to the idea of a baby brother. They were rooting for a girl at first and together with their father, decided to name the girl Husna.

When the possibility of the baby being a boy became stronger at Week 16, we finally decided on the name Ihsan. Confirmed by the sonographer, Ihsan, it is - the one in the womb now, having a good time growing and growing in time for his appearance on 7 September, insya Allah. Or just a wee bit earlier but not too early, okay, Ihsan boy?

Alhamdulillah. There's a great many things to be thankful for. One of which (one of my greatest fears post-Huda) is that he's growing normally. The sonographer confirmed that there's no problem with the blood flow to the womb. Which was a big problem when I had Huda. He has all his limbs intact, and the body parts and essential organs look like they are in good shape. Every pregnancy is such a miracle and shows how great Allah is. Thank you, Allah.

The morning sickness has left me for good. I can almost eat normally now. I still cannot stand the smell of certain foods (like Nasi Ayam)  and other smells like perfumes and colognes but the fact that I can drink plain water without gagging is a major achievement. I'm still 3 kg short of my pre-pregnancy weight but the stomach has ballooned considerably, especially considering my frame. Unfortunately, I still cannot get seats when I'm in the train. Boohoohoooo. My clothes camouflage my tummy well and had it not been for my Vice-Principal who practically announced it to all my colleagues, most of them would be completely unaware of my pregnancy. (Must state on the record that she has always been nothing but nice and supportive to me and once she got to know that I am pregnant, she has been even more concerned and extremely supportive.)

The one not-so-good thing about this pregnancy is that I have a very low placenta which apparently covers the openings of the cervix. So, the gynae told me to avoid all strenuous activities (which I have not done since the pregnancy - things like laundry has been completely taken over by TheHusband) and not to carry any weight above 10kg (not an issue either since TheHusband has been doing virtually everything and at school, my colleagues in my level will get into a tizzy if they see me carrying my piles of books).

Still, I do get mild stomach pains and each time I feel those pains, I will just sit or lie down and wait for the pain to pass. Thankfully, there has been no bleeding and whenever I go to the toilet, I find myself holding my breath and feeling relieved at the absence of blood. I read up more on placenta praevia and apparently, my risk factor for it is high.

Risk factors for the development of placenta previa include the following:

• baby in an unusual position
• previous surgeries that involve the uterus: C-section, surgery to remove uterine fibroids, dilation & curettage  CHECK. CHECK. CHECK.
• pregnant with twins or other multiples
• prior miscarriage CHECK. CHECK.
• large placenta 
• abnormally shaped uterus 
• have already had one child CHECK. CHECK.
• prior diagnosis of placenta previa CHECK. CHECK.
• older than 35 CHECK.
• Asian CHECK.
• smoker

From: http://www.healthline.com/health/placenta-previa#RiskFactors

And there goes my dream of delivering naturally. I actually thought of scheduling my C-section really late, like in Week 39, day 5. And if I start feeling the contractions before that, I will take my own sweet time getting to the hospital. Then, I shall wait til the contractions are really close, like 2 minutes apart, before I start getting ready. Hopefully, while getting ready, I'll accidentally pop at home (I already thought of a spot at home where I could do it. I would place a sterile string (to tie the umbilical cord), towels etc within reach of that spot.) This desire to give birth naturally arises mostly from a fear of a long recovery time with a third C-section. But, this is not likely going to happen unless the uterus continues expanding and pushes the placenta up in its expansion. 

So, there you have it. The story of my pregnancy now. Week 21 already. Still going strong. Alhamdulillah. 

Are you just fat?

Heh. I've reached a stage which confounds the colleagues.

They notice the widening girth but cannot decide if it's just me becoming fatter or I'm pregnant.

So, my friend saw my silhouette as I was approaching the canteen table and was wondering aloud if that was me.

Heh.

18 Weeks

Alhamdulillah.

18 weeks along now.

2 weeks ago, I saw my gynae and everything looked okay. The vomiting has not made an appearance in the past week or so. And that is great, great news. The aversion to plain water is still there so I'm taking diluted 100 plus. And whatever drinks the drink stall at school brews each day. I'm beginning to be able to tolerate rice more than before. So, I do eat rice on some occasions at school. I'm no longer depending on Stall Number 3's beehoon soto for survival. Just as well, because I think I may be developing a less-than-like for it.

What is the baby's gender?

All will be confirmed in Week 20 when I go for the next check-up. TheHusband and Daughters 1 & 2 are rooting for another girl. TheGrandparents presently have 19 grandchildren - 10 girls and 9 boys.   So, TheGrandparents, Aunts, Uncles, Nieces and Nephews are expecting this to be a boy. This is mostly because if this child turns out to be a boy, he will be The Great Equaliser. Me? I pray for a healthy child. Healthy in all senses of the word - physical, mental & spiritual. And , as always, to be a good Muslim. Which will cover all spheres of his/her life. Amin.

At school, more people are aware but it's not something I broadcast to all. I don't flaunt my growing tummy all that much, either. I try to hide my tummy as best as I can. Perhaps, it's because I don't want my pupils to ask me. But the more I wonder about this, the more I realise that I most probably am waiting for a truly safe period. Past a time when I know that the Baby will be able to survive if he/she happens to be delivered early. That will be around Week 30, I guess. It's just this awareness that there are multiple outcomes to a single event that seems to have a strong grip of you the older you get. And I'm already 36 this year. So, the older I get, the more conscious I become of these other unsavoury possibilities.

Occasionally, I feel movements in the womb but it is not something that happens frequently and with great regularity for now. There are also times when the womb area seems to hurt badly but a 5-minute rest normally puts everything back on track. Dr Google said that it's most likely that the uterus is expanding so much these days. When I contort my body in a certain way or slouch, I feel a sudden, sharp pain in the upper part of my stomach. Probably the growing womb has pushed the intestines in such a way that there are kinks there and so, having a proper posture is absolutely necessary these days.

So, that's the main update for now.

Til 19 April, when the gender will be confirmed. :D

Week 12

Alhamdulillah.

Feeling better.

Vomiting happens a maximum of three times a days, so far. Most of the time, it's only once a day. Hopefully, I'll be having vomit-free days in time to come. Like soon. Really soon.

Took my weight a few days ago and I've lost a total of 7.5kg. Sigh. But I think I'm gaining them back now. (Positive thinking)

But the highlight of the week is, my sister asked me if I wanted to join her at West Coast Hawker Centre. We used to go there a lot. I thought, I'll just go for my family's sake. The poor kids and husband have not eaten out much ever since I got pregnant. Mainly because the smell of food sends me reaching for the vomit bag.

So, we were there yesterday. The moment I got there, I vomited some of my infamous foamy saliva, no thanks to the food smells.

But I steeled myself. I didn't order anything but I had a bit of food from everybody. Except Huda who had chicken rice. I am still averse to rice (unless it's soaking in kicap manis) and the smell of chicken rice puts me off big time. The char kuay bakar (Mas Merah, I think) was divine and so was the satay (from Stall 60-something). Farah had nice horfun. Took some Mee Hoon Goreng Mama from the brother-in-law and Kuay Teow Goreng from Sofiya. I could keep all the fluids I had - air kelapa and pineapple drink.

Pineapple - Now, I have been craving for pineapples since the beginning of my pregnancy. I allowed myself two small bites in the earlier weeks and no more than that because of the bad rep that pineapples have. But, as soon as I'm past Week 14 and there's no more vomiting, I am going to indulge in one full slice of honey pineapple. Til then, I must wait. Wait. Wait.

Week 11

Week 11 Day 2

There are good days and there are bad days. Sometimes, the day is all good, with no vomiting. But suddenly, at the end of the day, everything comes out.

As for nights - there has been a total of three good nights so far when I could get more than 5 hours of continuous sleep. Other than that, sleep has been bad.

I have not weighed myself since last week. I don't want to know what my weight is, especially if there's no increase or, worse, falling. I thought my weight was going up last week but I thought wrong. That was most probably the effect of the IV drip. Which went away when I went home.

Not very positive news.

But, at least, I'm seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. This weekend, I'll hit Week 12. Hopefully, all will be good by then. Amin.

Week 10

Alhamdulillah! I'm in Week 10 Day 1!

Went for my check-up on Saturday and we saw an active baby moving this way and that, refusing to keep still for the doctor to take a sharp, clear picture. That was a big, big relief.

But, I ended up having to stay a night at KK Resort because I was quite badly dehydrated. I normally enjoy my stays at KK but this time, I was restless, restless, restless. Didn't help that the drip made me pee every hour or so.

So, on Sunday morning, the doctor said that I was to be discharged. Hooray! And she asked, do you need any rest?

I thought of the work to be done in school, I thought of the pupils, I thought of how it's easy to get my favourite mee hoon soto (the only thing I can eat) twice a day from the canteen and so I told her, not really.

TheHusband, upon hearing that, said, "Doctor, can you give her one day so she can rest?" (Because TheHusband always faces a big resistance from me whenever he thinks I should be on medical leave.)

Doctor asked, what do you work as?

Teacher, I said.

Wah. You very different ah. Most teachers ask for a lot of MC. I'll give you two weeks. Said the Doctor.

2 weeks, I thought. Where am I going to get my supply of non-oily mee hoon soto?

And here is Day 1 of my forced 2-week break. It's only 12.07pm and I have already reorganised the fridge. By the end of the 2 weeks, I want to clean my house thoroughly. I need to get moving somehow, right?

---

What did they use to measure level of dehydration? Ketone level in urine. This pregnancy, I've lost a grand total of 6kg within the first 9 weeks. Now, alhamdulillah, my weight is climbing up again. I've gained back the 0.5kg that was lost. So, what's this ketone level? Ketones can appear in urine as a result of diabetes. But, there is also another reason for ketones to appear in urine. For lucky people like me who love to vomit and can barely eat or drink, the body uses my preexisting fats (but why didn't they take the fats from my thighs?) and break them down to supply nutrients to the baby. This breakdown of fats in large amounts cause ketones as a waste product which is excreted through my urine.

So that's the end of my story for today. I know that when I come back in 2 weeks, I have to confess to people that I'm pregnant. But, that should be the safe period already, being in week 12.

All righty. End of story. Til next time. Or tomorrow. Or later. Cos staying at home while pregnant is really boring.

Week 8

Today, I reach Week 8.

I pray that I will be able to carry this child to full term. Amin.

I pray that this child, regardless of gender,  will be a healthy child. Amin.

I pray that I will be healthy throughout this pregnancy. Amin.

Ya Allah, you know my deepest desires. Grant me my deepest desires if they are good for me. Amin.

Three, Maybe?

11 January 2014

When the school term began this year, my fatigue level was so high. Not unexpected.

The second week came and I was still exhausted. I slept by 9pm most nights. But that was also my schedule when I started my working career years ago. 

By the end of the week, the other signs were stronger. The missed period. The nausea. The perpetual gastric pains. The nausea. The nausea.

A test kit showed what I suspected. A #3 was possibly on the way. Possibly - because I have a history of miscarriage and I didn't want to get too excited. When the nausea got worse, I informed a few more people of the pregnancy. My parents and sisters. And a brother who was in the Holy Land, asking him to say a few extra prayers for me.

I am not exactly sure how many weeks along I am now. It could be 5 weeks or 6 weeks or 7 weeks. As my last period happened during a lull period during the school holidays, I had no big event to reference the first date of my last period. 

Let's take a middle-of-the-road estimate - Week 6. 8 more weeks to feeling all good. Hopefully. 

Will be seeing my gynae next Saturday. All this while, I have been very independent, not really needing my husband to accompany me when I go for appointments. But, after making the appointment, I started crying. I thought about the last time I visited the gynae and seeing the outline of a baby with no heartbeat. So, TheHusband has got to accompany me this time round. 

Seriously, there is nothing fun about first trimester. There is the uncertainty of the viability of the pregnancy. The nausea and vomiting are misery-inducing. Smells - all smells are off-putting. Screens nauseate me. Plain water sends me straight to the toilet vomiting my guts out. Consequently, dehydration. What I need now is a doctor who can give me an IV drip once every few days to keep the dehydration at bay. And something to stop the acidity in my stomach. Urgh. Why isn't there a magic pill we can eat that will regulate our first trimester bodies?