Dying Art

It's been quite some time since I last saw this kind of traditional chinese opera. This was part of some chinese deity birthday celebration.

Although it's quite sad that this form of art is dying out but really...i don't think the young people or for that matter my generation knows how to appreciate such art form.

But it's still nice to just stand and watch and look at their costume etc

Subaru Challenge

Happened to be at Ngee Ann City on Saturday and realised it's the first day of the Subaru WRX Challenge. Look at the number of people there.

Coincidentally, we decided to go to the Subaru Showroom to take a look at the new Legacy. When we reached there, the physical car is not there but saw a lot of the sales people just lounging around. We approached the counter and asked if we can see the car. The lady replied in a nonchalant manner saying they are shorthanded (but the sales people are doing nothing) and if we want, just hang around till someone is free to take us to the car as the car is located upstairs and needs access card to go in and went back to her computer.

Don't you find that a very rude behavior for someone at the customer service counter? Even if those sales people do not have any access to the room upstairs where the car is located, the counter lady should at least ask someone to accompany us till access is being granted. The sales person could give us a brochure or something. She just brushed us off like this.

Don't think I will even consider a subaru now.

Virgin Attempt

At making yam dessert with gingko nuts. Not that difficult a dessert to make just that you need to constantly stirring it. Success. Thinking of the next dessert to make.

It's almost 3 months!!!

It's been almost 3 months since I last blogged. Baby Elisha has grown up fast and is now able to sit for a while before sliding down the chair...hahahaha. I am training her to push her neck up when putting her on her tummy.

She's been pretty naughty recently, refusing to sleep at night and keeps screaming till about 2- 3am. She was sleeping well before (like 11pm through 7am) and suddenly a mth back, she started crying and refused to sleep.

Hopefully, it's just a temporary stage and she will go back to normal sleeping pattern soon. My elder sis is going on a bangkok trip end of Nov and my younger sis is going on her bangkok trip during christmas period. But I can't go for any trip now as Elisha is still so young. Actually it's our parents who will nag if we want to bring him overseas.

Tune in for more updates...when I have to time to write, that is.

Finally

Finally, I have some time to write something.

It's been a whirlwind 2 weeks for me since the birth of my little princess.

Let's see...where shall I start....

I will start from the day I admitted myself into the hospital. With my previous history, my gynae advised me to do an induction from week 39. So I decided to choose the date 07/07 because it's easy to remember and even if the date format is MMDD or DDMM, its still the same...hahaha. But the flipside is, we can't have the surprise element of having waterbag burst and hurrying to the hospital.

I went into the hospital on 6th night around 10.30pm. Upon checking in, the nurse came and did the admission for me asking me a series of questions etc. Finally, the nurse inserted some pill in me to soften the cervix. Before inserting, the nurse already mentioned that my cervix had soften so the whole process will be pretty fast.

I couldn't sleep the whole night...maybe because I was too excited, wondering what will it be like the next day...anxious about being a mom finally or is it because the bed is really not comfortable for me. I was like walking around the room the whole night and thus making hubby unable to sleep as well.

I asked for a single room when checking in but was told the single room was fully occupied so they had me in a converted single room which is in fact a 2-bedded room but I will be the only occupant. Which is good because the room is bigger, there are 2 LCD TVs each for us and my hubby got to sleep on an actual bed instead of a sofa bed.

Around 4am, I started to feel some tightness in my tummy...I was wondering and wondering if I should call the nurse in. But since it will be another few hours before I will be pushed to the delivery suite, I decided to just "sleep" and wait.

Around 5.30am, I decided to go and take a shower and washed my hair. God knows when is the next time I can do that..hahaha

Then around 6am, the nurse came in and gave me something to make me poo.She asked me to wait 5 - 10mins before I go toilet but within 3 minutes, I couldn't hold it any longer and ran to the toilet. That was fast...remind me to get it if I had constipation next time. Heehee

Around 6.30am, the nurse came and asked me to get ready and we took a lift down to the delivery suite.

So while waiting for the anaesthetist to come, we just sat and watched the news on TV while they put the monitoring devices on me.

The anaesthetist came around 7.30am and administered the epidural for me. They started me on such small dosage that

I feel no difference. Still felt the pinch my hubby gave me..hahaha

So after that, I had to lie on the bed and we watched the news again for the next one hour before my gynae came.

The gynae came around 8.30am to poke my waterbag and found that there is meconium. This is not too good cos' if baby

swallows the poo, it might affect his lungs. So the gynae said, it was good that we decided to induce instead of waiting till

full term. What was worrying is that if the induction didn't work, the baby might go into distress and with the meconium, it does not bore well. By that time, I was 3 cm dilated.

The gynae said he will come back 4 hours later to check on me as statistically it took about an hour to dilate 1 cm. ABout 15mins later, the nurse told my hubby that his breakfast is waiting for him upstairs and so hubby went up to take his breakfast. Shortly after he left, I started to feel pain. I paged the nurse and asked her to increase the dosage. The nurse told me it will take 15-20mins for the next dosage to take effect...so i waited....after 15mins, the pain intensifies instead of subsiding. I paged the nurse again and this time the midwife came in and told me...this time round, it will take 20-30mins for the epidural to take effect.

Ok...this is not too good...I paid for something which is not relieving my pain at all. Thank God, I still managed to endure the pain with breathing exercises. The midwife then checked and found that I was 7-8cm dilated. That's fast for a supposedly 4 hour wait. She started unpacking the stuff needed for the delivery and I was thinking oh no...will Philip missed the birth of her daughter while happily munching on his breakfast upstairs...

Thank God, he came in around 9.20am and was surprised to see the midwife unpacking all the stuff. I told him I am feeling a lot of pain. So he was there holding my hand, helping me with the breathing exercises by letting me know when is the next contraction coming. The midwife did another check and I was 9cm dilated. She quickly phoned my gynae and told him I will deliver soon and then called the PD.

She asked me to push every time I felt pain and so I did. Strangely, when I pushed, I don't feel that much pain. In any case, when the gynae arrived, he could see the head of the baby and asked me to stop pushing. He quickly put on his gown and prepared everything and then together with the PD, both of them are cheering me on to push. Within 2 - 3 pushes, I delivered my baby girl at 10.07am.

It was a short labour to the surprise of everyone, including my gynae and the anaesthetist. He kept saying his epidural couldn't catch up with my contractions.

It was such a strange experience, seeing the baby that is inside you for the past 10 months in person. They cleaned up

the baby and we started to take some photos. Then the baby is whisked off for further checks as they fear she might have

swallow the meconium.

I was told to lie on the bed till they released me. So it was more news on the TV for me again. I think I was there till around 1.30pm before they pushed me back to my ward.

Soon after they pushed the baby back to me and seeing her for the first time, it was just so amazing. Well...the eveing and next day were spent entertaining friends, colleagues and family members. Thanks to all my friends and colleagues who brought so much blessings in gifts and congratulatory messages to us and our baby.

Then it was feeding time for the baby...hmmm...i paged for a lactation consultant to teach me how to breastfeed the baby. Thereafter, the first 2 times were pretty successful, after the 3rd time, it started to get real painful. Still I had to let her latch on. It was such a painful experience.

Back home, my MIL and Mum kept commenting is it because I have not enough to feed the baby, that's why she was crying all the time etc. The comments just kept repeating themselves many times a day that I was really feeling the stress and almost wanted to give up. Thank God that hubby was very supportive and stood by me all the time.

It's been 2 weeks since our princess was borned. My mlik supply has increased and I was glad I persisted. However, breastfed baby tends to get hungry easily as breastmilk is easily digestible so I had to feed a lot of times a day. In the first week after she came back, she developed jaundice and we had to send her back to the hospital for "spa" treatment aka phototherapy for 2 days. During those 2 days, they fed her formula and my expressed milk when I brought to the hospital the next day.

I gave her formula milk about twice a night so that she can sleep longer and I can sleep longer too...heee. During the times when she was awake drinking formula milk, I would be expressing my milk for her the next day. In this way, I can also track how much she is drinking.

So that's about sums up what has been going on for the past month or so. Tune in again....when I have the time to blog

Been a long time....

Been quite a while since I last posted. I can't even remember what happened in the past one month...hahaha....hmmm...is it a case of amnesia due to pregnancy...hahaha

Did a scan on my 32 weeks plus and baby is 2kg...good weight i suppose. My gynae recommended that I go for induction from week 38 onwards as he is worried that with my prev history of high blood pressure, it might not be good for the baby.

So now I have about one month before the big day. Did some shopping and I think I have like gotten most of the things required.

Sleep has been a big problem these days....it's so difficult trying to turn when I sleep. I know i'm supposed to sleep on my left side but sometimes I just need to turn and stretch a bit. I am still doing my prenatal yoga class and hopefully that will prepare me for the natural birth.

Gynae said if the induction was unsuccessful or if my pelvic is not suitable to deliver the baby then I need to do a c-section. I was praying that I could do a natural birth then I won't need to suffer that much pain and I can do my post-natal massage as well.

So now...the waiting game begins and counting down to the big day where we will see our little angel...heee

Interesting 3 days

I attended a 3 days course which ended yesterday and it was really interesting (not exactly talking about the course but the people I met through the course) and the food is fantastic too. Heee

I met someone who is currently working in the same company as I did years ago. And I also met someone who is from Interpol. I don't think I have ever met anyone from Interpol before. He is a Singaporean but based in Interpol HQ in France. Being the curious me, I started asking him about Interpol and his life in France. It sounds interesting. Maybe I should go and look for a job in Interpol...hahaha.

You know the movie - The International where Clive Owen starred as an Interpol agent. It was shot at the Interpol office in France.

There are also several interesting characters in the class and we discussed about politics, education and everything under the sun.

Family Gathering

Decided to do a BBQ cum Min buffet at my place on Saturday and asked my family as well as hubby's family for the big gathering.

I don't recall I ever had a gathering like this except during my wedding. Hubby and I started the day with a nice lunch at the East Coast Park Lagoon Hawker Center. Wanted to try the pig's trotter after watching the show on TV. Well....hubby already tried it before and he finds that it's nice but I find that it's ok only.

Then we proceed to Tanjong Katong where we bought satays, ketupat, charcoal, wire mesh and firestarter for the BBQ. Yes, we are only BBQ-ing the satays...hahaha. I decided not to go full fledge BBQ cos' it will definitely take a long time trying to BBQ for so many people and the kids and old folks will definitely be hungry already. So I ordered a mini-buffet from a caterer.

We booked a few facilities including the tennis court and billard room. All of them came around 3.30pm. So my in-laws went to to play billard while my nephew, sis-in-law n bro-in-law went to play tennis. And what are the kids doing? Of course they will be at the pool...kids just love the pool.

It started to drizzle around 5pm and everyone had to go back up to my place instead. Half an hour later, the buffet person called and I directed the person to the BBQ pit next to the pool. It started to drizzle again around 6pm...thank God it stopped 10mins later. The food is ok to me but the rest think it's pretty good. I think I am having a weird tastebud.

The kids are having a ball of a time at the playground next to the BBQ pit. It's amazing how fast kids can make friends with each other. After the BBQ, all of us proceed back to my place to chat.
Not long after, everyone started to leave as the kids are tired.

After they left, it's work for us. We vaccuumed the place and mop the floor. Washed the toilets etc. It was not as bad as I thought it would be...logisitics-wise. I hope everyone had a good time.
And we are left with a lot of left-overs...hahaha