Evacuating Baby M

On the 26th March, I noticed a decrease in M's foetal movement. For the whole day, he has been lethargic and only had 1 major movement in the night. Even throughout night, he did not move much. Fearing for his safety, we decide to pay the gynae a visit the next day.

On the morn of 27/3, the gynae did a check and noted that the water level was lower than average and advice us to consider inducing since it is just 1 day apart from his actual EDD. We decided to take the advice and started induction. After the procedure, all we could do was to wait for the medication to take effect and begin the actual labour. Thus, K and I went to United Square to kill time.

At 2pm, we decided to head back to the clinic to check on my dilation situation. Back at the clinic, the gynae stretch my cervix to fasten the process. At 4pm, I can feel the cervix softening and had to be admitted to the labour ward.

Epidural was admistered at 6pm and the process this time round was more painful than when I had J. After the epidural took effect, again it was a waiting game. At 8pm, I was 4cm dilated. At 10pm, 8cm dilated but bb's head was still not low enough to start pushing. I took K that M will be born on 28/3 as J has been saying the numbers 3,2,8 for the past few days.


At 11.30pm, the mid-wife started me on pushing the baby out.


By 12.15am on 28/3, I can feel him at the opening of my cervix and my gynae arrived at around the same time. While he was preparing to deliver the baby, I did another push and that sent everyone in the delivery room into panic as they are not ready yet - gynae was still dressing up; the warmer has not been switched on and a nurse chose that moment to drop some equipment. It was a hilarious moment.

After everyone got into position, I gave it one last push and could actually feel Baby M sliding out of me into this world. It was a moment that is beyond description.

Baby M was successfully evacuated at 12.27am on 28/3.

Waiting for Baby M

Baby M is in his full term and is due anytime.

As he is about 4kg, my gynae advice me to induce labour in order for the natural delivery to go smoothly. Any bigger and I may not be able to get him past the birth canal.

However, I am reluctant to do so; not because I don't want to see him but because I really want to experience natural labour either with through contraction, waterbag bursting or a show. Imagine the excitment!

However, this whole week has been more tormenting rather than exciting! You just wait and wait. Everything is magnified. You wonder if every Braxton Hicks could turn into a real contraction. You go to the toilet every so often to check if you have a show. In the middle of the night, you wake up and check your bed to see if the water bag has burst and wet the bed.

Baby M, when are you coming out? Your cot has been set up, your clothes all washed and folded neatly in the cupboard. Mummy's hospital bag is packed. We are all waiting for you!

Blowing out the candles

J turns 2 yrs old on 2 April but we had an early celebration as Baby M is due anytime. I am sure Baby M would love to have a taste of the birthday cake before he arrives into this world.

When preparing for this party, we asked J what cake would he like and he kept saying "Ting Tang" cake. It took us a while to figure out that he is refering to the Doraemon character. Thus a "Ting Tang" cake it would be.

A few weeks before the party, we have started teaching the "Happy Birthday" song to J and he would sway his body and clap his hands in rythm to the song. At the end of the song, he would pretend to blow out the candle. There are even times when he would stack up some wooden blocks to make a make-belief cake and he would sing the song and does the candle-blowing gestures. I guess he is practicing for his big day.

We had the celebration at a chinese restaurant and invited the immediate family. I had to keep it small as I am too advance into my pregnancy to be a good host if we had too many guests.

We tuck into a feast of buffet and ala-carte dishes but J was not in the mood to eat. He seems distracted and grouchy. However, the minute we brought out the cake, his eyes lighted up and pointed excitedly to the cake and exclaimed "Ting Tang cake" over and over. We sang the "Happy Birthday" song and J sang and clapped along to the music. At the end of it, he even managed to blow out the candles!

What a difference a year makes! When we celebrated his 1st birthday, he had no clue what was going on. One year later, he can even dictate the type of cake he wants and was joining in the celebration.

Come next year, we would be able to celebrate J's 3rd birthday and Baby M's 1st birthday together!

I saw your love

K is not one who wears his emotions on his sleeves. As a result, he does not outwardly express his love to J the way I do; with TONNES of hugs, kisses and "I love you"s.

But I saw his love towards J on the night that J was unwell.

As J was was down with blocked nose, he has difficulty falling asleep and would fuss every now and then and be awoken. He is more comfortable being in a sitting/upwards position so that he can breath better. As I am almost full term into my pregnancy, it is impossible for me to be carrying J to sleep in an upward position. That is when K stood in the line for me.

As J is still not quite used to K being his caregiver, he tends to struggle away and cry out for me. But I saw K's patience and persistence which finally paid off when J fell asleep in his arms.

I saw the sweet tenderness of father/son's moment and also understood what Ecclesiastes 4:9-12 meant in the context about partnership in marriage/parenting.

Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their work:
If one falls down, his friend can help him up. But pity the man who falls and has no one to help him up!

Also, if two lie down together, they will keep warm. But how can one keep warm alone?

Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves. A cord of three strands is not quickly broken.

Ecclesiastes 4:9-12

Motherhood is spelt "PAIN"

Though my motherhood journey is merely 2 years old but within these 2 years, I experienced more "pain" than in my whole lifetime. These pains could be in the form of physical pain or metal heartache.

1. During pregnancy, I have to bear with the pelvis girdle pain.
2. When giving birth, having to go through 8 hours of excruciating labour pain. (Total labour is 20 hrs. 8 hrs into labour, I surrender to epidural)
3. During breastfeeding, the womb contract and causes a tightening pain.
4. Post labour, recovering from perineal tear and again that is painful.
5. Breastfeeding - block ducts. (Do I need to say more?)
6. When J was hospitalised due to jaundice, it is as if someone has pierce a knife into my heart. Ouch!
7. When training J to sleep with his grandparents.
8. His 1st day in child care.
9. When I pay for his expenses, my pocket hurts.
10. When he is naughty, I get a headache = pain.

The antidotes to heal the pain?
1. A dose of hugs and kisses from the little one always work.
2. Watching how his eyes lit up when he hits eureka or make a new discovery.
3. A simple whisper of "Mummy".
4. A smile.

Is it worth it? You bet!

J's 2nd day at child care

Once again, we have to wake J up from his sleep. Little sleepy head took a while to pull himself out of bed as he didn't sleep well the night before. I suspect that he is coming down with flu as I can hear him snorting away when he was sleeping.

Again, after the routine, we are on the way to the CC and made it on time for the assembly. Ya, even in CC, assembly is conducted every morning. During assembly, they will start off with a simple dance exercise before singing the national anthem, saying the pledge, saying a simple prayer and then the YMCA school song. In case you are wondering, no; it is not the version by the Village People...haha. During the assembly, as usual, J was stuck to my side. I guess he is intimidated by the mass and the noise level.

After assembly, the kids will go to their respective classroom. J is in the Nursery 1 class as there are no other toddlers his age. Hopefully there will be more toddlers his age joining so that a Toddler class can be formed.

There is a new girl in J's class too and today, her mummy just left her in the class and went away. Periodically, she would be reminded of her mummy and would cry. Seeing her cry makes me cry too. But I guess sometimes you just have to do it the hard way.

Riding onto the courage of that mummy, I handed J over to the teacher's aid and walked away too. Immediately I can hear him wailing away but today, I was more hard-hearted. After loitering at the corridor for a while, I can hear that he has calmed down a little and thus took a peep of him from the window. One of the teacher's aid was reading a book to him and he was listening intently. With that, I left the CC to go to work.

As I was in a meeting during his dismissal time, I had to send my helper, T to pick him up. I gave him a big hug when he reaches home and T reported that he started crying when he sees her. I gave the teacher a call and found out that he did cry intermittenly during his time there but was assured that it is a passing phase.

We also noticed that he seems to have come down with a cold and have to skip classes for the next few days till he recover. Mmmm....is that a blessing in disguise for him?

J's 1st day at child care

My plan was to sent J to playgroup when he is 3 yrs old. But with M arriving soon and a new maid coming on board, I had to bring my plan forwards. At times, I wish I have more help with him eg staying nearer to my mum who is still fit and healthy to take care of him and share the workload with the maid.

After much research, the easiest option (but not the best) is to enrol him to YMCA Child Care that is just 1 block away.

I greeted the day with both anticipation and reluctance.

For the 1st time, J has to be woken up from his sleep so that he can be on time. I don't like it as no 2 years old should be deprive of his sleep.

After his routine of breakfast and bath, he changed into his brand new uniform. I can see that he is excited by the event as he proudly claimed that he wanted to "carry his new bag". Guess he still don't know what is going to happen and thinks that Mummy and Daddy are bringing him out for play.

Upon arriving at the centre, things arent so rosy for J anymore. It is a new environment for him and not to mention a noisy one too. He begun clinging onto me and refuse to join the other children. Despite much encouragement and coaxing, he refuse to leave his comfort zone i.e. Mummy's side and the unhappiness is beginning to show on his face. Seeing his unhappiness makes me hate this decision even more.

It is made worse when a little girl who is in K1 or K2 came to me and said "He is a baby" while pointing at J. How agonizing was her remarks to me. That was the final straw and I felt hot tears rolling down my cheeks. But I can't let J see my distress and quickly wiped them away.

As it was getting too hard to bear, I had to escape the place and left my helper to spend the rest of the day with him only returning to pick him at after his lunch. I hope the 2nd day will be much easier.

God, pls give me strength and courage.