My first attempt at driving to work alone!!

I DID IT!! Finally, today, I attempted my first drive to work alone!! Has been putting it off for the longest time, always thinking of reasons to tell hubby why I should not drive. Just not confident in handling a manual car, even after many practices with hubby, and I just prefer to the passenger. But today I decided to face up to it. Got to face it anyway, better to drive than to let taxi driver earn my 10 bucks cab fare. The whole drive was smooth, and I realized that I am quite used to changing gear already, just need to adjust to the different road conditions. The only hiccup was that I mounted kerb while turning out the carpark. There goes the alignment of the back wheels! Oops! :)

Documentation of my hypnobirthing experience

Yippee! I am damn proud to say that we DID it! I delivered a healthy adorable baby boy 100% natural without any pain relief, gas nor any assistance! Arayfas arrived on 19 Jun at 1030 in the morning and he is 3.23kg and is 51cm long. I had a 3cm natural tear. The birth experience was absolutely positive and memorable. I remember finishing the hypnobirthing book and my hypnobirthing class materials just 2 weeks before and I was wondering if I will be able to perfect my breathing techniques and if I will remember all the different birthing positions. I was also wondering if my birth companion aka my Hubby will know what to do. It was like suddenly there were so many things to do. Luckily, everything turned out well and fine.

18 jun 4am birth show

6am SMS my boss to take off and pack my hospital bag. It was as though I could sense something brewing, and yes, my bag is not packed yet!

9am called my Gynae to change my apt to morning instead. By then was feeling cramps but did not realize they are surges

10am Gynae confirmed that I am 2cm dilated. To admit hospital when I feel 8cm apart surges.

12pm called my boss to inform him i will be taking off as labor has started. had lunch at thomson and ya kun tea after that

2pm went back home to get some rest

8pm surges are 8cm apart, went hospital, still 2 cm dilated. Decided to go home 1st. I was still mobile n cld talk n smile.

11pm surges are 2min apart n by then I can't talk nor smile anymore. Went back to hospital. 3cm dilated! My god! So long to dilate 1cm. We were given option to admit or go home. Decided to stay. Good choice. Nurse saw that I was coping well with my hypnobirthing techniques, so arranged for me to be transferred to ward to rest, reason is other mummies are screaming away and will affect my breathing. Was at ward until I feel I was ready to labor

2am went back to delivery room, nurse checked n I was 4 cm dilated. My god, this is really taking Long. My hubby and I were saying Huh!! Only 4 cm? The nurse was so encouraging and she said no. this progress very good already...TMC nurses are good!

6am Midwife came in to check and good news is I'm 9cm dilated. Finally some progress and I started feeling urge to push baby down. I tried all positions that I know, the birthing stool, the gym ball, n all fours, standing and dancing, and my fav is the birthing stool as I could lean against JQ and that felt very comfortable. I also like the standing one where JQ will hug me and rock me. You may not believe it, but you really can sleep in between surges, even when standing.

8am Still not able to get baby out. Midwife suggested I lie down and push. Can see she is a bit kan cheong already cos all the other babies in the other rooms are out. I can hear the wails and cries from other rooms. Mine is really taking a long time. Since I still was not able to breathe my baby out, we decided to try the traditional way and we did make some progess. At 8plus, can see a bit of crowning and Gynae came in. I huffed and puffed and pushed all the way till 1030am before Arayfas is finally born! The last 30min was like a cheering session, midwife, Gynae and Hubby was cheering me on. The 1 hr skin to skin contact and bonding was amazing.

Summary
30hrs of labor in total
Almost 12 hrs of intense labor pain
2hours of pushing and panting away. Think that was the most calorie burning exercise in my whole entire life!
TMC is a good choice to deliver. Will come back again
Dr Paul Tseng - Fantastic choice to switch then. If I had stuck to Gleneagles, there would have been intervention already. And Dr Paul Tseng is really good! He is very experienced and very assuring. Will go to him again. ;)
Most importantly, JQ was a fantastic birth companion. He was supportive the whole time and did all the right things to comfort me. Wouldn't have managed to go through this without him.

Spate of bad news

I've stopped watching news on TV and I do not really read newspapers as well. The most I do is browse through headlines in the papers. The reason for this is not to affect my baby with negative news and emotions. With the global recession, all we see and hear is bad news each and every day. Even without the TV and radio news, I have been exposed to bad news recently. Just last month, there was a memo from my company saying that one of our employee committed suicide opposite the workplace during working hours. He was only 26 years old, engineer with first class honors. News has it that he was suffering from depression. Just 1 and a half weeks ago, I lost 2 girls from my dept. One of them has been working for more than 15 yrs. Micron has announced that we are going to cut 2000 jobs, but we did not expect any from Singapore. Boy am I glad I was not the one to break the news to them. I was crying like mad when my boss announced the news. 2 days ago, while I was baking cookies and hubby doing the laundry in the kitchen, we heard a loud thump. JQ looked out and immediately turned to me and told me to stay away from the windows and not to look down. A successful suicide attempt by our neighbor. JQ called the police and the police arrived within minutes to cover the body.

Homemade cookies

Charmaine passed me a pack of Betty Crockers cookie mix when she was back for LNY. For some reason, I was inspired on Sunday to bake them. So I did! And it turned out well at my first attempt! And it's really easy! If only I had a bigger oven... I could only bake 6 cookies at one time, so I ended up baking 4 rounds! Shall search for more yummy cookie mix. =)

Flutters in tummy

I've reached the next milestone of pregnancy where I can feel the flutters in tummy and if I'm quick enough, I can see my tummy move! Funny feeling... =) Initial stage, when the flutters were really light, I thought I was imagining things, until one day I realized that I really can feel boy boy's movement already. =)

Our simple anniversary celebration

A simple salad, sandwich and soup complete with flowers is how we celebrated our 4 years 6 months together. This is also our 3rd ROM anniversary. We do not need a fanciful meal at a restaurant to remind us how blessed we are to have each other... :p

Memories of my first trimester

I thought I will be the kind of mummy-to-be who will be very excited about anything and everything and will be busy with incessant blogging... turns out to be the opposite... this mummy have been very "lazy"... keke

I'm currently into my 16th week of pregnancy and is super looking forward to the disclosure of my baby's gender this Friday. Hope the scan goes through smoothly as in baby cooperates fully. This is like another milestone of pregnancy, where you will know what kind of stuff to start preparing for the arrival of the baby. I have been looking forward to every visit to the gynae. I still remember the excitment I was feeling when I heard the baby's very fast heartbeat for the first time and seeing the black dot aka baby sac. I was super elated during the 2nd visit seeing the baby growing. The third visit was even more amazing! We can actually see the baby's hands waving away and feet swaying. Till now, I still feel that the most beautiful sound ever is the heartbeat of the little one inside me.

When I first found out I was pregnant, I was busy asking around for good books recommendations, courses that I should attend etc... I was still very active then, even meeting up with friends a lot, and that was definitely before the fatigue and morning sickness kicked in. Shortly after, I was feeling tired and sleepy all the time, I go to bed as early as 7, 8pm. I started to puke as many as 4 times a day. I had to adjust to the kind of hunger pangs I was feeling and learn to avoid these hunger pangs so that I will not puke. The only impressive thing I managed to accomplish was completing the 3 intensive full days of Millionaire Mind Intensive. I'm like 1 month behind on What to Expect When You Are Expecting...

Overall, it was a tiring 3 months but luckily I had JQ by my side. I must say he took really good care of me, making sure I was feeling ok, buying food for me, being there for me. It's a blessing to have him. But I have to say, he is currently more pregnant than me! HAHAHA!

Robbed and harassed by loansharks!

Never have I imagined that the above 2 things will ever happen to my hubby and me... and it's even beyond my imagination that these 2 things will actually happen within a short span of 10 days! I was having a long break clearing leave and went on a short trip to Malacca with JQ's family on Boxing Day. On our first night in Malacca, just when we were heading out to dinner, a snatch thief on a motorbike had the audacity to snatch JQ 's waist pouch and took off!! Did I tell you this happened just outside the hotel at the carpark, and there was a big group of us like 5 or 6 of us helping to load Jimmy's Mum from the wheelchair into our car! The stupid Indian actually dared to execute his plans when there were so many of us there! I have to say JQ reacted very fast and put up a brave fight. He gave chase immediately and even threw a shoe at him, closing the distance between him and the Indian at one moment, BUT of cos, he did not catch him. Slippers and motorbike is not a fair match after all! Luckily, no one was hurt in this incident. JQ just had some scratches on his arms and feet. He lost a camera, all his $, IC, cards and all his personal belongings. It was such a blessing that I was holding on to the passports!

Our dinner plan had to be delayed while we called all the banks to freeze his cards and waiting for the police to come. The police took a very long time to come, and my hubby eventually had to go to the police station to take down statement. Needless to say, they took a even longer time to send him back to the hotel, almost 3 hours for a statement! When he came back, we realized that he had to go to 3 police stations cos they could not understand English well. OMG! He was also describing to us how it was like in their police stations. When he reached the stations, all of them were not in uniform. They were all casually dressed with their uniforms hanging somewhere. Worse still, they were all smoking and chatting away... and they are supposed to be the front line staff...

We had to park our cars away from the hotel as we suspect that this was a syndicate's doing and that these idiots were targetting our whole group. After the incident, we saw 3 other motorists taking photos of our cars from across the road! We managed to return home safe and sound after 2 nights in Malacca.

On 4 Jan 09, in the short 2 hours that we were at my Mum's place for dinner, another horrible thing happened to us. When we reached home at 8.30pm, we found permament marker marks on our front door! The message read Lim Choon Teck 08-30 O$P$! Hello, you are writing on the door of 07-30 lor! Don't they know how to read? Don't these runners know the difference between 7 and 8! There were also new messages on the stairway wall. Apparently, according to the police, the loansharks now harass the neighbours as well...Well, these people are really desperate. The person who owes them $ has already moved away. My new neighbour upstairs is also a victim who kena paint etc during their renovations... Their CCTV probably saved them from the harassment this time round.

Stay posted for photos of the graffiti...

There goes my US trip!

Just when I am announcing happily that I am going US soon, I'm even happier to announce that I'm cancelling my US trip cos I'm expecting the arrival of a baby Eve/Seth. As the trip falls nicely within my first trimester, we have decided to cancel the trip. Will just have to squeeze some time in future to make up for this one later... ;D

Looking forward to Nov 29

Yippee! We are finally going on our honeymoon after 2 years and 8 months into marriage!! It is really long overdue. If JQ sees this, he will probably say... excuse me, ehmmm... we have been to Bali, Bangkok, Genting etc, not considered honeymoon ah? My standard reply will be this is classfied as short trip. Anything less than 10 days is not honeymoon! haha, I very 野蛮 right? keke

Even though we are setting off in slightly more than a month's time, other than buying round trip air tix, and tix to O at Bellagio, nothing else is done. And ours is going to be a driving trip. Wish us luck man! =)

Energy Saving Facts

Read this in a magazine and decided to share this info...Let's put in some effort to save the planet and cut down on our ever increasing electricity bills...

Discovery 1
The energy saved from switching off the airpot for 1 day is sufficient to light up a 4-room flat for 2 days!

Discovery 2
It is 6 times cheaper to watch a DVD on your laptop than on your LCD TV!

Discovery 3
The energy saved from reducing the use of a storage water heater from 8 hours to 1 hour can power a frige for more than 24 hours!

Discovery 4
It requires more than double the energy to cook rice in a microwave oven than in a rice cooker!

Discovery 5
Running your clothers dryer for 1 hour uses enough energy to heat up an iron 140 times! Or make 160 cups of coffee with a coffee maker!

Sprained toe

This is how a sprained toe looks like!!



This is not my toe, it's my sister's. She sprained her toe during yoga today.

Auntie Evelyn finally went to St James!!

28 Aug, Thu was our fiscal year end. As there were guests in town, and we have not had a company gathering for the longest time, Danny initiated a gathering at Dragonfly and in his words, to celebrate a pathetic quarter. Hoon, Jess and I decided to jio Tricia along as well. The exchange of sms between Hoon and Tricia was hilarious!

Hoon: Join us to go Dragonfly tonite leh...
Tricia: What time you all going?
Hoon: 6pm to 8pm...
Tricia: Huh?!! So early? You all go there and set table ah!

HAHA. In the end, T did not go. And the gathering turned out more fun than we thought it will be. :p

3 needle holes and a big blue black!

Went for my first MSA-Parkway health check on 12 Aug 08 and this is what they did to my vein. There was swelling and the blue black just became bigger. The bruise only disappeared 2 weeks after the health check. This is the first and last time I'm participating in health checks organised by company. I will rather go outside and pay more than to let nurses practice their injection skills on me! :((

My adorable sister

A cute exchange of sms between my sis and Wei.

Wei: My frd moving to Buangkok...

Sis: Really? She married a Thai lah...

Wei: ??

Sis: She must have married a Thai, that's why moving to Bangkok mah...

Wei: You dunno there is this station called Buangkok in Sengkang ah?

Sis: Oops! HAHAHA!!

Faintz!!!

Inspiration

Was at ECP for dinner on Mon nite. On our way back, we saw a rare sight. There was this very old uncle learning roller-blading! And I mean really old! He is probably in his 70s already, wearing those kind of white singlet and uncle bermudas and all armoured. He looks quite frail and you can see that he is struggling with balancing on his blades. Kudos to him for having the courage to try all sorts of things at his age and kudos to his children who was by his side holding on to him. This is what I call quality family time. :p

National Day Rally

For the first time in many years, I paid more attention to the National Day Rally speech by our PM. For the first time, I was in front of the TV throughout the whole speech without yawning even once. I'm the kind that hardly pays any attention to the government policies with mentality that it probably will not help me much anyway. This year was different probably because the issues are of my utmost concerns, inflation and baby policies. Government announced a teaser earlier saying that they are looking at the Swedish model for baby policies. With that, there were a lot of speculation among common folks like longer maternity leave (maybe 6 months), paternity leave, increased childcare subsidies and flexi working arrangement etc. Some of it came true. Maternity leave has been extended to 4 months, but darn, there is no extended paternity leave...

Singapore flag arising...

Today is a Monday that I don't feel rested at all. Too many activities happening over the weekend: major makeover of our house and supporting the Singapore team at the Olympics. Rushed home from dinner to watch the game at 7.30pm and my eyes stay glued to the TV. There is a huge disparity in standard between the 2 teams. China's team has world no. 1, 2 and 5 players whereas Singapore team's ranking is world's no 6, 7 and 9. But I seriously think Singapore team put up a very good fight. I used to think that so what if they are good, their origin is still China what. But what JQ said to his kids made me think another way. Yes, they were born in China, but they are more Singaporean than us, cos they gave up their citizenship in China to live in Singapore, train in Singapore so as to represent Singapore. They are doing more things for Singapore. And he asked them what are they doing for Singapore... Of course there will be another school of thought, they are getting paid what, if they are not here, they would not have such opportunities. Whichever the case, they made it possible for us to see our Singapore flag rising at an Olympic event for the first time, so I'm still very proud of them! Go Team Singapore and may we see more stars rising to do us proud!

Latest update on my toe

I've started wearing track shoes recently and went for short jogs/walks. However, I still can't bend my toes that well. Visited a orthepedic and physiotherapist last week and realized that it's not my big toe that is affected. It's my second toe that is more stiff. So I have been exercising the wrong toe all this while! The therapist taught me a few things I can do to exercise and strengthen my toes and I have been doing pretty diligiently. So now I'm seeing some improvement. I've even started wearing my most comfortable pair of heels! Yippee! =) Give me a while more, and I should be able to wear my other heels liao. keke

BBQ on 08/08/08

It's been a while since Crucial had a get-together. This year we had a BBQ at a chalet at Pasir Ris again. That's what we normally do, cos there aren't that many places a big group can go, hang around, chill out and really catch up.


JQ looks very good in this pix hor...:p


Think I enjoyed this year's gathering more than previous years. I probably stayed long enough to really catch up with the rest of the guys. Food this year was super good too. Mag prepared 2 super yummy salad for me. Her potato salad was really nice. Bee hoon prepared by Dollah's wife was yummy too! =)