34 weeks + 6 days

Had too eventful a weekend filled with scares and I hope for no more repeats until 26 nov which is what we scheduled for his debut.

Whole jargon of feelings now from confusion to anxiety. I feel absolutely alone in this and I wanto be the best I can for him but how...

Feelings of inadequacy just keep eating me up when I'm already battling physical ailments and discomforts. Husband is well..yet to come out of his reverie and really take this elephant of fatherhood by the tusks. He's somewhere still transmitting between adolescence and adulthood and I'm so scared that Nate will come to no father. 

I'm so excited to meet him but I think I'm I'm the only one. Days are getting longer and nights shorter with rest elusive.i hope he will be celebrated because he's my gift and my miracle. I love him so much! 

32 weeks + update

It doesn't get easier but the end is in sight. Happiest news include that I might be 10 days more advanced than believed so dday might be sooner. Yesterday was bad and I cannot imagine 6 weeks more of that. 

Have been driven to the brink of tears and crawled back so many times over.

Now, I count my blessings at 653 am. Feeling his knee rise against my skin and having the thigh stretched out against my rib etc. these moments I'll always cherish..but won't con me into thinking of second child. 

I love this boy so much it's like my heart is bursting. 

I cannot wait to hold him. 

Cannot take it anymore (again)

Pregnancy is already hard enough with elusive sleep and a hosts of discomforts. 

Then, you get pressure from the self-professed omniscient mother-in-law.

Then the convenience of texting means she gets to flood your text inbox with a flurry of essays on what to do and what not to do. That's not it..then there's the Australian agenda. Then there's the 12 am message to check if you have fish sauce. Because that's really impt, more impt than your sleep and sanity. Then she says that she's coming more often.

Breakdown. 

30 going on 31 weeks

Lying on a tennis ball to soothe achy muscles.

So fat I nearly burst my husbands' boxers. (I wear his clothes at home) 

Baby who has been kicking so much since 5 am this morning-sleep deprived mum. 

What is baby doing?

Massage lady asked me that.  

"reading a book?"

All she wanted to know if if he was kicking at that moment but I was too in pain to think. 

Oops. 

Home stretch

I could hardly walk yesterday. I think I suddenly exploded and found it hard to catch my breath. Legs hurt too.

Today I tried to time how long I took to et to the supermarket. It usually took 5 minutes but today, I took 20. 

It's getting really hard to get comfortable and this is my latest pillow formation. 

The inhabitant inside me, aka my son is also making more violent movements inside me. We can even see him moving and squirming right under my skin. That's really fun except for the rib punches which leave me breathless. Occasionally, I can identify either an elbow or fist. 

Home stretch now. Hope I get to enjoy the last part of my pregnancy. It's been hard and I've made so many social appointments for the last week and I hope I can waddle along well! 

Nobody really knows

I don't know how to put it into words too. 

I don't know how to ever tell anyone how hard this pregnancy has been and how I really don't have the courage to do it all over again. It is an incredibly lonely journey. I feel it won't be right for my first born and second because I'm not strong enough for it. Been to the edge so many times and back and suffice to say, I'm traumatized. 

I've really expanded all my resources just to get through everyday and I thank God for each day and try not to dwell on the difficult parts but it hardly gets easier. 

Baby N, I love you so much and I still feel inadequate to be your mum. I am weak and every day, I won't have the strength to get through if not for God who supplies grace and the will to soldier on for you. 

I hope I get better at this because you deserve the best. 

Oops is when

When you fart and your husband thought it was the sound of a drill..😨

Blessings amidst darkness

I have to write this down lest I forget. 

My friends are the best and they lend me emotional and practical support like offering to get food and groceries when we are tied down with a husband with a bad case of tonsillitis and a distressed and pregnant wife.

We have zero support from family and though I lament and grieve, I will look at the blessings I do have and remember I'm not alone. 

Our most generous gift yet...

Isaac has never had fantastic spatial intelligence and I can only hope it is this skill is being honed with his new hobby, skating.

In Singapore, driving licenses are a bane and he hasn't got one. In fact, he failed his last test so spectacularly I won't even elaborate. Driving is also mega expensive here with cars costing approximately $100k sgd. You get to use a first-hand car for 10 years before you have to pay an exorbitant sum again. It's too much of a hassle to elaborate about this crazy system here and the cost of driving with tolls and parking.

I used to grow up wondering how people survived without a car. Then I got married and found it impossible to ever afford one.

Then yesterday, amidst our stress with work and life, we got a gift of..a car.

It only has one year left on its lifespan/COE but that is still a very very generous gift.

Only problem: Isaac has no license and I refuse to drive being 6.5 months pregnant and still puking! It is insane to imagine puking on your dashboard and being safe on the roads while you're having a puky spell. 

Economically, as we live at the fringe of town, it costs us a mere $6-$10 by cab to town whereas it would cost $20 parking. When I was living off my parents', I would take the car to go to town and get the shock of my life whenever I chose to spend more time roaming around and parking at expensive malls that accommodated my horrible parking skills with big spacious lots. My parking used to be more expensive than my meals. So, this works out to $100 a month if I go to town once a week (including toll) just to go to town whilst I would have spent only $40 by cab. $60 might not be a huge sum to pay for convenience but now that we are on a single income and have a kid and a full-time helper, every cent saved counts!

I am very grateful for the gesture nonetheless even though I was cynical enough to think, given the nature of my relationship and understanding of my in-laws that these came with HUGE ROPES attached and a debt of gratitude I can never pay. I think I was also too proud to receive and eat humble pie. I also entertained the thought that I might not have received it if it was a girl I was expecting due to the strong gender bias.

Well, of course this is merely speculation and whatever the reason is, it was generous. We might utilise it when the baby is born simply because of the convenience factor of ferrying a new born around. Isaac of course welcomes these gestures from his parents with open arms but I'm scared that it'll be leverage against me when they want to run our lives or insist on parenting the baby a certain way. I almost am worried that it'll become a bribe for them to barge into our lives without boundaries. Also, I feel bad that Isaac's sister gets the short end of the stick when it comes to gifts and inheritance and I have strongly urged him many times not to accept and perpetuate the gender bias unless we are allowed to split huge gifts evenly with the sister. She has every right to it and should be given her fair share.

Well, I have to really think and pray through this and I'm glad we still have some time before we accept the offer.

Quite miserable

Post war battle scars

Retched all the way till 2 am and when I woke up at 6, I had blood spots and bruises all over my face, trauma spits from the heard retching. :(

I hope it heals soon.

Puking Sunday part 2

Trying to aim directly at the toilet bowl with huge projectile puke and what feels like spasms in the stomach is extremely hard especially when one can't bend over perfectly. 

When I retch and my stomach tightens, my whole face turns red and I feel tears just stream down uncontrollably. The force is just too strong for my not-so-little stomach.

On top of that, I've been juggling trying to help husband with work crunch. Slept at 3 am and 5 hours later, I was up.

I must say that I was rather productive despite all that retching. Only downside is that I feel incredibly weak and a little dizzy after that. Carpal tunnel doesn't help with all that desk work too. 

We are back to the grind in another 20 minutes. Hopefully we will be done with these by Wednesday. 

Puke Sunday

Today.

Miserable. 

Hungry. 

Tired. 

Let's just say I hate the Mac

I hope you are reading this, apple.

I am incensed.

We are already going through a stressful period and working butts off on weekends. I have chipped in to help Isaac in my heavy state with little sleep and despite saving and printing previous versions, you lost our file that we worked on for 6 hours. We switched almost every windows device to apple and this is how you repay us.

We spent the next hour trying to hunt it down but it was definitely saved and we even have hard copy proof. 

I then re-typed. 

Thank God I'm a fast Typer. I've been winning typing competitions since I was 9 and my dad forced me to type perfectly, among many other skills like..balance, sail, swim and I was terrible at those but I typed well! Thank God and I can sing praises now now but we win!! 

I panicked and felt cramps. Baby kicked hard and I...switched back to an old windows laptop. 

Upon checking with the forums, we realized others had similar problems a and they were never remedied.

I am so disappointed with you! I am going to eat a pear!! 

Distressed

Very distressed n trying to be calm and helpful. 

Plans for 2015

On days like this, I just want to burrow my head into the ground and wait till everything blows over before I wake up.

Since 6pm, it has been a slew of bad news, one after the next. I was confiding in my mum that I can't take the pressure much longer and sometimes I wonder to God why in the world am I at the brunt of someone elses' bad decisions. I recalled times whereby I made mistakes that badly affected others and knew that I too, was forgiven and recalled the relief I felt.

It is so hard.

Have to try my hardest by His grace to get through it even as the storm is brewing and to hide safely in the eye of the storm under his wings. All I want is for baby to be safe and sound and I know that when I'm stressed, it affects him too. I can feel him kicking harder during moments where my heartbeat increases. I also had my spotting incidents during times when I'm most stressed or sleep deprived. These might be coincidences but stress has never had a positive effect on any living being and I want to protect him the best I can.

From the looks of it, I am mentally preparing myself to reorganize life such that perhaps some months after birth, after getting the helper settled and independent, I can return to the workforce. It is less than ideal and I weep at the idea of it because I really gave up my dream in retail and a high paying job with huge prospects (though family unfriendly) to be his mom full time. Now, as I don't have the most stable financial support from my husband, I have to be that for my son and that means, I can't be home for as long I want to.

The money we have will last us quite awhile thankfully and we do have some support from my parents. Based on these estimation, I can start applying somewhere around June next year and hopefully by year end, I'd be employed. My ideal job now is not a fast paced, big salary job with plenty of perks including free travel. I just want one that pays the bills, allows us to save and most importantly, allows me to be a mum. I want to see daylight and be the one who puts him to sleep. I want to wake up to nurse him and not have to drop him for a crisis at work that consists of staff not turning up or a sharp percentage drop in profits for the month.

It sounds selfish but I really want more than anything to be with him. If I can come up with a work-from-home solution, that would be ideal. Otherwise, I'm open to teaching part-time in lecturing situations or teaching tuition. These will not earn me the bucks I used to make but it will allow me to not compromise too much being with him. Lecturing in particular is close to my heart too and I can apply the skills I gained from 10 years in retail. They run courses 2x a week and have holidays too. While the money is just enough to get by, it allows me to only work at night for night classes when he is asleep twice a week. It might be a lack of faith in God and I'm open to be ridiculed for being a lousy christian for that but I do need some financial assurance. With the husband's job being very unstable and vascillating in the wind with no sign of surety or light at the end of the tunnel, it is only prudent for me to take up arms and hold up the fort to fight for baby.

Baby N, I hope you'll forgive me and continue to grow up strong and healthy if I do have to return to work. I promise you that I'll try my best to find the best job possible to allow us to be together as often as possible and you'll always be first place and not the job. I'm very sorry our original plan to be together doesn't seem to feasible now but we will work something out. I only want the best for you because you are the best thing that happened to me.

Now, I promise you I'll try my best to rest, eat and grow you well in-utero. You just stay put, kick happily away and only surface at 38 weeks when Dr Lim will open me up to receive you. You're not allowed to come any earlier and I promise I'll rest so that you get the best conditions to grow safely.

I love you so so much and I know I will do anything for you. Cliche and one day, you might cringe at that but until you, I have never loved anyone this much.

Mama has been paranoid because this pregnancy has taken many scary turns. Thankfully each time, we both pulled through fine by the grace of God but if anything were to happen, I want to make it clear to Dr Lim that He saves you instead of me. It would be a great loss for me that I wouldn't be able to discharge my motherly responsibilities but I've already lived a life and this time, it is really your turn. I can only pray that the right person comes along for Papa so he doesn't have to single parent you and has grace for that until she comes. She, must be everything I want to be or more and love you like you came out of her.

That aside, please know that I'll fight to stay alive, stay sane just to be with you. Just to be your mother. I know I was chosen out of the many to be your mother and deep down, I have the faith that I have exactly what it takes to be a good mom to you. I believe that God gave me supernatural strength and miralces to overcome and you'll grow up to arrive at your destiny. That there'll be no better mom for you, besides me.

I am far from perfect but I am wholly leaning and surrendering to God to do the impossible.

We didn't think you'll survive my allergy attack, my emergency resuscitation treatment or even come into existence with our infertility but you did. I have faith in you too. You're a fighter, a survivor and though you stayed small for so long, you are now two weeks ahead of your peers! I am proud of you.

We'll make it. Yes, we will.

Help! We need domestic help!

Had another hard night (now, what is new?) and I slept at the oddest angle, somewhat on my side, somewhat on my back but not completely flat.

I thought I'd stay in today despite the fact that the part-time helper was in. I usually make specific efforts to escape her as she tends to over-clean and not allow me to walk around the house. A few times, I walked to and fro from bedroom to the kitchen and she literally mopped every step that I walked on. I felt like I was dirtying HER house and after awhile, I just stayed in bed until she left.

She also broke the news to me, last minute that she won't be working for me at all after sept 4th (less than 2 weeks away). I panicked. The last time, she took off for 6 weeks while I was already pregnant leaving me with no time at all and a simple last minute notice to get help. I lived through it and thought we would keep her still because it is extremely hard to hire and also because her general working attitude has been pretty good. Also, she told us she had real financial difficulties so we kept her job.

This time round, she told me not to worry about her livelihood if I were to choose to hire a full-time helper. This has been on our minds since a few months back but it was a futile and fruitless search for the right one. I panicked and used my afternoon at home to call up agencies frantically. No one said they could give me anyone at short notice and I thought I'd settle for waiting at least 6-8 weeks for approval while combing through scores of bio-data in the meantime. I was calling, hanging up, waiting for emails, going through each line and then calling again. I felt NOTHING and I knew I wasn't looking for the perfect angel with a halo but they didn't feel right, at all. Hard to put a finger on it.

Then I saw one. I'm still not 100% sure if I'm right but the profile sounds very very close to what our requirements are and what we can afford! Thought it was too good to be true and then I called the agency up to express my interest, expecting to wait 2 months (Oct, just a month or so before I pop) and the agent happily exclaimed that she can reach us from Yangon by Sept 9th! I was elated and from the looks of it, we might confirm the deal by 3pm tomorrow and get the documentation process to start.

It is quite a huge gamble and leap of faith because for the Burmese domestic helpers, there's almost no way you can video conference to interview them. I was very open to Filipinos but none of the candidates worked out. In fact, I was rejected by a few because I couldn't meet their requirements! We had no big fancy house with ensuite for them to live in and one of the key job description was to take care of a new born! So many people shun that.

Really hoping this works out and I'll update hopefully with good news!

**
On another note, most people that are close to me know that one of my main gripes is the bias towards males in our Asian society. No matter how advanced we think we are, the antiquated patriarchal bias towards males is very much prevalent and this results in many many unfair treatment of females.

When we got pregnant, we were so happy we didn't have a gender preference. Then, people started envying out loud that it was a male. It irked me and I didn't say much other than both genders have their merits and ideally, I would like to have a girl and a boy. It seemed like the complete polictically correct answer and I'm not a very PC person but I really meant that!

Then yesterday, while buying pizza at a store, two senior ladies came to me and started to chat out of the blue. They started complaining about how they thought they were expecting sons but ended up daughters instead. Although not explicitly expressed in words, they hinted that they felt short-changed. I was flabbergasted and couldn't imagine how "loved" their daughters must have felt being so unwelcome in their family with the knowledge that they were the last choice on their parents' list.

THEN, my helper started telling me today how having a boy is so much better. I nearly flippped. She doesn't have a daughter and spoils her son silly and when I asked how exactly it was "better", she couldn't answer. She just said in chinese that one can pretty much afford to not have daughters but not sons. I was livid by then!

I am thankful that baby is so celebrated but it hurts me to know that my child will be less celebrated as long as he doesn't line up with what people want. This also hit too close to the heart because I'm a second tier citizen in my own family with the boys clearly leading the pack and getting the best of everything. There was a lot of unfair treatment then and it still happens now even though my younger brother is already 20. He has on many occasions voiced out at the unfairness and I appreciate that because many others just assume their place of false supremacy and superiority.

I know my mum in particular will drop everything for my brother while I would not even stand a chance in this 2 people queue. (I got there 11 years earlier).

I really hope that society truly progresses and more families love their daughters well and stop seeing them through those horribly scratched-with-prejudice lenses. The older generation already got it so wrong and yet, this generation perpetuates it. It is a vicious cycle and this school of thought must be abolished.

I'm super blessed and grateful for my son and nothing can undo that. I knew I loved him even before I knew the gender, knew I loved him even before I conceived him and have dreamt a thousand dreams of him. I guess this is what they call unconditional and sadly, unconditional love is going extinct.

2nd trimester thoughts so far

Someday I'm going to do a post on all the pregnancy symptoms I've had because some are actually..strange and uncommon. *reminder to self*

Now by the grace and faithfulness of God, we are almost at the tail end of my second trimester. I have two weeks more to go. I always read that the this period is likened to be the honeymoon period of pregnancy and I've been trying to do so much before energy wanes during third and last trimester.

Today I realised otherwise. I went out with Mei ling and Annabelle with their two lovely kids and came home completely pooped. My waist, back and calves were aching. I could barely reach down to the lower drawer of my refrigerator while seated. I ate so much to replenish energy but shortly after I got home, I kinda fell asleep. I say "kinda" because I was so uncomfortable I had trouble sleeping. Same for last night and I thought I'd sleep in but the noise from the morning woke me up. Usually I can survive well with little sleep but today, I am starting to feel the difference.

There are theories and studies to show that pregnant women shouldn't lie flat from their second tri onwards and I tried so hard to lie on my left (the recommended side) but it is so hard. I literally spent hours shifting and feel most comfortable on my back, albeit not for long. After awhile, your body tells you you have to move. No need for any professional or website because my legs threaten to cramp.

In short, my second trimester period was considerably short. I puked almost all the way through this whole journey of pregnancy so far and I'm already starting to feel third trimester fatigue. I am not complaining and feeling utterly cheated because I feel so so blessed to be pregnant. The most difficult part is still the crazy moods that I get from the hormones but though the physical part is torturous and cannot be undermined, they don't traumatise me as much as the fears and anxieties.

I think I will miss going out and hanging out with my friends A LOT. They have been a great blessing and help in quelling my fears, sending comfort and just keeping me sane. They make me laugh. I still have plans even two weeks in advance and I hope I am able to keep them because even walking to the train station 5 minutes away is starting to feel like a real marathon, especially when the weather is unforgiving.

Praying for more grace as I approach the finish line!

Pregnancy hunger pangs

I honestly don't know if they get worse during pregnancy but I don't remember a time whereby hunger was SOOO unbearable when you only ate like 4 hours ago. I never had a habit of snacking and now if I don't eat any in-betweens, I starve like I've been without food for days.

And as I speak, I have a bowl of instant noodles beside me. Not the healthiest choice but we are really out of food. No, I'm just addicted to instant noodles this week. Hopefully this phase will pass.

Another strange fact I noticed is that I almost completely can't do without chilli paddy. I even started carrying some in my bag incase I'm out and can't find any. It has to go with almost anything and everything. My tastebuds are otherwise dead without it. I read that these cause baby to have hiccups in utero but...I NEED THEM.


I also tried to avoid suppers but honestly, I can't get past 11 pm to sleep without putting something in to eat. My hunger pangs get so serious I feel like my head's going to burst. I don't know what energy I expand during the day but this growing is taking a lot of energy. Thankfully, my weight gain has been less than explosive and I hope it stays this way.