Birthstory!

Long overdue post! Here's little David's birthstory:

At 39 weeks (6th April), I was feeling rather depressed. No sign that anything was happening and the physical exhaustion was making it hard to get up in the mornings. I left Cherise with my parents and headed out to make myself feel better. Went for a pre-delivery makeover - cut my hair, had a facial and massage. Thought maybe I was too tense for labour to start.

True enough, after the massage and all, I had the show at 3am (7th April), and contractions were ten minutes apart. By 9am, they were 6 minutes apart. I really didn't want to go to the hospital because I wanted to labour at home as long as possible, but the gynae's office receptionist told me to hurry down as it was my second child and things could happen rather quickly. So at 11am, we saw the gynae and he said I was 3cm dilated. He gave me two options - he could check me into the hospital or I could choose to labour at home. As I was hoping for as natural a birth as possible this time round, I chose not to stay in the hospital as it would leave me with nothing to do but focus on the pain.

So we went for lunch at United Square, hoping the walking would speed things up a bit. The contractions were painful enough now so that I couldn't really talk nor walk during one, but I still managed to get some shopping done. (It's amazing - the woman's capacity to shop under all circumstances...)

At 3pm, we were back at Thomson Medical Centre, this time to stay. At this point, I must add that I think we picked a wonderful doctor this time round. He's got a reputation for being very pro-natural, and this was reflected in the way the nurses at the labour ward treated me. The first question they asked, upon finding out who my doctor was, was, "Do you have a birth plan?" I replied no, but this gave me the opportunity to state that I only had one request - that I not be chained strapped confined to the bed during labour. I was also offered the room with the tub (for women who wanted to labour in water) but I turned it down. I did ask for a birth ball (which I never got to buy) but it wasn't available at that time.

I think the attitude of the nurses set the tone for the whole labour process. I had options, hence I felt in control. So different from the last time when I was hustled and bundled and strapped into bed and left there to suffer. I spent the next few hours keeping active, working through my contractions, which weren't half as bad as they were with Cherise. Adrian was a fantastic labour coach - the poor guy massaged my back between contractions, fed me milo when I got hungry, let me lean into his nice tummy when the pain got too much to bear...

At around 6 plus (I didn't note the time), I felt that things were different. I told Adrian to get the nurses, who did hustle me into bed this time, and found that I was 6 to 7cm dilated already. My waters broke, and things happened really quickly now - I kept wanting to push, but the nurses wouldn't let me, not till the doctor arrived, and once he did, David was out in a matter of minutes! Adrian said 3 pushes, I think. Really fast. So our little boy arrived at 6.51pm, 7th April 2009. Here's a video of his first moments:



It was a wonderful experience. If I had any idea of what to expect, I would have wanted it this way. I didn't labour too long in the hospital, and it was as natural a process as it could be. I didn't take any pain relief meds at all, and nobody poked any needles into me. My waters were allowed to break naturally, and I didn't have an episiotomy. Maybe next time I'll try a homebirth! (If there is a next time..)

Thank you - those who were praying with us, and praise God for His hand in all this - from conception to delivery and thereafter!

David - The Arrival...

Hi everyone, sorry this came really late. Thought I'd better update everyone before it really becomes water under the bridge....

After waiting for a long 39 weeks, our son is finally here! Everyone, say hello to the latest addition to our family - David Nathaniel Loh.

Here is his biodata:
Date of Arrival: 7th of April 2009
Time: at 6:51pm
Weight: 3.04 kg
Length: 50 cm
Head Circumference: 34 cm

Ok, 4D punters may go crazy with the numbers now, just make sure you remember us when you strike it.

More about his birth story later, we're still trying to get the hang of dealing with a new born and a 20 month old hyper active girl at the same time. Not easy, but as usual, God is good. Give us a little more time adjusting to our new roles and I promise we'll update soon. Lot's of things to share with everyone!

In the meantime, thanks for your prayers and love!

Our Day at the Zoo

As part of our 2 Day wedding anniversary celebration, I took Jas and Cherise for our long awaited visit to the Zoo. My company signed up for the friends of the zoo corporate membership, so it allows me to bring the family in for free. We get discounts for food and merchandise purchases as well! Anyway, after countless unsuccessful bids to get hold of the membership card from the admin department, I finally managed to loan it out for a few days. We initially wanted to go on Wednesday, but since we could not get anyone to baby sit on Thursday, we decided go on Thursday instead.

We planned to start the day early so that we can squeeze in more activities before it gets too hot for us, but somehow the night was not restful for Cherise (hence similarly for us), so we ended up sleeping in and having a late start at about 11am. Jas and I cannot remember when was the last time we visited the zoo. All we know is that the place has changed quite a bit and as a local, I must say that I'm very impressed with the improvements made to this attraction.

Like most kids, Cherise LOVED the animals. It helped that she recognises some of them...everytime, she saw something that she knew she went, "wah..bunky (monkey), wah...tiger, wah...giraffe, wah...ohdile (crocodile), wah...torti (tortise)...big!" As expected, every species of bear is a teddy bear, and anything that walks on four legs and resembles a canine is a dog. She had a lot of fun mimicking the sounds of the animals and didn't seem to mind the stench coming from the animal droppings...unlike mommy who almost fainted after walking past the rhino exhibit ha ha! Cherise also got to pat a rabbit for the first time at the Pets Corner at the Rainforest Kidzworld... If we had known that they have a water play area there, we would have brought our swim gear along.

Sadly, we didn't get to watch any of the animal shows this time round. I'm sure Cherise would be thrilled to see what the elephants can do. For our next visit, I must be sure to plan the itinery properly so that we canmake the best of our time there. Oh, and next time, I won't even bother bringing a stroller...cos' this super duper zoo has EVERYTHING!

We left about 2pm, just as Cherise was getting tired and needed her afternoon nap. Jas says if we want to do this again, we should do it really soon cos' once David comes, we'll have to say bye bye to family excursions for a while. Yah man...better start to "chop" for the membership card again soon!

Here's a pic of happy Daddy and Mommy with a clearly tired Cherise.

For more pics of our outing, check out my Flickr Photo Page.

3 Years Already???

That was the thought that came to our minds as we were wondering how long it has been since we said our vows at the altar. Jasmine said it felt like only 2 years, probably because we did not celebrate our anniversary last year as I was away on an overseas exercise then. To make it up to her, I decided to celebrate the 3 years of our union over 2 days, one day by ourselves and the other with Cherise.

Jas's mom was available to babysit for us yesterday, so we took the advantage to do stuff that we usually would not be able to do if Cherise was with us. It was a simple affair - movie followed by dinner at the most baby unfriendly place we could find.

The Movie
For the first time in our lives, we stepped into Golden Village Cinema's Gold Class at Vivocity. When I stepped into the theatre, I was in total awe...it was quite embarrassing for Jas because I could not contain my excitement and kept playing with the seats - they can be reclined fully till you're literally watching the movie lying down - and they provide blankets! And man were the seats comfortable! We wanted to watch Red Cliff 2 initially but they didn't have it at the time that we wanted, so we settled for The Changeling instead. Jas commented later that considering the frequency of our visits to the movies (which is like erm...NEVER! The last time we watched a movie was when Jas was expecting Cherise!), we might as well go for Gold Class everytime. I totally agree.

The Dinner
Though still semi-full with popcorn and tortilla chips, we needed to take our dinner early to make it back in time to pick Cherise up (sigh...and you'd think that we're past the age of curfews). We chanced upon Tajimaya Yakiniku / Shabuya, a 2-in-1 concept restaurant at level 1. It's basically 2 restaurants operating under the same roof - One side offers BBQ, and the other steamboat - Japanese style. I was captivated by the Aussie Beef promotion so we went for the BBQ. Good thing that Cherise was not with us cos' we had to cook everything ourselves over a super hot charcoal grill...
IT's really hot man!
For the price of the meal, we didn't expect the spread to be so good...the economy must really be bad for them to offer so much for that price. Here's what we had:
The whole spread.
Two cuts of beef...the thin one tastes like Bak Kwa.
Chicken thigh and Kurubuta.
Veg
Shrimp
Salad
Tempura
Ice-cream
We tried our best to finish everything but it was simply overwhelming...
We hate to waste food but what to do...we were simply...
...too stuffed!

Alas, like Cinderella, we had a curfew to follow (8pm!!!) so we went wee wee wee all the way home to our little princess. Though our date was short, we enjoyed it totally. Hopefully we'll have more of these when our kids are a little more independent.

Transitioning

We've gotten Cherise her own bed!

It's sandwiched between the wall and our bed so she can't roll off but she can climb safely onto our bed if she needs us.




We finally put those cot bumpers to good use!


Lots of padding for those wooden edges... Cherise is an active sleeper!


I resisted the idea of her moving out of our bed for the longest time. With the new baby coming, I didn't want her to feel that we were moving her out and someone else in. My initial plans were to have Cherise still sleep with us on our bed and the new baby in the cosleeper, but a few things made me change my mind:
1. Cherise is a very active sleeper. She turns perpendicular in her sleep, and when we adjust her position at night (because we cannot tahan the foot on our face/neck) she stirs in her sleep. So we figure she needs more space.
2. I imagine that nursing a newborn in the same bed where she's sleeping is risky - might wake her up with all the movement etc.
3. I won't have any space to nurse the newborn lying down.

Conclusion: we've decided to make the transition now instead of later when the baby arrives.

I'm so glad that she's taken to the new bed really well. Last night was her first night and she slept all the way from 11.30pm to 7am without stirring. I woke up a few times in the night to check on her, make sure she's not cold etc, and I found her turned perpendicular again, but since there was plenty of space in her own bed, I left her like that and just shifted her blanket so she wouldn't get cold. And this afternoon, we all took a three-hour nap - she in her bed, and us in ours.

I was expecting some crying, but it turns out my little girl's more ready for this than I am. No tears upon waking, only an eagerness to climb onto our bed to nurse and reconnect with me, it seems. No waking mid-sleep missing mommy contact. She knows it's her bed - we ask her, "Where's baby's bed?" And she responds, "There! Baby bed," pointing in the right direction. She loves clambering to and from her bed - we've taught her, "Crawl, no running," and to watch out for the wall. We bought more doh dohs to make the bed cozy, but she didn't want them - she tossed them all out the first day. Good - she gets to have a say in how she wants her bed to be.

I think we, the parents, are having more difficulty making this change than she is. I usually cuddle her when I put her down after she's nursed off to sleep, but with her in her own bed, I can't do that anymore. Adrian won't let me go onto her bed - he says I'm too heavy. So I got a bit teary last night. Missed a little warm body and a certain baby smell. Felt sorry for my poor little baby who wouldn't get cuddled. Then I felt sorry for myself because I couldn't cuddle.

But despite my emo-ness, I wasn't the one to cave first. Today, we had this conversation before our nap -
Adrian: You can put her on our bed if you want.
Me: Why? You miss her?
Adrian: A bit.
Me: A bit?
Adrian: A bit.
Me: A bit or a lot?
Adrian: A lot...

Feeling lonely and emo right now. Adrian is at work, and my little girl is in her own bed sleeping soundly. My king-sized bed is suddenly really big and empty. Oh well, I suppose I'd better try to enjoy the space while I have it - it's going to get pretty crowded again in three months' time!

Dr Jekyll and Miss Hyde

There's an old nursery rhyme that goes:

There was a little girl
Who had a little curl
Right in the middle of her forehead.
And when she was good
She was very, very good
But when she was bad
She was horrid!

Ok, I'm not saying Cherise is horrid, but she was very bad today! We planned to go to Ikea this morning to pick up a bed for Cherise (more about this in another post). We thought it would be a fun outing - having a mission and all, plus Cherise likes to play with the many toys at the Children's section. But she was in some kind of weird mood today - so difficult to handle! She didn't want to sit properly in the taxi, she didn't want to sit in the high chair, she didn't want daddy to carry, she didn't want to nurse, she didn't want to play, she didn't want to eat - all she wanted was "Mammy, baobao, go go", but go go where? I don't know. We thought maybe she was cranky because she was tired and needed a nap, but her behaviour didn't improve even after she woke up from her nap. Strangers who simply looked at her would send her into a frenzy - "Nononononono!" It was so terrible that we cut our outing short. We actually planned to stay out the whole day, moving on to other places after Ikea, but I was so drained by noon that I just wanted to go home and stay home the rest of the day.

Once we got home, she morphed into another person! She played with her toys, ran from room to room (without us!), watched TV and danced along, fed herself banana, fed us banana, let daddy change and bathe and feed her while I went to poop - just a totally different little girl! And her behaviour was so much improved that we decided to venture out to United Square because I wanted her to get her hair cut.

So at 7pm we left home, reached United Square, had dinner at Jack's Place - and she was an angel! She was so friendly, waving at waiters and waitresses and strangers we met. She sat happily in her high chair and ate her porridge, fed herself (and us) porridge, played a bit with some ice, and when our food came, we took turns to eat and she was quite content with either of us, even letting go of our hands to run around the open spaces outside the restaurant. She was happy in the pram, and when we rewarded her with kiddy rides, she didn't fuss when we wanted her to come off the ride. And to top it all, when we brought her for her haircut at Junior League, she sat and watched the Barney video, and though she kept giving slightly disturbed glances at the hairdresser, she didn't cry at all! And that's a first! On the way back, she fell asleep in the taxi - she didn't ask to nurse, she didn't fuss at all, she just closed her eyes and fell asleep. And we couldn't rouse her! I didn't want her to sleep because I wanted to give her hair a rinse before bedtime, but since she was so soundly asleep, we changed her diaper and clothes and let her be.

I'm so amazed at the two different Cherises I saw today. What made the difference? Maybe it was the time spent with us at home. Maybe she just needed to be somewhere familiar where she could hang loose and play a bit, connect with her parents, snuggle a bit... And even though none of us slept during the afternoon hours at home, we all felt rejuvenated in that short time. That's great, I think - exactly what home should be. A place to rest, relax and recharge. And the fact that Cherise feels the same way means that we have, in some measure, succeeded in creating a home for her.

I Need To Solve This Mystery...

3 a.m. and I'm too keyed up to sleep. A bit awake because I've just completed a tough task - changed Cherise's poopy diapers. At night. While she's asleep. Without her waking. And all by myself because hubby's pulling a night shift.

It's amazing how attuned I've become to Cherise's bodily functions, i.e. she poops at night and I manage to wake up, mid-dream, because my nose recognises Cherise-poop-smell. (By the way, this goes for Cherise-pee-smell as well.)

And my nose has certainly been put to the test this week.

***

Tuesday, 1 a.m.: Adrian and I are horrified to discover our little girl has pooped in her sleep. We put a screaming Cherise (who was angry at being awakened) onto the changing table, and I change her while Adrian tries to soothe her (without success) and halfway through it all she poops some more, and then tearfully announces, "All done, all done!" I don't know whether to laugh or cry.

Tuesday, 8 a.m.: I wake up to Cherise-poop-smell - she's asleep but she's pooped again. We change her, with a lot less crying this time, and then conclude that something's not right. So off to the doc we go.

Tuesday, 10 a.m.: At the doctor's. We've just seen the doc the day before for Cherise's pneumococcal jab, so I'm thinking, maybe this pooping is a side effect from the vaccine. The stools are a little loose - not really watery, just a little slushier than usual. Doc gives us loperamide for diarrhoea and abdominal pain, and some probiotics. But Cherise doesn't poo for the rest of the day - appears totally normal actually, so we hold the medication and conclude it was a one-off thing and we overreacted.

Wednesday, 1 a.m.: We are watching a movie in bed when we hear little grunting noises from Cherise's corner. We look at each other helplessly, and put away the movie with a sigh. More screaming as we change her and I have to nurse her back to sleep.

Wednesday, 8 a.m.: Poop while asleep again. Why am I not surprised anymore...

***

And so it's been like that the past week. She's been having slushy stools, 3 to 5 times a day since Tuesday. And she will do a night time poop while asleep. This is strange because prior to this, Cherise was really regular - she'd do a nice big one once a day and that would be it. We've tried the loperamide. No change in the consistency of stools, nor improvement in frequency. Probiotics and yogurt aren't helping. Dietary changes are useless. I have no idea what's going on.

She's not sick. She's not in pain, and there's no fever or vomiting. Plus, 3 times a day doesn't quite constitute diarrhoea, does it?

Is it the jab? Diarrhoea is one of the side effects listed for the pneumococcal vaccine. But then, it's been so many days already - and it doesn't explain the night poop!

My helper thinks it could be teething - I'm quite inclined to agree. Cherise's bottom molars are coming out - they're huge! The right side's almost completely out, and the left looks really bumpy - I can practically see the white tips beneath the gums. Dr. Sears calls it drool diarrhoea, I think. But again, why the night poop? Why doesn't she go more during the day???!!

It's like, out of 3 poops a day, she'll do 2 asleep and 1 awake. Hm.

I can deal with slushy day time poops, but the night time ones are really stressing me. I'm afraid to go to sleep, because I'm scared I'll miss it and not wake up and she'll sleep through the night with the dirty diaper. Thankfully my nose hasn't failed me so far. I'm afraid of touching her in her sleep - afraid if I do, then she'll get roused from deep sleep and do a poop. I wake up many, many times at night to reassure myself that her diaper is still poop-free. And I was really stressed when Adrian went off to work this evening, because if it happened (and it did), I would have to deal with it alone.

Thank God He gives me the strength (and ability!) to get through this night. How wonderful - she didn't even wake up when I changed her! No screaming baby this time! But really, I hope this stops soon. I tell you - there will be much rejoicing in this household the day we see a nice big solid poop in her diaper again. Until then, I'm just going to have to try harder to solve this mystery...