Confinement - after the birth of Kody

 IT IS THE END OF CONFINEMENT!!!!!

I'm elated although it can't be seen easily on the outside.

I feel instantly 2 degrees celcius cooler even though the weather forecast shows 30 degrees (34 degrees with humidity) right now. Even my body is responding and celebrating in its own ways.

I've been wanting to put together my delivery of Kody on Instagram for keepsake, and even blog about delivery before I do about confinement. However, since the memory is still fresh - especially when Kara is now in school, Kody's sound asleep (as how he has been for the past 1 month 95% of the time) I can take some time to do so. Or at least, before my earthly-conformed mind drifts away and procrastinates as how it usually would, just casually being on the phone again. -Rolls eyes at myself-

This time round, Siti is around to cook my confinement meals instead of catering my meals. Easily one of the best decisions made. We cancelled our order from Chili Padi catering about 1 month before. That was after I got a green light from Siti, our helper, who will be willing to cook my confinement meals. I've thought about it - given that she is able to cook, and confinement meals can't be anymore complex than Indonesian dishes which she aces in.

My mom didn't stay in with us throughout the 1 month of confinement either. She has been of great help by being the one in charge getting groceries. She taught Siti on the confinement dishes i.e. ginger fried rice, ginger fried egg, fish with rice wine and ginger etc. + cooking pig trotters with black vinegar. She also guided her on how to shower and clean Kody up. I'm SOOOOO glad I get to have a lot more noodles this time. I figured just rice alone is not my thing especially when the dishes to go with it is just so unflavourful....

So yes, we were up and going for confinement on the meals and caring for newborn!

Well, as for me....... Confinement was and is a thorn in the flesh. I'm jotting down my personal experience for keepsake. Of course no one's experience is gonna be the same and I certainly do not hope for anyone except for it to be very bearable, or even pleasant.

So the pains of confinement this time for me:

1. Stomach flu (or at least I'll deem it as so)
2. Some postpartum blues for the first 2 weeks
3. HIGH body temperature. Basically SUPER HOT.
4. Body odour (led by the aforementioned)
5. Cracked and sore nipples (from 1st two weeks latching / attempts to)
6. Rashes on my right underboob (yup yucks)

I'll just say that there are some things that we can't avoid postpartum such as the lack of and very disrupted sleep which comes with the feeding. It's just exacebated if you choose to breastfeed/exclusively pumping. So the reality is 3 hourly feeding/pumping for the 1st month. i.e. 10pm, 1am, 4am, 7am, 10am so on. Not including the time taken to wash the pump parts, feeding baby, cleaning baby or yourself up each time which can take an addition 30 min-1 hour again. Kody's bowels is exceptionally active between 1am-7am. Even a morning person like myself can't perk myself up that much throughout 1 month other than to feel exhausted at certain point of the day. We had Kody in the same room as us (Rov Kara and I) throughout the night and I wouldn't choose it any other way. Who could be more sensitive than me to the sound and needs of my child? Plus I'm needed to wake up every 3 hours anyway. I'm sleeping so lightly lol..

Not to forget the constant heavy bleeding down at the vaginal for almost 2 week straight. There's stil spotting now at week 4 but much better.

THEN AGAIN, this is just a phase. It shall pass. I don't downplay it neither do I rant all day and night about it. But I think I do rant all day about feel BLOODY HOT!!!!!! The weather the past 1 month hasn't been any way merciful and I do have the aircon switched on here and there. I can only blame myself for not having it on most of the time, especially given that we are gonna shift from this home and the condition of the aircon shouldnt matter to me that much anymore anyway...!!!

Ok, so from point 1-6 mentioned above, I'll elaborate a little more on point 1 cos tbh I'm sure point 1-5 is nothing exceptional to most moms.

So how did stomach flu even happen??????? 

My highest suspicion is that I caught it from the pregnant mother who was staying next to me in the hospital. From my hearing observation, she should have been admitted due to some sort of stomach flu. I was warded in 4 bedder ward, so inevitably I would have to share the same toilet bowl as her, right??

Figured it was the closer to the time before getting discharged that I got fully exposed to the toilet bowl and bacteria/virus (prior to that I had the pee pan placed on top of the toilet bowl each time to catch and measure the amount of pee - this is the hospital's way to ensure bladder care for those with vaginal birth)

Signs of stomach flu showed itself full force only upon reaching home when my bowels were UNCONTROLLABLE. In all transparency, poop in liquid form leaked out without warning. Once, it leaked so bad that even my maternity pad couldn't contain it (it wasn't meant to anyway) and it stained the floor outside my room. Quite a number of times for the first night, it was explosive to the point the floor of my toilet was covered with dark liquid faeces because I could get my butt back to the toilet bowl in time. THAT BAD. I was so frustrated while in pain and shame and full annoyance with my own bowels while I cleaned and scrubbed the toilet with bleach several times. DAMN. I don't wish this upon anyone.

Then for the first weekish, making runs to the toilet 5-6 times a day, having liquid faeces staining maternity pad / underwear was norm. The stomach flu only fully cleared after 2 weeks. Absolutely distasteful. Lol what a choice of word (taste) for this.

I've just looked at my last post on my blog and realized I didn't document the pains of my earlier postpartum and confinement after delivering Kara. I didn't even complete my post. LOL. Let me document it another time. Postpartum then in 2021 has its own set of problems. Lol if asked which I would choose over, I really can't give an outright answer.

I'm not adding caring for a toddler in the midst of confinement as part of the pains of confinement, but I must say it is a challenge. Kara has been really sweet with Kody - calling his name in the sweetest voice, being gentle with him, sharing her favourite moomoo (when she has 2 of them) with him etc.

However when it comes to moments where she needs comfort especially being awakened in wee hours for whatever reasons, she'll cry out to me and I'll have to carry her who is 10kg. That is definitely not great for the still-recovering uterus. Many days I have to carry her to and back from school when she needs comfort. I can only thank God school is just 2-3 minutes away from home.

Rov and I have taken many opportunities to bring Kara to playgrounds around the neighbourhood to ensure we have some alone time with her and making her transition of having a new family member a pleasant one, as much as possible. When she wants to be carried and it has to be for quite some distance..... It's not pleasant for me lol. 

on 13-15 March, 1 week before the end of confinement Kara was admitted to KKH for RSV (Respiratory syncytial virus) after being referred by polyclinic and sending her to A&E to get checked. Rov, my mom, Kody and I were all together when that day was also supposed to be one of Kody's Jaundice follow up appointment. Thanks to my dad he could drive us to KKH, as he did ferrying us for every polyclinic visit. So it's a whole day from 9am to 4/5pm before I got home while Rov stayed in with Kara in the hospital. I'd say in the somewhat 2 days following that as my dad sent to me the hospital daily for visits, the saving grace as been the aircon in the ward LOL. Poor girl had so many crying episodes it was prolly uncountable. Rovson had it rough too having to carry her so she could sleep because she refused to sleep in the hospital cot bed. He personally admitted that he wanted to be home more than her!

I'm thankful that I've personally witnessed how Kara has opened up and been more sticky to Siti this period. I'm more thankful than feeling sad (though there's some bittersweet feeling when she chooses her over me). This just gives more light to Rov and I having dates even with 2 kids!! Gonna arrange it real soon.

Ok so here I am, after 2 hours spent typing away on my Macbook feeling pleasantly pleased with myself for completing what I have been hoping to do for the past 4 weeks. That's just 1 down, out of a number of check boxes. But hey, one step at a time!!!!

Slight bummer that I prolly caught some of the virus from Kara, hence having some congestion now which I'm trying to recover from by taking Zyrtec :')

To end off, thank you to the aunts and uncles who came to visit these period!

Delivery of Kara & Confinement

 Oh gosh I've been telling myself that I'd like to blog my delivery experience during my 4 months of maternity and guess what happened..... nothing?!

Ok many things happened. I just happened to be living in the present moment fully. Haaa haa.

I'm very glad that despite much procrastination of slow editing of my delivery process, I've managed to piece the video snippets together and have it posted / saved on my instagram post.

Since i've gotten myself to get my macbook plugged in and come onto this page, I'd better ensure I have this jotted down.

Now, let me refresh my memory. I've told many of our friends my experience but i'm sure i'd appreciate myself years down the road when I get to read back on this.

The entire delivery process was.... long. Close to 35 hours?

My 'mini contractions' started on 1st Oct 2021 at 8.07pm (yes, this precise because I took it down on my phone notes), each coming in about 4-5 minutes intervals, and lasting for 15-20 seconds. It had a few pauses between each hour, but persisted into 2nd Oct 2021 3.17am when it got more intense and painful, though bearable. Rovson and I were already preparing each other that night while watching show (Agents of Shield? or I think it was Squid Game) on Netflix before turning in for the night late about 1am. I would have slept earlier if I knew it was be heading to the hospital for delivery lol.

So I called my dad up about 4am. My dad and mom came to pick us up and drove us over to KK Hospital at 5am. Got into the observation ward with Rovson and laid there for about 30 minutes before the doctor gave us 2 options of 

a) Going back home and wait for the pain to get more pain (in her words lol)
b) Get admitted and await spontaneous labour (since my contractions on the machine was reflecting regular contractions)

We chose option B of course.

I was not showing any other obvious signs of labour such as clear dilation or waters broke. We did head to the hospital as during our last visit to the doctor she mentioned to head to the hospital if there were any of the above, and/or regular contractions. Else, we would be heading to the hospital as scheduled on 5 Oct 2021 to go into labour. My dilation was at 1cm back at the visit 1 week prior, and it was at 1.5cm when the doctor checked at in the observation ward L O L.

Thankfully, we were given a ward that was air-conditioned upon admission despite choosing the subsidized option. Breakfast, lunch, high tea were served in the midst of the wait since admission at 7.40am. We managed to catch the last 2 episodes of Squid Game lol.

We walked around hoping to encourage spontaneous labour to happen. Despite that, nothing significant happened. The contractions got a lot more painful towards 4pm (mind that it was already 9 hours since we got into the ward) and I requested to have painkiller / doctor to check on my dilation. To our horror, the nurse informed us that the delivery suite were fully occupied and I had to wait, in her words, for maybe another 1-2 hours. Guess what after 1-2 hours? To no avail. Omg i was really in great amount of contraction pain that prolly the nurse took pity on me and made it happen for me to get a slot in to the delivery suite to have pain killer administered because it can't be done at the ward where i was.

Pregnancy

I am taking this chance to blog when we are just 1 week 1 day away from waiting for our first child to arrive!

Milestones are hardly documented these days other than the use of Instastory to upload things live. Yes, at the same time I hardly posted anything about the past 9 months+ of the pregnancy. 

I did not suffer from morning sickness. My sense of smell heightened at the first trimester. It felt like I had a nose of a dog. However, I was also puzzled initially during the first month that I was constantly tired despite getting adequate hours of sleep.

2nd trimester was good and not too different, just taking away the smell sensitivity and unexplainable tiredness then. It was kinda surreal still initially cos the bump did not look like a bump yet my tummy did grow kinda bigger.

I did not religiously ensure that bumpfies were taken at X time, but I think I did somewhat capture the growth.

3rd trimester...... was the time fatigue struck again. I had to take 15 minutes nap at the 7-8th month mark about 2-3pm cos my body just shuts down. Food coma kinda contributed?? The woes of 3rd trimester is the baby's weight increment that comes with backache if I stood at the same spot for more than 10 minutes especially when washing the dishes. + that sian moment every night before laying on the bed that I have to ensure my body is well positioned to lie on my left. I have started the habit since 2nd month to sleep on my side, but wah.... having to shift when the body is so weighing so much more, it's a chore to move few inches on the bed better position myself. Some water retention here and there. Feet cramps in the middle of the night. Baby's movements are so apparent and it does hurt when it's too much. I do love that she's active.

Speaking for myself what's the most disliked in these months, would be the past and last 1 month of the pregnancy where i FEEL SO HOT AND BREATHLESS LIKE I'M SUFFERING FROM OBESITY. It comes from doing so little???? Just walking outdoor, working from home sitting in front of the laptop with the fan switched on.

就这样吧。

I feel ultimately very blessed that I got it so much easier than many and in my own opinion it has been a bearable one. I can still walk very quickly like how I would without being pregnant, exercise, contribute in household chores, not overeat, do not have much food cravings, no depressing thoughts.

My mom has been a strong pillar of support during this period. She comes over to cook wholesome food for us, ensuring I get to consume bird nest, washes baby's clothes and sheets, checks in on me, taking turns to care for Syrup. 

My dad as usual would drive me around whenever he could although I do not head out that often this period :-) He has helped a lot to pick up baby items from carousellers and friends from different parts of Singapore, drive my mom over on many weekends with breakfast and lunch to dine together at my place.

My husband has been involved as much as he could. He has helped to assemble the crib, clean the 2nd hand drawers we got from Carousellers, pack the baby clothes together, mop and sweep the floor, organize the bomb shelter (aka our storeroom), learning how to cook birdnest, buying food back home (i am so sick of the food around my area btw), massaging my feet time to time, responding and relieving my late night "CRAMP CRAMP CRAMP". He has not really been drinking any alcohol throughout which helped me from having the FOMO.

Friends has been very accommodative and sweet to come over to hang out instead, especially with the multiple covid 19 restrictions over the year. Very, very thankful.

So, we have been sticking to KK Hospital throughout. Every doctor appointment we meet different doctors. We go by faith that each doctor would mention "everything seems good" other than 1 visit where baby weighed 2.2kg at 36 weeks, which was smaller and lighter than average. The next week's scan showed her weight went up at 2.86kg so all's good.

I miss having half cooked egg and alcohol.

Well, I shall tell myself to take the chance to blog the next chapter when Kara officially arrives.

I stay calm and knowing all will be well especially with God.

What's ahead, I stay calm, trust and pray more. :')

Lao Tzu says

“If you are depressed you are living in the past.
If you are anxious you are living in the future.
If you are at peace you are living in the present.”

Pre Wedding Photoshoot!

It's been a really long day. A really memorable long day. That is why because I head to bed tonight I would like to record how the day went.

Woke up at 7.30am to prepare for theeee day for our pre wedding photoshoot! Ok I didn't have to put on any make up at all but it still took more an hour or more to prepare. Hmmmm.... Was picking out outfit just in case for our studio 'rain shots' and erm, to have breakfast. The night before Rovson and I took time to do up our self-made hand bouquet. Lo and behold, there was also bouquet available at Odelia Bridal for our photoshoot lololol. Alright still, it is always better to prepare just in case right??

So because of me... We reached Odelia Bridal at only 9.50am instead of 9.30am. The makeup and hairdo for me alone took up.... 2.5 hours. Pooooor Rovson could have definitely chose to sleep in and join me only when I'm almost done instead... He really just sat around and found a way to pass time while just being there. Omg 嫁对人了 T_T Honestly who can be that patient.... (although I came to know that he was just assuming it should be done quite soon in 1 hour that's why he just used his phone, however the wait just got longer and longer LOL poor boy.) I really love this man and his patience and his heart.

Linda arrived around 12.30pm. Managed to start with the indoor studio shoot after our makeup artist, Elsa, was done with Rovson's makeup and hairdo at about 1pm. Err yes very unfair. My waiting time for him was 5 times shorter than his. LOL... We were done with our indoor shoot by about 2.45pm, had a short lunch in the boutique before heading out to Singapore National Museum at 3.30pm. Rovson helped to buy a packet of fishball noodles for Linda and I to share from Amoy Market. Oh yessss finally could have some noodles without guilt. All the less-carbo meals just for THIS DAY. Another round of food-restricted-days to come for 25 December  T_T

Singapore National Museum > Odelia Bridal to change to the other outfit and touch up of hairdo and make up > Left for Coney Island at 5.40pm.

There came the part that was most dreaded. Dark clouds, RAIN. It rained while we were on the road over. However SO THANKFULLY by the time we reached Punggol Settlement it was just dark clouds. We really brisk walk quickly to Coney Island (at least 15 min walk to Coney Island from Punggol Settlement) to make sure we get our shots at the destination we painstakingly travelled for. Rex and Ben, just like before, quickly placed all the equipments and us in position for the various shots as much as we could. Seriously, the weather and atmosphere was so predictable that it was gonna rain ANYTIME. So it's just SHOOT SHOOT SHOOT before the golden moment in the darkest weather goes away.

Indeed, by the time it was 6.45pm, it started pouring. Coney Island gate closes at 7pm btw. Rex managed to get us to shoot a few REAL RAIN shots right there. Our initial plan was to shoot the artificial rain shots at Odelia Studio. Lol God had it all planned out for us~~~

Ok the rest of the time was us braving through the wind and rain for 20 minutes. Oh gosh. 挡风挡雨挡太阳。Terry our videography was also with us the whole time from the afternoon studio shots up to our evening at pouring Punggol, Coney Island. The rain wasn't the small ha-ha rain. It was pouring........ Linda and Rovson were lugging and helping me with the carrying the gown off the super wet ground with one hand while holding onto the heavy umbrella with the other hand, along with the other bag of stuff they had to carry. God sent rain, God sent angels to walk through storms together.... Ok I know I sound so... .... .... but I can't help to feel so aww. It is a scene in my life that I can never ever forget. There was even a super loud thunder which shook us but it felt ok because we were not alone. If only I could record and take video/picture of the moment but my hands were too full and dirty from the dirt stuck on the gown. Lol.

The day ended with a trip back to Odelia Studio. It was 8pm by that time. Had dinner at Maxwell with Linda and Rovson. Ta-da, back home. All washed up, mask-ed, blogged and ready for bed now at 12.10am. I'm so tired. Yet my heart is full. Thank you Jesus for the day! Omg this moment is rather surreal actually. Wedding photos??!! Ok goodnight people don't think so much. Think enough to make you feel happy. But yes do still think more to make you someone with depth. I think I'm getting tired enough to spout random words already. GOODNIGHT! Yay so happy I blogged. Ok really goodnight for now :)