Our Image

I've been contemplating for a while as to whether I should blog about my miscarriage experience. It was a painful experience that nobody would like to go through, and unfortunately, studies show that 10%-15% of miscarriages happen during the first trimester.

I've decided to blog about it as I want my dear child to be remembered always and be part of our memories in this blog.

"My dear child, wherever you are right now, I believe we will meet each other again."

So let me begin...

It was in Aug 2010 that we found out that I was pregnant again. The emotions were different compared to us having found out about my pregnancy with Aden. With "Image", Hubb and I were worried, unprepared but of course there was still a little sense of joy. Soon, we made an appointment with Dr G. Tan and had the confirmation about the pregnancy.

This is "Image".

p.s. if I'm not mistaken, "Image" was made in Europe. :p

Anyway, we were not quite ready for another child because Aden was not even one year old, couldn't walk on his own and still require us to carry! And both of us were not mentally prepared for another one due to many other factors like finances, work, and desired lifestyle.

Nevertheless, what's done cannot be undone. No matter how unprepared we were, we had to be responsible to our child.

During the first appointment with Dr Tan, everything went on as normal as when I had Aden except that I clearly remember her telling me that I have to be very careful during the first trimester as miscarriages happen. Her words left a deep impression in me but I didn't give much thought about it until later on.

After the first appointment with Dr Tan, I started taking folic acid daily. However, as the days go by, I began to feel uneasy. Call it the mother's instinct. Words cannot describe the kind of uneasiness I had. There were a few night I even woke up with nightmares and weird dreams. However, I didn't thought that I would suffer a miscarriage as I am young and healthy.

On that faithful 9 Sept 2010, Hubb and I went for the second appointment at Dr Tan's clinic. The ultrasound scan revealed that my baby's heart had stopped beating and the size of the fetus showed that it grew 'til about 8 weeks old. By then, I was supposed to be in the 9th week of pregnancy.

I was devastated and heartbroken. I lost my child 1 week ago without even realizing. What kind of mother am I. I could not control my emotion and I kept crying. Dr Tan suggested that I should do the 'dilation and curettage' (D&C) procedure ASAP to clean up the womb else the body will discharge "it" as a foreign tissue and I will go into extreme pain like menstrual cramp.

We fixed the appointment on 11 Sept 2010, Saturday. I can never forget that faithful day when I went into TMC with a heavy heart. I felt like I was going for an abortion except the fact that my child is no longer alive inside me.

It was a terrible wait at TMC. Thankfully Hubb accompanied me throughout the ordeal. I don't remember how long we waited but it seemed forever. I was then pushed to the OT alone and laid outside with more waiting. I couldn't help but sob quietly and I felt really terrible. I dislike waiting. Part of me wanted the procedure to be done quickly, yet at the same time, I couldn't bear to part with my baby. The OT was filled with tears of joy and sadness. The joy came from the cries of the newborns who were born via caesarean and the daddies and mommies. I was the sadness.

After a long wait, I was pushed into the OT. That was my first time in a OT, well, I'm not sure if it would be my last. It looked scary though. I was greeted by Dr Tan who told me not to worry and that it will be over soon and the anesthetist told me that the injection will be a little painful like ant's bite. Before I knew it, I was in "coma" and woke up when the procedure was done. I didn't feel any pain at all except extreme fatigue. I guess it must be the anesthetic and my broken heart.

Hubb was waiting for me patiently and the moment I saw him, I broke down again. We stayed a little while as the nurse said that I had to rest. I'm really thankful for a very supportive husband.

We then went to pick Aden from my grandma's place and made our way home. Everything went on as usual and I tried not to think about it. However, it was easier said than done. Soon, I sank into depression. I couldn't sleep at night and kept crying. I blamed myself for not taking care of my body and caused this to happen. In short, I was living in denial.

Thankfully, this painful ordeal didn't last long. I had a lot of supports from Hubb and my dear Mom and little Aden. Though he was young, Aden seemed to know something was amiss. Whenever he saw me crying, he would call upon me in his sweetest voice and gave me a big bear hug.

Also, surprisingly, I discovered that I was not the only one who went through this. Some of my friends who are mommies now began to share with me their personal experiences as well. I was not alone.

It may be a blessing in disguise.

To our Image,

"If tears could build a stairway, and memories a lane, I'd walk right up to heaven and bring you home again."

With Love

happy 26th birthday & 3rd yr wedding anniversary!

Last Thursday Hubby and I celebrated my birthday and our wedding anniversary! How time flies! Thinking back, Hubb and I have been through many ups and downs together. There were moments for happiness and arguments, laughter and tears, heart breaking and love-makings! All these are memories and moments like these made us stronger as a couple.

Hubb bought a cake (my fav! Rive Gauche!) on Wednesday, hoping to surprise me but too bad, I opened the fridge anyway. As we're sleeping pretty early these days, Aden and Hubb sang birthday song (and Baby G dancing in the tummy) and we cut and ate the cake before the clock strikes twelve!

And my goodness! Hubb surprised me with yet another Chanel loot! :p Honestly, I wasn't expecting anything from Hubby as I had already told him I want nothing expensive. Maybe just a Braun Hair Brush that's worth less than a hundred dollar. But anyway, I was moved to tears when I saw the Chanel paper bag that Hubb brought into the room.

It's a wallet and Hubb said that it is to match my bag. It's a long, calf skin, patent wallet in lavender color. (Forgot to take picture!) To be honest, I do like it the very moment I opened it up but I already have a LV long wallet so another long wallet is not a very practical choice to me. Thankfully, Hubb said that we could go down to Chanel the next day to exchange for another design. *Hooray!

I felt rather bad because I didn't pick the original wallet as my final choice but Hubb was cool about it and I eventually (incidentally) chose one that is slightly more expensive than the original one. *Oopsie!

I, too, gotten Hubb a gift though not a surprise at all. We went to Hello! Singtel Shop and I got him the Samsung S3. Initially Hubb wanted the blue one but he felt the urge to change the phone ASAP 'cos the Samsung Note resale price is dropping like crazy! Well, he's a happy man now!

We ended the day with a sumptuous dinner at Crystal Jade and some play time at the playground with Aden. It's always very heart-warming to see the 2 (very soon there will be 3) most important men of my life having fun and wrestling with each other on the bed at night.


p.s. i love you

Thank you darling for all your love and support all these while. Thank you for tolerating all my nonsense and always here for me whenever I needed you. Thank you for working so hard for the family. ilyvm

30 weeks

We're gonna see you in less than 10 weeks time, Baby G!

The feeling of becoming mommy again is overwhelming! It seems like yesterday when we just found out that I'm conceived with Aden korkor, and now I'm having Baby G didi!

How time flies!

This pregnancy is definitely much more challenging compared to the first. Not that I have bad morning sickness (thankfully!), my emotional health kind of suffered.

During the first pregnancy, everything seem to be going on so smoothly. It could be due to the "honeymoon" feeling we had as we just got together and got married, bought a house and arrival of Aden. Everything was good!

As for this pregnancy, not that Daddy and I are no longer in love (we are very much more loving actually!), things are more settled down and we have to manage a lot of things in every aspects of our lives. Hence, there are moments when my hormones decide to take charge and negatives thoughts began to fill my mind. But I know I have to overcome this and Daddy is in this with me. :)

One more thing to cheer about is my pregnancy weight! Yay! At 30 weeks, I've gained 10kg so far. I don't remember how much I put on by 30th week during the first pregnancy but by the time I gave birth to Aden at almost 40th week, I put on close to 20 kilos! So 10 more weeks to go and I hope I can maintain or maybe, just maybe, another 2 kilos more.

Another milestone in our lives. It will be challenging for sure but I know the Chewies can overcome this together. After all, haven't we been trying many new things together? :)

Aden's words... (Part 1)

I've been wanting to make a compilation of Aden's dictionary but with him attending Nursery now and learning more words day by day, I'm having a little trouble keeping pace with him.

At 2 1/2 year old, I believe Aden is really talking a lot. When he just turned two, he was not talking much yet and I kept asking the child care teachers if I should bring Aden for assessment. As time goes by, I've learnt that kids really do learn at their own pace and it is just a matter of time.

Now that he is talking and singing, some times I do wish for a quieter moment. Talk about life being an irony.

Anyway, here are some words and sentences that my darling boy, at 2 1/2 year old, is always saying...

1) 鸡鸭包 (Jiggle Bell)

Don't ask me why. I don't know! He came back home one day and started saying "鸡鸭包, 鸡鸭包!" Hubb and I were looking at each other wondering what the heck he was saying until months later when he was playing with the iPod touch and singing "鸡鸭包" with the Jiggle Bell tune playing. (And yes, it took us many months to finally figure out what he was saying, or rather singing...)

2) 我有 Mummy, Papa, XXX

XXX means whatever things he sees or he likes, he will input that in. So for example, if he sees an aeroplane in the sky, he would say, "我有 Mummy, Papa, Aeroplane". Or "我有 Mummy, Papa, Hold Hand". =D

3) 你, 我, 他

I think it's a little tough for a 2 year old to understand the difference. My boy always cracks me up whenever I ask him "你要 Mummy 喂你吃吗?" And his reply would always be "我要 Aden 喂你" where he actually meant that he wants to feed himself. (~_~)??

4) Papa 气车

At 2 1/2 yo, my dear son is able to recognize numbers, alphabets AND CAR LOGOS! When he sees cars on the road, he would proclaim loudly "不是 Papa 汽车!". And when he see a Mercedes Benz of a different color, he would go "不是 Papa 黑色/红色/黄色 or any other color other than white!"

5) Eh, 我的位!

My cheeky little one is always "fighting" with me on the bed. I normally sleep on the left side of the bed and poor daddy is currently sleeping on the mattress on the floor 'cos my darling son refuses to sleep by himself. Thus, the cheeky monkey has 3/4 of the bed to himself so that he can do a 360 degree turn every night. At times when he wants to tease me, he would go to MY SIDE of the bed, lie down, cover himself with the blanket and proclaim loudly "Eh, 我的位!".

6) Eh eh eh eh wooooooooool

Doesn't it ring a bell? No?
Bah Bah Black Sheep, EH EH EH EH WOOOOOOOOOL...
Need more explanation?

7) 大大, BIG BIG!

Ever since Aden knew that he's going to be a BIG brother, my little man seems to have grown in his BIG BIG world. I started teaching him to call himself "Aden Kor Kor", and soon I began to realize him associating many things and himself to 大大! He would call himself 大大KorKor, or when I asked him what he would like Didi to give him as a gift, he would be saying, "我要大大汽车/Truck/Aeroplane or etc." (Well, he can't really make up his mind as of now.)

8) Poooooooooooooo

This is quite disgusting but hey, who doesn't sh*t and fart? We taught him this pretty early and it really made up laugh out loud even 'til today.
It all started one fine day when Daddy farted and I looked at Aden and asked, "What happened? 谁?"
And Aden replied, "Papa".
I asked again, "Papa做么?"
And Aden cheekily went, "Papa poooooooooooooooooooooo".

That's all I can think of for now. There are definitely much more hilarious and entertaining words/sentences coming from my cheeky boy..

Til then...

24th Week!

Hello Baby G!

Mommy is here again! :) You're officially 24 weeks old in mommy's tummy! And we're going to see you very soon my dear! You have been very active in mommy's tummy and I can't describe how I love having a little one kicking. Daddy can never understand. Mommy always feels that 38 to 40 weeks of pregnancy is way too short!

Well, our "expected" meet-up date is 8 Aug. Would you like to be a National Day baby? It's really up to you to decide. Mommy can only hope for it to happen... :p

Anyway, mommy would like to share an incident that happened yesterday.

Mommy was on the way to the office yesterday traveling by the MRT and I noticed a 8 yo little girl looking loss and helpless. She alighted at the same station as mommy. Seeing her alone and helpless, mommy approached this girl and got to know that she's a tourist from Thailand and got separated from her family. Mommy brought her to the station control and waited until her mother arrived. Upon seeing her daughter, the mother gave the little girl a big hug and I could see tears well up in their eyes. Before I realised, I had tears in my eyes too! The mother thank me and we went our separate ways.

Hence, mommy learnt a lesson.

Most parent's first reaction would probably be screaming at the top of her lungs upon seeing the child and start reprimanding the child and blah, blah, blah.

Yet this Thai mommy's reaction was giving assurance to her daughter that everything is alright.

Our actions and reactions toward things can be very different and they bring upon different outcomes.

As the saying goes, "Action speaks louder than words".

What else can be more assuring to a child other than receiving praise and hugs from parents?

That is why Korkor never fail to receive hugs and kisses from Daddy and Mommy daily.

Daddy, Mommy and Korkor are looking forward to see you soon! Be prepared to receive loads of big beary hugs and wet kisses from us! *Muackkkkkkkk!*

With love,
Mommy

Mommy is back!

Hello darlin' children,

Mommy is here again after MIA for so long. :)

Well, the inital set up of this space was to dedicate to Korkor Aden but now that Didi Gibson is kicking furiously in mommy's tummy, to be fair for us, let's make it a space for mommy to rant about you kiddos! HAHA!

Let's just hope mommy will bring this space back to life and by the time you little kiddos grow up to young gentlemen, and hopefully a demure lady (mommy's crossing fingers!), this space will be filled with sweet memories for all of us, the chewies IMAGE. Yes?

So to kick start this new journey once again, your kiasu mommy has once again set up a gmail account for Didi Gibson (gibsonchew@gmail.com), just like what I did for Korkor Aden.

p.s. In Singapore, we have to do a lot of "chopping" in advance. :)

'til the next post, much love from mommy.