27 weeks and 5 days

This week, I felt like a swollen elephant. My ankles were so swollen after going to the Pregnancy Baby Children expo, that it felt horrible. I could feel my feet almost bursting from my shoes, and I couldn't even flex my toes! Looking at my ankles, they were BIG! *shocked*

This is the first time I had experience real swollen feet. I remembered seeing those of my patients who had that while they were pregnantm but never did I expect to get them. Haha. My ankle was basically gone. Just a straight leg from my calf to my feet. And I usually have skinny bony feet! Suddenly it's like 'meaty' and big. Eric gave me so much massage last night, and it's much better today when I woke up. I think I'll have to wear my compression socks all the time from now. Time to go for more socks shopping!

My pelvis and pubic bone pain is much better this past few days! Yay! All thanks to the ear seeds. I highly recommend women to get them put in by acupuncturist. 

I get more hungry easily these days, and keep wanting to snack away. Probably because baby is now on the putting weight stage of his growth. Just have to remind myself to choose better snacks than the sugary ones. 

Talking about the baby expo I went to on Friday (on my own) and Sunday (with Eric). There's basically just one item I'm interested in getting, and that is the Phillips breast nipple shell. It's something my sniokies friend recommended to help collect the dripping breast milk from the other breast when it's engorged. You know, not want to waste the precious milk! I went on Friday, asking for the expo price, which the sales lady said will be $18. While retail price is $24. I said I'll think about it and she said they will stock it up daily, so if I come on Sunday, I can still purchase it. After a few google research and consulting with Eric at home, we decided to buy it from the expo for $18. And guess what, when we got there on Sunday, the lady on the floor serving, wanted me to pay $20 for that last box on the shelf! 

I questioned the lady, as I remembered looking at the price sheet on Friday, and it was to be sold for $18. And her reply was: ok, you'll get it for $18. And she just key the price into the efptos machine, and asked me for my card. -_-"

I know it's the last day of the expo, and you want to get rid of the items on the shelf. But also cannot anyhow state a price you like and charge people mah. Good that I didn't rip you off by saying that it cost <$18, cause you didn't even bother to check! 

For the rest of the afternoon, Eric and I went around to check out the different brands of breast pumps and collect food samples for baby J. I'm definitely going back to work part-time at about four months after giving birth, so I would need to have breast pumping equipment on standby. Thank you to Eric's brother for giving us their breast pump, so we are saving quite a bit of money. However, our horror when speaking to the breast feeding association people, that the brand of the breast pump we are going to be inheriting, was prone to growing mold! Googling also shows it's quite common topic amongst mums with this brand of breast pump, as it's an open system. Have to be careful when using it next time and to dry it well to prevent mold from forming. 

The expo ended at 5 pm. Eric and I dragged my big swollen self to the train station and then to our car. As my feet were so swollen, we decided to have a simple dinner of take away Roast pork rice, with an additional box of veges to go with it at the next suburb. However when we got there, all the roast pork were sold out. We settled instead for a box of Char Siew rice plus a box of vegetables. This is our favourite place for takeaway boxes, as they stuffed so much ingredients and rice in each box, that it can feed both Eric and I! And for just cost $9!!  So with $15 ( additional vege is $6), we can have a very yummy and healthy meal of veges, meat and rice that makes us so full! We usually ate in the car after buying the food. But on Sunday, my bladder was bursting as does happens to many women who are pregnant. So we drop by at the local train station again, looking for toilet. And what better place to have dinner after that, than sitting on the benches at the platform, under the platform light and under the starry night sky! Sounds romantic right? 

Our day ended with a nice hot shower at home, with feet massage by Eric for my elephant legs. 

I hope this swollen feet phase is just temporary and won't get worse. It's really scary looking at my foot and can't recognise my own. :( 

Oh, and my sniokies friend Qing has given birth last Thursday! Congrats!! 

I can't wait to meet my baby J soon. 

Kcan

Baby Shower Invitation

Beth (our church leader's wife), has kindly sent out the baby shower invitation to our guest!!

THANK YOU!!

It's now making having the baby seems so real and I'm feeling excited! ^_^

So apparently, baby shower is usually only given to the first baby that's going to be born to the couple. I'm feeling loved! And I hope you are too baby J!

So many of my students touched my belly today at the class today. I must be showing a lot more now with this big size tummy. haha.

Eric and I had a hard time deciding how many people to invite. But in the end, we invited almost our whole church service people. We were so blessed to be welcomed and added into the church family. And we all shared so many laughter, joy, and even sadness together. So we do want them to be there welcoming our baby to the world. The location of the baby shower is going to be Beth's house, so lets see if everyone is going to come or not. If yes, we may need to find a bigger venue. haha.

Now, Eric and I will have to set up a gift list, which I think it won't be too much items. We are so blessed to be given so many hand me downs from our church families. Even my dear patient Nikki, has also given me bags of baby clothes, toys and even high chair for baby J. That saves us lots of money in getting baby clothes and the essential items. Thank you!! We are more than happy to get more pass me downs items. So do pass it our way!

Our baby shower will be held on 15 July. ^_^

kcan

26 weeks + 6 days

This week has been a painful week. Starting with waking up at 3am in the morning on Monday by a severe pain in my epigastric region. It's so painful that I thought if I'm going into labour or something. >_<

However, it also felt like the gastric pain which I sometimes get if I skip/irregular meals. So I woke Eric up to bring me some warm milk and a slice of bread. *sorry Eric!*
The pain came in waves. And after taking some milk and eating some bread, the pain gets less frequent and less intense. Finally after 1 hr, I could manage to lie down and sleep again. Sigh...
Thinking back, I think I've been having lesser food portion for dinner than before, because the baby is squashing the stomach. BUT, I think I'll just need to have another 'pre-supper' before sleeping, so that I won't wake up with this pain again.

Thankfully, baby was ok throughout the painful episode. He didn't even move! He's probably sleeping through it. haha

I've also been experiencing more hip pain and swelling on my palms and legs this week. I've left out the ear seeds for about 3 days. And by the 3rd day, I realised I couldn't walk up and down the stairs at home properly. Turning in bed became such a chore (because it needs my hips to move) that I couldn't get comfortable in bed. So back in my ears are the ear seeds.
My palms are swelling up every morning when I woke up. So bad that I couldn't even move my wedding ring! Strangely, it'll subside as the day goes by. However, it's not the case for my feet. My feel + legs swells up gradually during the day, especially if I've been out the whole day seeing patients. Compression socks are now my must have/wear when ever I go out for work. Overnight, the swellings will come down,

Since Sunday, I've also been feeling some palpitations in my chest. Not sure what it was about. It was especially bad on Monday afternoon, after not sleeping well from the epigastric episode in the morning. Thankfully it's much better now in terms of frequency.

I went for my midwife visit again on Wednesday afternoon. The glucose test results are good! Yay! Don't have gestational diabetes. I will continue to do my cycling at least 3/week to keep my circulation going. The blood test results were good too, even though my Haemaglobin levels went down a little, but still in the normal range. I did have some worry about my Iron levels during pregnancy, as I didn't want any red meats during my first trimester. And 2 weeks ago, I had a sudden cravings for beef. I'll have to remind myself to eat more red meat now. During the visit, they also checked the baby's heart beat and position. He's heart is beating well, and on the time of visit, he's lying down low horizontally in my belly. The midwife said that there's lots of amniotic fluid in there, so he's can keep swimming and turning inside. That I agrees, as some times, he kicks down low at my cervix, while at times it's on the upper ribs region. Have fun swimming and playing inside! BUT please don't bounce on my bladder like a trampoline. >_<

Tonight, we are skipping bible study to attend this music event held by EMU music. It may be the last 'concert' that I'll get to attend without any kids. So I'm making full use of this opportunity! ^_^
Pray that it'll be a good and fun night for both Eric and I.

Oh, and just as I'm typing this, my dear friend Qing from Sniokies, is in labour!!!
Pray that labour will go smoothly and both mother and baby will be safe. Look forward to meet another of our sniok junior!

anni

26 weeks pregnant!

Hi everyone!

Sorry for not updating earlier. Things of life got pretty busy since my last post 2 years ago. And plus my laziness, new hobbies, distractions and many other excuses, I couldn't update more frequently. I apologise. 

I had a post fully typed up back when I'm 16-17 weeks, on my way to Singapore back in March. But for some reason, it disappeared! And I lost the entry forever. :( 

So here I am, introducing my little baby. Lets call him J. He's 26weeks + 1day old at the moment. Kicking and rolling around in my tummy all day.

I know I should have update here more frequently so that I can remember all the milestones and happenings throughtout my pregnancy. BUT, time was quite tight with running of clinic and teaching and Church's activities. And in a blink of an eye, it's more than halfway of my pregnancy!

Let me see if I can recap and update bits and pieces of my first trimester.

Eric and I had been trying for a few months after our last miscarriage in July 2016. It was sad, as we were quite shocked by the loss again after our first in August 2015. Looking back, over worked and being constantly tired, late nights finishing, traveling everywhere for work doing home visits. These would have contributed to the miscarriage. I was back home almost 11pm daily throughout the week, with minimal breaks in between. Thinking back, I think I should have focus more on my own health than the patient's health at that time. Back then, Eric was again quite unsympathetic with my second pregnancy, thinking that working will help distract me from constantly worrying. He also reasoned that many women in a worse off situation than I am, can get through pregnancy just fine. So I just had to suck it up.

We had a sad memorial for our little baby whom we named Shadow, and it sort of helped us regain the trust with each other, and care more about each other. This second miscarriage experience also open our eyes to the lacking of support from our GPs and even the people in the ER at the hospital, and the Nurses who see us through after the miscarriage. I felt that the nurses at the IVF clinic I worked at, are so much more knowledgeable in pregnancy support.

So we started trying again from September, giving my body two month's of rest. Unlike the previous times, I decided to let my own knowledge of using Chinese medicine and acupuncture to help my body recover. Firstly, by regulating my period. It's been in a chaos after my two miscarriages. Periods were painful and not regular. I did temperature charting, observing the mucus discharges, ovulating testing, timing our activities at the right time throughout the month. But month after month, the period just came. And it was really disappointing for me. I felt like giving up and just go down the IVF pathway. BUT of course, Eric don't want to do that. November would be the last month we'd try falling pregnant, before stopping for the summer months, as I do not want to fly to my friend's wedding in March 2017 during the first trimester.

And so we waited... And waited... for my period. And we realised we were pregnant! :D 

Praise God!

Unlike the previous two pregnancy, I took daily herbal medicine to strengthen and calms the baby, all the way from my ovulation to 12 weeks of pregnancy. And each week, I insist that Eric gave me weekly to bi-weekly acupuncture. I also monitor my own blood pregnancy and progesterone blood levels, even though my GP don't understand and finds it unnecessary. But that's the standard protocols in IVF clinics. At 8 weeks, we had our first ultrasound and saw a healthy, on time sized baby with a strong beating heart. We named him Lumpy. 

My first trimester was thankfully during the December January time, where I had plenty of rest during the Christmas New Year break. The only complaint during my first trimester is tiredness. No nauseous, no vomiting. Just very tired. I'll nap on the reclining chair every afternoon for at least three hours. My preference of food had also change. I prefers salty food, and is put off by smells of western food that is  tomato based (pizza, pasta, lasagne), red meats, Northern Chinese food (dumplings, fresh hand pulled noodles). My cravings were Malaysian and Singapore food. I even had to make my own nasi lemak during Christmas time to satisfy my cravings. Other food includes yam cakes and char kuey tiao. 

We had another scan at 13 weeks, just to make sure baby is growing well and that I'm safely going into the second trimester. At the 13 weeks scan, we saw the placenta's position, baby was much bigger and brain, stomach, heart, kidneys, bladder, fingers and legs are all well developed. We were very pleased. Another reason we had the scan was so I know that baby is safe to travel overseas with me. Yay! First trimester is over!

My energy got better the week before my flight to Singapore. My flight there was comfy as my dear friend Rong upgraded my flight, so there's extra legs room for me. 

I first felt the baby while sleeping in Singapore. It felt like gas movement when I tried lying down to bed. Something I've not felt before. 

I ate well in Singapore, satisfying my cravings for locals food that I've missed so much. 

The flight coming back was uncomfortable as my body was so swollen from the cabin pressure. My left arm was in constant pain that I had to keep it raised the whole way back. Probably no more flying for me in the rest of the pregnancy.

At 18 weeks, we did the morphology scan to check if Lumpy is growing well. He's actively kicking and waving his arms, probably annoyed at the prop that is pressing down in his little space. His stomach circumference is on time. Thigh bone length is about a few days late. While his head circumference is a week in advance. Just like his dad! With big head and short legs. We also saw his gender through the scan, and decided to name him J. We were so happy that he's healthy and all his organs are formed well. 

By 19 weeks, J's little kicks were quite pronounced. Especially when I rolled purposely onto my tummy while sleeping on my left side. Whenever I did that, I'd feel this big strong nudge on the tummy to ask me to give him more space. And yes, I do purposely squash him just to feel is reaction. Haha. Bad mummy. 

I caught a cold around 19 weeks as well, which lasted for two weeks. I cough so much that I cracked my rib on the Sunday 2 April. It was so painful. For the next few days, I felt less of J's movement when I squashed him. Not sure if my illness will harm the baby or not, I called up and went in to the antenatal clinic for a request to check if baby was ok. Thankfully the heart beat detector shows that he's still moving lots. The explanation could be that he's just kicking a different area, aka the placenta region, where there are no nerve to relay the sensation. 

It took me three weeks to recover fully from the cough. The rib took about a month to recover. During that time, we found out that ear seeds works!! It help to reduce the pain on my ribs area, so I can have a better range of motion, with the growing belly plus the crack rib. I couldn't take normal painkillers  for cracked rib in pregnancy, so it's quite good that the ear seeds works like magic on reducing my pain. Since then, I've also use it for my hips when it's hurting from walking up n down the stairs in my in-laws's place. 

Thank you little bub that you don't kick mummy on the painful rib area when I'm in pain!

We did a birthing class call Transition to parenthood on the Sunday of 30 May. It was very helpful to us both first time parents, on how to help each other during labour contractions and how to look after a new born. Since attending the class, Eric is having a 'dadd's time' with J every night before bed. Talking and chatting to little J. There was once when Eric asked if little J likes his voice? Kick if yes. No response. And kick if he finds it annoying. A BIG STRONG KICK responded! Hahahahaha.
There will be a calm birth class that we'll be going at the end of this month, to help prepare me for the birth. And lets just say, little J don't understand what he likes and don't likes yet. =p

Overall, the second trimester is quite smooth sailing, except for the few weeks of coughing and rib pain. I'm thankful for the regain in energy and movement. My belly swells up bigger and bigger, that most of my normal T-shirts are now too small and short. I get occasional heart burn, which usually happens on Saturdays. But I have been managing it well so far by eating less white bread and sugary food. Eric has been giving me daily back rubs to ease my back ache. There's just days where my back feels like it's breaking after a long day of work.

I'm looking forward to seeing you soon little J!! =D
Thank you for your little gentle kicks on and off. So I know you are happy and safe in there. Sorry for the time where I shut the door too loudly and it frightened you. Or the days where I had to had lunch super late and you were so quiet as if you were conserving your energy.

Love you little one! Grow up strong and healthy with a love for Jesus!

kcan