My First Pregnancy Journal - Second Trimester

"2nd trimester is the honeymoon period", says most mothers.

I totally agreed.. I sailed thru the 2nd trimester with a breeze apart from heartburn, indigestion and aching, which are still bearable.

Heartburn and indigestion started of in the early stages of 2nd trimester. The feeling of heatburn was terrible as it seems like heart attack. The heart will start to pump very hard and there will be difficulty in breathing. The remedy - Gaviscon. Alternatively, natural remedies like avoid spicy food, chocolates, acidic food and have smaller frequent meals can be adopted.

Most of the time during the 2nd trimester, I will spend my time lying on the bed as my bum and back tends to ache alot.. Andy often jokes that he is going to get a wheelchair for me so that I can move ard easily. Anyway, my gynae had advised me not to move and walk alot as I had low placenta. Too much movement may cause the placenta to deattach from the uterus and bleed easily.

I think the most 'miracle' experience in this trimester is to feel the baby kicks. Initally, its fluttering sensation. As the baby grows, these feeling will turn to full blown kicks and samuersaults. Am starting to count and monitor the frequency of the kicks to ensure the well being of the baby. Studies had shown that babies should at least kick 10 times in every 2hrs.
Dont be surprise they actually got hipcups too and can be determine by the way of their kicks.

As I enter into the early stages of 3rd trimester now, I am getting clumsier & heavier as the baby is putting weight fast. My energy level starts to falls too.. Luckily, we had did most of the shopping during the Baby fairs in March.. So now we are only left with decorating the baby room and packing those baby stuffs..

2more months to go and I will be on maternity leave.. oh.. and tomorrow we will be starting our childbirth education course.. hopefully we can absorb like a sponge with all the knowledge impart, practically..

GoGo Tiger - Roaring Year Ahead

Oh boy.. I am definitely in the holiday mood already, cant wait for CNY.. Despite the fact that we gotta give red packets this year.. but why bother since its only an yearly joyous ocassion.. Not to forget spring cleaning too.. and yes, even am preggy I am not spared (dont think I got the privilege to shake leg at home and do nothing hor, Andy always go the hard way and nv spoil his loved ones).. This is one similar characteristics we have..

So our 'poor' baby girl gotta learn and grow up in the hard way.. but she sure got a doting grandparents(my parents) whom had bought her clothes and even a 24k tiger year display ornament already.

Back to CNY, am going to indulge to those new year goodies this year without guilt(*cross finger* hopefully can shred those fats after pregnancy) since am already 'auntie-in-the-making'. No Figure, No looks. Sigh.. What a price to pay!!

Besides food, love those CNY songs that bring out the festive mood and I will sing along plus dance to the groove. As baby has develop hearing, hopes that she can hear and enjoys as much as I do..

Alright ppl.. wishing u in advance:

Happy CNY.. Happy Holidays..Have a roaring year ahead

GONG XI FAI CAI!!

My First Pregnancy Journal - First Trimester

Am breaking the silence for the first time to mark the 3months taboo..The past 3 months had been dreadful and terrible..

The first trimester was never easy and I am glad that I had been through it..I used to think that I had quite high tolerance level till morning sickness hit me real hard.. The sickness followed me through day and night which makes me unable to concentrate on what I am doing and lost interest, patience in everything.

I guess it was written all over my face that some of my close colleagues realized that something was wrong.. and yes.. those mothers got it right..

At some point of time during this 3 months, I really felt like giving up.. I felt so sick, so uncomfortable. It was worsen when I developed fever and enzema..The itch was killing..There was too much for me to take it.. and this got me thinking.. Why the birth rate is getting lower despite much effort by the govt.
1. Responsibility & Commitment - There's alot to give up once you decided to bring life.. time, enjoyment, freedom, leisure, etc. Basically, the baby come first. Alot of young parents had transferred this responsibility to their parents
2. Financial - Bringing up a child needs alot of $$ especially if they constantly fall sick. Its definitely a long term investment.

Alright, here's my findings or rather complaints for the first trimester:

Week 1-4
- Slight pain in stomach
- Dizzy
- Mild Headache
- Sore Bust

Week 5-12
- Morning sickness
- Sore Bust
- Backache
- Pain on left side of the bum
- Frequent urination
- Heartburn/indigestion = sleepless nights

Birthday

Andy and my birthday are only 10 days apart.. Both of us falls in the Virgo horoscope. But we both dont seems to have similarity in terms of character.

So I went to google on the characteristics of Virgo..

The Virgin

August 23 to September 23

Traditional Virgo Traits.....

Modest and shy

Meticulous and reliable

Practical and diligent

Intelligent and analytical

On the dark side....

Fussy and a worrier

Overcritical and harsh

Perfectionist and conservative

and I had identify the character by colours:

Red-Andy

Pink-Cass

Yellow-Both

See out of so many traits we only have 3 similar.. ok thats a little study on both of us..

Had celebrated Andy's birthday by organising BBQ with some of his close friends at my mum's place.. Didnt have time to take photos because i am his 'maria' on that day, busy serving SIR.. hehe..

For his birthday present, I bought him a Mont Blanc pen

While for me, we just went out for a simple dinner and my birthay present is a Burberry Bluelabel bag..

I would like to take this opportunity to thank a group of sweet colleagues who bought me ntuc vouchers, flowers and treated me for lunchie..and to all whom had given us your wishes and blessing on our birthdays..

I guess the most memorable wishes to me came from Team 4 colleagues who sang me Birthday song while in the lift and my mum who also sang me Birthday song thru my mobile while i am on the way to work.. ;P

Surprise Surprise

Went to Baby Tristan 1yr birthday party at Pasir Ris chalet yesterday. I guess its the 'hip' place to have parties there, as almost every unit are celebrating babies/children birthday.

Downdown east has changed quite abit ever since my last visit abt 2 yrs ago. But too bad didnt managed to racke the whole place due to time constraint.

While having our dinner, one of my auntie took out a chinese newspaper and show us these:

For those who had visited us, does it rings a bell?

Yeah, its our humble flat. Surprise surprise..

Months ago, Northwest hired a professional photographer to take shoots of our flat as they are publishing a magazine to publicise their works. To our surprise before they launch the magazine, our flat is already in the papers.

I immediately called our Interior designer jokingly asked for commission, since they had used these pics to do an advertisement for their 3days promotion. In return, we earned a free meal instead..better than nothing la, wahaha..

We have to admit thumbs up for the service of our ID, Sylvia from Northwest. Even thou, our flat had completed renovation 8 mths ago, whenever, we called her to rectify some problems or defect she will still follow thru and check whether is everything ok after the rectification. This after service is very important. Unlike some other companies after the work is completed and paid, you couldnt get them to rectify even they had promised a DLP earlier.

Anyone who need renovation, can visit their 5room showflat at Tradehub, Boonlay Way, look for Sylvia and 'bao' our name.. or get her contact fr us, should have discount ba.

*Sylvia if u r seeing this.. since we so friend can extend our DLP since its going to due soon.. hehe..

Happy 44th Birthday, Singapore

Unity is the key to success, called out PM Lee in the National day message. Indeed, the economic may seems to be stabilised but the outlook seems cloudy..

But it definitely doesnt dampen the Singaporean spirits to celebrate the nation's birthday.. What's more its public holiday on Monday!! Woohoo.. alots of Singaporeans must had taken this opportunity to go for a short getaway.

For Andy and me, we passed our day by spring cleaning the house and playing Facebook.. We had recently hooked up on the games in FB ever since Andy got his new laptop (when i had to use his old laptop '_').

I was too engrossed with playg FB today that i forgot to say the pledge at 8.22pm with all the Singaporeans.. I promised that i will recite the pledge even if i am out leh..OMG..Forgive me Singapore.. hehe.. I luv u, Singapore..my country, my homeland..

Singapore had came so far, thanks MM Lee for your great vision and leadership. May u stay pink in health, Mr Lee..

Enjoy ur holidays ppl, time for bed. Tml will be a busy day.. going yum cha, do some office work and cook Claypot rice for dinner.. See thats the reason y we are getting fatter!!

The Wait is Over

Dont mistaken.. Not GSS ok..

Presenting the long waited actual day photos..

Beijing, Chengde, Tianjin 之旅

Why? Is the response we got when people knows that we are going China for our Honeymoon.
Not surprised at all, as I will be asking the same question too if I were them.

Well, besides the 2 of us are going, my parents are going for their '2nd honeymoon' too. haha. Thus, China is the place that 4 of us had not been before.

On the 2nd day after our customary wedding, we headed straight from Marina Mandarin (ohh..MM provided good service for our wedding) to catch our SQ flight.

Flight journey took abt 5-6 hrs. There is only 6 pax in our tour grp. U tend to get our attention when in a smaller grp.. good..The other 2 are aunties frm spore. 1 of them stayed in califonia for 45yrs already.. The tour guide said she was once featured in a local variety programme on introducing Beijing a few yrs back.

We spent most of our time in Beijing, a night in Chengde and a day tour in tianjin.
This tour had enriched us with more historical and cultural knowledge and there is not much shopping at all.. *sad*

Talking abt shopping, the things there are more expensive in beijing unless you can accept those 'chiong' stuff. Funny thing is thou we are staying in the heart of the Olympics village there are not much shopping centres but only food, hotels and of course stadiums.

Never shall I forget the reckless drivers, the honing on the congested roads, the countless Audis on the road, the trend of hotels having the revolving entrance, the thousand hands guanyin performance by the deaf and dumb pretty ladies, nice mac pies that are not available in spore and the feng shui practice that the chinese nationals deeply believed.

I guess the 4 of us had put on wieght too as they had been feeding us with large food portion which they normally always had.

Its time for diet again and let the photos to speak more....

Thank You

Thanks to all for celebrating and sharing our joyeous occassion with us on 17th May 09.. and yes we are back from our honeymoon(shall blog in another post).

Brothers and sisters u all had been great, making everything went smoothly.

Thanks Jimmy and Sammi from whitelink for giving us a beautiful wedding, thanks Wendy and all staffs of marina mandarin for a cosy and warm wedding.. thanks Kevin, the videographer from yappies production and Andy, the photographer for making me laugh and smile coz quite stress that day..camera shy too..cant smile leh.. and they had to keep reminding me to smile.. hehe..

It had been a wonderful and gan cheong day especially for dinner. Like what the emcee says, we did prepare a thank you speech but Andy freaked out and changed his mind after the 1st march in.. but still kena sabo by the emcee..Nevertheless, we gotta thanks Jason for giving us the 'gut' to go ahead.. haha

As for me, I know i cant speak well. I prefer to pen my feelings down thou my 'en-ger-lish' is broken lah..

We hope everyone had enjoyed the food, highlights and music.

The wedding photos and childhood photos highlights are done by me with the help of my friend. Did a quick 1 when I was on leave a few days before our wedding.

The songs played were choosen and burnt by Andy.

Our thousand apologies if we had left anyone out on that day..

Shall load the actual day photos once ready!!

安床

Items reqd: New bedsheet, 'Fa' kuai, Red dates, Longan, Dried Lily, Peanut, Dried Persimmon

Procedure: To get an elderly who is very fortunate and 'xing fu' to place 4 ang baos with 2 'qian bi' each at all corners of the bed and say some good wishes. Place the tray of things in the middle of the bed and leave it for at least 1 day. U can get a small boy to jump on the bed but we skip that as it may not be necessary.

Alright thats all for the post, gotta go busy with other things already. chaoz!