This birth story is coming in very late but it doesn't matter.
Because every birth story is unique. You can give birth 10 times and you have 10 stories to tell.
Thanks to the maids (yeah I changed 4 in 8 months) that all I ever was doing in the house was orientation and getting all stressed up because they are just getting on my nerves. Please don't judge me because I am very nice to maids.
I believe they are here to find money to bring back to their home but alas, not many have that mindset.

But yeah, so far my pregnancy with Riduan was pretty smooth. Asthma was at bay despite whenever I am hit with flu, it will drag for two weeks. This birth story is a must write. Because I wrote one for Rania.
So if I am planning to have 5 kids (6 is bonus, 7th heaven is the limit), there will be at least 5 birth stories to tell.

With Riduan, again, I was hospitalised on 1st October for high blood pressure and then on hospitalisation leave for 2 weeks. In between, I went for another check up at 36 weeks. I was already 2cm dilated. So gynae suggested that we arrange for a delivery the following week. Otherwise if there was any pain, I have to check into the labour ward.

Challenging times because Alfi would not allow me to carry Rania and he said I must have a lot of bed rest. I was going to die if it was bed rest!
I insisted to go out and take a walk. Window shop. Have coffee. Whatever that makes me get out of the house and breathe the air outside.

So on 10th Oct, I felt aching pain and heavy down there. I checked into the labour ward thinking that I was going to deliver but was sent home because they felt that it would be too premature to induce. Baby was 36week +4 days.
I found out later on that there were not enough beds. Everyone wanted to give birth on 10-10.

So I was having Braxton Hicks and was in pain on and off all the time. I told Alfi I wanted to deliver because I rather have him out then having to withstand the pain. Again we realised it was a bad date. 13-10-13.
We called the hospital and again they said all beds were full. Darn.

15th Oct was Hari Raya Haji. I was glad I booked my scheduled induce delivery on the 16th. I was playing with the holidays and making sure that Alfi could spend as much time with me.
16th Oct was also full but luckily mine was pre-booked.

We were told to arrive the hospital at 6am on that day but since I have trouble sleeping and I didnt want to rush to the hospital.
I was heavy and any anxiety will not help.
Before I left, I gave Rania kisses and hugged her till Alfi was ready to go. I felt very emotional that she was no longer going to be the only child. I enjoyed splurging all my attention to her and that was going to end.

So we arrived the hospital at 8.30am. Of course got some warning from the nurses but who cares. I am with KT Tan.
*lol*

A revisit to the labour ward. It was the same configuration during Rania's birth and I am only happy and comfortable to accept it. Somehow I feel a different configuration may affect my senses. hahaha! I am not very receptive to change actually.



These are always must take pictures.





The anticipation of the new baby.

I knew what my birthing plan was going to be. Epidural.
I was not going to let medical technology go to waste. I wanted to be as comfortable as I can when I deliver.
I had no pain delivering Rania and the anaesthetist was awesome.

Apparently, my fate with Riduan was not the same. As mine was induced labour, they had to break my waterbag and since I looked comfortable, I was not given my epidural. They yanked me up there again and again. I bled and bled but the waterbag was not broken.
At the third try and so much prayers to Him, they manage to break my waterbag.

One hour later no pain and then they kicked in the oxytocin.
Bearable pain came in an hour later. I was dilated 3.5cm 3 hours later. It felt like eternity.
Family and friends were probably anticipating a quick delivery especially when it was the second one.

So I requested for the epidural, hoping I can relax and dilate faster.
I was shocked when Alfi was not allowed during the procedure, followed by disappointed and scared.
No one can comfort me like Alfi does. Plus during the procedure, I will squeeze Alfi's hands and he will just have to take the pain. I cannot do that with a nurse!!! Oh well, I did and she released her hand.

The anaesthetist I got was also sucky. She was pan-asian and snobbish and I could feel that she didn't do as good a job as the previous one I had.
I was still feeling pain and discomfort because she gave me half the dose than I previously had. During the labour process, I was told that I could only press for the morphine every 15 mins. And I did.
Little did I know that the more you keep pressing, the machine is intelligent enough to know that patient is in pain and release the morphine faster.

Towards the end I was really suffering.

At 6.50pm I complained of pain. Epidural wore off.
Nurses check and I was 5cm dilated. I was like,"what?!?! half way more to go?"

I didn't want to be a pain too so since I was only 5cm dilated, I let them take their time a little.
Then in 20 mins, I complained of pain again. They checked me and I was fully dilated.

Yes! It was 5 cm in 20 minutes!!!!




I was crying asking for epidural. Plus I was hungry so the gynae was saying,"ok you hungry right? Quickly push and after that can eat."
In my head I was like,"what the hell!! come lah come lah let's push. Get it over and done with!!!"

This time around, I knew how it feels like to have the real contractions and having to push a baby.
I was asking myself what did I get myself into and I swore I was not going to go through this again. But I am a very objective person. So I just wanted to get the baby out.
I pushed more than I needed to with Rania. Probably because Riduan was a bigger baby.

3 pushes to crown and 6 pushes for Riduan to greet all of us. The moment he came out, I was so relief and tears flowed down my eyes.
Two times in a row Alfi cried at my delivery and again he gave me a peck on the forehead and another on the lips.




Moments after delivery



We welcomed guests with goodies. I have this habit of staying a bit longer at the hospital so that I can recover better.
I am patient enough to bring the baby home. Plus, I am more comfortable for guests to come by my ward to visit me and the baby.





During my stay, I try to spend a lot of time with Rania. I feel for her that she was no longer the only child.



Here was Riduan at Day 1 to 3 at the hospital







Yes I bottle fed him from the beginning. Nurses warned me that the baby will get confused with a mother's nipple and the bottle's nipple. I think its bullshit. When the baby is hungry, they will surely accept ANY nipple.
Today I am still breastfeeding Riduan. Not fully since I am already at work but I have been successful. He still wants to latch to me, especially before his naptimes.

3 days later it was take home baby.



8 months later, here is my baby boy.



I know I have said so much about not fancying a baby boy but I am here to declare that I swallow my words.
He is such a smiley and friendly baby that it is so easy for anyone to fall in love with him. Everyone adores him with his carefree nature.

I'm sorry son. It was just me and my hormones that got the better of me probably but I am here to love you for the rest of my life.
Rania is my sunshine. You are my wombat.

I love you both. Not equally. Not the same. But very much sincerely.

Pack that bag

Unlike the daily bags, I am always more anxious about the hospital bag.
At 33 weeks, I started packing my hospital bag and this time around, the bag is different from the bag that we packed for our firstborn.

This time around we did not only have mummy & daddy's list.
We had a list for mummy, daddy, Rania and baby.

Mummy's list:
1. Vanity wear (the comfy ones of course)
2. 2 sets of clothes (one to wear in the hospital in case I refuse to wear the off-beat maternity dress and one to wear home)
3. Thermal socks (something I wear throughout my stay in the delivery suite and also during the hospital stay)
4. Toiletries
5. Slippers for use in the toilet & hospital
6. Tumbler to keep my drinks warm or cold
7. Milo 3-in-1 & other sachet drinks

Daddy's list:
I did not interfere.

Rania's list:
1. 1 set of PJs in case she wants to stay over with Mummy.
2. Bottle detergent
3. Baby Blankie (dual use for my breastfeeding as well)
4. Diapers
5. Wet wipes (only because she cannot use the Pigeon wipes provided by KKH)
6. Small towel

Baby's list:
1. Go home outfit

Then I have a hospital handbag which I IG-ed earlier.



1. Microsoft Surface Tablet
2. Book of Zikir
3. Tissues (wet/dry/antibacterial - kiasu much?)
4. Bag of medicine
5. Bag of wires - tablet charger, USB wires, power bank to recharge my phone
6. Wallet & Maternity Medical Book.

To all the mummies-to-be, hope this helps!
Wishing you a wonderful journey as well.

xoxo

Saying Thank You

There are so many possibilities with Canon Creative park.
I can think of scrapbooking in many ways. Like how I made the door handle to let everyone in the house that Rania is sleeping.



Rania loves the idea.
Everytime she wants to enter the room, she would knock and when I open the door, she puts her fingers on her lips and say,"Shhhh."

Then I did what I wanted to do for a very long time, which was to have a scrapbooked family portrait.



I love scrapbooking and I feel that there is so much love and effort put into scrapbooking.
So it was really awesome that Canon has tons of templates which I can choose from.

To be honest, I was spoilt for choices.

But I cannot be scrapbooking all the time! I was wondering what are the interesting things I can do.
So it hit me when I visited a friend who gave birth and she gave out chocolates to those who came to visit her and her baby. It was so cute!

Plus, it hit me how much we show appreciation to friends and relatives who came by to welcome our newborn with us.
I mean, of course we do say thank you but that would just be it.

I was sharing with Alfi that this time around, we should have some momento for our visitors come October.
Something that makes them smile when they leave the ward.
Already, they make us smile by coming to visit.

So that was when I started scouting and looking out for simple things that I can do.
Scrapbooking was out of the question.
Thank You greeting cards were too huge. So I stumbled upon the mini card section and thought that it is small and simple.



Effort was little. It was just cutting and pasting.
Browsing through, this design caught my eye.



I like how lovely it is and how apt it was for a baby boy.
Not only that, there were no text in it so I could customize it accordingly!

So I got on to work to do a trial set.
Here comes the printout!











The ideal final look?



Suddenly childbirth is starting to get exciting for me.
I think this is such a great idea if you are giving birth soon and would like to thank your guests. Or maybe you would like to help your girlfriend who is giving birth soon.
It's not too expensive to make for 30 but you surely place a memory in their minds when they leave the hospital.

xoxo

My Canon creativity

I was nonetheless estatic being among the 10 bloggers selected for the Canon Creativity Workshop.
I have always wanted to buy a photo printer but I am not very knowledgable about it and I will always end up very fickle of what to buy.

*lol*

Women!

I am honestly very clueless about photo printers and when I had my first few pictures printed out at the Canon workshop, I was in "ooohs" and "ahhhhhs"
So shameful!

But I was very impressed with my printouts. The picture was so clear and colours so vibrant that I fell in love with the printer all at once!



What more, I brought home a damn sexy red Canon Pixma MG3170



So here we are to share our creativity skills with Canon and I swear to you that I am one of the least creative people on earth!
But the workshop opened me to possibilities and gave me a new sense of motivation.

I sat down for a few weeks thinking what is it that I can do with all my resources. I went into the Canon Creativity Park for many days and really try to think through what I can do.

Then, just like Albert Einsten (chey!) I was gifted with a stroke of genius!

*lol*

As you know, I am living with my mom temporarily and it is filled with 7 adults and 1 little brat.
As a family with a child, our timing with the rest really differs! When I am asleep, they are up 'partying' and when I am up, they are asleep.
When I am out, the rest probably just woke up and when they leave the house, I am home tired.

So it is really understandable that they try to spend as much time as they can with Rania during the in-between timings, especially the weekends.

There are nights when I am trying to make Rania sleep and they just arrive home, knock on my door to take a peek at Rania. Then Rania gets all excited and her sleeping time gets postponed to another hour.
It is ok on weekends but on weekdays, the parents need to sleep too!
I admit, there are times when we sleep with Rania in between us, still playing and we are snoring away.

Damn teruk (terrible) la!

So here was my art project #1.

HOW TO MAKE A DOOR HANGER

Ok there is a twist to this one because I decided not to make a typical door hanger. I wanted to incorporate my scrapbooking ideas into it!
I have always loved scrapbooking but you know how these things are so expensive that I do not know whether I will get sick of it after a few months. It will not be able to justify the cost!

So I picked out a background colour from the website.



This time around I took a dark background so that I can work on bright things on it.
Then I selected pretty borders to match the background.




And then I selected the matching parts to scrapbook.



I printed one of Rania's photo from Instagram. A nice 1:1 to fit onto the door handle.

Here is how we start.



Materials required apart from the printed items:
- Glue
- Scissors
- Pencil
- Ruler

So I cut out the door label 20cm by 10cm because I did not want the label to be too long for a small instagram picture.
I drew a circle at the center and cut it out.



I started by pasting Rania's picture at the center and then work on cutting and pasting the other parts together.



I had an additional helper and could not work faster on this project but I managed to complete it at the end!



Wa laa!

So now, my family knows when Rania is asleep and detour from knocking on my room door.
Isn't that awesome!

I am convinced and proven myself that I am not that hopeless with creativity after all.
Why don't you give it a shot?

xoxo

Bookworm!

I am always worried if my child does not like reading or shun away from books.
I have always been a book lover, till today even though my time is filled up with everything but reading.

Many say that reading books improve the child's language. I disagree.
Despite me being a book lover, renting books every week back then, I still get C's for my english.
Many never believed me.

A lot wonder how can my english be so bad and yet I still blog.
Sure, there are grammatical errors and missing words in my blog but that is because I do not check whatever i have written. I will be mentally exhausted by the time I spend an average of 1hr writing up my post.

To my teachers in school, my creativity is a failure. I never scored high for Composition.
Equally terrible for Malay Composition.
And somehow, that instilled a fear in me till today about my sense of creativity and how I do not want my children to end up like me.

Then it struck me that being creative means using your knowledge and tweaking it to sound fun.
And knowledge comes from reading.

For Rania, I adopted both approaches of reading and watching TV.

I am a working mom and unkike a stay-at-home-mom, my evenings are spent sometimes distracted by my work emails, blog entries, tuition classes.
So I rely on the telly and the iPad. A programs which can make her learn educational songs.

I also inculcated the reading with Rania. Apart from reading books to Rania, I ensure that books are within her reach.

This is her pile of books at my bedside table.


Today when I came home from work, she pull out a few books and gave to me. It makes communication easier and also I know the times when she is keen to read.

She looks for her books sometimes when she wants to drink her milk.
Apparently, she followed my character when I was at the same age. When my mom said,"Intan.. Tido."
I knew it was my milk time. I will go to my bookshelf and pick out a book and wait for my bottle at the kitchen entrance.





I am not saying that Rania is a genius but it is always fun to see how the character of each child unfolds as they grow up. I have a steep development curve during my growing up years and then I stagnated.
Bahaha!

I just think that putting books where your child can reach is a very good idea. My mom did that for me.
I did that for Rania.

How do you encourage your child to read?
Do share your thoughts and views. I always love to hear.

Maybe it will help me and many more mummies out there!

xoxo

Rania says Kenk-Kiu!

This will be the final lap for my sponsored post by Pampers Singapore.
I would like to thank them for giving me an awesome opportunity to share with my readers on the diapers and some of my usual posts. There are more than a handful that texted me and ask if Pampers was really that good.
So I asked them if they wanted to buy over my existing diaper stocks.

*lol*

Technically, Pampers Active Baby costs $0.36 per piece which is about $0.05 more than what I am pay previously. But I change Rania's diapers much lesser and of course I stopped waking up in morning and checking her diapers to see if it leaked.
No more putting a spare diaper at my bedside table.

I am more well-rested.

Pampers Active Baby pants has always been my choice when we head outdoors.




This underwear-like pants has slim crotch shape which makes it more comfortable for Rania to be running around.
Anyway, it really suits her active lifestyle. There are little/no creases around the crotch are and even if there was, it was not read.

With extra locking layer keeping Rania's bottom dry. Also the diaper is so soft and breathable that I have see no redness at Rania's butterfly.
Suddenly, this little girl is so easy to maintain.

*lol*

Another reason why I love to use active pants when I am outdoors is because handling a 16-month old active toddler is not easy. She tends to wriggle her way out when I try to lie her down.
Pants is like a disposable underwear for her.



The soft waist band also helps to prevent pressure marking on Rania. After trying a few brands, Pampers Active pants is the easiest to tear at the sides. It is holds so firmly and fits nicely on Rania without falling down.
Oh yes, I did try other brands with Rania and when the center holds a little too much pee, her pants diaper will go 'steamers' style. There was even an occasion it dropped down to her legs!!

What an embarrassment!

Plus, look at the difference in thickness of the diapers!
It surely saves space in my diaper bag!



Thank you Pampers for meeting the needs of my happy & active baby. Her smiles are always precious.
She is less cranky with wet diapers and I have my family/outdoor/meal times all in peace!



Trust me, Rania thinks this is a winner and yes sweetie, it will be a switch for you.

And here is Rania saying 'Thank you' the best way she can.



xoxo