Jah’s Birth Story – 9 Nov 2011

Posted in Our Thoughts, Parenting decisions by jahbella

I have always wanted to document Jah’s and Bella’s birth stories but never quite acted on that thought. To avoid any further procrastination and with the encouragement of some wonderful mummy bloggers who have recently done the same. I have decided that there is no better time to document Jah’s birth story than now, given that my little boy will be turning 4 in a few days.

The road leading up to my pregnancy with Jah was not the smoothest one, with 2 miscarriages and a lot of heart pain before we could finally got to ‘enjoy’ being pregnant with our first child. For that story, click here.

Jah at 4 months… on mummy’s birthday (2 June 2011)

While I was fortunate enough not to be plagued with horrible morning sickness, I basically had ‘whole day sickness’ till the 20^th week or so which pretty much stopped me from eating most things or anything. I didn’t puke but I also didn’t feel like eating anything at all. I didn’t put on any weight in my initial months of pregnancy but thankfully Jah continued to gain weight and he was a whooping 3.6kg (based on the scans) by the time we were at 36 weeks.

4D scan of Jah…:D

I know it looks abit scary…

But really fun to see his expression and imagine what he might look like..

So yes we were pretty eager to have him out, like most first time parents normally are (until they realize its really easier if they stayed in :p) Also because of an old back injury (fractured tailbone), I was very worried that my tailbone would snap again during labour if Jah turned out to be too big.

During the last few weeks leading up to the birth, we spent almost every visit asking/ convincing/ psychoing our gynae that perhaps we should consider a c-section or that perhaps we should induce the birth soon. On hindsight, I think it was not so much the fact that we wanted Jah out fast or that I was soooo worried about my old injury but more so because I’m just a total control freak who needed to know exactly when it was going to happen. Yes and I now know…it doesn’t work that way. :p

I honestly can’t for the life of me, remember exactly how it happened or why our gynae was suddenly for an induction but on the morning of 8 Nov 2011 (during a routine gynae appointment) at 38 weeks, our gynae decided that we could potentially consider an induction (if we wanted to). Oh we wanted to! This was perfect for my plan! I didn’t want that off chance that I might go into labour on 11 Nov 2011 (11/11/11) and be in a crowded hospital with lots of planned births. I really wanted to be discharged by then so that my child didn’t have to ‘fight it out’ in a crowded nursery. Yes control freak you say and yes such strange frivolous thoughts! The ‘Now-Me’ would have tried to slap some sense into the ‘Then-Me’.

We were told to come back later that night at 12 midnight for the induction. So off we went to prep the house with the final ‘touches’ (Joel was cleaning the house up till the very last minute before we left for the hospital). So no wonderful ‘last’ meal before the birth for us, we didn’t realize that we should probably have jumped at that chance for one ‘last’ leisurely meal. 😦

We turned up at 12 midnight at the hospital, did our registration and I was promptly sent to the observation ward to commence the induction process. I was given the first pill to kickstart the contraction process and was told to head to my room for some rest before ‘reporting’ at 5am again for the 2^nd pill (it was 2am by then). Both Joel and I were too excited to catch a wink and honestly I wish someone had told me about walking around to quicken the induction process.

I was given the 2^nd pill at 5am and then given some help to clear my bowels (ok we shall not go into details here). I was kept at the observation ward and the nurse would come every 1 to 2 hours to check on the state of my dilation. I was also put on an Oxytocin drip to help bring on the contractions and to help with the dilation process.

By 8am, I was only 1.5cm dilated and that’s when my gynae decided to go ahead and burst my waterbag, hoping that this would push me along (no pun intended). I was told that based on my progress, Jah should be out by 3pm.

The moment my gynae told me that he was going to burst my waterbag, I immediately requested for an epidural. I remembered reading that the contractions were going to be really painful without the cushion of a waterbag and I was also not going to take the chance of it being too late for an epidural (you can’t have one if you are more than 8cm dilated).

I was given my epidural about 45 minutes after they burst my waterbag. On hindsight, I probably should have just waited. The epidural gave me such horrible side effects for the next few hours that it was probably much worse than any labour contractions that I would have had to go through. I was shivering and shaking uncontrollably. I couldn’t sit up or hold a proper conversation. In fact I couldn’t even sit up to vomit. Yes I was throwing up repeatedly. It was such an out of body experience and I truly felt like I was going to die or if not someone should just kill me because I was utterly miserable to say the least. I think Joel was equally miserable because all he could do was hold my hair while I put my guts out (it was mainly water because I hadn’t eaten since 10pm the night before).

By the time 3pm came around, I was only 4cm dilated but we were all still hopeful that we were not too long off from 10cm. I remember a furry of activities around me at about 530pm, nurses coming in and out and then my gynae rushing it to check on me. I thought that this was it..I must be 10cm dilated now. My gyane comes in and tells us that I was still only 4cm dilated and that we would need to do an emergency c-section because Jah was in distress and he was trying hard to come out but the dilation was not enough. Basically there was pressure forming at the top of his head from trying to force his way out and so they had to switch off the oxytocin, slow down the contractions and allow him to ‘take a break’. I was too tired and too out of it from the epidural side-effects to even care about whether it was a natural birth or a c-section. All I wanted was for it to be over and for Jah to be safely in our arms.

I was prepped for the emergency c-section and I remembered myself asking the nurse “what if I have to puke during the operation”? Thankfully I managed to, just before the operation started and it was smooth sailing thereafter. Joel joined me for the emergency c-section and I remembered him watching/ checking Jah as he was being weighed (3.745kg! – yes that skinny boy now was 3.745kg at birth). I remembered Jah being put on my chest after that and I remembered that breathless feeling…I’m not sure if it was from the 3.745kg weight on my chest or from the fact that he is now our responsibility 🙂

Fresh out of the oven and onto the weighing scale!

I remember Jah and Joel leaving the operation theatre together while I was being stitched back up and prepped for recovery. I remember being back in my hospital bed with a chubby Jah in my arms. I’m not sure if it was from sheer exhaustion or effects of medication/ pain relief but I remember nothing about what happened after I gave birth and before I held Jah again in my arms. But perhaps that’s all I need to remember…how difficult it was to have him and how precious he is to us.

Joel and Jah exiting the Operating Theatre and meeting the family while mummy got stitched up

Holding Jah for the first time…

Our precious first bundle of joy was born on 9 November 2011.

Happy 4^th Birthday my little boy!

JahBella’s Mummy and JahBella’s Papa!

22Oct2015

When Adaptability becomes Complacency

Posted in Our Thoughts, Parenting decisions, Uncategorized by jahbella

It’s been a tough couple of weeks with the haze plaguing all of us for more than a month now and Jah and Bella getting HFMD right in the thick of it all. I think people who know us, would understand how terribly torturing and difficult it is for us to keep the kids at home/ indoors on weekends. Yes, we are that crazy family/ parents who head out at 9am every weekend so that our kids can burn off some of their energy.

So we were absolutely looking forward to the haze leaving us by end November as earlier estimated. However with the new forecast coming in at Dec/ Jan or even as late as March next year, I can’t help but feel really frustrated. After all, there is really only so much ‘sneaking around’ the haze that we can do.

Taken last Sunday when we ‘snuck around’ before the haze got worse . Jah and Bella have been absolutely cooped up in the days leading to this.

We used to pre-plan activities that the whole family can look forward to for the weekend. But now we wake up every Sat and Sun hoping to see PM2.5 levels below 100 and then we would rush out for some quick outdoors before ushering everyone indoors as the numbers start to climb (usually within 1-2 hours). Yes PM2.5 below 100 is our family’s internal threshold and while this usually means that the psi is well below 100, we prefer to be kiasu/ kiasi at least over this issue.

Don’t get me wrong, this is not so much a post to rant about the haze and to talk about how we have adapted our lifestyle to having the haze around. Rather with the haze looking to stay for a while, I am worried that we are becoming too adaptable. By we, I really mean all of us.

I know we teach our children to be adaptable and to react and change according to the situation. And in this situation, I think adaptability means perhaps getting a purifier and making a habit out of switching it on or carrying your n95 mask in your bags and wearing it without the fear of looking like a fool because no one else is wearing it. That to me is the extent of adaptability we should undertake. However being adaptable should not equate to being complacent.

Do you recall how only a month ago, we would ‘panic’ at the sign of the psi/ pm2.5 going above 150. Now some of us don’t even bat any eyelid. Yes some would say what a bunch of complainers and whiners. That is another argument for another time.
We should be adaptable but we should not accept walking around in the haze, unprotected as a normal way of life. We should not allow our kids to run around in a park when the levels are clearly unhealthy.

The reason I bring this up is not because I’m some perfect human being/ parent who can keep my kids indoors with no problem at all. I understand the pains and frustrations. The reason I need to say this now is because I too struggle and I too find myself slowly allowing myself to be complacent.

I need to to remind myself that this should not be a new norm for us and especially our children. We should learn to be adaptable during these months and hope that the end comes sooner rather than later but we should NEVER be complacent.

JahBella’s Mummy

19Aug2015

What Singapore Means to Me – Regardless of Race, Language or Religion

Posted in Blog Train, Our Thoughts by jahbella

When FinallyMama initiated the “What Singapore Means to You” blog train, I was really excited to take part in it. After all I figured how hard was it going to be for a person who was born and bred in Singapore to pen down her feelings about Singapore. As the day of my blog post neared, I started to panic, not for the lack of something to write but because I realized that it was going to be hard to explain what Singapore means to me.

It wasn’t until National Day came around that I came to the full realization of what I wanted and needed to write about. My inspiration? The Singapore Pledge.

We, the citizens of Singapore,
pledge ourselves as one united people,
regardless of race, language, or religion
to build a democratic society
based on justice and equality
so as to achieve happiness, prosperity and
progress for our nation

Yes, notice the underlined portion? It was exactly this line that fully encompasses what my life has been about and what it means to be a Singaporean to me.

Lets start from the beginning…

I was born to Chinese parents who learnt Malay as they were growing up. I’m not sure if this was because of their Peranakan background or really just by default of what their parents opted for them in school. They didn’t speak a word of Mandarin but were fluent in the Hokkien dialect because this was how they would communicate with their parents and grandparents.

I picked up Mandarin when I went to Kindergarten. I came home after the 3^rd day at Kindergarten and started speaking Mandarin to my shocked parents. My mum eventually picked up Mandarin in her adult years and started listening to Mando Pop. We were also exposed to various dialects such as Hokkien, Teochew and Cantonese as we were growing up and so can now fully understand and speak them to a certain extent.

Religion wise, my father is a Catholic and my mum was a Buddhist. Yes this made for quite a confusing childhood when it came to religion and what to practice but on a positive note, this taught us very early on about the existence of other religions and how to be tolerant.

I attended a mission school for 10 years and it was only after leaving school that I realized what my key take-away from that education was. I never noticed the ‘differences’. My friends were well…just that…friends! They were not Malay, Chinese, Indian or Eurasian. They were just like me and we were friends because we got along.

I think that was also what set the tone for my relationship with my husband, Joel. When I first met him, the concept of race never entered the picture at all. For those who don’t know, my husband is Indian. In fact, I have to admit that that fact never quite entered the picture until we were preparing for our wedding. But then again, lots of issues take place during wedding preps, regardless of race, language or religion. So I suppose it doesn’t quite count.

Which now brings me back to the point of What Singapore Means to Me. Singapore is that 1 line in the pledge which we as kids, have found ourselves reciting over and over again. Probably without realizing then that perhaps we do know the true meaning of it.

It also means that my kids will be able to tell people that their father is Indian, their mother is Chinese and that they come from an extremely multi-racial family. (Yes they also have an uncle who is Malay and aunty who is Muslim). I hope that they will eventually be able to speak/ understand English, Mandarin and Tamil and who knows maybe even Malay.

It means that my kids will hopefully never ‘notice’ the difference but yet know they exist and embrace it. “Regardless of race, language or religion”. This is what Singapore Means to Me.

JahBella’s Mummy

This post is part of the ‘What Singapore Means To Me’ blog train, hosted by FinallyMama.

Up next is Yanxiang

By day, Yanxiang is a civil servant who has taught English in a secondary school, and am now working on policies within the larger civil service. Her work allows her to constantly consider the people around her, and society in which she live, and how to better the lives of her fellow citizens.

She recently embarked on the remarkable journey of parenting a little boy named Isaac. Read about her life as a parent and how it involves twice the laughter, twice the tears, twice the excitement, twice the challenges and an abundance of love at thelittlestandusmakesthree.wordpress.com

30Jun2015

Apple Watch Review [Newbies perspective after less than 24 hours]

Posted in Online Shopping, Our Thoughts, Reviews by jahbella

I guess as the techie of the family, it is only befitting that I should get the newly released Apple Watch as my birthday gift. :p Ok no, its also because I have a sweet husband who knows that I love gadgets especially Apple gadgets. Ironically I have been so busy that I haven’t really had the time to keep track or really read about Apple’s latest product. Which also meant that I only read about all of its functions for the first time, 2 days before the watch was delivered/gifted to me.

So now that the watch has been in my possession for slightly more than 12 hours, I will attempt to review this watch from the perspective of someone who has been using it for less than a day.

What are some of its better features that immediately ‘grabbed’ me within the first 24 hours? What are some of the features that could potentially come in very handy once I get the hang of the watch? And who knows maybe we will have a ‘longevity’ post in a couple of weeks or months on what are the features that I still find useful months down the road.

The Apple Watch was delivered in a solid brown box which looked like I would open it to find an Apple Strudel inside but well it weighed a ton so probably not. I opened it to find a nice white box (typical of the Apple packaging) that was longer than your 15cm ruler (ermm how long was this watch going to be). The watch came in a default M/L length with an additional strap (S/M length) which I later replaced.

To configure your watch, you just had to make sure that you had the Apple Watch app installed on your iphone, switch on wifi and Bluetooth and follow the instructions on your iPhone screen, easy peasy!! Setting up your notification preferences, favourite people to call, apps to appear on your watch etc was done very simply through the Apple Watch app.

Now that we have ascertain how easy it is to set up. Lets talk about what I think are some of my favourites features from a new user perspective.

Apple Face

I love how easy it is to customize the watch face. While I would admit that I have not fully explored this function. I have been able to change the look and feel of my watch just by switching between certain in-built options during my initial exploration.

I also later found out that I could further customize certain ‘parts’ of each chosen face eg. colour of the watch hand or whether I need the day to be indicated. A far cry from my first generation Pebble Watch which was definitely not as interactive and intuitive. I mean yes, this is an Apple watch after all and therefore as intuitive to use as an iPhone.

Health Tracker/ Pedometer

I love the Heart rate monitor (don’t ask me why I need it) well I just do! And also love the calorie counter/ pedometer and exercise tracker. I like that there are simple functions that are working in the background and reminding me when to stand up (if I have been sitting for too long) or how many steps I have taken. No need for a separate Up by Jawbone. Potentially I think the exercise tracker might come in very handy when I start using it for cycling trips but we shall have to wait and see if that feature will be easy, accurate and seamless to use.

WATCH

Well yes I guess at the end of the day, this is supposed to be a watch after all. So yes I am super glad that I can tell the time and date with this but whats even more awesome is that I can tell the time of another city (all within the same view). Super useful during travels and when there is a time difference. I will no longer have to repeatedly check my handphone for the time difference because it is all on my wrist! Oh yes and not forgetting the weather too! Below is just one view of the weather page, tap and you will find the % possibility of rain and the temperature.

Calendar

Yes, the calendar is going to be ultra ultra useful! Since my office calendar is synced to my iPhone and now synced to my calendar. I will get ‘buzzed’ 15 minutes before every scheduled appointment or class. I honestly think this is going to prove to be super handy for days when I am overwhelmed with classes and meetings.

Phone Calls

The Apple Watch has Siri installed and allows you to read your SMSes and reply to them either by standard default messages or by dictating your message. I have yet to try out if this Siri is any better from the one on my iPhone or if there are less errors in understanding my dictated message. The one thing I have tried though is receiving a call through the Apple Watch. Personally I probably wouldn’t be using it in public because its just weird to have someone on ‘speaker’ and allowing the whole world to listen in on your conversation. However I would say it probably would come in handy when you need to pick up a call as you are driving. The volume and sensitivity seems pretty good so I’m sure it can pick up my voice even if my hands are on the steering wheel. Good if you don’t have an in-built mic and Bluetooth in your car or for days when you didn’t bother to hook it up.

Oh yes and no more missing calls while my handphone is in my handbag because now I would know that someone is calling me even if I don’t pick up the calls from my watch.

Camera

While the Apple Watch does not have an in-built camera (I heard that that’s in the works for the next generation?) but it is able to control your handphone camera. Think handphone on selfie stick and not needing a separate Bluetooth clicker device. I guess this has some potential especially for ‘professional’ selfie stick users but this family still needs some figuring out in that area. So some potential there but not sure if it would be that useful for us.

So my verdict or impression of the Apple Watch after using it for less than 24 hours? I would say pretty decent and it has far exceeded my expectations. Honestly I didn’t expect much from the watch, perhaps because I had owned a Pebble Watch earlier and was abit ‘disappointed’. But of course Apple is not Pebble and for a 1st generation Apple Watch, I say it ticks most of the boxes of what I would hope it could do. I’m still contemplating if I would like to ability to tap on it and perhaps the answer will be more apparent to me in a few weeks/ months time but for now I’m happy with my Apple Watch!

Ok going to play with my watch now..:)

JahBella’s Mummy

25Jun2015

Tips on moving with kids – How to stay sane through the move and How to prep your kids

Posted in Our Thoughts, Parenting decisions by jahbella

So yes, we completed our big move recently (with one more in the pipeline) but we are all good for now and so I would like to take the time to reflect and share some tips on how we survived our move with kids. Some of these tips were serious points of contention between me and Joel when we couldn’t agree if we should attempt the move in that way. While others were mistakes that we learnt from. 🙂 So here are some of our tips on how to sanely get through a move with kids and please read till the end if you want to find out how we prepped the kids for the move. 🙂

1) Always hire a moving company to relocate you. If this seems like a no-brainer then I would go one step further to say, hire the moving company to do your packing for you! This worked wonders for us because we only had to pack away our personal and essential items (and trust me even that takes awhile). The movers did all the heavy stuff like packing up our storeroom, kitchen, wardrobes and all the knick knacks which would have taken us weeks!!!! And yes you don’t have the luxury of packing up over weeks and living out of boxes or suitcases if you have little monkeys children running around…:p

It would have taken us 10 times as long or more to pack our kitchen…

2) Always move on a weekday when the kids are in school or childcare. Yes while it might be tempting to save a day of leave and just do it over the weekend. It will be a lot less stressful if the kids were out of your hair and you didn’t have to think of which kid has to come with you or when you need to get lunch for them. If you don’t have the option of school or childcare then get help from someone to babysit but bottomline is try not to have them around as you are making that physical move (i.e 9am to 5pm)

3) Prepack a few days worth of clothes, fresh towels, PJs etc, as if you were going away for a short holiday or staycation. Live out of that suitcase the night before the move and for how many more days you forsee the unpacking to take. This is especially important when you have kids because kids can’t live out of boxes full stop. They will not appreciate you, opening boxes after boxes to find their favourite stuff toy or that school uniform that they need to wear to school tomorrow.

4) Try your best to be present when your movers are packing up for you and then be as specific as possible when labeling the boxes. This is also applicable if you were packing on your own. Trust me a box that says Storeroom versus a box that says Storeroom – Shoes, makes a world of a difference. Especially when you have 20 boxes named store room which have been moved into your new storeroom and you realize at 10pm that 1 of those 20 boxes contains shoes which you need to wear to work tomorrow. Happy searching indeed!

Photo credit: http://smg.photobucket.com/user/SD7681/media/moving.jpg.html

5) Always take leave the day after you move and this also means, do not move on a Friday! Kids are not fun to have around the house when there are tons of unpack boxes stacked up to the ceiling in your bedrooms, living room and kitchen. And unless you were living in a relatively empty house before (we were living in a toyshop) or you move at superhero break neck unpacking speed, there is no way that your house will be ‘unpacked’ and freed of boxes during the first 24 hours of the move. Yes, so take your leave and get cracking! And after that if you think you need to recover from the move then take another day of leave again. :p So my recommendation is that a move with children would require you to take about 3 days of leave 😉

6) Ensure that the kids rooms are the first rooms which you make live-able again. If there is 1 thing which you absolutely must accomplish/ clear/ unpack/ get ready in the new house whilst moving, make it the kids room. This will give them a place to hangout when they come home and not have the boxes in the way or they in the way of the boxes. This also helps with the emotional part which I am going to touch on next.

This was the initial set-up which we tweaked again days later but at least we got it ‘up and running’ the first day…

Now that we got the logistical nightmare stuff out of the way. Lets take abit about the emotional side of things. If your kid is 0 to 2 years old like Bella, she will unlikely be too affected by the move. So long as she sees the same usual faces (family members) and given her same comforts (pacifier, blankie, stuff toy etc – that is why it is important to pack them personally into your suitcase). Kids of that age should pretty much bounced right back (literally) and she would probably never ever remember the ‘old house’.

Kids who are older than 3 years old (like Jah) might find it abit more of a shock to their system and might possibly get emotional about things. The way to deal with it is to prep, talk, listen and prep somemore. We prep Jah very very early on when we knew we were going to move even as early as when we were marketing our place for sale.

He was told why strangers were coming to his house and his room to look around. He was told that it was necessary if he wanted to move to his new house. We ‘sold’ him the good things about the new house and the exciting changes we could make to his room. He talked to him, we ‘prepped’ him and we made sure we listened to what he had to say. Not that there was another other option but the moment he sounded unsure or apprehensive about the move, we listened and we addressed and tried to steer things towards the positive. We also got him to reassure us back that he understood what this move etc was about.

Things got abit tricky for us as we had to do an interim move and then had to explain again why there was an interim move and then we named our rental place, the ‘ temporary house’ so as not to confuse him. This helped give him some clarity on what to expect and he was prepared and actually really excited about the move.

Upselling the fun stuff! :p

Before the movers came to pack things up in boxes, we prepped him. The night before the move, we prepped him. When he was leaving for school on the morning of the move, we prepped him and reminded him that he would not be coming back to this house after school tonight. I think as adults we sometimes get so caught up in the big things, the obvious things, the great move that we forget it might be confusing for the little one to go off to school from one house and then to never return there again. There can never be too much prepping, at least not for this. :p

Which brings me back to some of my tips about labeling boxes well and taking leave to unpack quickly because the faster you revert to some semblance of normal life for them and allow them to be surrounded by familiar items (clothes, beds, toys, bed sheets, blankets, utensils) etc, the faster they adapt to the new ‘shell’ or environment.

We are really fortunate that both our kids took very well to the move. In fact, I am amazed at how forward looking Jah is. When asked if he misses his old house and whether he would like to say goodbye ‘Punggol’ House as we pass it on the expressway. His response was, “no, no need to say good bye to Punggol House mummy, its Hello! Temporary House!” We are really glad that they have transitioned so well and I would like to think some or all of that prepping has help to ease the transition and I hope these tips will help you and I again for our next move….Until the next move 🙂

JahBella’s Mummy