Our Promotion
And so, my “impending promotion” was the promotion from a wife to a mummy, technically I’m still a wife, but a mummy overrides the wife status =P. And of course, with my promotion, the husband also got promoted to Daddy!
Let’s do a recap on our journey for the past 9 months…
Preparing to be parents
Having been together for 6 years, although only being married for a few months, the next natural step for us was to become parents… so we decided to have a 2011 baby! Having some medical history, we went for all the necessary blood tests to ensure that the baby will be safe before affirming the decision to become parents…
Positive!
And on 23rd May, I tested positive on the pregnancy kit! And as typical kiasu Singaporeans, we HAD to buy a second test kit to make sure that we were indeed pregnant! We were elated by the news and quickly shared with his parents… as my parents were overseas, we decided to surprise them when they came back… but I guess the biggest surprise was telling my sis…
As we were only a few weeks pregnant and she as due back on the 7th June (like finally after studying so many years abroad), we decided to tell her then… So on that fateful day, we gave her an I-phone as her welcome-back present, and while she was fiddling with the functions, we asked her to open the picture gallery… in it, we had uploaded a photo of the baby’s ultrasound.. it was very comical as she just commented that it was so odd that why was there an ultrasound picture in i-phone’s gallery, when it finally occurred that “her sis was pregnant”!
As they say that the first trimester is considered the shaky period, we kept the news within immediate family until we crossed over till the second trimester.
Being pregnant
In all honestly, all 3 trimesters had been a breeze, I was really lucky not to suffer from morning sickness, food cravings and water retention… and throughout the 9 months, my total weight gain was only 8kg. It scary that all my pregnant friends are putting on the kilos by the months that each time I see my doctor, I would ask if I’m putting on enough weight!
My lifestyle changed slightly, as I made more effort to exercise... We would hit the swimming pools at least once a week, till I was 7months+. This was the time where I developed eczema on skin… it was very odd, like small pimples on my tummy, and then spreading to the rest of my body… It wasn’t a lot, but few enough to worry that the pool water was going to make things worse…
Diet wise, I made a more conscious effort to eat better food… with more fish and vegetables… I was very proud to cut off all coffee and tea & soft drinks for the past 9 months, surviving on Iced Milo, Ribena and my favourite, Fruit juice! To the extent that we even bought a juicer to make our own juice on weekends!
Oddly, I didn’t have any food cravings, (with the exception of forbidden food like sashimi & bubble tea) but I did have a phase in the first few months of having an ice cream after dinner… to the extent that at one point of time, we actually had 8 boxes of Magnum, 2 boxes of Cornetto & 2 boxes of mini Cornetto in the fridge… haha, oops! So I guess that was my only food craving during pregnancy..
Nourishment wise, I didn’t take any herbs in specific, although the MIL cooked black chicken soup for me once… but other than that, it was overdose on Birds Nest! Most herbs were considered too “heaty” or potent and not advisable, so the next best option was bird’s nest. Both sets of parents were very generous in the bird’s nest supply.
For the record, the best is home brewed goodness, which I had been diligently doing everyday for the last 2 months. One piece of bird’s nest with one bowl of water for the ultimate thick consistency! The second best would be Eu Yan Seng’s concentrated bird’s nest followed by Hock Hua’s concentrated birds nest. The worst of the lot would be New Moon’s birds nest… there’s so much water that even the Pasar malam “bird’s nest water” has more jelly strips than this..
Of course the diet is supplemented with the daily glass of Mummy’s milk (Dumex’s Mamil Mama) and Pregnancy Pills (Blackmore’s Pregnancy & Breastfeeding Gold ). I tried the new S26 for mummy, but there was this distinct fishy smell (supposedly the DHA part) that put me off so bad, it was torturous to finish the tin (at $20+, I wont waste it)..
Shopping
One of the things that made us very excited was shopping! Note the “US” and not just me. The moment we confirmed the pregnancy, we started making a list of things to buy in preparation for the little one… From Cots to Cupboards! And not to mention, once we confirmed the gender, the clothes!!!
For those who have been to our place, you would have noticed that our 2 spare rooms have been painted Pink & Blue, in preparation for our first child. So part of the shopping list also included furniture for the room.
Almost every other week we would go to shopping malls to check out baby stuff and of course visiting the baby fairs / sales to pick up the best buys for the baby. These fairs are quite worth the time going, cos we managed to snag quite a few good deals. But other than that, I would say that the best few places to shop would be Robinsons, OG (yes, OG) and Kiddy Palace.
With the Robinsons card (and during the sale period), lots of regular priced items can go for at least 20% off, similarly for OG when they have cardmember’s sale. As for Kiddy palace, it’s the place to go to pick up stuff you cannot find elsewhere…
Bizarrely enough, throughout the whole pregnancy, I only bought 2 pieces of maternity wear, and those are maternity tights from ASOS… I gave up on jeans and pants throughout my pregnancy and relied on dresses. I went wild with baby doll dresses as previously those made me look pregnant =P and when the dresses grew too short (thanks to the budding tummy), I would pair them with tights. Oddly, I could still fit into my old tights, just that I wore them with the elastic below my bump as compared to the maternity tights that were worn over the bump…
The only sad part was saying goodbye to my heels… being not too tall, I relied heavily on heels at work (yes, I could train the whole day in heels). So it was pretty sad to banish them into the storeroom. So I traded them for pretty ballerinas for better support instead… the only irritating part was when it rained, it was a very big challenge to keep the water out of the shoes…
But this pregnancy has also made me more thrifty, maybe its because I can’t wear “normal” clothes and shoes, I am now more selective in the things that I buy… and also I would rather spend the money on the little one.
It was a good thing that the husband was also keen in shopping for the little one... cos he would indulge in bringing me from the east to the west just to check out stuff (like how I HAD to go diaso in IMM to buy plasticware to organize the bb’s stuff) =P
Getting Ready
I guess the most important part was to get ready to become parents… although the youngest “baby” in the family is only 2yrs+,but we only see Clare around once in 2 months, its not really good practice… plus the fact that we are among the first of our friends to get married and have a baby, so there isn’t really much of any practice there as well..
So we relied heavily on advice from families as well as books. For the entire pregnancy period, we combed through pregnancy and baby care books, read baby / parenting magazines and also downloaded baby progress apps.
We even attended the antenatal classes organized by the hospital, but I guess you can never be too ready when it comes to the real thing. (more about this later)
Introducing
And without further ado, introducing the one that promoted me and the hubby to the status of Parents,
Meet our little princess, Baby J!
