Baby Pics and Video

Dear SG,

As promised to all my friends and families, some photos of the baby. Click on the baby photo to go to her online album on dotphoto.



And here's 2 of the video Andrew took after the delivery.

Karen's first injection.


Karen's first Nappy


with love from NZ,
J

Baby's birth

Dear SG,

The baby has finally arrived. Instead of the pre-planned date which was later postponed to 24th of july, I had a contraction at 2:58am in the morning of 23 July. We timed the contraction for an hour before calling our OB and she advised us to get ourselves admitted. We arrived at the hospital at 5am but was found to be only 3cm to 4cm dilated. I had epidural at 7am and hormone injected to speed up the process.

Before 1pm, the hospital midwife Jill Perrson could sense that I had fully dilated. I could feel the baby really low in between and so we decided to try pushing. With the epidural, I couldn't really push correctly. We had it removed so that I could feel if I am using the correct muscle. But seriously, with the epidural gone, i was worried once it totally wear off, I will be in a lot of pain. So, I was determine to try very very VERY hard. :p (motivation found)

There was only Andrew and the midwife with me because my OB hasn't arrived yet. But Jill was our OB's most trusted midwife hence we were going to try and see if we could get the baby out before she arrives. My OB got lucky, once she arrived, we only need 2 more pushes and the baby was out. I remember Andrew shouting, "The head is out!" when I was just about to give up and wait for the next contraction.

So I give it all with all the strength i had left and delivered at 1411hr. The rest of the delivery was pretty hazy to me because I was so tired I kept falling asleep even when they put the baby on my chest. No wonder they called a delivery a "LABOR", it's really exhausting. We discharge from the hospital at 5pm and moved to Birthcare, a facility that provides care for mothers and babies just after deliveries.

I've upload pics and 2 videos that Andrew took. Check it out in my next blog.

with love from NZ,
Singapore Producer - Andrew
Singapore Manufacturer - Joan
New Zealand Made Product - Karen

What's to come?

Dear SG,

In another 12 hours, I will be admitted into the hospital to prepare for birth. Excited am I? Strangely not. There are heaps to do before this evening and we are expected to be busy for the next couple of days or weeks even (until a routine is established). I'm more concern about the preparations than about the actual event, probably because once we induce the whole process, it will be up to nature and the skill of our obstetrician to bring this baby out.

I don't believe in fretting about the things in life that's out of our control.... (Zen music please.) But if it's about the part of life where our destiny is in our hands, I am a control freak! lol....

To all the friends and families that has endure the wait with me, I will post pic of the little one as soon as I could. To my beloved Andrew, I have an errand list for you, they need to be completed before 5pm today. Thanks. hee.... ;)

with love from NZ,
J

(one of the items on my errand list....
....
4. Sneak the cup noodle I bought into my maternity bag. Make sure my mom didn't see that.
....)


update at 4pm: Hospital has called to postpone my admission, because they didn't have enough staffs today, we are postpone to thursday morning, tentative date for baby to be born will be friday morning.... haiz... back to the waiting game.

More family members

Dear SG,

No, the baby's not here yet. She's due but she's staying put n refusing to come out early. It's the 39th week now and I want her out! :p According to the doc, I have all the signs of pushing past 42 weeks if we were to wait for it to happen naturally. But my body's stress, hence we will bring her to this world next week.

Anyway this topic isn't about the kid but my parent who has just arrived from Singapore. We pick them up from the airport today and like a real winter day, it was cloudy. We did have a couple of days of sun but unfortunately, it's becoming cloudy again today. But at least it's much warmer today as compared to the previous week. Coming from a tropical island like Singapore, it's pretty cold for them.

Dad had lost a lot of weight and aged a lot since I last saw him. Not seeing your parent for a while makes you realise how much they can aged. I never did realise the image I had of them in my head are what they looked like when I was in my teens! I guess we'll always remember them when they are at their best.

All in all, today went rather well. They were really happy to see KiKi again and ZoZo was so excited by the new attention he slept like a baby tonight (not bothering me at all). There isn't much for them to do now especially with the wet spell we are having but next week onwards, the baby is going to entertain them and that will be her job. :D

with love from NZ,
J

Protesting in strength

Dear SG,

Coming from a country that doesn’t encourage protesting, the last few days has certainly been interesting for us.

Truckies Rolls


Pic from TVNZ.co.nz
On Friday, we had the truckies (truck drivers) protesting against the sudden increase in road user charges when they were promised that a notice will be given a month in advance. It was pretty impressive how they did it. On Thursday, there were notices coming in all form of communications telling the whole country that the truckies has planned a protest during the morning peak hour traffic to drive very slowly into the town centre and city area. The roads they were going to take and how long the whole protest would be for were all detailed so that drivers could plan alternative road or just take the day off from work. Hee…

We happened to have an appointment with the doctor in the morning so we took an alternative road. The protest went well and was supported by the general public. We saw teachers with their students waving from the pedestrians overhead bridge to all the motorists stuck on the motorway. Most of the cars were following slowly (not that they have much of a choice) behind the trucks but everyone seemed to understand the need for the protest and were willing to accommodate it. The truckies left one of the lanes open for emergency vehicles which I thought was really considerate and it was pretty impressive to have over 2000 trucks in Auckland city central itself. There were around 4400 trucks protesting around the country beside Auckland, they were also in Hamilton, Wellington, Tauranga, Christchurch and Dunedin.

Asian March

Pic from tvnz.co.nz
And the next day on Saturday, we had the Asian marching in protest against the crime. Crime rates were going up here and with the recently violent death of 3 Asian within months of each other, it kind of got the community really upset and worried. We weren’t in the march but because we lived opposite the town centre where they are protesting, we saw the whole procession moving from one end to another. 15,000 Asian were braving the hail storm and cold strong wind to be in the march. It was quite a sight. Like the truckies, they weren’t expecting the numbers but I guess the issues of crime affected everyone. I only wish it wasn’t just an Asian March but in general, a country in protest against crime. Local kiwis told me that 10 years ago, a violent death on the newspaper would be a big nation-wide topic because there’s so few of those. Now, it’s getting common and depressing. What a blot on such a beautiful country.

Both protests were a success because of the number of people supporting them by being a part of it. I doubt we’ll see that in SG. We’ll probably get more spectators than protestors during a march. Hee…

with love from NZ,
J