Everything is still fine except...

Went for my X times of gynae checkup on Sat (23rd Feb). I am already week18.5. How times flies, but I hope it can be faster!

Gynae scanned through and said the little things are growing well. They had grown much bigger now with a length of about 13cm. 2nd trimster had been pretty good for me with no more nausea or vomitting. However my immune system seems to be bad as I had a bad flu right after 2nd day of CNY and it took 1 whole week to recover. That's because I refrained from taking any medicine as everyone says if fall sick during pregnancy, best is to let the body build up its own anti-biotic to fight the virus. This will enable a stronger immune system for both the mother and baby. Indeed, the flu auto recover after 1week which I'm glad I had successfully fight the virus.

Next visit will be the detailed scan and by then, I will be around 21.5weeks. As Hui was not convinced of what the gynae scanned and said about the gender (probably also because that day the screen was quite blur) during the visit, I would reveal the gender after the detailed scan. :)

Everything regarding the pregnancy is still in good shape except...

MY JOB!
I had break the news to my local (Singapore) manager and US team lead that I am pregnant. However, the work assigned to me did not get any lesser, infact it got more! As I'm currently involved in 2 projects now which are running concurrently, the dateline of the solution design that I had to come up with is very tight. Just when I had finish some and thought I could relax abit, I saw another requirement was assigned to me again!

As Singapore is the global resources to the US, most of the knowledge still holds by them. Therefore in order to find out more about my requirement and how to do it, I had to stay up at night to sametime them or arrange conference call which always can only start after 9pm SG time. My team members mostly resides in US or Germany and in order to arrange a call with them and had to accomodate to 3 different time zone, my night is the best time.

For the past 2 weeks, I had conference calls for the 5 consecutive days from Monday to Friday and had to work till wee hours. Sometimes within a night, I can have 2 to 3 calls right after the other! So you can imagine if each call last for at least 1 hour and usually it can only start at 9pm (That is US 8am) or sometimes later, by the time I finished all calls, what time is it already in Singapore??

After putting down the call, I still need to continue working so that all those discussion during the call are still fresh in my mind. If I head to bed straight away and start working the next day, I knew I would miss out some important details as my memory seems to deteriorate during this pregnancy.

If staying up late could help to solve my issues, I would still think it's worth it BUT NO! That's not the case! I can talk and talk for 3hours and not come to any conclusion because even the experts in my team couldnt answer my questions as well! So I'm back to square one going round in circles contacting all over the world for the right answer but in the end, the last answer I got was: "You can try XXXX, she is the expert in this area". And you know what, this XXX is the person in my team whom I had talk to for 3 hours but couldnt come up with a solution! So it's obvious I am still turning round and round in a ring!

I tried my last resort, that is to email my Team lead for help. Not only did he read my mail (I put return receipt) and didnt reply, the only mails he sent out to the team are mails that keep pushing us for the work and remind us constantly that dateline is near! I sent him a calender invite to join a call to discuss a requirement and he did not click Accept or Decline. When the call was over, I received a mail saying he accepted that call. When I emailed him saying that call was already over, thinking he might had saw the date wrongly, he replied saying: "I know, I just don't like to reject a call even though the call is already over". WA BIANG!

I went back to office on Thursday and many colleagues who saw me said I look pale and tired. I think that's probably also because I just recovered from a bad sorethroat and headache. Again no medicine was taken as I let it heal itself.

Many advised me not to work so late or be too stress as it will affect the baby and my health. A male colleague even told me his experience with his wife when she was pregnant and due to overstress at work and the hectic working hours, it causes some complication with risk of premature and low amniotic fluid.

Probably the nature of my job scope for this newly built department in Singapore (only set up last year) really wasn't suitable for a pregnant woman to work in. Or probably I was just the unlucky one to be assign to this US team which always had the most work to do because this system that I'm involved with always had a share in most of the world wide initiated projects.

If I am not pregnant, I would probably not care so much and just fight till the end. But since now that's not the case, I wouldnt want to risk the little things in my tummy over my career-minded thinking. I wanted my babies to be really healthy and come to this world safe and sound. I heard the baby will follow what the mother feels during the pregnancy. If the mother is always happy during the pregnancy, the baby come out will be very cheerful and active. If the mother is always stress, the baby will always frown and crying. I definitely want my child to be happy always!

I only have 3 choice:
1) Continue in this way until my 3rd Trimster or something really happen then ask gynae for mc to bedrest me at home so I could escape from the rest of the work.

2) Request to my local manager for a transfer of team (out of the CBS system!) but this subject to what job are there available now which allows me to go on 3mths maternity leave starting July.

3) Throw THE letter.

I would definitely want to keep #3 as my last resort unless I'm really in serious health problem or super high risk of pregnancy complications.

What should I do???
Advise can come in email, MSN, call or simply type your comments in the 'rattles' section or tag it on the tagboard! All advise are mostly welcome.

I like last min decision!

Last sat (16th Feb), I was informed last minute that we need to go my MIL's 3rd brother house to bai nian. As Hui had French class in the morning, we could only leave the house in the afternoon around 2.30pm. The uncle was a funny and friendly guy and it seems everyone enjoyed chit chatting with him.

We stayed around for about 2hours before we went our separate way where Hui's brother sent MIL and sister home and we went out patoring.

In the car, we were thinking hard where to go. Either watch movie or go town and do some shopping. But we've got nothing to buy and we're not really interested to catch a movie. Suddenly an idea struck my mind and off we drove down to the West!..........


















Here we are!
Sentosa Flowers 2008
Ong Lai! Huat Ah!
"Twinkle Twinkle Little Butterfly..."
That's me hiding in the bush peeping at Daddy with his 2 little rats :p
Two hearts binded as one
Ugly duckling one day will become a swan!
Since it was a last min decision, we did not bring our camera along. Luckily Hui's Sony Ericson K800i works wonders!
View complete album
It was really a last minute decision but we enjoyed our moment there! After we left sentosa, we proceeded to Tong Shui 茶餐厅 at Uppper Thomson for our dinner before heading home for rest.

A quiet Valentine's Day

We celebrated too much Valentine Day until we totally ran out of ideas how to celebrate this day anymore. We were plain too lazy to plan any surprises for each other. We totally had no idea what gift to buy for each other. We wanted to save more money for our coming kids and all the expensive restaurants were not in our dining list at all. Due to my condition now, I wanted to avoid all the crowded places and queuing for more than 30min just to had my valentine's day dinner was not a romantic thing to do anymore.

Hui picked me up from work at 6.20pm and we rushed to this place that sells cheap and nice western food. It was not far from my work place and we reached the place just 15mins later. The queue started coming in and since we reached early, we only waited for barely 10mins. No reservations is allow and is on first come first serve basis. I got to know this place through a channel 8 variety show and had wanted to visit this place since Dec 2007. Finally I had a chance to dine at this place on this special day.

ASTONS Specialties
Very nice home-made cream of mushroom. Come with 2 garlic breads!
My CharGrill Chicken with self-select of baked potato and coleslaw as sides
Hui's Crispy Fried Chicken with self-select of french fries and pasta
Look at the long queue!
If you reached after 7pm, be prepared to wait at least 30mins or more!

After the dinner, we went to Parkway shopping centre for a walk to digest the food before heading home to rest. No gifts, no candlelight dinner and no hotel stay but we had great company!

Total expenses for Valentine's Day 2008:

Next stage of life

Things started to change since Nov..........

8th Nov 2007: Deepavali public holiday. Tested and it shows negative. Proceeded to gym and met up with polymates for dinner at Marche@VivoCity.

*Another week passed. It still refused to come...*

18th Nov 2007: An early Sunday. Tested again in the early morning. And it shows:

19th Nov 2007: A lazy Monday. Went to see GP, Dr Chua to get confirmation. It shows 2 dark red line. After calculation based on my LMP, Dr Chua said my EDD is 9th July 2008.

23rd Nov 2007: A happy Friday. Went for my first Gynae visit at TMC. By then, it was super confirm as we saw the sac. Based upon the size, I am only 5.5 weeks as I have a long menstrual cycle period. EDD was shifted to 22nd July 2008.

30th Nov 2007: A nervous Friday. 2nd visit to the Gynae to listen for heartbeat. The flickering of the screen reflects heartbeat is already formed. Everything is fine and I am into 6.5weeks now.

7th Nov - Dec 2007: Started to feel uneasy. Nausea feeling getting stronger and vomitted a few times. Somedays, head was so giddy and feel so fatigue that lying in bed seems to be the only cure to make me more comfortable. Had to postpone my Hong Kong airticket to next year as gynae instructed that travelling must be avoided during the first trimster.

22nd Dec 2007: Hui's Birthday! 3rd visit to the Gynae for checkup to ensure the little things in me are still growing and fine. Yes indeed! And we could see them moving around with their very tiny little hands and legs!

12th Jan 2008: Stepping into a new year! Went for the Oscar test to determine the chance of them having down syndrome. Results came out and the risk of them having it was very low! Phew! What a relief!

2nd Feb 2008: First visit in my 2nd Trimster! Everything is still fine and they are already 10+cm now! Tummy had already started to show and I am looking forward to see it grow bigger and bigger!

Next blog probably shall reveal the gender! :D