Twin Pregnancy: Week 32

After monthly check up at the hospital.

Feels really heavy. Can't stand up less than 30 min.
Tummy is tight.
Chest is tight all the time. Feels like all organs upper chest are crushed.
Pelvic area crushed. Can't really hold bladder.
Braxton hicks more painful and chest feels really tight and crushed during it.
Walking time less than 30 min. Reduced speed to a step per 3 sec.
Toilet time hard to reach for cleansing.
Driving, cannot bend or tilt body to the front anymore. Seat must be readjust to the back a bit.
Feels a stripe grows every time lifting J.
Sweat a lot at vagina area. Must clean and change new panty twice a day.
Edema on both feet. Sometimes painful when walking. All the time.
Cracked heels almost gone. Cracked toes almost gone.

Balik Kampung Kota Bharu

In an attempt to take more pictures during pregnancy. Selalu tak de banyak gambar masa pregnant. This was in Kota Bharu with the kids, on the way to their Grandma's. Constantly fighting and screaming in the car. Emmet suka usik Sofia and Sofia memang suka menjerit. Sometimes I let them but sometimes I scold them. Mood orang mengandung memang macam ni kan. Nak pegi jumpa Daddy with his finally-out-of-workshop-after-two-years The Black Jane.

Pregnancy 4: Approaching 39 weeks

Here's us on our way from KL to KB after a long school holiday in June. Almost due by now. My tummy is growing fast. Super tired but managed to catch some brisk-walking session cum shopping at the malls. My feet hurts so bad but I needed the exercise since I did not get that much in KT. The kids got to watch How to train your dragon 2 with their Aunty. I got my follow-up laser treatment. 

Update for November

I will pledge to skip the usual excuse for not updating this blog for the xth time and straight away blog before this ipad is hijacked again by the prince and princess of the kingdom.

As you can see in the picture above, my kids are practically teenagers before I could even blink. I have not even succeded in getting rid of this baby fat and my bones are starting to crackle here and there. I blame facebook for all of this mess.

What have I achieved this year? Apart from having a baby girl and enjoyong fresh baby breath everytime she screams, I have succeded in exclusively breastfeeding Sofia and will keep it up until she is 2.5 years old, just like Emmet. I have also successfully cloth diapered Sofia and just starting to toilet train her. Very slow at that and taking my time. She still wears disposable at night and during long outings and travelling, but hey I saved a lot in diaper costs and trash. Though I didn't enjoy running water through her poo on her nappy with my head hovering the toilet bowl. Sorry, that was rather graphic, eh?

Emmet learned how to write his own name, Sofia, Mommy, Daddy. He is quite talented in drawing, he loves to draw. My sister brought home mountains of recycled paper from her office for him. Apart from drawing he likes making paper planes and such. He is very helpful around chores, with a few encouragement of course. He is very interested in the kitchen. He begs me to help making breads and kuihs and will always be beside my mixer when I am making cakes to meet orders.

As for myself, well I admitted I neglected myself for the past few years to make way for my husband and kids. But I will try to improve next since I get the feeling it would be some time before I get pregnant again, if ever. Losing some weight is the top of my list of course. I have also finally got to decluttering my flat and rearranging furnitures. And some decoration. Now I feel more calm and organized and will continue beautifying this flat until I'm satisfied. Kitchen is next!

Allergic or not?

This delicious treats found its way into Emmet's goody bag at a recent birthday party of Nadeen who just tuned 4. I was so excited about this packaging. Why won't I? Just look at the captions all over it!

Practically free from everything! At last.... something that Emmet can actually eat... at a party!

Emmet was excited too. 'Wow! Ape tu? Crocodile?!'
I gave him one koala-shaped cookie and he munched happily. I gave him another one, fish-shaped cookie. He took one bite. Then gave me a funny face. He sadly returned the other half to me and said, 'Mommy, allergic la...'


Guess what is he allergic to?

Pea flour!

Sorry ORGRAN! Better luck next time! Maybe you should recruit Emmet into your test team if you are serious about making allergy-free food.

Back to Oreo I guess. Sigh!

Happy 1st birthday, Sofia!

Feeding
Exclusively breastfeeding from day 1. Started her solids from 6 months. Loves rice, carrots, broccoli, cauliflower, chicken, beef, oranges, pears, sweet potatoes, potatoes, plain water, fish crackers, dry rolled oat. Dislikes banana, papaya, fruit juice, bread. Allergic to eggs. I try to make most of her meals into rice porridge but she is just more interested in what the grown-ups eat. Now I have my meals standing up, otherwise she would climb onto me and beg at my plate. We try not to give in because she just had her first episode of bad constipation for about a week. She’s fine now but I’m trying to get her diet to improve.

On beastfeeding, she is feeding almost non-stop towards approaching her 1 year mark. It is exhausting for me. She has been having breastfeeding problems from day 1. Her mouth was too small, her latching was not so good, mastitis, blocked duct, and now…she is just one impatient baby. She would start latching on one breast, barely even working on getting the let-down and when the let-down was finally arriving, she decided she had waited too long and unlatched. And there goes my milk spraying all over the place. Even if she did manage to drink some milk, it would be just a few good gulps before moving on the the other side. She would go back and forth until she falls asleep or decided she has had enough.

She is very animated while breastfeeding. She just can’t be still. Her leg would push my legs and her other leg would be high up her head and her arm pulling on my hair or something. Or when I sit on the sofa, she would stand on the floor whilst latching on me and I had to bend down a bit. Sitting on my lap, tummy facing down, her butt sticking up on top, every possible position you can imagine, she is one creative baby when it comes to breastfeeding positions.


Playing & Interest
She loves Mickey Mouse! And soft toys. I downloaded the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse series into my handphone. I put her in the cot together with some toys and let her watch the MM Clubhouse whenever I want to do my chores, or a nap once in a blue moon. From then on she woud recognize Mickey Mouse whenever she sees one outside and goes “Aaahhh!” in her high-pitched tone.

She just loves playing and attention generally. Any silly game would make her beam in delight, especially if it involves Emmet and running. Emmet is her ultimate playmate. She enjoys me singing to her and loves the Wonderpets song. She likes watching shampoo commercials. Recently likes watching kids and babies on TV and in magazines. Also likes playing with cloths and fabrics. Shows interest in cooking but now she screams whenever I go into the kitchen. I think she knows she’s unlikely to get any attention once I go inside.


Physical
She was born 3.52kg. She was a tall baby. She maintains her slim figure throughout her first year. I lost hope of ever wanting to see her become a chubby baby like Emmet was. She is today 74cm high.

My first thought when I looked at her face after she was cleaned by the nurse was, she looked like Emmet! My family thought Sofia took after me. Rizal’s family thought she took after him. But now eveyone thinks she has my features more. She has become fairer from her 2 months age. I doubt she’ll be as fair as Emmet though. But she has a prominent nose and clearly-defined brows.


Motor skills
She sit up at 5 months. Can roll-over at 2 months. Started crawling at 7 months. Skipped the commando crawl. Started walking towards the end of 9months. Still walks like a drunken sailor, as my neighbour put it.

She can pick up small objects and put in her mouth. She can chew it for a long time and not swallow it. She just showed interest in holding a spoon to feed herself. She can wave at anybody’s command. She does hi-five with people she knows. She claps when she’s happy or wants me to sing. She hits when she’s crossed, toys or people, but in a very gentle way that is. She goes down from a sofa differently from Emmet. Like a lady if I may say so myself.


Hygene
Because of her eczema, she bathes once a day. I bathe her with either just warm water or with emollient cream like aquoes cream. I also clean her bottom with aquoes cream whenever she soils. I apply either QV cream, aquoes cream again after every bath on the whole body. Sometimes I apply La-Roche Posay Lipikar Baume on her face. She regularly needs to be on hydrocortisone as well for her frequent flare-ups. I stopped using Bepenthem, Drapolene or any other nappy rash cream since I find they didn’t help in improving anything for that matters. What’s more interesting is that, she very seldom gets nappy rash eversince I stopped using nappy rash cream.

She started on wearing muslin squares with nappy liners from less than 1month of age. She is only on disposable diapers at night and during long outings. Her skin cannot tolerate the disposable diapers too much though. They gave her rashes around the waist area. I clean her six teeth using clean and damp muslin squares.

Speech
She can say ‘CAR’ at 11 months! Once upon a time she was chilling at her favourite spot, the balcony and looking at the parked cars below the flat and said ‘Car!’. Other than that she babbles but not as much as Emmet was before. Sometimes she sings along with me in a song.

Sleep
She sleeps late. She would wake up around 8am. Naps at 12pm for about 2 hours. Naps again at 4.30pm if I’m lucky. If she naps at 4.30pm, she would sleep around 8pm or 9pm and woke up close to midnight, just about my bedtime. She might skip the afternoon nap alltogether.

She sleeps with me from day 1, so breastfeeding is easier at night. It is a good thing that we decided to get a king size bed before I delivered Sofia. I can sleep without touching the walls, finally!

Misc.
She is very attached to me. It is very hard for me to get anything done. When I do get a thing done, that just means that there are things that are not. I do laundry carrying her around, I dry clothes carrying her, I even had lunch carrying her. I do my baking carrying her around. These days, Mickey Mouse no longer does the trick. But there are days when she just wants to hang around at the balcony looking down on the stuff happening at the parking lot.

She smiles generously when played with and cuddles with me as much as she possibly can. She even has this ‘mengada-ngada’ look where she opens her mouth wide and shuts her eyes and run towards me with arms wide open.

All of us adore her, the princess of the family. She does wear a lot of pink, but most days she is just clad in Emmet’s baby clothes. She hates hats or anything put on her head.

I’m expecting more hardwork in the future but I will try my best in raising Emmet and Sofia since I don’t have any great ambition. My payers are they would give their utmost cooperation and listen to what Mommy says, always!

Happy birthday sweet Sofia!

Hydrocele

Farrah wanted details about Emmet’s experience with hydrocele, and for my reference too.

I first noticed Emmet’s scrotums were beginning to become less symmetrical when he was just over 1 year old. I didn’t take much notice of them since he wasn’t in any pain or having any other alarming symptoms. He was not even bothered by the condition.

Months went by and his right side scrotum were becoming larger until it stopped growing at a point. It was so significant I had to do something about it. You know internet could be a scary place to seek such information. I googled and the word HERNIA keeps popping up and hernia is scary. I almost panicked.

After a few days of research and asking medical student friends over to have a look (Thank you Kojek and Shira), I calmed down, but still took Emmet to the Temple Street Children’s Hospital A&E for further assesment. One look under the pen lights, the Doctor immediately diagnosed it as hydrocele. Which was good news for me since it was not hernia. Hydrocele is just clear fluid that find way into the scrotum through an opening which is supposed to close before a baby reach his first year. But when bits from the bowel find way into the sac as well, infection is most likely to happen which will lead to swelling, fever, redness and other symptoms. That is hernia. Information about hernia you can find here. I guess the Malays call it air pasang. I’m not so sure. But I heard it can be cured without surgery by traditional practitioners. I think it involves massage.

They booked Emmet for an appointment with the surgical team for surgery before sending us home, relieved. The surgical team saw us and set a date for a surgery. On the day of the surgery, I brought Emmet to the day ward. Saw the surgeon who interviewed me more, a nurse did another interview, and the anesthetist came for another interview, all asking more or less the same questions. I found out later that the same thing happens in hospitals in Malaysia. It is so annoying being asked the same question when everything was actually accessible through Emmet’s medical record. I guess annoying patient’s mom is a lot easier than studying a patient’s medical history..

That was why I was so upset when the surgical team sent us home because they are afraid to operate on Emmet due to his long list of food allergies. I was thinking the anesthetist looked unhappy when I asked him will he know what to do if Emmet happens to have a reaction during the surgery. I asked him a lot of question actually. I wanted to know the risk. So they asked me to complete a blood test for allergies at Emmet’s GP, and it can’t be done at that hospital. Which is unbelievable since it was after all, a hospital. To make matters worse, when I went to the GP, she didn’t agree with the hospital despite not being able to read the surgeon’s hand-written letter (Microsoft Word hello??? Or even Notepad!). So the hospital said the GP does blood tests and the GP said the hospital usually does blood test. I even had to ask for a letter from the surgeon before going to the GP. How would I know what to say to the GP. Unbelievable.

The GP was kind enough to sort it out for me. She immediately called the hospital and demanded to speak directly with the surgeon. The surgeon decided…………let’s wait until the kid is 2 years old because hey who knows the hydrocele will be magically gone by then! The hospital will call you back to set the next appointment. Unbelievable!

I never heard from the surgeons again.

Until I got pregnant and came back to Malaysia and made a new appointment at the PPUM for this. I had to go through everything again. But the surgery got called off the second time due to Emmet having flu-like symptoms. One thing I learned about hospitals especially surgeons, was when they say they will call you back, they actually mean you should call back and keep calling back until you can get to them. I waited one year for them to call me back with countless attempts to get them over the phone, only to be greeted by noncholant nurses who make empty promises. I had to call and make a new appointment at the paeds clinic and go through the whole thing again for the 3rd time.

Despite my bebelan about this, I am thankful to all parties who contributed to the success of the surgery, even if it’s a minor. Emmet’s scrotum is back to normal, and he is even circumcised.