39 weeks+.... apparently only 6 days to go

I'm getting a little skeptical that this baby will come before her due date like my OB has predicted. We had another quick visit last week and Baby M is still 1/5th engaged (or 4/5th in my pelvis already). Same position she's been in for the last 2 weeks. My friends tell me that she must be very clever as she's waiting for her Mum to get over her cough and runny nose and for her Dad to finish up at work. The good news is that my cough is nearly gone and tomorrow is a public holiday here in Singapore so it would be an excellent time to come out and meet us sometime on Wed.

I don't have that 'sick of being pregnant' feeling, just bittersweet that this may be my last pregnancy and I'm trying to enjoy feeling the kicks and squirms while I still can.  On the other hand there has been so many babies born recently that I'm getting very very jealous of waiting for my turn. I've had wonderful news from a friend of mine in Brisbane who'd I'd only chatted to as recently as last Friday night, that she had her baby girl Olivia Neve today. She and I have been on this pregnancy journey together from the moment we discovered that we were pregnant (around 3-4 weeks along) at Christmas time last year, so the birth of her baby is particularly special.

Here we are sharing a funny moment in front of the camera on the computer.

Matthew's doing really well and continues to amaze us with his Mandarin speaking skills. He knows his colours and basic phrases in Mandarin. I've had to learn random phrases like 'liú bí tì' (my nose is running) and colours like blue 'Lan Se',  red 'Hong Se', yellow 'Huang Se' and orange 'Ju Huang Se' in Mandarin just so that I can keep up with him. The downside of having a bilingual toddler is that instead of having 'No' yelled at you just in English, I get it in Mandarin too 'Pu yǒu!' - together we are teaching Duncan how to speak Mandarin ;)

Day off school

Matthew and I both have a nasty chesty cough so we've quarantined ourselves once again.

Here are some pictures of what we've been up to in our spare time, as you might be able to notice, he doesnt appear to be all that sick.

Where's 'The Matthew'? (38 week belly shot)

Oh there he is!!

less 3 weeks to go...

I'm still feeling pretty relaxed, though in the last couple of days a little bit of a tickle in the throat has turned into a chesty cough. I'm sure it'll clear up soon but it has made my practice of daily relaxations more difficult. It does however help me practice being able to slip into a state of relaxation in less then conducive situations eg. in a hospital birthing suite situation with nurses and doctors coming and going.

We had a doctors appointment yesterday afternoon and took Matthew along for the first time. I'd prepared a great big tub of baby carrots and another of blueberries in anticipation of needing distractions. Matthew was really well behaved and sat quietly on Duncan's lap while my Dr did the usual checks and scans. He wasnt particularly interested in the black and white ultrasound images, nor did he saw any signs of worry when I hopped up on the bed. He simply sat quietly and watched.

Doctor appointment was super quick and unremarkable. There are no scan pictures this time as Baby M's head is so very low and engaged already that it was impossible to get a 3D picture of her. She's ready and I'm ready so it's very likely that I won't make it to my due date according to my doctor. Doctors notations on my admission letter to the hospital are:

Antenatally: uncomplicated, kiv waterbirth and physiological 3rd stage, (EFW 3.2 - 3.4kg), ROA, No CRN

Let me translate - keep in view that I've requested for a waterbirth and requested for a natural delivery of the placenta. Estimated fetal weight is between 3.2 to 3.4 kg. Baby is currently 'Right Occiput Anterior' which means that she is head down with her spine curved along my right side, kicks can be felt under my left ribs and punches can be felt above my left pelvis - I've become quite the expert in figuring out what position baby is laying in. No CRN means that there is no cord around the neck.

Some of the other things we have decided to do differently this time is to request for delayed cord clamping and for Baby to be 'roomed-in' which means that she will stay in my room for the duration of my 2 day hospital stay rather than taken to the nursery.

My next visit to the doctors is on Tuesday. Will keep everyone posted.

Happy Birthday Mr President!

Hah... I just found out that President Obama and I share the same birthday.

I had both my doula and her trainee doula popped by last night and we did a run through of a unplanned home birth scenario. Duncan now knows all the important things to do if Baby M were to arrive so quickly that there left no time to get to the hospital. It seems that Duncan's main task is to 'catch the baby' and to make sure I don't birth on the loo! There's no running around boiling water or wiping sweat off my brow it seems. We were also rest assured that it's ok if baby is a little blue initially as she will pink up within seconds and given a brief description on how to hold the baby face down under the chin and rub her back to gently encourage her to take breath and cry. Oh yes, and for me to lay down after given birth so I don't pass out. Pretty straight forward (I took notes during our chat)... home birth anyone??

Duncan and I must give off a 'we are very relaxed about the birth' vibe because it's the 2nd time now she's brought up the subject of a home birth. My OB and Doula do attend home births. But we need to decide early-ish whether we are going to head to the hospital or have the baby in the lounge room. Just not somewhere in between like in the car on the expressway or the lift When I laughed, my doula mistook my amusement for disbelief, but I assured her I knew full well that that sometimes can happen as my Mum had two precipitous births (less than 3 hours from first contraction). My sister arrived in under an hour and was almost born in a taxi as Mum tells the story and I took two and a bit hours. This also not the first time it's been suggested to me that Baby M my come quickly. I guess I will find out soon enough if this will be the case. Only 30 more days to go.

5 weeks to go!

We've had such a great week this week. My sister Kim passed through Singapore (en route between London and Paris) for the 2nd time this month and it's just been really good to catch up and for Matthew to spend time with his Tai Yee Mah (translates roughly to 'Eldest Auntie' in Cantonese). We took a trip to the Night Safari, a first for Matthew and the next day he had the morning off school so we could head back to the Singapore Art Museum again to see the Art Garden exhibit which he loved just as much the second time around. The next time I see Kim will be in October when we return home to Sydney with Baby M.

Matthew has fully recovered from NOT having HFMD. I took him to his paediatrician for his 2 year health and developmental check and the doctor was also unconvinced that Matthew had HFMD. His paed. didnt have any concerns about Matthew's health. However we couldn't do any of the developmental checks as Matthew amusingly refused to answer any of the doctors questions. Amusing for me as normally, Matthew does not stop talking, he's either parroting what I say or babbling away in a mixture of English words, Mandarin words and toddler talk. He flat out refused to answer when shown a picture of a car and was asked to name the object, likewise when shown a picture of some cats. At the end I had to step in and tell his doctor that I had no concerns about his speech and cognitive skills and confirm that Matthew does indeed speak!

In fact Matthew has been singing a whole lot more these days, with lots of songs in his repertoire, some of my favourite being 'Sing and Hum, Bumble Bee' (available on YouTube), 'Twinkle Twinkle Little Star', 'Oh Mr Sun' and 'I Love You' (from Barney). As I'm blogging this, I can hear Matthew singing 'The Wheels on the Bus' with Duncan in the bath! Counting to ten and his reciting the alphabet is a bit hit and miss, he recognises some letters and most numbers but will still sometimes get them wrong. He's excellent with colours and shapes and is definitely not colour blind like his maternal grandfather.

Pregnancy is going well, I feel huge even though the scales and the estimated size of the baby says otherwise. I'm still tracking a good couple of kilos less than I was with Matthew's pregnancy and Baby M is predicted to be an average sized baby. Everyone tells me should be pleased about this as birthing should be a breeze this time round... wouldn't that would be nice!

less than 7 weeks to go....

Wow, D-Day is drawing near! That's 'delivery day' not 'dooms day' - just to clarify. We can't wait to meet her, of course I've bought a few more dresses in preparation for her arrival.

Here is a 3D picture of Baby M taken last Wed.

she looks like she's smiling!

That afternoon when I arrived at school to pick Matthew up, I was told by his teacher that they had to send a child home that because of Hand Foot and Mouth Disease (HFMD), by Thursday morning there had been 2 children. Both of these kids were from Matthew's class. We've been keeping a very close eye on Matthew over the weekend had thought that Matthew had escaped being infected by his classmates but unfortunately Matthew had a restless night sleep on Sat with a very mild temperature and on Sun a single nasty looking blister/ulcer formed on his tongue. We took Matthew to see a doctor yesterday but because his symptoms were so mild that a clear diagnosis that it was HFMD was not possible and were asked to return again this morning for a further review.  When we spoke to his teacher over the phone yesterday afternoon the number of confirmed cases had climbed to 7. When we took Matthew back to see his doctor today he was already feeling much better with no further symptoms hence, Matthew's medical certificate officially states that 'there is no clinical evidence of HFMD' and has been cleared to return to school. Although he's feeling much better, we highly suspect that he has or had HFMD and the ulcer on his tongue clearly causes him pain when he's eating and as responsible parents, we are keeping him home for another day or so at least.

It's been a while since I've had to manage a grumpy 2 year old all day on my own and he's making me work hard. So far today he's thrown a ice popsicle at me and blueberries and grapes on the floor, then asked for biscuits. When I asked him 'how many? one? two?' his reply was 'seven'. When I said 'seven?! that's too many.' he replied wishfully 'eight?'

I'm waiting to see what tomorrow brings...

Art Garden Exhibition 2011@Singapore Art Museum

For those of you who have been reading my blog might remember that this time last year I took Matthew to a wonderful exhibition at the Singapore Art Museum called Art Garden. This year's exhibit is no less interesting and fun for kids and those young at heart! It's just a great way to spend a couple of hours with your little one and watch their little face light up with glee.

Here are some pictures from our visit, the full set is posted on picasa Matthew 25-26 Months

Posing with Walter the rabbit, you may remember him from last year's exhibit! You can actually buy your own inflatable Walter from the SAM shop.

Ticket for entry are $10 for adults and $5 for children aged 6 years and above. A real bargain compared to the ArtScience Museum. Museum tickets also entitle the holder to discounts at the cafes and shops on the premises.

Matthew stopped short when he walked into the first room, he was in awe and went really really quiet trying to take it all in.

Matthew "I like choo choo train"

Fruit made out of paper, with each paying adult ticket, you can trade this in for a cut out template for making paper fruit. Once completed you can trade your paper fruit for a real one :)

Matthew and Dad hard at work making a paper apple and banana.

Eventually Matthew (and I) got a bit distracted and started drawing on the papier mache trees... which you were encouraged to.

Less than 9 weeks to go...

It's been an uneventful week for me with the usual pre-baby things to get done like a hair cut and a trip to the Dentist. I was actually told by my dentist to NOT brush my teeth as often - irritatingly, I love brushing my teeth. On the other hand the past week has been an extremely busy one for Duncan. We've resorted to catching up over a coffee and pastry in the morning just so we can have time together. Sadly I've had to go so far as to stipulate that with coffee I expect conversation to take place at the same time and for Duncan not to be multitasking during this time and take conference calls on his Blackberry while we are out!

I've been finding this pregnancy harder than the previous, the difference has to do with the fact that I no longer have a sedentary desk job and have been far more active daily. Spending 1-2 hours on my feet going about my morning routine negates the need to hit the gym 5 days a week like the last time!  Bearing in mind this time round I also have a 14+ kg toddler to assist me with my weight bearing training. The Singapore heat and humidity doesnt bother me much as I dont generally step outdoors unless it's absolutely necessary. Baby belly also feels much larger now than it did 3 weeks ago at my last OB visit. We shall see how much of the additional girth is me and how much of it can be attributed to our Baby Girl.  I'm still working on my preparation for my drug free, calm and comfortable natural birth both at home and at classes, all is going well if the desired effect of listening to the relaxation CD is falling asleep. I've checked with my doula Ginny and she tells me it very normal. I've listened to the CD about 10 times, by the 2nd track, I'm asleep. I've yet to listen to the whole thing in it's entirety. Duncan jokingly said to me that at the rate I'm going I may sleep through the birth ... somehow I doubt that. Looks like we will have not one but 2 doulas present at the birth, in addition to Ginny, a trainee doula will be there to observe. This is of course in addition to a secondary doula, Catherine, on standby (24 hours a day, 3 weeks prior to by estimated due date). I didn't say no to an extra pair of hands as I think it will come in handy toddler handling during birthing.

Matthew's been doing really well. I think he might have clued on that there's a baby on the way. We can also close the chapter on big bed transition. He loves his new bed and the new furniture, and stickers and art on the walls in his room and it's been a breeze for him to fall asleep on his own. The hard part is keeping his bed covers on overnight as he moves around so much when he sleeps! (he still enjoys a bit of a chat and a lullaby with me before bedtime, but that's OK as I love our time together before bed).

Matthew's Auntie Kim (my sister) is arriving this Sat and will be staying with us for a few days. We are very excited to have her come and visit. There'll be 3 people to share Durian with! She'll also be logging many babysitting hours while she is here ... I think I've briefly mentioned that to her ;)

10 weeks to go

Big bed transition is going really well with the exception of last night where he called out 'Mummy!' in the wee hours of the morning. I walked bleary eyed into his room expecting to see a little body curled up in his bed but couldnt see anything and wondered for a second where he could be. Then I spotted him. Laying face down on his playmat, he'd rolled off his bed on to the mattress on his trundle and ended up on the floor on his mat. I was really lucky not to have stepped on him. The next words out of his mouth was 'mummy, hurt the knee' so obviously he'd taken a little knock somewhere on his cascade down off his bed. After a quick kiss on the knee, as I always do with all his 'owwies' he went straight to sleep again on his bed. Too lazy to go back to my own room and besides it was much cooler in Matthew's room last night I fell asleep on his trundle. Sometime in the early morning, I had no idea what time it was but it was getting light outside, Matthew fell off his bed again and this time on me. Not sure if it was accidental or deliberate, as after a week of sleeping beautifully on his bed and not falling out once, he'd fallen out not once but twice in the one night. Anyway we'll see how it goes.

The other funny thing about no longer being confined to his cot is finding Matthew waddling down the hallway still in his sleep bag on Saturday morning looking for us. Again, we were alert with a curious sounding 'Mummy?'. It was 8:30am by this time and both Duncan and I had slept in (Yes, I know how lucky we are to have a child who likes to sleep in occasionally).

He's still extremely chatty with me at bedtime though and continues to talks non-stop. 'Mummy sleep here' patting the space he's left for me on his pillow or 'Matthew loves Mummy'... the child knows exactly what he's doing. Duncan finds our conversations hilarious. It takes Duncan no more than 5 mins to get Matthew settled into bed compare to my 30mins, sometimes an hour.

Fun stuff we did on the weekend was go to the Art Science Museum again on Saturday to see the Salvador Dali and Van Gogh exhibition. Duncan and I enjoyed the Dali, whereas Matthew enjoyed the Van Gogh. It was more of a visual biography of Van Gogh through the use of projectors rather than a display of his actual works. Matthew enjoyed walking through the installation of images projected on the walls and floor and listening to the music and sounds of the period.

Outside the Dali exhibit

Matthew staring at the lifts at the Art Science Museum (the Lotus inspired building in the Marina Bay area)

Baby stuff is getting there, after the enormous furniture move last weekend, I set about getting on with the task of sorting out Matthew's old baby clothes and linen. Sorting out what to wash, what to store away again  for later, what to throw out and what to give away. Still a couple of loads of washing to be done but not much else to do really. We really are exceptionally prepared this time round. The next job is to make sure I have all the bits and pieces for sterilising breast pumps and bottles ready. Hopefully like with Matthew who was a hearty little feeder who latch on like a champ immediately after birth we wont have to mess around with bottles.

Birth preparation is also underway. I met with my doula, Ginny during the week. For those of you unfamiliar with the term, a doula is someone who helps provide support to the birthing mother during childbirth. During my meeting with Ginny, I also met a newborn girl who had been birthed 5 days earlier in the water in her backyard surrounded by her 4 siblings, talk about inspirational! Ginny came upon recommendation from my OB some weeks ago and after much consideration and discussion with Duncan having a doula made a lot of sense to us. Depending on the time of day I go into labour we would very much like to have Matthew with us when we welcome our new baby into our family. In preparing for this and knowing that Duncan may have his attention divided between Matthew and I, enlisting the services of a doula was a perfect solution for this situation. My OB, Ginny and the hospital all have experience with children in the birthing suite, and all three were specifically selected so I could have a drug-free waterbirth here in Singapore.

11 weeks to go - Nesting

Firstly, Happy Father's Day to Duncan! It's Father's day here as it is in most parts of the world and seeing as we are Singapore we thought we might go with the flow.

Here's Duncan with Matthew opening his father's day present.

Oh my goodness have we (the royal 'we' being Duncan, Matthew and I) been busy this past week. We've purchased Matthew's new car seat, bought new storage furniture for Matthew's room to go with his new big boy bed, moved the furniture around between the guest room and Matthew's room, cleared out the storage room and sorted out all the baby toys.

Baby M's room

Matthew's room

Matthew finally got to sleep in his big boy bed for the first time yesterday afternoon and has since had 3 successful sleeps in it. Duncan's just put him down for his 4th sleep. Success in this exercise is defined as 1) not falling out of bed and 2) not trying to escape! Although it seems that Duncan is the only one that can put him to sleep successfully at this point. Matthew insists on talking to me instead of sleeping, he lures me in his room with a sweet 'Mummy come here...'. When I look in on him, I get 'Mummy lie down', which I do next to him and I pretend to sleep followed by a 'Mummy sleep?' query in the dark, he then proceeds to gently pat my face as if to check whether I'm asleep. When I tried to sneak out of bed quietly, in my pregnant state, I clumsily fell out. Then the next thing I heard over head was 'Mummy pillow?' followed by Matthew passing his bolster pillow to me, by this stage I can't help but laugh out loud. The sleep avoidance tactics continue with 'kiss Matthew?'... hmm. I wonder where he's learnt all this??

I was listening out for the 'thump' last night which never came. When we checked on him at 1030pm before going to bed he was nestled into the pillows at the head of the bed and he looked so cute and small in it!

Matthew this morning, not to impressed with me taking his photo.

 He warmed up a little later in the morning shortly after we got ready to head out to brunch with friends.

Here I am at 29 weeks pregnant. Still looking compact, but with 11 weeks to go, there is still much growing to be done!

On the pregnancy front, Baby and I are doing really well. I had my monthly visit to our obstetrician and all is tracking well and it's been confirmed that I don't have gestational diabetes (which I was at an increased risk for). My weight gain is currently 2 whole kilos less than it was when I pregnant with Matthew. Baby is growing as she should be and I was fortunate enough to get this gorgeous picture of her in 3D.

Ultrasound image of Baby M. She looks so cute already.