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Gosh, such a bad mommy I am, I haven't written anything on Kei ever since he was born! True enough, parents dedicate a lot of resources to keep the memory of the first kid, but the resources are dwindling for the second kid and beyond. As I am the fourth kid, I really understand this, because I couldn't find any pictures or mementos related to my infancy and childhood. Sorry I digress. But with the hectic schedule of taking care two kids, I just realized that Kei didn't have as many mementos as Noe had. C'mon, I gotta be fair to both of my kids. So, now I write something about Kei's progress during the past four months.

So far, the only thing that I have written is how breastfeeding Kei has been smooth sailing. Now I will try to add more news.


At five days old, Kei has given his grandmothers the pissed-off finger. Bad bad!

At one month Kei began to have a meaningful eye contact and follow objects through his eye movements. But i haven't got his voluntary smile yet.


Also at one month he was able to lift his neck when he's put belly down.



I got his first smile at around five-six week.



At around seven weeks Kei was circumcised (i'm sure we're gonna face a lot of lambasting from other agnostics / atheists, but we decided to do this anyway..).



After his wound healed, at around eight-nine week, we began with cloth diapering. This is the right age because his bowel movement had become more regular and his pee was getting less frequent. I got fresh new stash from bumwear and bumgenius websites. Kei has been loving his cloth diapers and he looked really cute in them.



At three months, end January, Kei was able to clasp both his hand together at the centre of his body. He also began to be able to grasp things.

A few days later, he was able to lean himself sideways 45 degree. Striving to defy gravity. We began to be more carefree with Kei's neck, which has become stronger. At three and a half months, Kei began to grab things that are lying around him.

At four months, Kei began to play with his saliva, making BRRR sounds. Indonesians believe that this is the time when mother begins to shed hair. True enough, a few days later, I began to shed my hair. This will last for many months, NOT liking it at all.


At four and a half months, early March, Kei began to roll more steeply, but not quite rolling over yet. One week later, Kei totally rolls over, and he really loved rolling over and back.

He also began to be able to pull himself to sitting position, and surprisingly, to STANDING position, when I hold his hands. It's not that we pull him into sitting / standing position, Kei insisted that he pull himself to that positions, albeit wobbly.

And just like his brother, Kei also flew in an airplane for the first time at four months from Singapore to Jakarta and back. Timely enough to be shown to relatives in Jakarta. Initially, I was supposed to fly to Jakarta with Kei and Noe on tow. I'm not a super mom, unlike Jeng Hany who's able to take care two toddlers at the same time, so I begged to Indi to split the baby caring job, because I didn't know how Kei would react on the airplane. Finally Indi babysat Noe while Kei and me went to Jakarta for family event. Luckily Kei behaved really well in the airplane, no crying no fussiness, despite a very uncomfortable Lion Air (but cheap) flight. I became more confident that next time I should be able to get two kids on tow by myself. Amen.




Breastfeeding on the flight help soothes painful ears during descent

Overall Kei shared similar milestones as his brother. One thing different, Kei has fell sick with common cold TWICE, while Noe only fell sick after he was one year old. Well, with two kids, germs coming from the older brother's school got into Kei's immune system. And consequently, mummy also fell sick more often when one kids fell sick and hence began a circle of disease jumping from one person to another. When one kid fell sick, the disease could stay in the house for more than week thereafter, because other member of the family would get the disease. Luckily with breastfeeding the kids get well quickly. Hopefully Kei would be stronger and more resilient when he begins playgroup in a few years.

I am pissed off by whoever did the paving along Labrador Park using limestone (or whatever material) that becomes slippery when wet. It was raining so I slipped and sprained my ankle this afternoon. I landed from my fall the wrong way because I was trying to protect my baby who is sitting in my baby bjorn carrier.  And now I can only walk with turtle pace, and my ankle hurts, it is a bit swollen too. ARRGH!

For full entry, click here

I think the sayings "What gets measured, gets managed" is quite true....

Tracking our expenses and transactions

We have been quite rigorous in tracking our expenses and transactions since the first years of our marriage. We log our expenses up to the cents.

When we got marriage, we were quite carefree about spending our money, particularly for dining out and entertaining people. Then we realised that we couldn't account of the spending: it seems that our money just vapored out into thin air, and the savings didn't grow as much as we wanted it to be. "It couldn't be!" I thought, "Where does the money go?" Realising that something needed to be done about it, at the beginning, it was just me who took note of the expenses. But then I persuaded Indi about the benefit of doing so and he was willing to give it a try. After doing it for a few months, Indi too realised the great benefit of tracking. Now it has become a habit for both of us.

We didn't just stop at tracking our expenses. Once a week, I took the duty of consolidating all the expenses into spreadsheet, classifying the expenses into different categories. Once a month, both of us review our income and expenses. It rings true enough, "what gets measured, gets managed". The following are the benefits of tracking expenses:

• We know where our money goes. Never again it disappears into thin air. This information is very useful. For example, it is often a surprise to know how much we have spent for small things over one year or more. Let's say, small purchase of disposable diapers since 2005 until now has depleted our cash by more than 1,000 SGD, and even that, we were using one of the cheapest brand available. Plus the baby wipes, diaper rash cream, etc it may have been close to 1,500 SGD! This is called "The Latte Factor" which is small purchases that count to be a huge expense over time. Thanks to the detailed expenses log that we have, we knew about this and are able to take action (No more Starbucks!). Oh, and about the diaper, we're currently planning to move to cloth diapering and elimination communication to save cost, but that would be a totally different blog post.
• The tracking helps us to approximate the expenses for the next month, projecting savings, or to set out budget.
• The tracking tells us how we could take actions to cut cost, hence save more money. For example, taking a taxi could stretch our expenses to a couple of hundred dollars. Since it is reflected in the spreadsheet, we knew that we need to take bus and walk more.
• It becomes an interesting record of our spending pattern too!

And it didn't stop at having a massive record of expenses. Those spreadsheets are useless unless we take action on it. At first, we only took note of the expenses. The next step we knew which corner to cut. Furthermore, we began to set out monthly budget for the expenses. Finally now, we set savings target that we need to fulfil every month and cut the money for saving, first thing in the morning when the paycheck come (Think about the boat, the boat, the boat!).

It worked for us so we'd like to recommend that everyone do it. And it's not difficult at all, you'd only need a tiny notepad and pen in your pocket / handbag all the time and jot down the expenses as soon as it happens to you. Or, like indi, use the pda that could sync the data with the computer easily. Or, like me, I use twitter and sometimes notepad (my pda sucks). It takes us only 5 seconds at the most, after each purchase.

Tracking my time

Having been used to tracking the expenses, these past couple of months I have been doing the experiment of tracking the time I spent doing things, to the details of five minutes. I realized that I needed to do this, in order to accurately allocate time for doing personal projects or do freelance work. Indi thinks I'm crazy of doing this, but I have my reason. Indi is an employee, so he is able to segregate time for his work and time for other things. As I am a full-time mother and part-time anything else, my time allocation is jumbled and mixed.Before I have kids, I used to be able to focus on doing things for more than three hours straight, even without eating and drinking. Since I'm primarily an at-home-mother (and note, I hate that dicothomy of SAHM vs WM), I am often interrupted by the little ones. Now, I could rarely focus on doing things for more than two hours, which used to be the optimum way for me to be productive. Surely, I needed to change the way I work. But how? Again, "What gets measured, gets managed". The first step is to know how much time I spend doing things, of course.

Everyday, I track the time I take for doing things, primarily using pda-twitter and also using small notepad. Each tracking took me 5-10 seconds, and each day, on average, there are 16-18 different activities. So it doesn't take much of my time to track it. Once a week, I would consolidate the time spent into a spreadsheet and classifying it according to several categories (30 minutes per week). Once a month, I review them and this should allow me to decide what actions to be taken (30 minutes).

I found these interesting facts from two month of logs, one prior to Kei's birth, and one after:

• Before Kei's birth, I spent about 9 hours perday of family time and household. After Kei's birth, I spent about 15 hours perday for this (including more time dedicated for breastfeeding, and taking care two kids). This is given, can't be reduced, as my kids and family are my priority. However, I should consider ways to make household work more efficient and timesaving.
• Before Kei's birth, I spent 3 hours perday to do useless things on the web like facebooking, friendster, flickr, and blogwalking. After Kei's birth, it became 2 hours. This should be reduced even more: 1 hour per day at the maximum. Make it 30 minutes.
• On the other hand, on average, I spent only 1 hour perday replying important emails, 1 hour perday doing volunteer work, 1 hour spending time with friends, and 15 minutes perday writing blog or get involved in wikipedia. These should be increased.
• On average, I sleep 7.5 hours perday. This should be reduced. I use to be able to sleep 6 hours perday only.
• On average, I spent 1 hour perday traveling or in transport mode. This should be reduced by planning travel more efficiently.
• Before Kei's birth, I have 6.5 hours to do work (personal projects or freelance thingy). After Kei's birth, it became only 3 hours. This should be increased. I am targetting 4-5 hours perday should be available to do work.

Having logged my time in details enables me to decide what activities should I do less (aimlessly web-browsing), what activities should be made more efficient (household work), and what activities should be increased (spending time with kids, work, volunteer). How? Maybe I would try to elaborate more on this in the next blog post (depending on my time).

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Keilani getting himself comfortable under infant warmer system at the delivery room of National University Hospital, Singapore.The last weeks

During my last hospital visit on 16 October, the CTG shows that I have been having steady contractions of 17 minutes apart. Funny that I couldn't feel anything. Dr Li Lin said that those are inactive contraction, "practicing" for the big day.

The week after that on 23 October, I went to visit dr Chong who were surprised to see me still hasn't given birth yet. I was also confused because I didn't feel any contraction at all. I even asked him whether I should try inserting evening primrose oil pills into the birth canal (as it is a natural method of induction). Dr. Chong said such measure is not necessary as he would only suggest induction if I go beyond 41 weeks or if the USG scan shows any problems. So far USG scan result was good for natural birth. I was grateful and relieved.

At the same time I consulted the birth plan with him: that I intended to be accompanied by a birth coach, and that I want to have a drug free birth. He largely agreed with my plan that drug-free birth is possible, but he needed to inject oxytocin after birth to avoid possible bleeding. I agreed to compromise to accept the oxytocin flush, considering my hemorrhage risk. Dr. Chong also advised that I have to put my state of mind as relaxed as possible to minimise the pain (sort of a "trance" state), but he also suggested me not to be to bound by the birth plan : if I can't cope with the pain I should inform the medical staff as soon as possible because such condition (tiredness or inability to cope with pain) won't be productive for the labour. I agreed with his suggestion but kept emphasizing to him my intention to try to cope with the pain as much as possible.

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The day before

On 24 October morning and afternoon I was still busy to finish work and to go to campus to return the books. Ever since my last visit to the doctor my mom insisted to accompany me wherever I went so that if anything happen there's somebody to help. In the late afternoon it was rather difficult to get taxi in NUS and some inconsiderate academic staff decided to ignore my pregnant presence and she got a taxi from across the road, even though I waited for taxi before her. I wasn't speedy enough to run to cross the road to chase for that particular taxi. But that bitch did! Oh well...

Evening, 24 October, I breastfed Noe to put him to sleep. Unlike the other days when I breastfeed during pregnancy, this time the feeding session seems to increase the intensity of uterine contraction. Not long after that I began to notice faint contraction pain. I began to time it, and it seemed to be regular, coming at 10-11 minutes apart. I began to freak out because I haven't packed the suitcase for hospital. I jumped out of bed and pack the suitcase and prepare the documents to check into the hospital. Then I went to rush to finish my will, send it off to Indi to print tomorrow at the office, and back up the computer. Everything that needed to be done prior to delivery has been done, so I tried to sleep.

I couldn't totally sleep because the contraction pain recurred. I laid down and rest my body as much as possible in between the rush.

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The Development of the Contraction at Home

Morning 25 October. I woke up at 5 am and spend time browsing the web and do some work. Contraction as 7 to 8 minutes apart. My mom woke up and I mentioned to her about the regular contraction. She asked whether my mucous plug has come out, and I said no. She advised me to cancel going to Little India in the afternoon and just concentrate on the contraction. At 6am I sms-ed Doris and she advised me to call the labour ward to see whether I needed to check in. I called NUH labour ward and the nurse asked whether this is the first baby and whether I stayed far from NUH. I said this was the second baby and I lived very close to NUH. The nurse advised me to come when the contraction is 5 minutes apart or when the water broke, and that she would reserve a labor ward for me. So I decided to just wait at home as per her suggestion. Besides, there is no free wi-fi in NUH and I would be bored to death there.

The contraction stays regular at 7-8 minutes in the morning. I prepared Noe to go to school / daycare, and apologized to him that I might not be home in the evening because I needed to go to hospital to help the baby out of the belly. He nodded. We decided to call taxi to send Noe to the daycare, saving us from walking 1.5 km.

Strangely, after Noe went to school, the contraction stopped! I decided to take the opportunity to have a good sleep, because if labor did happen, I should have enough energy to go through it. Contraction stops for 2 hours and I had a good sleep.

At noon, the contraction returns, further apart at 9-10 minutes, but more intense. I continued with my activity at home, and stopped every once in a while to "enjoy the contraction pain". I did the breathing out exercise to alleviate the pain. The contraction grew more and more intensely over the 5 hours period. At noon, the pain was focused in the lower front part of my abdomen, and slowly, the pain expands to envelope the sides. Eventually, at around 3.30 pm the pain enveloped into the whole lower back and got even more intense. Ibu Tuti, my mom in law, gave a massage at the low back area which nicely helped reduce the pain. It was painful, but lying down in my bed didn't help. I had to sit or walk around, keeping on with my activity, and the pain would be less severe.

At 3.30 pm, contraction was 6 minutes apart. But my mom was still doubtful whether this is a true labor because my mucus plug hasn't come off yet. Anyway, I decided to stay put and only go to labour ward when the frequency is truly five minutes apart. I kept drinking water to keep myself hydrated.

At 5pm my mom and mom in-law offered me fresh cut fruit. I made red raspberry leaf tea with honey from Katrina, which is said to help induce birth. Then I went to the toilet, as usual. I saw a surprise, the mucus plug had come off! It was exactly 5.30pm in the toilet. I called into labour ward and ask whether I need to go, and they said yes. I then call Indi to inform him, and it was just a perfect timing! He just walked out of the office! Indi decided to catch a cab to make a huge loop: first to get Noe from school, then drop him home with my inlaws, while me and my mom get onto the taxi, and off to the labour ward.

At 5.45pm Indi arrived home with Noe and amazingly Noe didn't cry when me and Indi went off in the taxi. I was so grateful that he understood what was said to him in the morning. Our neighbour also waved goodbye to us.

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In the Hospital

At 6pm I arrived in the A&E. Nurse put me into wheelchair and roll me out to the labor ward at 2nd story. I timed the contraction, it was about 4-5 minutes apart. The labor ward was ready, and I put on the hospital gown. The next hour was spent doing boring paperworks while I was coping with the more and more intense pain. I also complied to CTG since the nurse said it would only take 15 minutes.





Doris, my birth coach, arrived at around 6.45pm and she asked me to move into the most comfortable position. I said to her sitting down is the most comfortable. She also prepared warm compress. It was the first time Indi met Doris and the two of them instantly joked to one another. Having both of them in the labor ward really alleviates the pain.

Doris coached me to breathe out slowly and visualize the sea, and amazingly it really helped to alleviate the pain. When the contraction came Doris taught Indi how to massage the lower back while I squeezed their hands, breathing out slowly. In between the contractions, they all kept throwing jokes to one another and to the nurse too.



At around 7.15 a young doctor came to perform VE (vaginal examination) and discovered that I am 8 cm dilated already. I didn't expect that, I thought I was only at the early stage. So we had to cancel our plan to have a warm bath in the jacuzzi as pain relief, since the dilation is almost complete.

After that came the most unpleasant moment, having IV patch installed in my left hand and blood taken for matching, while I also have to cope with the contraction pain, and my left hand unable to squeeze Indi. I really hate this moment but it was necessary to later perform the oxytocin flush. It took them about 10 minutes to complete the job. ARRGH!

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The Peak

At this stage the pain reached its peak and what I'll write down here is based on my vague memory on what's going on. I could only write down what I felt and didn't really notice what happened around me.

At around 7.30 the contraction became very intense enveloping the whole lower back, and I said that "I felt the urge to push!". Doris coached me to go through the pain, telling me not to push and to just breathe through the urge slowly. For me, the effect of doing that was truly sublime and I came into the realization that I could sense what is going on during my labor! For me it was like an enlightenment, that I could understand what's going on inside my body! I realized that the "urge to push" was actually the baby's head pushing down when I was fully dilated. As I was restraining myself to push, I let my body do whatever it wanted to do with that pushing down sensation. At that time I felt that the "bulge" retracted back inside my body. Since the nurse heard me saying "the urge to push", she called the junior doctor back to perform the second VE and he discovered that I'm fully dilated and the baby's head is really really low. Someone then said to call the doctor, while the nurse midwife is getting ready for labour.

Doris asked me to go into sideways position and to brace into the bed railings, which I agreed to do. I was in the peak of pain and wanted to just fully concentrate to understand it and cope with it. When the pain began to come, I scream "The contraction is coming!", I closed my eyes, concentrate, and breathe through it. Sometimes I felt the sensation of the head pushing downward by itself, and sometimes the pain came without such sensation. What I did was just breathing through it while translating / conveying what I felt happening to my body to everybody in the room. When I felt the head pushing down, I scream "I felt the baby is coming down!". Doris then peeked into my underside and confirmed, "Yes I saw the baby's head". Then I felt the head retracted back up and I scream "It's going back up!", then the midwife peeked to see that there's no head bulging out.

Then another contraction followed but the baby's head isn't coming down.

Then another contraction followed and I really felt that baby's head IS COMING DOWN and I COULDN'T STOP IT. I scream, "The baby is coming out NOW!", The nurse scream to me to, "Hold it, hold it" because Dr. Chong hasn't arrived yet. But I couldn't hold anything because I was not pushing! I said, "I cannot hold it! The baby is coming out NOW!" Again, I wasn't pushing, I was just breathing through the force that enveloped me, my lower body just open up by itself, and my uterus just pushed the baby out by itself. It was really amazing, like, my body was possessed by an amazing external force outside my control. Really, I wasn't controlling the process by pushing because, I wasn't pushing at all. The baby just came out like a train departing from a station.

There was a bulge coming out and it was the water bag, still intact. Suddenly I felt that it popped / exploded, water gushed out, and everybody in the room scream that, "The water bag had just burst!" then followed "The baby's head is coming out!". The flow of amniotic fluid helped to ease the expulsion process. I felt the steady force expelling the baby's head slowly, and I still wasn't pushing! Then I sensed a short relief when it got into the neck part, and followed by another strong force that expelled the whole body. I kept breathing through it, and still not pushing, bracing myself to the bed railings in a sideways position. The exact moment when the baby is completely out I felt totally blissful, relieved, and euphoric which was an amazing feeling. I was also trembling and shivering like I had just finished a long run. It was 7.50 pm.

After that I just want to rest and shut my senses for a while, so I didn't really pay attention on what going on around me. I only remember asking, "Did the baby cry?" and Doris answered, "Yes really loudly". I also asked, "So he's definitely a boy?" and everybody said, "Definitely!". I also remember someone screamed, "Wow! The baby passes urine now!" Yeah, the first thing the baby did after crying was to spray pee to the people in the delivery suite. What a great way to thank them, Kei!

A few minutes later Dr. Chong arrived and said, "Congratulations, you just had a self-service delivery!" After that, my IV plug was opened and hooked onto IV drips containing oxytocin.

Meanwhile Doris commented that this is a second time seeing water bag intact during the last stage of delivery. Mine broke when it was just out of the birth canal. On another occasion, Doris saw her friend's water bag delivered fully intact and the doctor was really eager to puncture it.

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First Feed

I was then turned from sideways position to semi sitting position and getting ready to breastfeed for the first time, after the baby's cord is clamped and cut. Doris wiped my perspiration using warm wet towel except for the chest area because she wanted the baby to know my smell. Kei (the baby) was put on my chest, I think, within 10 minutes after delivery, giving direct skin-to-skin contact. He hasn't been bathed yet but he was very clean, with no trace of blood at all. Perhaps it's due to the fact that the water bag only burst at the last minute when the baby is coming out, protecting the baby from any bleeding in my body. We (Me and Doris) didn't do the "breastcrawl" method, instead, we try to offer the baby my breast. The first 10 minutes upon contact Kei was only moving his head around. When offered the breast he would just lick it and play with it. Eventually, during the second 10 minutes, Kei began to open his mouth to put the breast into it. At the first attempt he was just nipple feed, which is not correct, so Doris asked me to break the suction and try again. The second time around, Kei happened to open his mouth really wide and we shoved the breast onto his mouth, resulting in a perfect latch-on. The suck felt weak compared to Noe's suckle, but he seems to actively nurse and swallowing the colostrum. Also, I know that it has been a good latch because I could felt my uterus contracting along with the suckle. Doris reminded me to work on the latch-on during the first few days, this is when both mother and baby learn the correct way to breastfeed.

 


Rani and her birthing coach Doris Fok are having a good time to get Kei breastfed for the first time. Kei did really well!

After a few minutes, I don't know how long, Kei released the suckle and fell asleep, and the nurse took him away to be cleaned. The magic of colostrum worked immediately - Kei passed motion while being cleaned. This is very good, because the first meconium passage will help expel excess bilirubin from his body, hence minimizing the risk of jaundice.



In the mean time, dr. Chong delivered the placenta and ensure that the SOP to prevent bleeding has been done correctly. He continued to examine the natural tear that happened after delivery. He said, "I need to apply LA (local anasthesia) to do the stitching, OK?" I said, "OK doctor, is the damage really bad?" He said," Yours is first degree laceration, this is considered to be normal. Even second degree laceration is still considered normal". I asked again, "Do you need to stitch a lot?" and he said, bluffing, "Yes you need a wayyyy lottt of stitches!", which means I don't need too many stitches. Dr. Chong is always joking in a bluffing manner but it really helped to lighten the atmosphere.

After experiencing it by myself, I realized the importance of breastfeeding soon after delivery. For the mother, it helped the uterus to contract, hence reduce the risk of hemorrhaging and help speed up recovery. For the baby, the laxative nature of colostrum helped expel the meconium, the first stool, hence help reducing the risk of jaundice. And not to mention the non-medical benefit, such as bonding, an opportunity for the mother and baby to get to know one another through the skin-to-skin contact, getting the warmth and scent of each other. I am so grateful to be able to experience this, and I hope other mothers would too.

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Aftermath

Kei fell asleep right after his bath and he was wheeled into the nursery for check up with the neonatologist. I will write down his story of the first few days in another entry. I was wheeled into the ward and given hot Milo with toast. Indi went down to buy me big dinner, because I didn't have a chance to eat anything before coming to the hospital. I was hungry like mad.

Overall it was a really pleasant birthing experience. I thoroughly thank God for that. Everything fell into place nicely. First, Noe was not fussy at all when left alone without me and Indi, and he seemed to understand what was expected from him. Secondly, the last stage of birth began nicely, right when Indi stepped out of the office after finishing his work, giving him the opportunity to catch the cab and wrap up the tasks of the day, without needing to take his paternity leave for Thursday. Thirdly, I didn't have to go through a long and painful labor. I am so grateful to be blessed with quick and smooth delivery. Fourth, it was also a perfect timing for Doris to come, after finishing her work during the day and she was also able to go home quickly since the delivery was fast. Fifth, I was able to get up and walk around within hours, thank God.

There are a bit of downsides too. I hate having the IV plug attached to me and having the drips on the whole first night in the hospital. It really restrained my movement making feeding difficult when IV was attached. Secondly, we've booked for the deluxe delivery suite with jacuzzi and stereo, because we intended to use warm water bath as a method of pain relief and relaxation, and in the end, we only spent less than two hours there without even used the jacuzzi and stereo! And we were charged full for the deluxe suite! Thirdly, the paperwork in NUH is a pain, and checking out of the hospital was not so straightforward. Moreover there are some error in my hospital bill and the NUH staff could only explain to us about it after repeated nagging, and NUH food was not so good (Lucky there's Kopitiam).

So that's the end of the birth chronology.

For original entry, click here

I'm back into the real world after two days being confined and pampered in the hospital ;> Now Kei is one week old. Anyway my handsome and caring husband has written the summary of the birth process in the previous entry, and I'll try to write down more details of the birthing experience before I forgot, so here goes. This story will come in several parts: the preparation, the birth story itself, and some afterthoughts. These stories are personal story of mine, and I share it here for my family and friends. And it's gonna be long because I want to dump as much details as possible that I can remember.

Technical (Medical) Preparation

I couldn't help to think that the hemorrhage that I experienced during Noe's childbirth is related to the drugs given during childbirth, mainly to induce contraction. The induction through drugs increases the risk of bleeding, and I am one of the unfortunate few who have the risk turned into reality. So this time around, I really really hoped to have the delivery process as natural as possible - drug free (ranging from induction to painkiller), in order to minimize the risk of such drugs. Luckily this time around the pregnancy went on quite well, with ample amniotic fluid in the womb, and the doctor said that there is no need to speed up the delivery through induction. This is unlike my first pregnancy when I was on the verge of pre-eclampsia and the doctor strongly suggested induction.

Aiming for drug-free birth, I needed to equip myself with references on natural process of childbirth. I would recommend "Ina May's Guide to Childbirth" by Ina May Gaskin. It outlines the technical aspects of natural birthing process and the hidden risks of medical intervention. You can read this book, but with a pinch of salt because it is heavily biased against the medical approach of childbirth, so sometimes the language seems to exaggerate the risks of medical intervention. For me, the book has helped me in outlining a sensible birth plan while keeping in mind the medical risk that I have to bear.

At the end, doctor said my birthing process couldn't be totally drug-free, considering my history of post-partum hemorrhage. I'm considered high risk, hence the doctor needed to safeguard against repeat bleeding episode by prescribing SOP. Upon the delivery of the baby, doctor will flush me with synthetic oxytocin through IV to speed up uterine contraction and prevent excessive bleeding. Well, at least the beginning part of the delivery process itself can be attempted drug-free.

I also prayed really hard not to have cesarean delivery as I am very scared to have my womb sliced. Luckily there hasn't been any indication that warrants cesarean (such as placenta previa), so I kept my fingers crossed, hoping to not have emergency cesarean after trying for natural birth (such as in the unexpected situation of brow / facial presentation).

On the side note, me, Indi, and Dian are trying to make a small video on breastfeeding. Breastfeeding during the first hour would be part of this video. Since I have never do early-latch-on within the first hour of birth, I sought Doris Fok's help (my trusted lactation consultant). It turned out that she was also enthusiastic about this video that she agreed to help me breastfeed the baby as soon as birth as well as giving input on the video concepts. At the end, she did much more than just helping the initial breastfeeding, she also became my birth coach and confidante that has helped me physically and psychologically even during pregnancy.

Mental Preparation and Coping With Death 

Ina May Gaskin's book also strongly emphasizes the power of mind and positive thinking for childbirth. It even proposes that child birth can be totally painless when approached with positive attitude. Quoting "Childbirth without Fear", Ina May argues that the exaggeration of labor pain comes from the fear of pain itself, and to sum up, it is important to maintain positive attitude towards childbirth so that your state of mind would help to minimize the "pain". In short, the book tries to bring child birth to the women who bear the child herself, rather than surrendering to the mechanistic medical approach that sees child birth as pathological (sickness-related) problem.

Having read such an empowering book boosted my confidence to try for drug-free birth. But then something unexpected happen. My cousin passed away during childbirth, just three weeks before my own due date! Her death has made my mental preparation for my own childbirth even more challenging. My cousin's death which was caused by amniotic fluid embolism during childbirth freaked me out because of two things. First, I'm due for my own childbirth within 3 weeks after her death. Secondly, it was inevitable that I became really distraught because my own past childbirth process was complicated by pre-eclampsia and severe hemorrhage. That practically put me into the high risk category, even though I don't experience pre-eclampsia now. So basically the first few days after her death I was very much distraught, and I couldn't sleep at night thinking about her death and my own impending. I became very scared of childbirth that faces me in a few weeks time. But I couldn't explain to myself on what exactly made me distraught and scared.

My religious/spiritual upbringing taught me to always surrender to God's will (pasrah) and not to fear death because it is inevitable. But why now suddenly I feel so scared? I try to understand the reason behind those emotions. After thinking and reflecting, it became clear to me that my fear of death was because I do not want to leave my young family alone. My fear of death is because I don't want to see my young family miserable without me, because this is what I've seen in families where the mothers unexpectedly departed in early age. Eventually they cope with it, but not before going through very difficult times. Having witnessed this, I spent a few nights after my cousin's death thinking, imagining, and crying about it.

When I finally spoke to my husband about my feelings, he listened with full empathy, and finally said jokingly, "Why should you worry and cry about your own death? It's me who's going to be troubled by it, if it happens!" Hmmmm, that's true, I am not the right person to worry about my own death, aren't I? Glad that my husband takes my worry light-heartedly, and uplift me. Basically he wants me to not to be troubled by my cousin's death, and to think positively about my childbirth.

Indeed, talking to people has helped alleviate my fear. I talked to people in parenting and AFE Victims forums, and they gave me positive support and scientific explanation about the AFE condition. So is my doctor, who pinpointed the risk and scientific facts on AFE, and why I shouldn't worry about it because the chance is very small. My doctor even said jokingly / tragically, that should AFE happens to me, there's nothing can be done by the doctor because it is so fast and undetectable.

Doris, who has been my confidante for the current pregnancy and who will accompany me in the delivery suite, also listened to my concerns attentively and even suggested something radical. She suggested that I write, specifically, a final will, to safeguard all my concerns if the worst thing happens. So I follow her suggestion, writing a will while imagining the worst case scenario. It was amazing, once my concerns were locked into the writing of will, my worry began to subside and I began to assume a "surrendering" (pasrah) state of mind: to pray for the best with God's help, but to also prepare for the worst when God intended it to happen, while approaching childbirth itself in the most positive mindset possible.

Preparing Noe

We don't know how Noe would react with the arrival of the baby, so we prepare him by telling stories about pregnancy and baby. I show books with baby photos and pregnant women, and even make simplified story about babies coming out of belly through the underside of mommy and then the baby goes to breastfeed. In the story, Noe and baby would share breastfeeding together. Indi would make drawings of our family, with two kids, on paper and board, and Noe would name the family member. Indi would draw baby on my belly and Noe would say, "Baby!", then kiss my belly. So far he has been always very gentle and loving to other babies such as Aina. We hope and pray to make an easy transition for him.

Preparation of the Household

During the last weeks of my pregnancy, Indi and I was pretty much occupied preparing our house for the new resident. It was rather tricky to juggle our work, spending family time with Noe, and organizing our house without domestic helper, but yes, we survived. The first thing we needed to do is to get rid of the junks and clutters in the house as much as possible. Basically, items that we haven't touched or needed for the past one year go to the bin (either recyling bin or trash bin). Books, no matter how dearly we love them, were donated to the neighbours or the National Library, except for few books that are special for us. Dirty, broken, used toys are put into recycling bin. We were also surprised to find so much junk clutters, hidden in cupboards and shelves.

For me, it's difficult to prepare the baby room for the second baby rather than the first one. For Noe, we practically didn't spend much time buying and organizing stuff, because most (if not all) of our stuff were gifts! The good thing about gifts is that they are already wrapped, rather clean, and organized based on age. So, what we needed to do is just open them up and store it into the baby clothes shelves.But for the second baby, we needed to reorganize the unused baby items that we have plonked together into the big boxes in the storage. We made a mistake of not organizing the items when putting them into storage. That means we didn't really know what's in those boxes and had to reorganize them all over again. Then come, gallon ziplock bags! What a godsend! We sort the baby clothes according to age (0-3mo, 3-9mo, 9-18mo, 18-36mo, etc) and mark the ziplock bag accordingly. The good thing about those bags is that we can make it into cheap vacuum bags that saves space, yet visible to see what's inside. Great idea for organizing things! We then grab the bags marked 0-3 months old, and throw them into the laundry. When they're crisp and dry, off they go into the clothes shelves, waiting for the baby to arrive.

Then what?

The next step is just to wait for the big day.

For full entry, click here

Oh what a day!

We are pleased to announce the birth of our second son.  All natural, all healthy!

date: 25 October 2007
time: 7:50pm (Singapore/HongKong time)
weight: 2.8kg
length: 49cm


We have chosen to name him Keilani Soemardjan (nickname: Kei). Keilani \ke(i)-la-ni\ is pronounced kay-ee-LAH-nee. It is of Hawaiian origin, and its meaning is "glorious chief". Keilana means "glory; calmness".

Kei is getting himself comfortable under infant warmer system in the delivery room of National University Hospital, Singapore.

Kei is enjoying his first bath in the delivery room.

Rani and her doula Doris Fok are having a good time trying get Kei breastfed for the first time. Kei did really well!

Rani started having contractions after midnight at 10 minutes interval. Then from 6am to 5pm they came at 7 minutes interval. At about 6pm she had the "show" (mucous plug came off) and we immediately had her check-in at NUH delivery ward at about 6.30pm. By 7pm she was already 7-8cm dilated which became fully dilated at about 7.30pm. Doris Fok, as Rani's trusted doula, performed an excellent job comforting and massaging Rani. Because of Rani's total surrender mindset and Doris' magic aura, Keilani paved his own way to the world without any push from Rani (and absolutely no drug intervention nor pain killer!). Luckily, nurse Maria Cristina Bernardino was there to assist when Rani said "He's coming out!". Dr. Chong, the "real" doctor, came a little later, saw Kei and said, "Wow, you had a self-service delivery!".

It was such a great evening! Rani made another perfect natural birth. This time she was fully prepared mentally and physically (after reading Ina May's book). Like an athlete finishing the final 1km of marathon effortlessly! Maybe Rani is built to make babies :) Well, the natural approach is really the ONLY way to go.

PS: Rani is in Ward 42 - National University Hospital - until Saturday morning.

For original article, click here

Last week we took Noe to tennis court for the first time and we let him use a junior racquet there. He seemed to enjoy chasing and hitting the balls at the clay courts very much. Maybe because he'd been watching Rafael Nadal (the clay court king) too many times :)

A few days later Indi bought a used-junior Prince racquet for Noe at Cash Converter for only 8 dollars. When we brought it home, Noe got hooked up to it and took a home-lesson with Uncle Yodhi almost immediately.

For the original entry, click here

We've returned to Singapore and now struggling with deadlines and work. We'll put down the stories of our Indonesia trip one by one, once we have time to write it down. And let this writing be the last rants about our last trip. I'd like to emphasize that our trip has been really pleasant and fun, but we just want to put down some of the negative experiences that we had before going on talking about the good stuff. This last rant will be about several things, first, can we trust Indonesian doctors? And second, about the living cost in Indonesia. I promise, this will be our last rant from our last trip! Next time, we'll write about the great, fabulous, orgasmic food we tasted in Surabaya!

1. Can we trust the doctors?

Noe Down with Fever

Every time we visit Indonesia, Noe has always been healthy despite the tiring schedule and erratic feeding time (that must be due to mommy's breastmilk). But ever since he was weaned off breastmilk, he's more prone to germs (although, thanks to his past history of breastfeeding, he recovers himself relatively fast as well). At the beginning of this trip, Noe was relatively healthy, but towards the end of the trip he was feverish. Perhaps his stamina was down due to flying off to three different cities in one week, going out at night for dinners, and because we've been sleeping under aircons for two weeks straight.

On 17 July morning, in Bali, he began to have fever. We gave him paracetamol and it helped to lower the fever. Noe felt really good in the early evening that he began to run around the hotel, and we decided to go out for dinner thinking that he had overcome his fever. Bad decision, we should've taken a rest that night, because Noe's fever recurred that night due to his exhaustion. We then decided to stick around using Paracetamol to hold off the fever during our morning flight out of Bali, until we see the doctor in Jakarta.

Going to a Doctor in Jakarta Hospital

We decided to see a doctor in Jakarta because we were worried that it could be typhoid fever or dengue, since Noe had been vomiting, had bad appetite, and the fever had run into the second day already. We chose to go to a pediatrician in a hospital in the fringe of south Jakarta which has the reputation to be a baby-friendly hospital (according to the discussion in ASIforbaby yahoogroups).

When we arrived in the hospital, we were quite impressed to see that there is no blatant promotion of pharmaceutical products and infant formula. Then we saw the pediatrician, Dr. ND, a middle aged male doctor. He came across as a friendly guy. We began with describing Noe's fever symptoms to him. He proceeded to ask the nurse to take Noe's weight and quickly (I mean, really quickly) check Noe's physical condition. Note, the doctor and the nurse did not take Noe's temperature, which was odd, because in Singapore it is a standard procedure. Basically it was a really rapid assessment.

Upon assessing Noe's condition, the conversation continued as follows:

It's OK, ma'am, your son is only having sore throat. I will prescribe antibiotics for him so that he would recover quickly.

Antibiotics? But viral illness won't be helped by antibiotics!

Hmmm… who said it's viral? Antibiotics will surely help him recover faster.

Well, doctor, how do you know that it is bacterial and not viral?

Hmm.. he has sore throat and antibiotic will help to prevent the illness to spread. If it spreads away, it could get really bad, he can even get pneumonia.

But his fever is only for one day, doctor, are you sure antibiotics is necessary?

I was questioning the doctor because I'm so used to the Singaporean procedures, where they prescribe antibiotics to Noe or me after having a fever 4-5 days straight, or when clear signs of infection is visible, such as green mucus or coughing with phlegm. Besides, I've read about the danger of hastily prescribing antibiotics. That's why I was rather shocked to be given antibiotics only at the beginning of the second day of fever. At this stage, the doctor was clearly annoyed because I was not obliging to him.

Look, Ma'am. If this kid is my own, I would give him antibiotics without hesitation!

So, now he's saying that I'm a bad parent for hesitating to give antibiotics!

Besides, what have you been giving your son? He's a bit underweight. Does he have feeding difficulty?

No, he likes to eat, including meat, rice, vegetable.

Hm.. so what brand of milk has he been drinking?

Well, he had just recently been weaned off breastmilk, and now he loves drinking fresh milk with chocolate flavor.

Chocolate milk? That does not have any nutritional value. You have to give your son Pediasure formula milk!

But he doesn't like Pediasure, I've tried.

Well, just give other brand, but it has to be formula milk! If your son is as skinny as this, his growth could be hindered! Do you give him vitamin?

Yeah, I give him toddler vitamin..

What brand?

I don't remember, but it's for toddler..

I don't think it's a good enough vitamin. I will prescribe a better vitamin supplement for your son. Gosh, chocolate milk! Your son must be calcium and iron deficient, I will prescribe supplement for that also.

He then continued to get a phone call at his blackberry, when he was still consulting us. I was really pissed off at this stage. I wonder if this person is a real doctor or a pharmaceutical product salesman. He's also very judgmental, and not open to discussion. At that point, I just zip my mouth shut so that I could get out the clinic really fast.

Paying for the Medicine

When I was out of the clinic, I went to the pharmacy and only paid for the paracetamol drops to lower the fever, and decided not to pay for the antibiotics and vitamins. Out of curiosity, I asked the pharmacist about the price of the prescribed medicine.

The paracetamol: Rp. 13K

The antibiotics and vitamin: Rp. 200K That is, like, a fourth of a monthly salary of a state school teacher in Jakarta.

When I saw the invoice of the paracetamol, I saw the doctor's name. Hmm. So the medicine paid is linked to the doctor's name. I wonder if he had been receiving commission or perks from the pharma company.

When I was paying for the paracetamol, I saw a group of medreps swarming at the pharmacy counter, talking to the chief pharmacist. I overheard them, roughly:

Medrep: Ma'am, the prescription for this medicine has been really low.

Pharmacist: Yes, I know… I have been asking the doctors to prescribe this medicine to the patient, but so far the usage has been quite low.

Medrep: I'd really appreciate if you could always remind the doctors to use our products.

At that time I was really sick to be in the hospital. Somebody should make a documentary movie about the healthcare system in Indonesia, which is overwhelmed with pressure from pharma companies.

To certain extent it is similar to the situation described in Sicko (Michael Moore). The difference is: in the US, the doctors are sponsored by the insurance company, while in Indonesia, the doctors are sponsored by pharmaceutical company. The similarity: there is no control over such nepotistic practices.

Noe's Recovery sans Antibiotics

Back to Noe. we decided to just give him paracetamol to lower the fever, and take a rest in the house to let Noe fight the virus by himself. No antibiotics were given. The next day, the fever had fully subsided, but we stayed home for the day to minimize the risk of recurrence (besides, we have a wedding to attend, the next day). And true enough, Noe's fever has totally subsided by the wedding time on 20 July.

I am glad that I didn't have to pay for those expensive antibiotics! But then, seeing Noe's speedy recovery, I become skeptical too, can I trust Indonesian doctors?


2. Living Cost in Jakarta

Indi has been living away from Jakarta since 1992, and it's funny to see that he is still gauging the living cost using the 1992 prices. But even for me, who only had been away from 2001, is still shocked by how high the living cost nowadays.

Indi still remembers when 1 USD to Rupiah was just 1,500. Even until now, Indi still thinks that Rp 20,000 is a lot of money.  As for me, I still remember when I began college in 1996, I can still go to warung tegal and get a complete fulfilling meal for Rp 1,000, with meat or egg.

When we visit Jakarta this year, we realized that virtually everything comes in 5 digit price! Rarely can we find food in the restaurant that is priced with four digits. It is interesting to see, that Rp 100,000 felt as "cheap" as Rp 10,000 in 1997. And indeed Rp 5,000 felt like Rp 500  in 1997. Really, there is no use to have Rp 1,000 and Rp 5,000 in paper bill anymore, they are should be in coins. I am not an economist, so those figures are not based on any calculation, but I was just using my feeling. I don't know how far have the inflation or the shift in purchasing power been quantitatively, but for me, it really felt that everything is 10 times more expensive than ten years ago.  Why is it the case? Can any economist answer this?

For the original entry, click here

It's not having what you want, it's wanting what you've got--Sheryl Crow

We've not really written much thing into our blog because we've been busy with different stuff.

Busy Reading and Other Activities

Although I have completed my thesis, and I should be relaxing by now, in reality both of us were busy reading books from library. We're trying to read less blog and read more books. Since we haven't been really reading books lately (instead we read too many blogs), we have just come to realization that book is a different animal altogether from blogs. I'm not saying that books is better than blog, it's just different. We were so used to reading short blog entry that we forgot how it felt to read thick books that contain thorough elaboration of one issue only. Also, how different it feels to be able to flip pages instead of scroll down, mark quotes by pencil instead of copy-paste to local computer, easily refer back to previous chapters with a flick of a page, and search the index pages instead of google. Of course, blog has different advantages such as that it is more recent, more updated, and more interactive. Also, after the thesis, I have also been busy with my breastfeeding volunteering activities, while Indi is busy with sailing and tennis. Indi thinks he needs to lose weight, although I don't think so (I like him chubby). Nevertheless I try to accommodate his wishes to eat less carbs.

Reviewing Needs and Wants

Second baby is coming our way, so we've focused our energy and time these past few weeks in reviewing our financial stance, ranging from reviewing insurance policies, rebalancing investments, and approximating the revised monthly budget upon the arrival of Noe's little brother. The review activity boils down to two key things that are so not new (I'm sure everybody knows about it) but often difficult to implement, and we felt we need to remind ourselves about it. First key point, live within your means - spend less than you earn (so that you save more). Second key point, separate needs and wants, and only spend for needs (and don't lie to yourself by saying that your wants is necessary, because it won't change the facts).

Reviewing Our Indulgence

The thing about needs and wants lead me to ask myself, "Have we been paying too much for our wants instead of needs?" One key thing on focusing on needs is to identify our indulgence and see what can be done about it: keep fulfilling your indulgence, or reduce it, or toss it away altogether.

Let's list my indulgence from the most important to the least:

1. Travel - backpacking, see the world
2. Food (experimental, gourmet)
3. Techie Gadgets
4. Books
5. Music and Movie
6. Self-Grooming (clothes and cosmetics)

Indi's indulgence list may be like this (I need to confirm with him):

1. Travel - backpacking, see the world
2. Sailing and Sports
3. Music and Movie
4. Art and Photography
5. Cars
6. Self-Grooming (clothes and cosmetics)

Ways to Cut Cost on Indulgence

Having listed down the indulgence items, the next step is to identify what can be done about it in order to save more or to cut cost.

I'm so happy that "shopping" is not in the list. I think this is a good indication that we have started to restrain ourselves. Moreover, it shows that the indulgence items can be replaced by means other than buying or shopping.

Non-negotiable Indulgence

I'm also so glad to see that almost all items are negotiable. Travel, for us, is the most non-negotiable one. It's almost like "absolute needs" for us because we consider traveling (backpacking) as learning experience while we're young and able, hence we consider travel to be some sort of "investment" - to be able to see the world before we're getting too old and frail to travel. Anyway, we always try to travel at the lowest budget possible, since we don't really like luxury travel. So, we can't eliminate or replace travel from our indulgence list. At the most, we can only reduce travel. Therefore we plan to keep on budgeting for travel and saving a portion of our income for this specific purpose, and to always plan ahead to fulfill this.


This is non-negotiable

Negotiable Indulgence

The rest of the indulgence items are fortunately more negotiable. This means we do not need to resort to buying the stuff to fulfill our indulgence, and there are alternative ways to achieve the goal.

For me, I need to learn to resist the temptation of buying food (sushi, cakes, cookies etc) on impulse. This is my main weakness, because food expenses are often small, but when accumulated over time, it can become significant. So I have to keep the Ramadhan spirit alive in this aspect. Moreover, I should've learned new recipe so that I can make the food I want in a cheaper way.

As for Indi, he is better than me in overcoming the impulse to fulfill his indulgence. He can patiently wait for opportunity to sail or to play tennis with friends, which is definitely cheaper options than going onto package sailing tours or to enroll in sports club membership.

For techie gadget, so far we're able to resist the temptation to keep upgrading our stuff unless absolutely necessary. As a result, we use our gadgets (cell phones, computer) until the gadgets are totally broken and useless. And we're not ashamed to say, that, to save money further, we even auctioned the useless gadget in ebay (with total honesty of the condition of the item of course). We view tech gadgets as productivity tools instead of having to keep up with latest technology all the time.

For books, music and movie, we are grateful of the library system in Singapore that has great collection of books, music, and videos. Therefore we never buy those things, we only borrow them from library and use it (read, listen, watch) until we finish them or are bored with them. Moreover, by not buying those stuffs, we make more space in our house, and less mess. In fact, currently we're donating and selling our old books, to make room for storage for the second baby. Moreover, instead of buying music or paying for concerts, our appetite is adequately satiated by playing music in our house, watching concert website, borrowing concert DVDs from library, going to free concerts (i.e. on campus), or wait for the opportunity to get paid to attend concerts and write review about it.

For art and photography, we focus on the activities rather than on the tools. As a result, we rarely buy cameras or art supplies. When we need higher-end stuff, we borrow from our good friends who have access to equipments. Also, there are many websites and forum online to get involved with art and photography activities for little or no cost.

As for Indi's passion for cars, we can easily restrain it since the cost of owning a car in Singapore is just unreasonable. So far he's able to drive around using the car-sharing scheme in Singapore that gives pay-per-use access to cars (including petrol, and no need to pay for maintenance and idle costs). Moreover, he's quite satisfied to be able to drive around in road trips when we travel.

Lastly we're grateful that we put clothes and cosmetics as the lowest indulgence priority. This means that we see clothes and priority more as needs rather than indulgence, and therefore, we only buy it after having evaluated the real need of it. As a result, we rarely have problems with impulse buying on clothes and cosmetics. Also we feel that we do not have to resort to branded clothings, and happier when we find cheaper alternatives to the branded items. I guess this is partly because I have been quite satisfied buying branded items when I was in high school and college, and realized that I didn't find happiness from owning branded goods. When people pity me because my husband never bought me branded stuff or pricey jewelry, I am actually very happy that we could put the money into something else more fruitful!

Lessons Learned in Separating Wants and Needs

In a nutshell, there are three lessons derived from identifying needs and wants.

1. Think twice, thrice, four times when buying stuff to avoid impulse buying. Is it a need? Or is it a want?
2. Think about accumulated value of small impulse purchases (such as food and eating out), and opportunity cost arising from it
3. When identifying needs and deciding to buy stuff, think on what actual goal you want to achieve after owning the stuff, and think if there are ways other than buying-owning to achieve the same goal.

So, what's your indulgence? How to stay frugal and save money without sacrificing so much of your indulgence?

For the original entry, click here

Thank you A. Fatih Syuhud for having selected us (Indi + Rani) as blogger(s) of the week! True enough to his review, we write out of passion of different topics that we encounter in our daily life. Why do we do it? No reason other than wanting to update our family and friends in Indonesia while we're stranded here in Singapore. That's why many have criticized our blog for lacking focused content. But we never really intend to be focused, and as such we will keep on writing whatever comes across our mind at any given moments.

What Fatih wrote about "keep on writing" echoed to us to be very true. In this website, you can see the transformation of our writing when we began blogging in 2003. It began with mundane, short paragraph, ramblings with focus more on what we had been doing on a particular day, more like a meaningless day - log. Eventually, as we received comments from people / readers, we began to write with a more focused theme or issue per entry and spiced it with bits of research to back our bullshit. In a bigger perspective, the website still serves the purpose of logging our thoughts and activities of particular moment, but now it is more refined, although it is not excellent … jut yet (or else we would be star bloggers by now).

So basically, we learned how to write, by writing often and a lot hence slowly improving the quality. But not only that, we also learned how to write, by reading other people's writings and taking good comments seriously.

Rani is in particular indebted to Jeremy Wagstaff, who, as her boss in 2001, gave her lessons in journalism and writing. Thank you, Jeremy, and may you cope with Indi's jokes everyday.

To AF Syuhud, we apologize that we write this linkback a bit late, because we've been occupied with things that diverted our attention from blogging these past few weeks.

For full article, click here

The Breastfeeding Mothers Support Group Singapore assigned me to take part in a documentary film program on Breastfeeding. Not that I have a beautiful actress's face, heck, I never even use lipstick in my daily life! I was assigned because I had experienced many problems related to breastfeeding during the first few weeks of Noe's life. So in this documentary I had to share my experience to overcome those problems.

So, last weekend the crews from megamedia (Hazel, Shereen and another lady which I forgot the name) came to my house to do a shooting. It was semi-scripted with interview segments. I had to reenact the situation when I had mastitis. It was real fun!

The day before I cut my hair in an effort to look fresher and sportier. Hope it had worked.

Then the crew came with lots of heavy equipments. The whole production crews are women, because they're gonna shoot bare breast mommies, and some mommies may be too embarrassed to be bare-breasted to male crews. Shereen, the cameralady, is very experienced and really strong. She lug the 10+ kg camera (worth 100K dollars) with her everywhere she goes.

The first scene to be shot is Noe eating breakfast. Knowing his fussiness, I had to make several kinds of breakfast: fried rice with salmon, butter toast, fried sausage, and a plate of koko krunch, all in separate plates, to let Noe chose which plate he wanted to eat. Unfortunately that morning Noe preferred to eat Koko Krunch (an unhealthy breakfast). The whole crew tried to encourage Noe to eat salmon fried rice instead, and they managed to catch a few minutes of footage of him eating the rice.

Anyway, it was really difficult to shoot an active toddler. Noe was easily distracted by the video equipment, and very much interested in the High-Def monitor. So the crew had to aim the monitor toward Noe so that he would stay still. After the breakfast shot, we continued with shooting a scene where Noe played together with us. First, we played football and tennis. Then we continued with drawing cars on the magna-doodle. Then we played with toy cars. Lastly, we all made music together, Noe played castanets and danced to the rhythm of "Elmo's Song".



Then I had to pretend having mastitis. I put on thick sweater and blanket and pretended to be feverish. A thermometer was put into warm water in order to display 40 degree fever. It was a hot day, and I had to wear thick blanket and sweater!

Then Noe took a nap while I did the interview segment. At the later part, Noe woke up and joined the crew to monitor the interview. He understands that he shouldn't make any noise.

At last, in the late afternoon, we did an outdoor shooting. I had to pretend that it was the early stage of breastfeeding. We dressed Noe in a baby outfit, but he refused to breastfeed. at the end we resulted to use Maeischa Fox's doll which looks like a real baby, swaddled it and I pretended to breastfeed the doll. I had to act as if breastfeeding was really painful, but the situation was really funny that I couldn't cry at all. At least my expression showed that I was in pain.

Anyway, it was a fun experience to take part with this documentary.

For full article, click here

We shaved Noe's hair because we still do not know how to properly cut a kid's hair. Here's the result:



Before:



After:


In March, Noe have had his second birthday and we just made a very small tea party at home with neighbours. The whole family was just recovering from bad flu, and didn't have time to prepare for a proper party.


The next week it was Rani's last birthday in her 20s, and we only had a small tea hangout in Holland Village.