Saw some of your comments, who thought the messy eater photo featured in my yesterday post was Zara.

I had to ‘announce’ here, THAT IS NOT HER, although they look rather alike. Someone sent me that photo, and I thought it looked like the mess Zara created after dinner (many many times exaggerated). So I used it.

I won’t be able to tolerate such mess, if that was her, I would have faint spell after each meal.

Here is how dining with Zara has evolved.

0 to 5th month
When we had dinner, we let her sit in her infant carrier with some interesting things to examine. She was happy.

5th to 6th month
She’d started solids, and able to sit supported.
When we had dinner, we put her in the high chair, one hand supporting her back, the other spooned food to our own mouth and hers.
We gave her something interesting to hold, she would bang the something on the table or chair noisily, and she was happy.

7th month
She’s able to sit on her own.
We just had to give her some sound making toys, or something extremely interesting to occupy her during dinner time. She would sit in the high chair making music by banging the items on the table or chair, or dropping them on the floor (to hear what sound they could make).
We had to take turns to eat, because feeding her, controlling the noise she was making (when other diners threw us glances) picking up the things she dropped was a full time job!

8th – 9th month
She started cruising.
She was not keen to sit still. If she had to, she would be dropping things on purpose, fretting to get out of the chair, or kept demanding for things beyond her reach (like the mobile phone, soya sauce bottle we placed out of her reach on purpose)!
We had to take turns to eat. Feeding her, picking up things she dropped, as well as pushing things further away from her reach was a very full time job and require a higher skill level(I wish I was an octupus)!

10th month
She started walking, and climbing.
Trying to keep her seated on the high chair is a big chore. She’s not that interested in her food, preferred to be on the floor walking. If we had to keep her in her chair, she would try to climb out of it, danger was not a concept she understood.
Definitely, there’s no way we could have a peaceful meal together. We had to take turns to bring her for walks, or if she still had not finished eating, we had to use 1 hand to force her down on her chair, and the other hand to spoon food into her mouth as well as push things out of her reach.

11th month
She started having a keen interest to participate during meal times.
She would sit in her chair, demands for her own set of cutlery (if none, she’ll just climb out of the chair skillfully and grab the nearest set), and then using the fork, spoon or chopstick she will reach for other people’s plate. She will also use her hand to grab rice from neighboring plates.
So, to prevent her for robbing people’s food, we let her have her own plate and spoon and put some rice in her plate. While we’re feeding her her actual food, she’ll pick up and push lumps of rice into her own mouth with her hand. Sometimes, even offering her food to us (which we have to pretend to eat or she’ll get crossed).
We could finally eat together again as a family. The after dinner mess however is another problem.

This is an exaggerated pic (not her), but it’s close to how she looks like after dinner… I wonder what is in store for us for the coming months.

My best friend will be coming back to Malaysia for holidays, and being very practical, she asked what kind of birthday (very belated) and Christmas present I would like her to bring back from New York for me. Would I like the Philosophy skin care and the latest Jamie Oliver cook book (both I used to love)?

I don’t need Philosphy skin care now since I always have the motherly radiant, as I go for those quick and easy just slap everything to your face/eye kind of skin care. No more time for exfoliating or doing mask.

The only cook books I purchase now are related to cooking or baking for babies/children, but I already have 5, do I need another? So this year, I asked her for a book which gives you ideas of games and craft you can play and do with a toddler or a child.

I noticed that being a mum now, I seldom buy or ask for things for myself, everything I buy or want, somehow will be related to Zara.

Just like recently, I was contemplating between an LV bag (the Bucket, I love it), and a digital SLR. It costs about the same. One would fulfill my own vanity or desire, the other would allow me to capture beautiful moments of my child. Which do I choose? Tough choice!
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We just went and bought the digital SLR today. Daddy’s anniversary, Christmas, valentine’s present to me. Bye Bye LV, maybe next year, I’ll ask Santa again for it, just maybe.

Zara signing ‘MORE’ in the attached photo:

I first heard about signing with babies when I was searching for some books in Amazon.com, and stumbled upon books on this topic, so I looked up websites and did some research.

Why do you sign to babies? “It is a fact that infants develop the fine muscles in their hands before they develop those required for speech, so they’re equipped to communicate with you before they can speak“, there are some very good websites who give you some insight to this.

I for one, got very frustrated when I could not understand what Zara was crying or asking for. She was 7 months then. At the period where she could not speak, but already had her demands(by crying).

I went to the ASL (American Sign Language) Site, looked at the video on how to do certain signs, and started signing to Zara. I tried to do the essential one like milk, drink, eat.

It wasn’t easy to let Zara associate the signs with the words, even more difficult because my maid was her main care giver during the day. Although I’d instructed her to sign to Zara when Zara was offered milk, a drink of water or food to eat, I could not ensure she did that since I was not around to check on her. When I signed to Zara during the time I took care of her, she seemed to look at me in amusement, not taking my ‘signing’ seriously.

The initial attempt failed.

As Zara grew older, she’s more firm with her demands, she gets a bit frustrated when none of us are able to tell what she’s saying or asking for. So I tried signing again. This time, I didn’t get my maid to help, because if she did it wrongly, it’ll only confuse Zara more.

I’d used a few signs with her, two of the signs she picked up quickly are more (2 hands come together), and no more (turn the wrist with palm stretched out). Her version of more is pointing her finger to her other palm (like doing dim-choong-choong ???). She tells me she wants more by doing this action, e.g. she wants more bubble blowing, food, reading, singing, etc.

Her signing came to very good use the other night. After breast feeding her from both breast, she pointed her finger to her other palm (she wants more), then pointed to my breast, and turned her wrist with palm stretched out (but I have no more milk), and then started fussing and repeated the gesture (my milk supply reduced because of the time of the month).

I quickly made her 2 additional oz of formula milk. Although she eventually just took a few drips (yes ‘drips’, not even ‘sips’) of milk from the bottle (she only has tasted formula milk on 2 or 3 occasions, so probably not used to the taste), she seemed to be happy that I understood her, and went to sleep blissfully.

I’m still in the midst of introducing more signs to her. Hopefully, it’ll help more with our communications.

Zara spoke her first 3 syllable word 2 weekends ago when I was reading her bath time counting book to her which has a page filled with butterflies.

She immitated when I said butterfly. Her version sounds something like “putter-pie”. Now, she kept mumbling the word putter-pie, as though to practice her talking skill.

She’s picked up quite a few words the past 2 weeks, like :
Kai Kai (go out) – tai tai
Walk Walk – woh woh
Park (Play ground)- Pak
Bath – But
Duck – Tuck Tuck
Mr Blue (her softtoy) – Boo
Car – Uhhhhh Uhhhh (with 1 arm raised and moving horizontally depicting a moving car)
Aeroplan – Uhhhhh Uhhhh (same as car, but she’ll be poining her finger upwards)
Daddy – Pa Pa
Zara – Sa-ah
Apple – Ah-Per
Full (??) – Ba-Ba

However, she’s still not calling me mummy, mama or anything yet. And sometimes still confuse me with herself. When I asked, “where’s Zara’s nose?”, she’ll point to mine; but when it’s “Where is che-che’s (Samantha’s) nose?”, she’ll point to Sam’s.

Maybe she thinks both of us are one entity, that’s why when I’m around, she still clings to me like a koala.

Over the weekend, we were shopping for a dress for Zara. We were looking for something which she can wear for her birthday, Christmas, New Year and Chinese New Year (4 in 1).

When we had to change her into the clothes we’d selected for her in the shops, we saw her reflection on the big mirror, she’s so skinny and long (or was it some tricks they do with the shops mirror?), I don’t know why we never really noticed this before (oh well, we know she’s quite lean, but never knew she’s THAT thin)! We found that most of the clothes meant for her age were way too loose for her, although the length suited her.

We eventually bought a dress for her from Zara which didn’t look too ‘baggy’ for her.

When we went home, and I hung her dress in the cupboard, I spotted the dress she wore on her full moon (a gift from Aunty Abigail, and unfortunately, worn only once). Just out of curiosity, I took the dress out and compared it with the one we just bought. Guess what? They seemed to be almost the same size.

I got Zara to change into the dress! She could fit into it (meant for 0-3months), and looks even nicer than the time she wore it 11months ago! So maybe, we’ll let her wear this dress on her birthday instead.

Her Full Moon 11 months ago

11 month later, it still fits her!

We finally got streamyx for the house! They finally got ports here (the new housing area).

How this will change me :
1) I will work from home more, probably twice a week at least
2) I don’t have to stay up in the office to read blogs or to blog, I can do it at home now!
3) There’ll probably more ‘rows’ with daddy, on who get to use the line more….. errr, maybe we should look at getting a router or a hub.

It won’t be good news to Zara, as mummy will try to sneak to the study to log on more often….

We were lucky, we were told. It was a clean miscarriage. Nothing remained in my uterus, everything was ‘expelled’, there was no need to do a D&C (which can be quite damaging to the uterus).

It was actually quite common for people to have miscarriages. 1 in 4 pregnancies, higher risk for people with PCOS; so it seemed. A consolation NOT. It my case, it was most likely caused by the genetic make up of the embroy, nature’s way of purging away bad ‘product’.

Dr JL told us we could start trying again after 3 months. My Chinese Dr told me to try again only after 6 months as I should nurture my body back like someone who’d just given birth; and she prescribed 30days of confinement herbs for me.

I continued my vigorous work out schedule to numb my senses (oh well, I have to admit I enjoyed it as well).

I stopped my fertility treatment, but continued to see the Chinese Dr to nurture my health.

We had sex, for the fun of it, it was no longer scheduled and I didn’t have to lift my legs up for 20minutes after our act.

We celebrated our 5th year anniversary in a remote island and a national park in Thailand for a total of 10days, best trip ever.

I threw a surprise birthday party for Daddy’s 40th birthday. That night, we were merry, he had a few oh-kao (Guiness Stout). He was in high spirit, surrounded by his best friends. When his friends left we went wild, we were all over each other we had mind boggling sex; and sod the condom!

Zara was conceived that night.

On the 1st few weeks of my pregnancy, I was obsessed, I went to the toilet to check for spotting every 30mins. I prayed that I won’t see any streak of blood.

We went to St Anne’s Church to ask for protection and blessing. Promising we would bring our baby here to give thanks if all end up well. I drank the holy water diligently once every week.

The pregnancy was kept hush hush until I saw her heart beat in the ultra sound, and no celebration until much later.

I had to do an amniocentesis on my 16th week because of my age and also because my triple test came back positive. In the test, a long needle has to be poked into my belly to extract amnionic fluid. I was extremely worried, about the skill of the Dr, as well as the damage it could cause.

I was assured by a friend, who worked with a lot of gynaes because of the nature of her job (I only knew her later or I wouldn’t have met the other horrible Drs), that Dr JL is one of the best, because he has a lot of patients, and have a lot of experiance with carrying out the test.

The first attempt, Zara was way too near to the skin of the belly, even with the Dr thumping his fingers on my skin, she wouldn’t move! On the next attempt, I spoke to her before we went to the hospital and asked her to coorperate. In the scan, I could see her actually crouching at one corner. When the long needle was inserted into my tummy deftly, I prayed that she didn’t move a muscle.

The Dr casually said that if the result came back and the baby has genetic defect (Down Syndrome mainly), I could choose to terminate it (Wow, that is soo comforting). It was the longest 3 weeks of my life (to wait for the result)!

When I got the result and knew every thing was fine (and confirmed she’s a girl), we celebrated!

During the rest of the pregnancy, I prayed that she would be strong and healthy and normal (not hideously ugly) every day.

I wanted a vagina delivery. Dr JL did all he could to make sure I have one. When she was delivered, while enduring the pain, I prayed hard that she would be alright, no complication (and please, not now!!).

When I heard her first cry, I forgot about the pain of child birth. When she was placed in my arms and I saw her for the first time, I was overwhelmed with emotions. I cannot describe the feelings I had. I thank God. What I’d gone through was worthwhile, she’s in my arms now, strong and healthy and normal, our little Zara. Daddy’s very belated birthday present.

Afterthought
Even though the journey has been a long and bumpy one, we have been blessed. She’s our greatest joy. Occasionally, when we look at this little girl, Daddy and I still can’t believe she’s our daughter.

I didn’t mind sharing my experiance with those who were trying even before I had Zara; but I’m not sure without Zara, would I still have the courage to write this?People who have tried and wanted to give up, please don’t, I have my story to tell, because if I did, I would not have Zara now.People who have gotten pregnant unplanned and wanted to give up the child, please don’t; count your blessing; there are people who are doing all they can to conceive, so don’t take yours for granted.

I had recommended the Chinese Dr to many people (some of them did get pregnant). Even if she didn’t help you with your conception, she would have made you healthier, so there’s really nothing to loose. If you are interested, here is her address:

Chi Ren Chinese Medical Hall (??)
63A, Jalan Petaling Utama 7,
Batu 7,
Jalan Klang Lama
Tel # 77832341
Pls note she’s closed on both Mon & Tue
Wed~Fri 10am~4pm
Sat~Sun 10am~2pm
Her charges is about RM50 per visit, with 1 week’s herbs and medication.

We were exhilarated. We were going to be parents! Finally! We were eager to share the good news with the world! People were happy for us, knowing how much I’d gone through in recent years. My sister immediately bought 2 maternity dresses for me, even though not the slightest bump had shown yet.

I continued to go to the gym, keened on strengthening myself more because of the pregnancy.

Dr Wong requested me to see him every other day, he wanted to give me some jabs. Only the 3rd jab, I realized he was actually giving me progesterone or ???, it was for making sure I keep my pregnancy (there’s really no evidence that it helps). I said I didn’t need it, I had had enough hormonal jabs/pills. He insisted that I had to take it!

Time to change Dr, Daddy told me, he didn’t like all these hormonal treatment either, and Dr Wong has started making decision without checking with us. We started seeing my BIL’s fishing buddy, Dr Jason Lim (JL) in Sunway medical instead.

I really like Dr JL, he’s very professional (no interruption in between consultation). He never made decision for us. He presented us with facts, and we decide what we wanted to do. He told me I was still very early in my pregnancy, the progesterone jab based on research has not shown to help prevent miscarriages; but if I wanted it, he would administer it, my choice. Our decision was no more hormonal jabs!

2 weeks after I knew I was pregnant, I had light spotting after my work out. It freaked me out! I was in cold sweat, went home, told Daddy about it, and then we started checking books, internet, what this meant. It seemed some pregnant ladies do have spotting, although it may be an indication of a miscarriage, it normally didn’t end up so.

I went to see Dr JL the following day, the baby was still in tact (the dot was still there), so I felt more relieved. Dr JL also said there’s really not much he could do at this stage, unless I wanted the progesterone jab, or I wanted MC to have bed rest. The rest, it’s really up to the pregnancy itself.

After this, I have spotting on and off, sometimes it’s pink streaks of blood, sometimes it’s very brownish discharge (like old blood). Although it disturbed me, I couldn’t do much. I stopped going to the gym, and tried to rest more to help with the pregnancy. I also visited the Dr weekly, just to make sure baby was still alright.

During this time my beloved cat, Charm was sick and was having breathing difficulty. He, who was normally quite greedy, wasn’t eating or drinking, and had not used the litter box for 2 days. Because I was so preoccupied with my own problem, I didn’t bring him to the vet earlier. When I did, the vet claimed that he had pneumonia and failed kidneys. They needed to put him on drips, and recommended he stayed over night in the vet.

I remembered that night, it was raining cats and dogs, with deafening thunder! An image of a very frighten cat occasionally came to my mind. At night, I prayed for my baby and Charm.

The next morning before work, I went to visit Charm with my maid. When we arrived, the reception was looking nervous and mentioned about some miss call she’d placed to me. “What call?” was my replied. And then it occurred to me something must have gone wrong. Before the receptionist could reply, I already had tears in my eyes. Yes, Charm has died, he was found dead in his cage that morning.

I took his stiffen body back and buried him in our back yard. It was like a funeral, both my maid and I crying. I blamed myself, I was busy with my own problems, and brought him to see the vet too late, also, I shouldn’t have left him overnight in the vet, he must have been frightened to death by the thunderstorm.

The same afternoon, while still grieving, I saw a blotch of blood on my underwear when I went to the toilet. I started trembling, what did this mean? Am I loosing the baby? I called Daddy home, and we went to the hospital together. It was however, Dr JL’s surgery day, so we saw another Dr.

The other Dr did the scan, the little dot was still there (though still no heart beat for an 8 week old baby, but then we might have calculated our dates wrongly). He suggested I take a progesterone jab, just to be on the safe side. We agreed, anything to help!

I was so dispirited when I got home; I laid in bed with very red and swollen eyes. While Daddy was sitting next to me, consoling me, I felt spasm of pain in my abdomen. I was crying, for Charm, and also because I was very worried about the baby. The spasm became worse, it was like a contraction, it was painful. I was telling Daddy it hurt so much, and I didn’t know what was happening. And then the pain just stopped, as suddenly as it started. I was sighing in relieve, luckily nothing happened, so I thought! I drifted to sleep.

When it was time for dinner, I went first to the toilet to pee. When I sat on the toilet bowl, I felt something dripping out, and then a plop! I looked, and to my horror, I saw this dark blood clot in a lighter pool of blood in the toilet bowl. I reached to retrieve the blood clot; what I saw in my hand was a piece of liver like flesh, the size of 20cent coin. I could feel the blood draining from my face, I was shaking, I shouted for Daddy. Tears was pouring down.

It was our 8 week old baby, just expelled out from my body, the same day as I lost my beloved cat. I screamed in my mind, “God, why this? Why happen to me? After 5years of waiting and THIS?”

It was the worst day of my life.

I was considered to be weak healthwise, always had migraine, sometimes even faint spell (low blood pressure). In 2002, after a 2 weeks part holiday part working trip to Beijing, I contracted a very bad Urinary Tract Infection (from a public toilet with wooden barrel as toilet bowl).

I was peeing blood on the last few days of my trip, and down with fever when I got back. On the 4th day, when my fever didn’t subside, I was hospitalized. 5 long days in the hospital! I thought I was dying because I was drifting in and out of consciousness. I had the strongest antibiotic administered intravenously (Ciprobay, which is used for HIV patients).

When I got out of the hospital, although no longer feverish, I was extremely weak. I decided to take control of my health! I started working out and ate sensibly.

We were still trying for a baby, sex has become a routine or duty. We did it on the days I thought I was ovulating. It’s no longer spontaneous, or romantic. Every time I see a pregnant lady’s bump, I eyed it with envy.

In June, we went to see the Fertility guru, Dr Colin Lee.

Dr CL was a busy man, in our short 15mins with him, he was interrupted numerous times by his admin assistant regarding other appointments (even while he was doing pap smear on me). Anyway, he saw our records, heard what I’d done, and just declared that there’s really nothing else he could do for us except IVF. For questions, he directed us to his consultants.

The consultant shared with us all we needed to know, including the cost, which was RM15K to RM25K, depending on my response to hormonal treatment and the complexity of the situation. Although their success rates were relatively high, it would still be a gamble. Multiple birth was highly possible. RM25K was an issue, but what bothered me most was the possibility of having multiple babies. I could accept twins, but I shuddered at the thought of having triplets or quadruplets or septuplets!! (Can you imagine nursing septuplets??!!)

We left the centre wondering what our next move would be. After discussing about this, we thought we would give ourselves an ultimatum. 6months! If I still couldn’t concieve, we would go for IVF.

At this same time, one of my friends’ sister had just given birth with the ‘tuning’ of a Chinese Dr. My friend suggested I go try her out (she recommended the Dr to me a while back but I thought these were all mumbo jumbos, so I didn’t bother earlier).

Since I was still relatively weak, I thought I’d go checked the Dr out, if not for my fertility problem, at least I could get some herb or tonic from her to improve my health.

On our first visit to the Dr, we felt very comfortable (unlike all the other Drs we’d seen). After feeling my pulse and looking at my tongue, she said it was actually the heat in my body that was causing me unable to concieve. She prescribed me some herbs which she warned when taken would cause sever headaches when the ‘heat’ was released from my body.

It was true, the day I took the medicine, I had the worse migraine ever, as though some one was sawing my brain the whole night. However, in the morning, I felt healthier already. I started seeing her every week (what did I have to loose?), to get her to tune my body; she prescribed different concoction of bitter herb, depending on how well my body responded to the previous dose.

In August, I joined a gym because it was having a promotion in response to my resolution to get healthier. To get the most out of what I’d paid, I tried to go there everyday after work.

One morning in late August 2003, about 1 month after I’d started seeing the Chinese Dr, I was just doing the pregnancy test casually since my period was 1 week late. After immersing it in urine, I left the toilet and got ready for work. I asked Daddy what he saw on the strip after 5minutes as he was using the toilet.
He shouted “2 lines”.
I dropped whatever I was doing, shouted back, “Are you sure?”
“Yeah, 2 lines.” He replied, “Anyway, what does it mean?”
To confirm (although in my heart was pounding wildly), I quickly dug out the instruction leaflet from the pregnancy kit, and read it again. I shouted back excitedly “It means I am pregnant!”
Daddy popped his head out with this grin, “Are you sure?”

I really don’t know. Can the test be wrong? Can I be so lucky? I mean I’d been trying for 5years, for God’s sake, and every time I dipped the damn strip into my urine, it only showed 1 line. Never 2 lines, NEVER. I called up Dr Wong immediately for an appointment.

The pregnancy test in Dr Wong’s clinic showed positive too, with a very faint 2nd line, and we saw a small dot on the scan. I still couldn’t believe it. I further did a Beta HCG blood test, which will definitely confirm the pregnancy. Half a day later, the hospital called me to say it’s positive. I was about 5 weeks pregnant! You can’t imagine how happy I was. I was almost dancing.

That was about 15months before Zara was born.