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.