My Two Girls – All About Zara and Zaria

Zara is coming to 1year old, and it’s really a great joy having her.

As a ‘special’ for her coming one year old birthday, instead of writing about her birth story, I’ll write about how we ‘got’ Zara.

We tried many years to have a baby, and almost gave up hope. Here is how it all went, our 6 7 part journey to discovering and treating infertility and finally having Zara.

Since this is long ‘story’, I’ll post 1 part per day on top of my regular post (if there’s anything interesting happening).

Do read on if it interest you.

If you read King’s Wife’s blog, and she reads yours, you would have noticed she’d been very quiet the last few days.

This is because she’s down with fever and throat infection since Monday because she’d been giving too many bjs in one of her yoga pose.

She’s getting better now, and should be making an appearance soon.

By the way, if you wonder, why is King’s Wife called King’s Wife, let me let you in on the secret.

King’s Wife is my sister-in-law. Which mean she’s married to my brother, the King. We called him King because:
– he’s the only son in our family of 4. You can imagine how precious he is to my parents, and he always got away with a lot of things as a son.
– He’s a director in some company, and therefore revered by his subordinates (not sure if they loved him).
– Being a SAHM, King’s Wife has to ‘fook-si’ (?? – ‘provide service to’) her ATM kao-kao (sufficiently) or else will not get allowance to go shopping for another handbag.
– Normally, anything King says, we have to agree or abide although I don’t give a hoot.

A friend even dedicated a poem to King’s wife. You can see, although she’s married to the King, she’s really not the Queen like Yee Ching or the Queen that this fella will eventually get (the shake leg do nothing but have all the ‘servants’ running around her type), and hence her title.

Hope you get well soon King’s Wife!

I was really looking forward to the holidays, 4 days in a stretch, wonderful.

Daddy and I didn’t plan for anything because it’s quite scary to travel during these long holidays because the traffic will be so bad. A four hour drive can turn into a 7hour drive. No sir-ree. Better stay in the quiet city.

We’re lucky we didn’t plan for anything too. As yesterday night, Daddy received a call and he had to travel to Germany tonight itself for work. My face turned sour immediately after he hung up (he was talking on speaker phone).

Me : “So, what am I supposed to do these 4 days?”
Daddy : “You can come with me if you want.”
Me : “niah seng Just for 4 days? You think I’m so desperate? And we’re so well off?”
Daddy : “……”
Me : “Some more you have great plans, want to bring your daughter to the park for walks, do some day trips around KL. Now..” *turn to Zara* “See, next four days, it’s just mummy and you”
Daddy : “…..”
Zara : *grinned* (as she didn’t know what this was all about)

So for the next four days, I will be alone with Zara. Not sure what we’ll do, maybe we’ll :
– camp in King’s Wife’s place
– camp in my sister’s place
– go shopping again
– go to the park with my nieces
– drive each other up the walls (aw, she’s really not that bad; and neither am I)
– go swimming

And in the night, after Zara is asleep, I’ll try to complete my long write up about how I try to conceive for 6years, and finally got Zara, and also, read the 2nd installment of The Confession of the Shopaholic – Shopohalic Takes Manhathan.

That’s something to look forward to isn’t it? Ok, so I shouldn’t complain about the quiet time I’m going to get.

Zara loves the water, be it in her bath, in a shower, or just playing with the running tap. She loves a dip in the pool too.

On Sunday, since it wasn’t raining in the evening, we brought Zara swimming in my sister’s apartment.

I wanted to teach Zara how to float, a bit too eager, I say. At one point, I actually took out her float, let go off my hand, and see if she could float, but she just sank, and then when I took her out of the water, she was coughing out water. Daddy, who was taking photos was giving me the killer look “Why did you EVEN do THAT?” I felt so bad afterwards, kept apologising to Zara. Zara was very brave, didn’t’ even cry, not a tear, just coughed and coughed, and then wanted to get back into the water. *bad mummy*

*Her float is a gift from a friend from Beijing. I think it’s a very useful float, leaving the kid’s hands free to paddle. Can’t find it here though.

Zara warming up







Mummy trying to teach her to lie on the water, and float.






But, Zara seemed to be interested in something that’s up in the sky.





After dipping her in the pool without float and my hands holding on to her, she was still eager to continue.

Let’s see if I can try to teach her breast stroke.







“Mummy, don’t let go off your hand”

“Hopeless mummy, I think I better hang on to the side of the pool. At least it won’t try to drown me”

My half day leave was worthwhile, managed to have some fun with Zara at the mall and at home (King’s Wife’s home to be specific).

Samantha Che-che brought Zara for a walk

Samantha Che-che & Zara taking a submarine kiddy ride (Zara’s first kiddy ride)

Trying to go up a slide (in Anaku).

Feeding the baby doll milk with Samantha che-che’s guidance

After my health screening yesterday, I took the rest of the day off and went window shopping at The Curve with King’s Wife and her girls.

After visiting a few baby shops on the 1st floor, I wanted to change Zara’s diaper, so I looked around for a baby changing room.

Guess what? The disabled toilet is also the baby changing room! I was a bit hesitant to use it, because of all the hoo-hahs recently on the use of disable toilet (see this and this and this). But this is a changing room AND a disabled toilet right? So I’m entitled to use it because IT’S A CHANGING ROOM and I have a baby who needs changing, right?

Anyway, I gingerly went in with Zara. But.. wait a minute. Where’s the changing table? *look left, look right* There is only a toilet bowl and a sink!! That’s all!!

Where am I supposed to place the baby? On the toilet bowl or the sink? Or the floor? Since it’s squeaky clean and dry.

We met the cleaner who happened to be dozing off nearby. I asked her if there’s another changing room with changing table.
Her reply, “Semua pun sama, macam itu” (They are all the same, like that).
I asked again how on earth are we supposed to change the baby if there’s no table?
Her reply, “Mana saya tahu?” (How would I know).
Then she added, “Ikea sana la, sana ada tempat.” (Go to Ikea, they have it there).

Walk to Ikano (the adjacent mall to The Curve)?? That’s quite a distant to walk, especially having to carry a tired baby, push a pram which was loaded with shopping bags.

I ended up giving Zara a change in her pram in the ladies.

Now I wonder what cow sense did the management have for giving you a changing room without changing table, and is it right to have the changing room the same as the disabled toilet?

I went for a health screening today in SJMC (egghead’s post ‘inspired’ me to quickly went to make an appointment), the company is paying for it (entitled yearly), but I added cancer marker test, and had to fork out RM200+ extra to do it .

When I was doing my pepsmear test, the gyny, looking at my age, asked me how many kids I have.
Me : “One”
Gyny : “How old is your child?”
Me : “11 months”
Gyny : “Not going for 2nd one?”
Me : “Want to, trying” (have to join in the current trend, so many mummies who have babies born in the year of monkey are pregnant)
Gyny : “Good, because for your age, you should not wait too long.”
Me : “I’m still breast feeding, is it ok to try?”
Gyny : “11 month old?? So long, better stop already! (aren’t medical practitioners supposed to promote breast feeding?). Moreover, if you want to try, you have to, because you may not have eggs released if you are breast feeding.”
Me : “But WHO advises mothers to breast feed their child till 2yrs old”
Gyny : “This is for children in Africa or Cambodia, who are under nourish.”
yada yada yada..

Hmm.. I’ll have to do more research on the fertility and breastfeeding don’t mix part. Going to check with my own gyny in Sunway Medical.

Wanted include this photo to the post on co-sleeping, but some how blogspot wasn’t allowing it. So here is one pic I wanted to share. This is one way that we co-sleep. Not very comfortable (for my bladder), but I don’t mind, anyway, it happens rarely (we mostly sleep like normal people do).

I could never relate to parents who co-sleep with their child, and when I learnt that some are still doing that even when the child is primary school going, I hissed under my breath.

Before Zara was born, we were doing rooms allocation and decoration plan for our new house, and I have big plans. We will have a separate room for Zara, she will learn how to be independent from day one. When people asked me where Zara was going to sleep when she’s born, I said smugly, “In the study room attached to our master bed room.” (this was in the old house). For her cot, I purposely looked for a big one which will be able to cater a child up till 3, 4 years of age.

I have never planned for what was coming.

As it was nearer to my EDD, I told Daddy the study room would be a bit too stuffy, since there’s only a small fan, and no aircon, I suggested that the cot be placed in the master bed room.

Then Zara was born, such a fragile and dependent little baby. I was always worried about SID (Sudden Infant Death). In her first month, I consciously woke up several times in the night just to check if she was still breathing (we didn’t have a confinement lady as stated here).

I started bringing her to bed for night feeds, we just laid side by side, she nursed and I could just lie down and watch her (less taxing on my back), or touch her. Several times, I drifting off to sleep half way, and didn’t put Zara back into her cot after her feed. Some how, with her sleeping close to me made me rest better (for one, I didn’t have to walk to her cot to check).

Then it started to become a norm, if she woke up for her night feed, she would sleep with us till the next morning.

Zara slept through starting from her 6th week. She would take her last feed at 11pm, then slept for 6 to 7 hours. This mean she would come to our bed, and have her milk at 5 or 6am and stayed till we woke up.

Somehow, she started waking up middle of the night again. Sometimes due to night mare, sometimes I think just so she could come to sleep with us. She would wake up at 4am, cried, and when we brought her to our bed, she would snuggle close to us, and went back to sleep (sometimes she would only go back to sleep if I nurse her). Then 4am became 3am, and 3am became 2am. Lately, at around 1am, she will be awake, stands in her cot, and starts shouting for me. She will stop only if she was brought to our bed.

In bed, to feel her head resting close to my arm or just being able to reach out and touch her, made me feel peaceful. Sometimes, she would have her arm thrown across ours, in the mornings, Daddy and I would competecompare notes on whom she clung on most during the night.

When Daddy is out of town, I would normally sleep with her. I found emotionally I am more peaceful with her next to me. I could always go to sleep with a smile, and wake up with a smile. And for Zara, I noticed that if she slept with me the whole night, she would rarely wake up in the middle of the night fussing, she would sleep through 10 solid hours.

I started finding excuses to get her to sleep with us.
“She seems to be having a slight cough, maybe she should come and sleep with us tonight so I can monitor her.”
“I’m very tired today, so I don’t want to walk to the cot to comfort her if she cried in the middle of the night, can she sleep with us?”
and lately, no more excuses, I just put her in our bed, and said “lets have her sleep in our bed tonight“.

Mind you, Daddy and I share a queen size bed; he’s a six footer, and I’m nothing close to being petite. We had to move our bodies close to the edge of the bed, and let her occupy the big space in the centre, but Daddy didn’t mind, and I love it. So, she’s spending more and more nights in our bed.

I now understand why people co-sleep with their child/children, it’s really for inner peace, for the child as well as the parents. As for the room we’d allocated to Zara, hmm, I’m not sure when I’ll ever be able to let her sleep so far away me.

Now, I’ll probably be hissed at since my great plans have failed.

It must have been me co-sleeping with Zara the last whole week when Daddy wasn’t around. She has always cling to me, but has not shown such affection before.

Occasion 1(yesterday morning and this morning) :
We were in the car as usual, Zara on her car seat in the front passenger seat, and I was driving towards King’s Wife’s place.
Zara : *hand reached out to my side, and look at me* “Uh…”
Me : *try to concentrate on the road but threw glances at her* “Yes Zara?”
Zara : *still looking at me with her hand reached out to me* “Uh…”
Normally, this indicated that she wanted my breast pad. But these 2 occasions, I’d already given her my breast pad earlier.
Me : *guess and gave her my hand* “You want mummy’s hand?”
Zara : *held it and grinned*
When I had to withdraw the hand to use both hand to steer, she would start all over again asking for my hand, and only be happy when my hand was in hers

Occasion 2 (yesterday night)
I had my dinner, and joined Zara in the living room. She was standing holding on to the coffee table while watching her favourite VCD Wheels In The Bus.
When I sat next to Zara, she started putting both her arms around me, then laid her head on my shoulder.
Me : “Zara don’t want to watch Zara’s show?”
Zara let go of her arm, one hand still held on to my shoulder, and continued looking at the TV.
Then, again, she wrapped her arm around me, and laid her head on my shoulder or stick her face close to mine.
This was done repeatedly for a few times.
My 11yr old niece Alicia saw all these and commented, “Aunty, why does Zara love you so much?”

Occasion 3 (this morning)
Daddy left for work earlier than usual, maid drying the clothes down stairs. Zara and I were in our room and I wanted to take my morning shower, so I carried Zara to her toys.
Me : “Zara, you play with your toy toy here ok? Mummy shower first”
I left her (making sure nothing dangerous or non child safe was lying around), left my pile of clothes at the door of the bathroom, went to the bathroom and closed the door (don’t want her to get to the toilet bowl) to shower.
After 5minutes, I thought I would go and check on her. Dripping wet, I opened the door.
Zara was seated on the floor right next to the door, she was holding on to my breast pad (found it from the pile of clothes I left), sucking her thumb, and looked up to give me a smile.
Me : “Zara, why don’t you go and play with your toys?”
Zara crawled towards me, and reached her hand out, wanting me to carry her.
Me : “Zara, go play with you toys ok? Mummy will go back to shower already ok?”
She sat back down on the floor, I closed the door and went back to finish my shower.
When I was done, and opened the toilet door, there she was, in the same position again, holding on to the breast pad, and sucking her thumb. When she saw me coming out, she let go of her thumb, and raised her hands to me, wanting me to carry her.

Is she becoming more affectionate or she’s just having separation anxiety? I hope it’s not the latter.