March 31st: 1st contractions

I woke up with back pain and cramping in my bump as well as my cervix. Tried to ignore it at first and got ready for work but the pain just got worse and thought what if something is happening to the baby.

In the end, I decided that I should stay home and call my gynae when the clinic opened. It's a good thing I did because he said that even upper back pain could be a sign of contractions. Incidentally, I'd spent the weekend reading up on how to recognize contractions.

Sigh. So these pictures were taken later when Kelvin came to pick me up to see my gynae. I'm smiling because while I know something was happening. I didn't really think the baby was coming on that day.

So at the clinic, they hook me up to an ACTOGRAPH machine which is something used to measure contractions. You can also hear the baby's heartbeat. It was was a rhythmic squelching sound which almost put Kelvin to sleep. Turns out I am having contractions but they're pretty mild. My cervix hasn't dilated yet either but it's turning "ripe". The doctor says that it could be any day now so I'm given permission to lay off work.
It's been a week since then and I'm getting hot and cold from my body. One night I had contractions every 10 minutes which meant that I got no sleep at all. Then in the day time, nothing except 3 or 4 contractions. The contractions are intense but not anything where I'm doubled over in pain and I can't talk. Meanwhile Baby Lim's going strong and doing well. There was one afternoon when she kicked continously for 4 hours. I'd been playing back American Idol that afternoon. So perhaps she was responding to the music.

Almost feel that it was premature in stopping work last week cuz nothing's happening. Then over the weekend, I forgot to take my supplements and suddenly, I felt really faint and breathless. Like I couldn't stand properly. So perhaps it's good for me to be at home because I can't imagine taking my class and not being able to breathe. How would I cope?

I've come to the conclusion that stress brings labour on faster. Maybe if you're tense, your body thinks that the baby will have a better chance of surviving outside of you away from your skretchy shouting at teenagers all day. If you're relaxed and calm then the baby thinks it's better to stay inside where it's nice and cosy. Whatever it is, something and nothing is happening at the same time. It's just a waiting game now.

Yann's wedding

Back-tracking a little:

It's the last week of the March holidays and I'm really tired from all the resting I've been doing. I think it's just hang-over from the whole of Term 1's mad rush to get my work load in order before I go on maternity leave.

It's an important day for Yann Ling who looks sensational by the way. I don't try too hard to get any good shots because my tummy is in the way and I can't do things like squat. Haven't squatted for 6 months in fact. What I do is spread my legs like a giraffe and bend from the waist down. In the beginning my back hurt a lot but now I'm quite used to it.

Managed to get this shot of Yann when she came up to talk to me.

Here's Kelvin enjoying a sip of champange. He looks good in white. It's been hard on him the last couple of months. He spent the first 2 months training at night 3 times a week. Forced exercise by the army becuase he couldn't pass his IPPT. You know this husband of mine has strong legs and forearms (from all the game playing he does) but can't do a single pull up. Oh well, the vast majority of Singaporean men can't do pull-ups so my husband isn't alone.

This was a meaningful day for me. Weddings are always special. However, I've known Yann for 6 years now. Who knew that we'd still all be friends? This ROM marks a new chapter in her life. She's quitting teaching this year. Throwing in the towel after so many years. It's sad because that's one less talented art teacher who really cares about the art education our nation's kids receive. At the same time I'm happy she's made this decision to free herself. Me, I'm passionate about what I do but I have many moments in the past and even now where I'd rather just throw in the towel.

36th Week

"You must be having backaches," my gynae looked at me with raised eyebrows as I entered his office. Oh dear, if my gynae thinks my bump is big then I must be really huge because he should know right? He sees pregnant women every day. It didn't help that I had my bright pink poka-dot tube top on; the one which Kelvin thinks makes me look like a giant strawberry (that would make my surname 'Shortcake'). I suppose from the side I do look like an enormous poka-dotted pink jambu-like fruit with legs sticking out. All I need is my green hat and I'm good to go.

The baby's doing more than great. At the last visit which was a fortnight ago, she was packing a moderate 2.2 kilos. I had gained about 1.5kg in 4 weeks. About 700g of that supposedly belonged to the baby. This visit, I gained 1kg in 2 weeks and she was an estimated 3 kilos! That's a huge jump. My gynae said that if she continued to put on weight at this rate, we might have to induce the birth early. Sigh! And here I was hoping for a pettite baby. I slapped Kelvin's arm as we left the clinic.

"What!? Like it's my fault?"

"Yes it's your fault," I said. "I'll have you know that I was a pettite baby so it has to be your doing."

Kelvin just grinned, rubbed my tummy and said, "At-ta girl."

Sigh. No wonder it's cirque du soliel my tummy at 10am and 11pm every day. She must be stretching her legs thinking that it's getting crowded. The baby's considered term now and she's fully engaged. Which means she's ready to be born. Apparently, I have to walk (but not too much) to encourage her to be born and so that labour will be easier.

I asked the gynae whether I would continue to get bigger. He said it all depends on how much I eat but most likely I would continue in my globe-like expansion. Sigh. I just hope that I don't topple over. It's getting harder to keep my balance and climb stairs. I actually felt faint today after climbing only 3 stories.

Ah well...4 more weeks to go. Unless baby Lim gets too big and we have to induce the birth. Fingers crossed.

Thank God for family

Kelvin's brother kindly agreed to lend us Ellie's crib while the baby can still fit into it. The understanding is that when they have their second child, we'll transport it back. Oh well, suits me just fine. It's a lovely crib and we didn't have to buy a new one which would have cost us $300 at least. We spent the whole morning there because they also passed us all their old baby supplies and breastfeeding equipment like the electrib pump and sterilizer. That would have cost another $500 to $600. Sigh...thank you lord.

Ellie was relatively well behaved. When we arrived she was colouring a template of a house. Later I found out that this house project was homework. Sigh. Totally pointless homework in my opinion. What's the learning objective? Learn to colour neatly? Anyway, she started getting really nostalgic over all the stuff that was being brought out and kept going "That's mine!"

Kelvin took out his new iTouch (a Chirstmas and Valentine's Day present from me) and showed Ellie the photos I took of her when she was born. We were trying to tell her that she no longer needed all the stuff because she wasn't a baby anymore but a big girl. She'll be 3 in May. I think she was still a little upset but soon cheered up when I told her that she had better get ready to go out so that they could all go and buy Disney On Ice tickets.

Over breakfast Kelvin and I talked about the likelihood that our daughter would turn out to be just like Ellie. It's just that he met a colleague's daughter over the weekend while he had NCC camp duty. She was so much more girl-like compared to our little niece. For me it's not so much that Ellie's tom-boyish. It's more that she can be a handful sometimes because she's so spirited. It's good for her because I'm sure she'll grow up to be very confident and out-going. Not so good for the parents though because at the centre of it all, you still have to teach things like manners and respect.

Kelvin's convinced that our daughter will have a quieter temperment because he was a quiet child. I was both adventurous and contemplative. Well, we'll see.

My hands are starting to feel numb which, might explain why I keep dropping stuff. Woke up yesterday and realized that it's difficult to bend my fingers. Water-retention I suppose. Also, gravity is starting to take it's toll. Starting to feel like it's harder to balance and all of a sudden gravity seems have increased by 20%.

"She's so close"

That's what Kelvin said to me last night after he felt her moving inside my bump. What he meant was that the baby's getting so big that she's pushing up against the surface of my bump. The thing is I can actually see her pushing across my belly. If she kicks I can actually see my bump bounce up. It's like some scene from an alien movie where a parasite lodges itself inside you and it's squirming around trying to break free. Except in this case, I got really excited and just kept staring at my bump hoping she'll keep doing her baby acrobatics. It's very reassuring to feel her move like that.

I've been playing a few key pieces of music that I like to the baby. What I do is plug some earphones into my ipod and walk around with the earphones wrapped around my bump. I did it today on our staff retreat and everyone was like, "wow so hi-tech." It was really strange because the men all felt that I shouldn't play rock music to the baby. When I told Kelvin about it, he just laughed because he's been trying to balance my 'boring tinky tinky music' with 'real' music.
I told everyone that I just play whatever I like. The baby will probably hear a range of stuff anyway because Kelvin plays so much guitar hero and I like folksy type songs with a strong melody and vocals.

I'm getting a bit tired of social situations with large groups of people because EVERYONE will ask "so when's the baby due?" or "is it a boy or a girl?" Argh! I should just put a sticker on my forehead: 28th April is the due date and it's about 99% confirmed it's a girl. The only good thing about staff retreats right now is that I can ask all the women who are mothers about their experiences. I won't go into details but I can say that the stories range from useful information on baby products to blood and gore horrors in the delivery ward.

Still waiting for my face to poof up along with my disappearing ankles. Thankfully it hasn't happened yet. However, you never know. Seriously, I've seen it happen to the slimmest of friends. I'm only about 5 feet tall so usually excess weight shows on my face very fast. I know, I'm vain. At work my kids are starting to realize that I'll be gone soon. Some of them are starting to panic and work hard. I can see that others are sorta giving up. Someone else will have to worry about them. It's cruel I know but I'm only one person and I can't be everything to everyone. This year, it's about bringing a new life forth. I want to enjoy this process. For all I know, I'll only get to do this once.

Oh, another random thought. On Wednesday we walked past a maid agency and since I'll have to get one soon I look out for them now. Well, there was this girl sitting out in front of the shop like some farm animal available for inspection. I felt really sad and wondered how long she had sat there the whole day (coz it was already dinner time) and how long she would have to sit there the next day. I mean why do agencies do that to these girls? Shouldn't the girls be gainfully occupied?