Our new born

Quentin was born last week, weigh 3kg and length 51cm. Here's a snap of him, will update more when I get a chance.

Tristan's First Pet

We bought Tristan some colorful small fish in August 11th, he liked to feed them endlessly, and he liked to scare them by hitting the shoe cabinet where the fish bowl was placed on top :(

I was thinking of taking the photos of the small fish bowl but I was too late ... The fish died one by one each day and they were all gone after more than a week, I felt so sorry for them, we didn't know the cause of their death, we followed the instructions given by the fish shop helper, we did change water regularly and restrict Tristan from feeding them too much.

I think we won't be buying any new pets for him for a while until we know for sure that we can help him to take great care of them.

New problems

While I was happily enjoying my second trimester (at 23rd week now), good time doesn't last long for me, I had Hemorrhoid that's getting bigger and very painful, I can't sit properly and when it gets to the most serious condition, I felt extreme pain even with a slight movement.

It was actually my own fault to have dragged it for a few days, I was hoping it will go away but it actually got bigger and bigger. Finally I went to the local gynae who has prescribed daflon for this problem, I didn't want to take painkiller as I thought I should limit the medicine intake, so I had to suffer for another 2 days or so before the hemorrhoid become smaller and less painful.

Then Tristan started having fever, coughing and running nose on Tuesday night, I was so worry that it would be the H1N1 virus, so we brought him to the general hospital the next morning, hoping that they would perform some kind of test to verify it, but the temperature turns out to be below 38 degree C (through ear measurement) and the doctor said his symptoms do not look to be the same as the H1N1's, so no test was performed, instead we were given some medicine to take for 3 days and continue to monitor the symptoms.

The medicine seems to be so awful that Tristan ran for his life whenever he sees them, the fever persisted and we had to bring him to the child specialist the next morning, we did the right thing as the child specialist again confirm that it's very likely not H1N1, and Tristan is willing to take the medicine from the child specialist.

His fever is finally under control, but the coughing remained, we'll have to be cautious and continue to give medicine besides monitoring it.

Now the hemorrhoid is getting very small and almost painless, I hope nothing new pops up in the near future so that I can enjoy a peaceful pregnancy for a while.

Getting Bigger

Since week 20th, I have more energy and feeling so much better, I can finally go for 30 minutes breeze walking in the evening twice a week, I can take bath for Tristan without the feeling of throwing up. I can eat all kinds of food without feeling ill and I have put on 2kg in the last month itself ! I really enjoy myself in whatever I'm doing now.

But the last visit to the Gynae reviewed that there's water on the fetus' brain. I checked the book and it is called Hydrocephalus, although the Gynae said that it is normal and it is usually gone after 2-3 months, I am worry as the book says it often occurs with neurological defects such as spina bifida.

I thought I had been lucky to skip the amneocentesis and the 3 weeks waiting for its result, now it's even longer to have to wait for 2-3 months for this "water on the brain". However there's nothing I can do except to wait and hope for the best.

Feeling better

Starting week 17th the morning sickness had reduced substantially, and got better at week 18th. And this week (19th) I am feeling much better except for the tireness, am very glad that the morning sickness is finally going away, it's not easy for me to reach this stage.

In my last medical checkup, we have discovered that we are going to have a boy, in Dec 13th. Although I was hoping for a girl so that I would have an experience of bringing up a girl, but I would be as happy to have a normal and healthy boy who can accompany Tristan and grow up together with him.

We did triple blood test and luckily the result is good, so we don't have to go through the amniocentesis this time.

Back in the last week of June, I had to travel to Petaling Jaya (3 hours journey) for a certification exam, I was still having morning sickness at that time, lucky thing is that it wasn't too bad and I was glad that I did not throw up at public area.

When I was feeling better in Week 18th, I started travelling back to my mom's place by plane (an hour), things went well and I had a great time relaxing at home. Due to H1N1, I tried to put on mask in the plane on the way there but felt very uncomfortable with the hot air being trapped within the mask.

Finally, I get a chance to go for my first 30 minutes breeze walking on Thursday as I haven't done any exercise for the past 3 months and walking is a great exercise for pregnant women, I hope to be able to do it at least once a week.

I started to enjoy different types of food and expected to grow much heavier soon ;o)

Morning Sickness

This month (at 15th week now), I continue to have morning sickness. This has started since week 7th, and it's been going on every day from morning till night, ocasionally I could throw up at midnight too. At worse time I had to throw up around 3-4 times a day, and in good time, I don't throw up but the feeling of nausea remained through out the day.

Initially, I visited a different gynae at the local town as it's really near to my house, she gave me duphaston due to a little spotting at the beginning of the pregnancy, and insists that I should continue even though I told her about my condition at my second visit, but I stopped taking it as I can no longer tolerate the torture, even then, the vomiting continues and got worse as the pregnancy progresses.

I have tried many different types of food and found that sweet food and big portion are the triggers, I had to exclude food that is sweet, sour, spicy or greasy. I never leave my stomach empty as the feeling of nausea will take over immediately if I feel hungry, but I can't just eat any food that I crave as it can be the trigger of the nausea/vomiting.

I also tried remedies such as drinking lemon juice, or put a few drops of peppermint essential oil in a bowl of water placed in my room, but they only help to ease the nausea a little bit, I was still suffering most of the time.

Then things turned better when I went back to my previous gynae that's around an hour's drive from here, he gave me the medicine which reduces gastric acid and the anti-nausea medication.

At first I just took the medicine that reduces gastric acid, but I was still throwing up once or twice a day and feeling nausea most the time, after a week, I started taking the anti-nausea medication as well and I feel much better, where I only throw up once in a few days.

On the other hand, I discovered more food that helps to relief the nausea such as rice, bananas, eggs, ginger, and dry cracker. I also found some food that I won't feel bad after eating them such as McChicken (weird huh, I had to take off the mayonnaise though), Johor Laksa, Wan-Tan Noodle etc. And when I throw up too much and not able to drink water, I would take ice cube to keep myself hydrated.

I was looking for ginger tea but one that I found was awful, I had to stay home almost all the time and when I had to go out once in a while, I tried to remember bringing a plastic bag with me, my mother-in-law even suggested me to take a few more, just in case ;o)

A Good News

I am 10 weeks pregnant now. It's really a good news to us, we have been waiting for this for a year now. But on the other hand, I am suffering from the morning sickness, it's worse than my previous pregnancy, and every minutes seems to be so long as most of the time I feel as if I would throw up any time, I am counting the days every day now.

I did some reading and learned that lemon can ease the morning sickness for some women, so I started trying it yesterday and it seems to help a little. I have to be careful not to eat/drink too much in every meal, this has caused me to feel hungry every 2 hours or so, and since I have to start work at 7am these days, I have been eating 8 small meals per day now, and I have ran out of idea what to eat for each meal everyday because some food has become irritative to my stomach so I don't feel like taking them at all !!! I had to stay away from greasy, spicy and fried food to avoid trigerring the bad feelings or the vomit eventually.


Due to this morning sickness which last towards the end of the day, I had to stop my yoga class, I hope to be able to continue doing it in the second trimester, there's no pregnancy yoga class here but my teacher knows what pose to avoid so I feel pretty comfortable to go back after the morning sickness goes away.


There's another issue accompanying this pregnancy, ie. I have a corpus luteum in my uterus that has the diameter of 3cm now, if it grows to 5cm than I'll need to have it removed after 3 months of the pregnancy, otherwise it will be removed when the baby is delivered. There is a hope to this, I read it from a doctor's site, she mentioned that usually the corpus luteum will resolve over a period of time without any special treatment. Life is full of uncertainties, I can only take one step at a time now, but at least I am more prepared this time around, I know what to expect so I am more at peace now compared to my first pregnancy.

Tristan's happy flower

Tristan came to my office this morning, drew a flower, grass, and some other item, and before leaving my office, display it at my office glass door. I like to look at the happy flower face, and would like to share it with you here :)

My Favourite Vacation

Mar 14th, we left home in the morning, driving north towards Sungai Petani, where my parents live. We stopped at Damansara for lunch, in Pappa Kopitiam, I had to skip their famous dishes as Tristan's favourite is "fried rice", but he can only finish 1/3 or less so most of the time when we eat out I would order fried rice and share with him, however I managed to try their steam kaya bread which is really tasty and not too sweet, I heard from my brother-in-law that this Pappa Kopitiam has several other shops at other location too, I wish there is one in our town (Batu Pahat) as I really like steam bread for breakfast.

After lunch we continued to head north for another 4 hours to Sg. Petani, reached at around 6.30pm. Home is always the best place for me to get away from stress, I get to see almost all my siblings, nieces and nephews as it's school holiday. We had fun chating, catching up with all the gossips, went for swim in a big group, eating at the delicious Tom Yam Soup/Fried Rice kopitiam, Tristan gradually adapted to the new environment and all the big brothers/sisters/uncles/aunties/grandpa/grandma.

I still remember the last time I brought Tristan to visit my parents in June 2008, he was very uncomfortable with the new environment and always ask me to stay in the bedroom to play with him, this time he's willing to go out and explore the next house where my elder sister lives, and he's more willing to share toys with his cousin who's 3 months older than him, I was so glad to see his improvement.

After 5 days of fun time, we left Sg. Petani on Thursday morning, and drive South to Damansara to stay for 2 days. We went to The Curve to get a Foam Mat for my friend, and just realized that Early Learning Centre has changed to Think Toys, they were having promotion, so we got a Quarry Set for Tristan as he's crazy for Crane now and the quarry set comes with a crane.

We also went to 1-Utama to shop on the second day as that's our favourite shopping place, we spent some money in ToysRus, mainly the Thomas and Friends' trains & toys, Tristan never have enough of them and keep asking for those that's not so popular such as Neville, Rusty and Salty.

There, in 1-U we found a new restaurant called "The Gardens" and we had dinner there, it's quite a nice restaurant, the decoraion looks like a garden, and the dishes were quite delicious, especially the Chicken Chop, we also love its drink - the "Longan Blast" and its sorbet were specially presented in their respective fruit shell/skin, the orange is the best among the 3 that we ordered, the coconut look good but has one kind of taste. As usual, Tristan had fried rice and I was sharing with him, after we come back and he had the 3 subsequent vomits then only I realized that it could be related to the amount of fried rice he had taken during this trip, luckily he's fine now, but we need to control his fried rice intake in future.

Tristan is sick

Tristan has been having running nose and coughing for a week now, his voice changed due to the cough, and as usual, cried at midnight when his nose was blocked. We then brought him to the doctor last Saturday. Tristan used to fight for his way out when we brought him to doctor's, so we were really nervous and brought along his toy stetoscope and educated him that the doctor has a real stetoscope which would be a black color one and the doctor will place it on his chest, back etc to examine him.

We were very lucky this time to have gone to another doctor who really know how to deal with small children.

The doctor gave Tristan another toy stetoscope as we left ours in the car, she has several toys for Tristan to play with, Tristan really like the toy she has and played happily for a while. She also demonstrated to Tristan how to eat sweets as she's prescribing an herbs in tablets form where one should keep it in the mouth instead of chewing it, the whole process last for about 20 minutes and we were so relief to have Tristan's cooperation.

This morning, Tristan still rememeber the doctor, said he wants to eat the sweets (herbs) that Aunty Tay gave and the way he eats the sweet is exactly like the way Doctor Tay has demonstrated. No wonder the queue in this doctor's clinic is so long, we had to wait for more than 3 hours to get our turn, but we are sure to go back in future as Tristan will be much more cooperative there than the one we used to visit.

Now I am hoping to be able to find a hair dresser who knows how to handle young children as Dr.Tay, then we will have one less headache as Tristan's hair grow really fast ...

Tristan is now 2.5 years old

It's been 2.5 years now since the day Tristan was born. He has grown into a big boy now physically, but in terms of maturity, he still have many things that he refuses to do, such as brushing teeth, reluctantly taking bath each day, and reluctantly goes to bed each night, worst of all, is the visit to the hair dresser, struggling and crying will take place before entering the hair salon till we exit.



This photo was taken before we went for a family wedding lunch, on Dec 28th.



Before we settled down with the outfit in the picture earlier, we tried to put on this suit for him that my mother-in-law bought more than a year ago, but we think it's too formal for the lunch. However we had some fun taking his picture.



This cute tiger suit is given to us by my sister-in-law, I kept it for too long and had forgotten its existence until Dec 08, it turned out to be a little too small for him ...



The diaper was exposed because it's too tight to be button up.



Tristan's hobby is drawing, he can draw simple things like shapes, and write some numbers and the capital letters A-Z, with N and J the other way around. He likes to show off his skills to visitors, that was how we discovered that he can write from A to Z, of course with the exception of N and J.