woensdag 31 juli 2013

One week old

Unfortunately my friend and baby photographer extraordinaire Mette has moved to Abu Dabi. She did a session for Lexie when she was a few weeks old. 


This time round we wanted to have a newborn shoot for Izzie. Mette helped us to pick a photographer online. We came acros some crazy expensive ones but Hazel asked a fair price. We booked her and today she came by with her assistant Wing. 


Our sofa bed in the living roomwas transformed into a mini studio. Lexie also took some solo shots. She was in a really bad mood today so we couldn't really get any full family pics. 


Izzie was a very good model. A few milk top ups from mommy along the way and all was well ;)


Grandpa, grandma and Lexie went back to GZ this afternoon. I'm now here with Izzie and Haiwen. It was nice to have Lexie here but also very tiring as she has to get used to being a big sis. 

P.S. typed with one finger whilst feeding Izzie...... Forgive me if the pics aren't the correct size! 

zondag 28 juli 2013

Isabelle


Isabelle was born on July 24th, 9.47 AM!
She weighed 3,62 KG. 

Her Chinese name is 冯晓兰 (Feng XiaoLan). 

I'll try to write a real blog soon, I'm just in my mobile now whilst feeding little Izzie ;)

Here are a few pics, forgive me if they're not the right size :)






zondag 14 juli 2013

Hospital adventure

On Friday I started to feel bad in the morning. Isabelle was hardly moving and that is very suspicious as you may know. My belly was hard on and off but no kicks, punches or elbow rolls. Mmmmm.....
Later I started to get dizzy and faint. All signs for trouble so we decided to head to the hospital to check out what was going on.

The first assessment in the hospital was to be further assessed at the pre natal ward. I headed over there and luckily visiting hours were on so HW could join me. We waited for a doctor to come by but she didn't make it before 20.00 so HW still got kicked out. He went down to the coffee place to wait for news. We weren't sure if they would keep me there or if we could head back home together.

The doc decided to let me stay there. An awful night followed. Not because I felt bad but because of all the noise and activity around me. I was in bed 3 of 8 in the room. The room has no doors and opens directly onto the corridor. All the ding dong's of the ward bell, people being admitted, people being wheeled out to deliver, nurse activity and trolleys going by were to be heard without filter. I didn't have my earplugs because my hospital bag was still at home.

On Saturday I was monitored closely for blood pressure and baby activity. Haha, the doc and nurses all thought that Isabelle was doing fine given the fetal movement count. Yeah, I enlightened them and they understood my concerns of the night before. Actually Isabelle did a big work out Friday night at 23.00 so I felt better.


Lunch anyone?

I was hungry in the morning but all we got was a big bowl of plain white rice congee. Think of a gooey tasteless glue like mixture and you've got it. Yuck. No nutritional value whatsoever! Maybe a few lost carbs but not a single protein...... How are you supposed to give birth on that??

I called HW and he brought some dumplings. They were still warm when he got to the hospital so that was nice. At lunch time they had cooled off already but I think you can see why I still ate them.... No spot to warm up food so that's pretty mafan. I used the meat gunk as a dip for the dumplings but it was still inedible. Dinner looked the same, except the veggies were greener. Still extremely yucky, bland and simply bla. Hubby to the rescue with a take out meal.
 
I was ready to dig in when the neck ache that had been bothering me all day long took over and rendered me almost immobile. It was horrible! I'm no sissy but this was something else. I couldn't move, let alone eat. I was super dizzy and ready to faint yet again. The doc and nurses came by and saw that my blood pressure had shot up. Not good. I'd asked for an ice pack earlier but it proved useless against the pain. I couldn't bear anything. Heat was no good either. They gave me a Panadol and that took the edge off the pain. A nice nurse gave me a massage and that also helped. She worked with me to relax and get my blood pressure down. The pressure dropped and I was less dizzy.
I could only sit because lying down made the pain worse. HW was once again kicked out and I simply stayed still. At one point I could lay back against the pillows and I stayed completely still with a t-shirt over my eyes to block out the bright lights. Much later I could get up but the pain was still strong so I asked for another pain killer. The nurse said I could have one 2 hours later. I could manage that and I knew trying to sleep was useless. The nurse brought the pill by exactly at the time she said I could have it. Very nice of her :) 

We did not know what was going on so the doctor ordered a blood check. At 21.30 4 tubes of blood were taken and at 23.00 the doc came by to tell me everything was normal. I was more myself by then and even joking that the wrong body parts were contracting ;)
I still don't know what went wrong.......

The pain killer kicked in and I slept for a while. That was until the two girls across from me went into labor around 1 AM. I couldn't sleep until after 3 and even went down to the 7-11 for the heck of it.
Moving around is supposed to help start labor, right? Wake up call was at 6.30 with a temperature, blood pressure and baby check.

On Saturday I had contractions several times for about half an hour each time. They kinda fizzled out again after that so nothing really going on. The nurses still saw it as early labour signs so we decided to wait and see. After the neck episode I had none until now, so this morning the doc decided I could go home first. I was happy because they stay in the hospital had worn me out completely. No rest, barely any sleep and food too yucky to even look at...... Brrrrr, not ideal.

So that's what I'm doing now: 'waiting and seeing'.

woensdag 10 juli 2013

Yet another day.....


Wide load.......
Compared to yesterday it was quite an uneventful day today. I had a good sleep (hurrah!) and took auntie out for lunch. We took the mini van to the mall but I already dislike it. It is too small and you have to wait to get on. Walking to the metro is better than standing still in line! People on the bus are quite rude unfortunately. There was a window seat left near the front of the van. Since I don't fit through the isle I wanted to take it. Do you think that misses super skinny could scoot over and let me sit in the isle seat? Noooooo..... Belly and me had to navigate through zero space and sit at the window. Why? I have no idea.
Lots of blue chemicals today!
It took a while to find the restaurant I wanted to go to because the mini van drop off point is not near the metro. There are 3 malls connected to each other with sky bridges. Great for wandering about but not so great if you don't know exactly where you are going. We found it in the end and had a nice lunch. Auntie claims she eats everything and is not picky at all. I beg to differ: she picked out 9 bits of spring onion because they could be 'slime inducing' (please, don't ask.....). Then she checked the ingredients in her soup to make sure there were no 'heating' elements present....... (Remember yesterday's episode about the cabbage?)
Later at home she boiled some water and was upset when I wanted to add cold water to the already boiled water in the pot that was left over after she made her tea. Apparently it is not OK to boil water twice. Sounds pretty picky to me!

Hello?
I wasn't sleepy after lunch so I watched some TV online. I'm sad to report that our next door neighbours are remodeling and drilling away as well. *sigh* We only share part of the outside wall so noise levels are a bit lower than the upstairs ones. Still annoying as hell to be honest.

Later in the afternoon I skyped with mom and Christa.
Auntie (bless her) is making dinner now. Haiwen will arrive much later today to relieve auntie of her duty for a little while. Lexie didn't go to school today because she had a slight fever. I'm waiting for Haiwen to arrive at the inlaws so I can Skype/FaceTime with her.

dinsdag 9 juli 2013

Elevator trouble

So, today I got stuck in an an elevator for the first time ever.
It happened in Cheung Kwan O after visiting a childhood friend of auntie. Auntie and friend were also there. As well as 4 grandma's 2 toddlers, 3 adults, a teenage girl and a baby.
One of the toddlers was not amused at first and was screaming bloody murder. Her mom was carrying her little brother and after a few minutes the baby got transferred to daddy. Screaming toddler was happy and proceeded to fall asleep.
Then baby wasn't too happy but he didn't cry too much. The other toddler sat quietly the whole time trough.
The lady on the other end of the speakerphone kept asking if everybody was OK. One of the grandma's was worried about her blood sugar and we were all feeling a bit hot. She kept saying 'the technician is on the way'. Yeah, thanks....... In the end we were stuck for about 20 minutes or so.
When we got out out there were 6 firemen waiting (sorry, too pregnant to notice if they were hot or not) and some management people. 'Is everybody OK, do you need to see a doctor?'
We just got out and I went to buy some water as I was feeling a bit faint.

Auntie's childhood friend lived in America for 30 years so it was nice to chat with her. Auntie kept complaining that she ate a dumpling with some cabbage in it last week because it made her skin break out in a rash..... Yes, that would be 3 slivers of barely visible cabbage per dumpling.... According to Cantonese tradition cabbage is hot so it will heat up your body. Uhm yeah, maybe if you eat 20 cabbages a day. Luckily these comments made her giggle as well. At other times we just needed a quick glance and a smile, haha. We both like auntie so we just let her go on.

After lunch we went upstairs to have a look at her house. In HK many people live on top of a mall. Ground prices are stupendously high so every inch is used as intensively as possible.
When we headed down to figure out the shuttle bus transfer home we got stuck in the elevator.
We found out that if you buy something for a 100 dollar or over you get 50 transfer bus tickets for free. That's basically for free! We bought some stuff and got our tickets. It is a bit more convenient to take the bus as it is more direct than the metro. The bus is tiny though so I hardly fitted through the aisle....
Auntie's friend came with us to take a look at our place. Yay, a Chinese house guest that enjoys a cup of coffee!! (Coffee is also evil in Cantonese lore, of course......)
They went on to chat but my energy was gone so I went to lay down for a bit.

Last night I managed to sleep from 23.30 until 2.30. Then I was plagued by not pain free fake contractions yet again. They lasted an hour or two before fizzling out. I slept a bit more after 6.00.
I'm not sure what Isabelle is up to. She's sending very mixed signals :S

zondag 7 juli 2013

Waiting........

OK, I'm super mega fed up with being pregnant (just in case you didn't catch my vibe earlier......)
At times I feel like I'm about to topple over forwards, very uncool!
How boring!!!
It was much easier in the end with Lexie because we had a C-section planned months in advance. Now I'm not sure what the hell is going on. Not good for for somebody as impatient as me.... But yeah, I'm trying to relax and have fun anyway. Easier said than done because I get tired so quickly now. My lower back does not appreciate it when I go for short walks and my brain is guiding me back to bed.

Isabelle during one of her work outs
So in bed is where I am these days. For some variation I head to the couch as well. Good news is that I'm too tired to be bored ;) My Candy Crush progress is going well and my Ruzzle scores are up. Only Wordfeud isn't going well.

Fun at school!
I have days that my belly is hard almost non stop. That is very annoying because I'm not getting any 'real' contractions. Walking equals instant hard belly. I do try for at least a half an hour walk a day. If I go slow enough (yuck) my back tends to cooperate. I was really mad and irritated 2 nights ago and decided to walk it off briskly. It improved my mood for sure but I couldn't move afterwards......
Water melon love
Haiwen went back to GZ yesterday. The upside is that I can then FaceTime with Lexie. She's doing great and has grown so much already! The downside is that auntie is here now. She drives me nuts and I still have to be nice. Horrible!!! She's very sweet and nice but also very naive. She loves repeating things and comments on everything. Yesterday we watched the Wimbledon final together. It went something like this:
"That was an ace. She hit the ball. It is out. Oh, game (no back to deuce). She's crying. She's behind. She's not in shape. Double fault. Game. A point. She won. She lost."
And this is the super abbreviated version. When we go it out it may go something like this:
"We're taking the elevator. We get out at level 5. We walk towards the exit. We walk outside to the metro. We're taking the metro." And so on and so on. Maddening!!

Some rain today
The real problem is that otherwise she's taking good care of me. She cooks and cleans the house. So I do my best to keep the hormones in check (very, very hard to do) and eat whatever she makes, even if I don't like it. I finish all the soup because that makes her happy. I know at a rational level that it is really cool that she's here. But hey, has any 9 months pregnant person ever been 'rational'??
Bring Haiwen back, at least I can be as mean to him as I like :P

Big belly