MOVED.

I am moving!

Thank you Xanga for the memories, but now they're all stored HERE. 

. : The question is.. : .

I often wake up and realise how much Noah has thrown all my pre-conceived notions re:pregnancy and parenthood out the door. My ideals Before-Noah (BN) are fast becoming a distant memory. Life After-Noah (AN) has been so different.

Growing up in an upper-middle class family in good ol' Malaysia brings with it certain luxuries that a lot of people are not wont to have. Case in point : domestic help.
For as long as I could remember, my family has always had a domestic helper around. Mum worked full time whilst I was growing up and only became a stay-home mum when I was in college. So I really dont know where I formed this personal desire to be super mum; thinking that I will one day be able to juggle family and career- as a doctor no less. 

So there are two parts to this story - me; the mummy and me; the doctor.
No offense to any other profession out there, but everyone knows the gruelling hours and not to mention endless study that comes with being a doctor. Ive always loved working with kids and thinking on my feet - hence the natural progression towards a career as a paediatrician. To get there, is another 6 years of post-graduate study + full time work.
The mummy in me fights for the right to stay home and be there through all of my childrens' milestones - I had dreams of well-dressed kids being kept occupied with all these wondrous learning activities I would've thought up for them and having dinner ready in time to greet my husband with a smile.

The reality is :
-at 15 weeks old, Noah has just had his first eczema flare and is still waking up 3-hourly for breast feeds.
-I am worried that he scratches his face (due to above mentioned eczema!!) so I keep him close to me most nights.
-breastfeeding is a lonely journey; especially in the early days because newborns can take up to an hour to feed and they do that every 2-3 hourly and you're just sitting there with not much to do! (thank goodness for the iPhone!)
-I have fallen asleep whilst breastfeeding and startling after awhile to find my poor baby lying across my lap.(heehee)
-I have days when I am in my PJs the whole day
-I dont do the household chores as much as Id like to and dinner is relegated to whatever I can throw together to steam/stir-fry/grill in the last hour.
-I cannot be a doctor to my own flesh&blood; emotions get in the way.
-my poor husband has taken a back seat these last 3 months.

And yet, with just one smile Noah makes it all worthwhile.

. : ICU and pneumonia : .

*Retrospective entry*

Sept 11 2001 was never the same again after the attack on the Towers. For my family, the date resounds poignantly because it was the year that my dad collapsed at the golf course only to be found that he was severely allergic to gluten & wheat and had gone into anaphylactic shock. I am thankful that he is still alive and well today, despite having had to make adjustments to his diet, but the 18 months or so following the attack, he was a totally different person. But that is another story altogether.

So last year, my baby sister pointed out that another significant thing happened on Sept 11th. I fell sick - very sick and I was pregnant. Not a good combination.

I had been unwell with an URTI the week prior and no, I didnt catch it from a sick kid on the ward, I caught it from my husband. The irony. 
And so off I trundled to work at 9pm and after a rather relaxing handover, stuck my head into the special care nursery and was informed that there was no impending deliveries that night. I walked up to the doctors lounge and proceeded to catch some shut eye. I was 16 weeks pregnant.

I woke up with a start at 1am, coughing my lungs out and felt rather feverish. Thinking it was the air-cond, I wrapped the blanket tighter around me and sat up to catch my breath. And then, with the next cough - a sharp stab in my back, at the base of the left lung. "Uh oh, that's no good," I thought. And that continued for the next few coughs. I walked, still with the blanket around me, down to the wards and borrowed a thermometer - my temp : 39.4. And immediately, alarm bells were ringing in my head. My temp plus a painful cough in my pregnant state was no good. I gulped down some water with paracetamol and rang my registrar to let him know I was going home - my baby is more important and I needed to get this temperature down before he/she overheated!

To cut a long story short, I was diagnosed with L lower lobe pneumonia the next day at the Women's Hospital but was severe enough that I had to be transferred to ICU that same night. Within 24 hours, I had gone from breathing well on my own to needing 6 litres of oxygen. With a raging temperature, I was commenced on antibiotics and had an x-ray done. I was in septic shock and deteriorating. And being the peak of the H1N1 epidemic, everyone was on their toes. It helped that I was warded in the ICU of my hospital of work, so people knew who I was and I think that gave them all a sense of extra care for which I am, to this day - very grateful for. Being sick with pneumonia is bad enough at our age, but being sick AND pregnant - that was a whole different ball game; for there was now 2 lives to care for. 

Truth be told, I was too sick then to really get my head around how serious the whole situation was. All I remember thinking of was our baby - worried that all the meds they were pumping into me would harm him somehow, that my temperature would have an effect on his development, that my lack of oxygen would affect him too - and I told Del, "Please think of him when you make decisions - if you had to choose, please put baby first." Thank God that it didnt come to that.

I spent the next 3 days in ICU where they continued to monitor me and in total, spent about a week in hospital. I had the next 3 weeks off work and looking back on that period, I am again amazed at the timing of God. Noah was past the first trimester, where most of the anatomical developments happen and was growing steadily and at 16 weeks, the pregnancy was considered more stable. 

'Til today, we dont know which bug caused the pneumonia - all my swabs and sputum cultures were negative but being sick gave me a whole new perspective on being a patient. I am now much more aware of what it is like 'on the other side of the fence' and have more empathy for the sick people I look after. And it made me aware of my love for Noah - or the maternal instinct as I like to think of it; I was literally willing to do anything just so that he could be alright and considered myself truly secondary. If that is my love for him, what more is God's love for me? And is that what dying to self truly means? That I would love God so very much that I would consider myself nothing and Him everything?

And now, everytime I look at Noah, I am so thankful that he is here, with us - perfect and healthy and thriving. Being a medico, I cant help the nagging voice at the back of my mind which says that there are some conditions that can develop later on, but I am quick to banish those thoughts and cuddle him a little tighter,a little longer as i again, count my blessings.

. : One year on : .

Oh what a year it has been!

And to think that my last blog entry was in regards to 'if it happens, it happens' and now, almost exactly a year later, Noah is 3 months old! If you do the math, it really did happen (!) quite soon after!

Now that the dust has started to settle, I will slowly attempt to revive this space as I chronicle (sometimes retrospectively) the journey that we are on and the curve balls that life throws at us.

Motherhood has been such an eye-opening journey in more ways than one - Noah has taken over our lives like we have expected him to and made us refocus, reprioritise and reorganise our ministry, work and social life.
3 months on, we wouldnt have it any other way.

So, let the journey begin!

*PS: If any of you are still reading this, I did attempt to start blogging about my pregnancy here but again, it took too much time!