It's A Crazy Week (Part 3)

Now, let's shift our focus to what happened to Alyssa while this whole ectopic pregnancy episode was happening. Her fever started on Tuesday at the infant care and Desmond and I took her to KKH after our visit to the gynae. That's our usual practice now: just visit KKH if Alyssa is sick. There's no dilemma of which paediatrician to go to and ultimately, KKH's still the safest place for sick children. Alyssa definitely looked lethargic that day but her condition wasn't a serious one so we could go home after collecting some medicine for her fever.

I took care of her on Wednesday since I was on MC as well. It started out fine in the morning. Although she refused her cereal, I still managed to feed her some. She also didn't feel very warm then, after I gave her some paracetamol. However, things started to take a turn for the worse around noon. She completely refused her porridge and milk and fussed alot. She would sleep for a while, then wake up crying and I had to spend some time pacifying her. This happened for about a couple of hours. In between, I noticed her temperature went up and sponged her, while waiting for the next interval to feed her some medicine. Finally, I could feed her some paracetamol but her temperature did not subside even after an hour following the medicine. I had to call Desmond to come home immediately to take her to KKH again. I also asked TFG to come along, since Desmond had to return to his camp for work after sending us there. I imagined it'll be extremely hard for me to cope if left on my own.

We were sent to Passage 11 after the triage. Apparently, Alyssa's temperature had hit 40 degrees. The doctor immediately prescribed brufen, a stronger NSAID (non-steroid anti inflammatory drug) to her. Brufen is normally not prescribed to children younger than 1 year old or less than 10 kg as these kids will be more prone to its side effects. They had no choice however, in this case. Even after the brufen, Alyssa's temperature remained high for a while and by then, she would have gone without milk for quite some time already. Poor baby must have felt really sick then.

Under such circumstance, the doctor decided to admit her into the hospital as her fever was very high and the risk of dehydration was substantial. This would be the start of her longest hospital stay (for now).

It's A Crazy Week (Part 2)

The procedure I went through is laparoscopy. It is a diagnostic procedure in this instance, where the surgeon inserted a tube with a camera at its tip into my abdominal cavity through my belly button. That's the extreme pain I felt before falling into a temporary coma. As it turns out, it was a right ectopic pregnancy, meaning the fetus grew in my right fallopian tube. The fetus caused the fallopian tube to ruptured and the surgeon had to perform Salpingectomy, that is, to REMOVE my right fallopian tube. I didn't know about this initially.

I had asked the Medical Officer on duty what the surgeon did after I woke up and he told me, they had probably just cut up the fallopian tube, took out the fetus and repaired the fallopian tube. Had I not request to stay for another day because my baby was also hospitalised and there was no one at home to look after me, I would have never found out my fallopian tube was removed. It was only the next day, when the surgeon who performed the procedure came around then I was informed of the unpleasant fact. Even though the other doctor present tried to assure me that fertility rate isn't affected much with one tube gone, I had felt absolutely crappy and I'm definitely worried that I won't be able to have another cute baby. I can only pray very hard now that I'll still be able to have at least one more baby in the future. It was a really devastating piece of news since I had planned to have 3 kids. I'm not even half way through. :(

Occasionally, I feel sad about the loss of a baby but consoled myself that at least I have my beautiful Alyssa. I appreciate my baby much much more, and motherhood as well. It's not easy to become a mother - many want to be a mother but never got the chance to, and now that I'm recalling, the feeling of having your baby in you is truly a magical one.

After this experience, I think people should appreciate their children even more and take care of their children well. I'm definitely loving Alyssa more.

It's A Crazy Week (part 1)

Let's begin the story with what happened to me. My period was late and when it came, it was weird. I didn't really have period, just some weird discharge. After a few says of that, I decided to check if I was pregnant since my period was late and it's a common thing to experience spotting during pregnancy, though I didn't during my first pregnancy. The first clearblue test was positive. Being really worried, I decided to get a Predictor to test. It turned out to be negative. Really confused, I decided to test with another clearblue in the morning. Pregnancy tests are most accurate in the morning as the concentration of hCG is the highest in the morning. That test turned out to be positive. I decided I would take half day off to go the gynae to check it out. As Infant care called to inform that Alyssa was having a fever, desmond had to pick her up before we head for the gynae.

When we got to the gynae, the gynae couldn't find the fetus in my womb. Instead, all he saw was some blood clots even though the lining of the uterus was thick, suggesting a pregnancy. His guess was, it's quite likely I had a miscarriage or the pregnancy could be ectopic. He decided to first confirm the pregnancy with a blood test. When blood test results came, I indeed had a pregnancy, however the hCG level was low. It could be that a miscarrige had already occurred. A second blood test on thursday was needed to confirm that. However, when the second test result came back, I was told the hCG level had doubled within the 48 hours after the first test, which indicated the fetus was around and still growing. The gynae decided to give me a hormonal jab to stabilise and help the fetus grow before we try to look for it in my womb a week later.

Although Desmond and I didn't plan to have another baby so soon, I would very much want to keep the baby. Just imagine another Alyssa, a big bundle of joy. Who wouldn't want to keep the baby? I certainly didn't hope it would be a miscarriage and definitely not an ectopic pregnancy as I know the trouble such a pregnant spells. I was quite happy to know the baby was around and there was a chance it wasn't an ectopic pregnancy since the hCG level doubled quite normally. It could be that the fetus wasn't spotted in the womb as it was too small.

However, I suddenly experienced a terrible pain at my right hip on Thursday night and I noticed before the pain that my spotting had suddeny became very bloody. As I was already staying over at kkh, I decided to go to the 24 hour women's clinic as I feared something was going wrong with the pregnancy.

I was attended to immediately due to my condition. When the doctor did an ultrasound scan for me, again, he said there wasn't any pregnancy in the womb. Instead, he spotted alot of blood and fluid around my womb, especially on the right side where it wad hurting the most. He told me it was most likely an ectopic pregnancy. As I was already having internal bleeding, a diagnostic surgery was required immediately to see what was going on in there and to remove the fetus if it was indeed an ectopic pregnancy. By the way, for your information, an ectopic pregnancy is one where the pregnancy occurs outside the womb, most of the time, at the Fallopian tube but could also be at the abdominal area etc. It is a condition that is potentially life threatening if not found out early.

The hospital was really cold. My teeth was clattering away as I laid on the bed, waiting for the operation. I couldn't even speak properly. The operation theatre was even worse. I trembled uncontrollably, even 3 blankets didn't help. I only became better after they put the warmer at my tummy. The doctor for anesthesia asked me about my medical history and explained the possible side effects I can get from a GA, e.g. Vomitting etc.

When they finally got everything ready, I was told to take in deep breaths of oxygen. I did and suddenly felt a sharp pain through my arm which was connected to the drip. Then I felt a cut through my belly button. I really wanted to scream then as it was really painful but I couldn't move at all. I felt the cut went deeper into my stomach and passed out.

Money Should Fall From the Sky Instead!

I was putting Alyssa's school bag into the car after picking her up from the infant care one day last week, when something fell onto my car. I ducked and looked for the thing which fell after a while. It was the core of a toilet roll. Why are people throwing things out of their windows?! Don't they have dustbins or access to the rubbish chute at home?

This toilet roll just reminded me of something else nasty that I found on my car a few days earlier. Dear peeps, see if you can guess correctly what that thing on my windscreen was.

Yes peeps, no prize for the right guess but it is a HALF EATEN BREAD!!! Why on earth does anyone want to throw their half eaten breakfast out of their window?! It is too bizarre! I don't need to know what sort of breakfast my neighbours are having!

I wonder what next is going to fall on my poor car! Unless they are throwing money out of their windows, people should really be more considerate!

The Usual Suspects (Part 3)

I thought all will be well and I could send Alyssa to the infant care the next day since her fever subsided and was gone completely by the time she slept. So that's exactly what I did - I took her to the infant care the next day. It was alright at first, her temperature was fine, until I had to tell them how the antibiotics she's supposed to take come about. So, I explained how she woke up with a fever on Saturday, how we took her to KKH and why the doctor gave her the antibiotics. Then, unknowingly, I told the teacher Alyssa only started the antibiotics on Sunday, meaning she had only been on medication for one day prior to going to infant care. Then the teacher pulled me aside and started telling me one of the hidden rules - babies are NOT allowed in the infant care if they had only started on antibiotics for a day! The baby must have at least had the antibiotics for TWO days before they can be accepted at the infant care. What the hell?! I had no idea of this rule at all!

Then she went on about how if the baby's fever had subsided, the infant care still could take her in and monitor her situation, but she really couldn't help it if the baby hadn't been on antibiotics for at least 2 days before entering the infant care. I was well aware that by that time she told me that, my face would have been as black as charcoal and fire was burning within me. I simply asked her if she wasn't going to take my baby and stormed out of the infant care with my baby, burning with anger. I don't think they told us of this rule and that teacher kept insisting that I forgot about it. Is this what I'm paying so much for?

When we got home, Alyssa refused her cereal and only wanted biscuits. I tried to cut a deal with her: she would get the biscuits if she ate the cereal too but she refused. So in another fit of anger, I decided to keep the biscuits out of her sight and threw all the cereal away. Alyssa was aware I was angry and remain a nice little baby who didn't dare to make much noise while I was preparing her porridge. It's good to be fierce once in a while so the baby wouldn't take too much advantage of you. Normally, had I been nice, Alyssa would have been screaming her head off in her seat for me. She can't stand me ignoring her and doing something else.

While feeding Alyssa the cereal, I also received a phone call from Desmond's Ah Ma. She had been keep tracking of the situation and decided to call and see if we were at home (she thought there was a possibility the infant care wouldn't want to take Alyssa). Her predictions came true and she informed me that she was coming by to help out with the situation at home. That was really very sweet of her. She bought very delicious chicken rice for me for lunch and cooked barley water for Alyssa. Ah Ma even brought along clothes so she could stay over till the next day if the infant care doesn't take Alyssa again. She's my favourite Ah Ma now, after the Ah Ma at my parent's place.

At least I didn't have to worry about my lunch and there was company so all my anger went away. But Ah Ma should have told me about her plans. Then I would have told her I'll take leave for the next day as well. LOL. It is actually quite nice to slack at home with good company. What's more, Alyssa is an affectionate little girl now, who's always hugging me, crawling over me and headbutting me as displays of affection.

But please, baby, get well soon and don't be sick again. It's too tiring for Mummy!

The Usual Suspects (Part 2)

The wait for the laboratory test results was a rather interesting one. No, Alyssa didn't dance around and entertain me. She slept in my arms rather peacefully most of the time. What I found interesting was the little girl who sat in front of us.

I suspect she had a fall and cut her head, since there was a bandage on her forehead and there were red stains that indicated bleeding. Despite her condition, she was still rather bubbly, blabbering away to the people around her. I think she's only slightly older than Alyssa since she doesn't talk yet. Then her mum called her grandpa and and passed the handphone to her. Usually when I pass my phone over to Alyssa, she would keep quiet and not say a thing as if the phone would eat her up if she made any noise. This kid is different. She started blabbering into the phone as if she was talking some serious stuff. The blabber went on for quite some time as well and she looked very adult-like. It was really funny and cute. I wonder when Alyssa will start blabbering into the phone like this girl did. I just bought Alyssa a new toy phone and she doesn't do anything else but put it into her mouth. I think Alyssa talking into the phone will be a long way to go.

Finally, the results are out, and indeed, Alyssa's got urinary tract infection. What puzzled me was how the doctor decide when to perform a urine test on the patient. So it seems, that's the normal procedure they perform when a child suddenly gets a fever without any other symptoms. In addition, I also found out baby girls are more predisposed to urinary tract infection than baby boys. To let you peeps understand this better, I must first explain how urinary tract infection happens in babies. That's because their feces is contained a diaper and may get into contact with other parts of their bottom e.g. the part where urine is passed out. Now, we know feces contains millions of bacteria so ta-dah! That's how a baby contract urinary tract infection. In fact, babies are actually at a high risk for urinary tract infection. Anyway, because the baby boy's private part is further away from his anus, there is less contact between the feces and his private part. Therefore an urinary tract infection is less likely in a baby boy.

So since the cause of Alyssa'a fever was known, the doctor sent us back with some antibiotics (Cephalexin). Initially, she only prescribed 10 days worth of cephalexin to be taken 3 times, but at the end, she decided to increase the duration which Alyssa should take the medicine. All in all, my dear baby has to take the antibiotics for 24 days, which really sounds quite crazy. I wonder why I didn't ask the doctor why Alyssa must take the medicine for such long duration. Maybe I was too tired and wanted to get home as fast as possible. My guess is, doctor had done so most likely because she doesn't want Alyssa to suffer a relapse of the infection, until her follow-up appointment on 3rd November. The doctor did advise though that, if Alyssa's fever persist even after 3 days of taking the antibiotics, we should bring her back to the hospital immediately.

Because we only got home at 12 in the middle of the night, we did not give Alyssa the medicine. I waited till the next day so it's easier to regulate the times she take the medicine. For the medicine to be effective, it should be taken at regular timings and must not be missed. You can imagine she wasn't a very pleasant kid the next day because she still wasn't well yet without the medicine. She continued to refuse milk and took very little porridge. I had to resort to giving her my ice lemon tea to make her eat. (Relax peeps, she didn't take any of the ice lemon tea. She only played with the BK cup. She did try to eat my brother-in-law's french fries though.) She also didn't sleep well during her naps and woke up screaming rather regularly.

Things did get better in the night though. She finally started taking milk and didn't have any fever since after dinner.

But my nightmare didn't end there.

The Usual Suspects (Part 1)

No encounters with Alyssa paying KKH a visit can be recorded in just a single blog entry so dear peeps, you can expect several entries for this latest episode. Lol.

It all began when I woke up to a nasty shock on Saturday morning. Alyssa was running a rather high temperature. She was fine the night before, finally no running nose and no cough. She barely recovered from the flu which she had suffered from for more than a month, and now, fever? Paracetamol hardly help relieve her fever. I had to feed her the painkiller every 4 hours and finally, there came a point where the medicine DIDN'T help with her fever at all. (Note: According to the Pharmacy techician, paracetamol is supposed to be fed to the child every 6 hours, but the duration in between can be shortened to 4 hours if the child is suffering from high fever. They are not supposed to take paracetamol more than 5 times in 24 hours.)

At this point, I decided to bring her to our favourite place: KKH (again). The decision was made for several reasons:

1. The fever cannot be controlled anymore with the paracetamol (and by right, babies less than 1 year old should not be fed ibufen, an Non-Steroid Anti Inflammatory Drug used for the relief of symptoms for arthritis, fever, etc.)
2. There are no other symptoms accompanying the fever. Could it be something serious?
3. Alyssa was refusing food (again)

By the time we got to KKH, Alyssa's temperature has gotten up to 39.4 degrees and we were told to go to passage 11 immediately. That's what I like about KKH. They really make sure children get attention quickly if they are sick. Anyway, the doctor checked her and found nothing wrong with the ears and throat and decided that she needs a urine test. Then, the nightmare began.

It first started behind passage 11 where we have to feed her the paracetamol again, this time in slightly higher quantity as compared to the usual dosage. There, Alyssa screamed her head off, as if we were abusing her, even though we were just trying to feed her some paracetamol. I could see the horrified look on the faces of other parents and children, as they watched us struggling to feed Alyssa the medicine, and Alyssa struggling not to be fed the medicine. Then the nurse handed us a cup of Pedialyte to be fed to Alyssa over an hour. As Alyssa had refused all drinks during the day, the Pedialyte had to be given to her to ensure that she's not dehydrated and also to replenish whatever electrolytes she might have lost during the course of the day. The Pedialyte was also administered to help her pass urine so urine test can be done.

That was another nightmare. Alyssa spared no energy for struggling and screaming while we tried to feed her the drink at the waiting area. Everyone was horrified by her screams and some parents even walked over and stood around to see what was going on. We were supposed to feed her at 15 minutes interval, but we ended up taking the entire hour to feed her just 60ml of drink. Not to mention, much of the drink ended up on the floor and on my face as she made many successful attempts of spitting the liquid out. She was a ferocious baby. While it may seem like a long wait we had just to see the doctor, it was not. The hour passed even before we knew it.

As she still hadn't passed any urine during that terrifying hour, the doctor told us to wait for another hour, since we are already there and our home is too faraway from KKH. Luckily this time, Alyssa decided to cooperate with us and passed urine.

Now, you must be wondering how they collect a baby's urine. Nope, they don't perform the test on the baby's diaper of course, or ask the baby to pee into a container. They attach specially made bags over the baby's private part to collect the urine.

As only very little amount was excreted, I did not even transfer the urine into the container they gave me, but just handed the urine bag directly over to the nurses. After 5 minutes, the nurse came to us and told us preliminary test indicates Alyssa is positive for urinary tract infection and further tests need to be carried out in the lab to confirm the finding. We will have to wait for another hour for the lab test.

There goes my Saturday night.

New discovery

Wow wow wow. I made some new discovery today while surfing around looking for new recipes for Alyssa.

According to www.huggies.com.sg, using appropriate chopping boards is a way to ensure food safety for your baby and wooden chopping boards have been shown to yield the lowest bacterial covering after use and washing. I never knew that! I always have the perception that plastic ones will be cleaner because the wooden ones look so dirty. I had even suggested to my mother-in-law to get plastic ones in the future. Looks like I have to tell her otherwise.

So far, I haven't found any recipes suitable for Alyssa. If you peeps happen to come across any interesting ones, please send me the recipe or the link. Thanks!

The New Huggies.com

Wow!!! I received an email update from Huggies.com and this is what it says:

So, I decided to check out the site to see what it is all about.

I got a pleasant surprise after I signed in:

Note I can actually have a full profile on Huggies.com now, like I do on Facebook? It's one of the rare sites I came across that has integrated a social network function! It's something I've always thought a business should do and Huggies.com have done it! Huggies is really making the effort to engage the mommies and give them reasons to return to the site.

However, the question I have is, what makes the mommies want to spend time on the site maintaining a profile when they already have enough to do on Facebook (not to mention taking care of the babies)? Plus, they won't have as much friends as they would do on Facebook. While it is good effort, this might be much easier accomplished if they work with the social networks i.e. Facebook or Friendster. Instead of asking the mommies to establish a new profile on Huggies.com, it could be possible they import their basic profiles from the social networks. In that way, their activities on Facebook can also be posted on Huggies.com, easily making Huggies.com a more dynamic place. Users are also more familiar with the (social network) interface, thus making it easier for them to update profile/status when they are on Huggies.com. This is in addition to the knowledge that these social networks are extremely viral tools. Activities by these members can be seen by their friends, and ta da, there you go, it's marketing to NEW potential customers, besides engaging and retaining the old ones.

But it is too early to say Huggies.com wouldn't do well. We shall see.

Good effort Huggies! I love your diapers!!! (More discounts please!)

Re: New Year Resolutions and Wishes

I was just looking through my blog to see what I've been rattling on for the past year and came across interesting entries e.g. my quarrel with Desmond over a Louis Vuitton bag, my mahjong adventures. Then I came to this: my resolutions and wishes for 2009.

It's almost end September, meaning there's less than a quarter year more to go for 2009. I wonder how much effort I have put in to achieve my resolutions (thank goodness I blogged about it, otherwise I would have forgotten that I even have any resolutions or wishes to begin with). It is evaluation time.

These are my resolutions for 2009:

1. I wish for my little adorable daughter to continue to be healthy, grow well, talk to me soon, be a really smart girl and look more like a girl (last time we went to Plaza Singapura, the whole world mistook her for a boy. Kids in the lift commented that HE is so cute).
2. I wish my marriage will continue to be a happy one and Desmond will find a career suitable for him.
3. I wish I'll build my career this year.

Seriously, wish no. 1 is really very much a wish that I have little control over. It's mostly up to Alyssa. Ok, I may have some control over the part she falls sick and appearing like a girl. I try my best to clean her stuff every weekend to make sure things she uses are clean and I've bought her tons of pink dresses. But she still falls ill frequently. I can't even track how long she's had this latest stuffed nose of hers and she's only just recovered from a case of bronchitis. Wish no. 1, fail.

Resolution no. 2. Ok, I think I'm quite happily married (most of the time). Desmond hasn't found a suitable career yet, though I'm trying very hard to help him. I just wished he'll take resume writing more seriously. Note peeps, I'll be introducing a job search series very soon, based on my experience with Desmond. Look out for that.

Resolution no. 3. I have to confess I did nothing about this for the most part of 2009 but that is about to change very very soon. :)

Hmmm, I suppose I've attained 40% of my resolutions and wishes. Not too bad considering what a crazy year it has been with Alyssa falling sick so frequently, but I think I can do better. It's also probably time to think of new resolutions and brace myself for the challenges ahead.

Alyssa's Diarrhoea - Part 6 (The Follow-Up Appointment)

So, Alyssa returned to the clinic for a follow-up appointment 2 weeks after being discharged from the hospital. Prof. Phua was the one who followed up on her condition, thank goodness. It feels good to know your kid is being looked after by some Superstar Award recipient (By the way, good marketing tactic by the hospital. LOL.)

Anyway, we did not have to wait too long for our turn at the gastroenterology clinic and while we were waiting, Alyssa was happily standing on and moving around the seats. She had started learning to walk then and parents, do not underestimate a child's enthusiasm for learning. They seem to have endless energy when they are bent on achieving something. I had to sit there and endure a child who could never stop moving and trust me, it is a very tiring task.

We learnt during this visit that Alyssa is a proportionally small child. That is, she's not only thin, but also short. We wondered if that's a good thing. At least her below-average weight wouldn't be so much of a concern now as it matches her height. Now, I also wonder if her weight problem is due to my alcohol consumption during the first month of my pregnancy (hey, I didn't know I was pregnant, that's why). I read that babies with low birth weight can be a result of alcohol consumption during pregnancy, so mothers-to-be, beware. (http://www.ehealthmd.com/library/smokingpreg/SAP_alcohol.html) Luckily Alyssa isn't showing signs of mental retardation, otherwise I'll kick myself for it. Actually, I don't think there's anything wrong with her growth rate (her weight then was supposed to be 3x her birth weight and she wasn't too far from that, considering she had diarrhoea and her diet had been compromised due to the illness).

Alyssa seemed to be fine now that there wasn't any signs of diarrhoea during the 2 weeks after the discharge.

Prof. Phua also checked her immunisation records and asked if we were intending to give her the pneumococcal vaccine. At that point of discussion, the pneumococcal vaccine was an optional vaccine the parents can choose to have for their baby. This changed when the Ministry of Health decided this week that it will be a compulsory vaccine from now on. The probability of a child catching pneumococcal diseases is actually quite low, however the complications of the disease are devastating. The child usually does not recover fully from the infection and may be left paralysed or dead. As Alyssa is at a high risk for catching the disease since she's in contact with alot of kids at the infant care, he suggested that she has the vaccine as a good precautionary measure. It is very good advice and Desmond and I decided that we bring her for the vaccination when she turns 1. (Note: different doses of the vaccine are administered to children of different ages when they have the first dose of the vaccine. E.g. babies lesser than 1 year old will require 3 doses of the vaccine whereas babies aged one year and above at the time of the first dose will require only 2 doses of the vaccine.)

Actually, I had went for the follow-up appointment with a few questions for Prof. Phua that had nothing to do with the diarrhoea. I thought it'll be good to make my monies worth.

1. Alyssa fell off my bed last week. Is she fine?
2. Are carrots good for babies?
3. Is it ok for the food Alyssa ate, to turn up in her poop?
4. Can he give her some medicine for her flu?

1. Alyssa fell off my bed last week. Is she fine?

Yes, Alyssa fell off my bed the week before the follow-up appointment. It was definitely our mistake. We thought she was sound asleep and left her so on our bed, thinking that she would call for us if she wakes up, like she would normally. Turned out, she decided to look for us instead of calling out for us when she woke up and fell off the bed in the attempt to do so. There was a terribly big bump on her forehead and it became so dark due to the bruise when we found her on the floor (now we know how 印堂发黑 come about?!). She also cried non-stop for a good 15 minutes or so even though I tried my best to pacify her. I can imagine she must have been really traumatised by the accident.

Prof. Phua gave us the painful look when we told him of the accident and asked if she vomited or bled (from ears or nose) after the incident, to which we replied there was none. We then learnt that the longer the child survived the fall without any of the abovementioned symptoms, the higher the likelihood that she is alright. A skull x-ray is thus not needed in this instance. That made perfect sense, though not always the case. There was a news in the papers that a child's head injury went undetected for years and was later on aggravated when he had another unrelated accident, causing him to slip into a coma. I just hope that she is really fine. Prof. Phua also gave us some suggestions to prevent such incidents from happening again, e.g. to lay the floor with mattresses so the impact of falls would be lessened. Of course, the best thing to do, really, is to let her sleep in her own cot. It is a little hard though, since she's had the habit of sleeping on our bed as if it's hers and would refuse to sleep if she was put in her cot. Moral of the story: NEVER let the baby sleep on your bed from Day 1.

2. Are carrots good for babies?

Carrots traumatised me ever since she started her porridge diet, largely because of opinion differences between my mother-in-law and I. I think there's nothing wrong with feeding her a fifth or a quarter of a carrot once a week over the weekend while my mother-in-law thinks it's too much carrots. She would usually come over to me when I'm cutting the carrots and tell me it's not good for the baby to have too much carrots. I would then tell her that I don't really think that's too much carrots for her when I only feed her once a week and come on, we all know that carrots are full of goodness (except they turn people orange if there's really an over-consumption). We didn't quarrel over it but still, it was quite uncomfortable situation so I decided to find out from Prof. Phua if carrots are indeed bad for babies and how to tell it's too much carrots.

To answer the question, Prof. Phua looked at Alyssa's soles and hands. If someone indeed had too much carrots (or even pumpkins), their hands and soles would turn orange (first) due to the excessive amount of Vitamin A present. So, Alyssa wasn't having too much carrots! Then he said, everything should be consumed in moderation (that is, carrots are ok if they aren't consumed in too great a quantity). Tada! There's nothing wrong with me feeding my baby carrots!

3. Is it ok for the food Alyssa ate, to turn up in her poop?

It is also normal for the food babies eat to turn up in their stools, most commonly: carrots (and one other thing he mentioned which I cannot remember). Not all food are that easily digestible by the baby at this moment but rice is one thing that SHOULD NOT turn up in their stools (by turning up in their stools, I mean you can see the carrots in her stools in the exact form she had them). Ok, check. Another mystery solved.

4. Can he give her some medicine for her flu?

Alyssa had been having running nose and it didn't seem to be going away so I decided to ask Prof. Phua for some medicine. However, all he was going to give me was chloropheniramine, to which I think isn't very effective, as compared to medicine e.g. Zyrtec. What Prof. Phua would later tell me, was however, contrary to my belief. Zyrtec doesn't really relieve symptoms from viral infections and is actually more effective for allergies. Chloropheniramine works better for viral infections. This is really strange. So why is Alyssa responding better to Zyrtec? This brings us to an important question which I have not thought of asking: how do we tell a child is having sinusitis and not a viral infection?

It is typical of sinusitis effects to be more pronounced under particular environmental conditions such as, in the mornings, when the child is in air conditioned rooms, whereas viral infection effects are more consistent, regardless of the environment. From my observations, Alyssa was more likely to be having a viral infection, rather than sinusitis, even though she is at a high risk of suffering from that since it runs in Desmond's family. However, it is certainly something I should look out for in the future.

Generally, Prof. Phua thinks it's alright for a child to catch a flu, as long as she remains happy, so we really don't have to worry too much. Of course, I told him about the problems we face, such as the accusations of us not doing enough to make the child well, but he assured us that we should not let such accusations get us, as long as we have done whatever we could to help the child (that is, we've brought her to the doctor). Sometimes we just need to let nature takes its own course.

Overall, it was a good follow-up appointment and Prof. Phua is my favourite doctor now. :)

Alyssa's Diarrhoea - Part 5

Her stools remained watery (there was one time when there was a puddle of water when we were changing her diapers). She even vomited once (Note, there is a difference between a baby having a reflux reaction and vomiting. Reflux in babies is common, where small amounts of milk backflow, out of the babies' mouth after consumption. This is because babies' stomaches are quite small (about the size of their fists or a golf ball), so they are easily distended by the milk, and their lower esophagus valve may be immature and may not tighten up when it should. http://www.webmd.com/parenting/baby/bottle-feeding-9/spitting-up. The condition tends to improve as the baby grows up. Vomiting, on the other hand, is a forceful reaction.) I could hear her stomach churning very loudly and saw that she was turning pale when she was about to vomit. The next thing I know after I asked if she was ok, I got puke on my shirt. It was yellowish-greenish liquid that came out of her. I was really worried, however, had no choice but to send her to the infantcare. Thank goodness she didn't not vomit anymore for the rest of the day.

Persistent diarrhoea and vomiting yellowish-greenish liquid are not good signs. Vomitus containing bile (a green substance) may mean blocked intestines (http://www.babycenter.com/0_vomiting_9955.bc) while persistent diarrhoea may signal certain intestinal diseases that is potentially dangerous. (http://www.health24.com/medical/Head2Toe/777-778-783,11814.asp). Alyssa's condition did not improve after a week, and being really concerned she might have contracted some of these terrible intestinal diseases, we decided to send her back to KKH. Another reason was also we needed to confirm she's fine, if there's nothing wrong with her, so the infantcare wouldn't bug us anymore. They were really worried about Alyssa's condition and that the disease, if there's any, may spread to the other kids at the infantcare.

The doctor decided immediately upon seeing her to admit her for observations as 2 weeks of diarrhoea may signify something more serious. We were sent to her ward at 11pm and waited for the doctor visit. Alyssa was really funny when the doctor was interviewing us to get more information on her condition. She sat on the nurse's desk and tried to snatch the doctor's document. Everyone found her quite amusing, apparently. The doctor even offered her Tigger keychain to her, until I cautioned her that Alyssa's quite likely to put that thing into her mouth.

Again, we had to wait for her to poop so that tests can be carried out on her stools to determine the cause of her diarrhoea, only this time, the diarrhoea decided to stop. She did not poop for the 2 days she was hospitalised, until the doctor who saw the her the last time came and did a check on her. The doctor-in-charge of the ward decided that the doctor who looked after her the last time she was hospitalised was the best candidate to follow up on her condition as he's the gastroenterology expert of KKH (he's Prof. Phua Kong Boo. We later found out he's the recipient of some Superstar award at KKH and there's a full body picture of him at the clinic). He decided to send her home again, with more advice than the last time.

1. The baby is probably ok if she still appears happy, like Alyssa, even though she may be having watery stools.
2. Porridge is better than milk for baby if she is having diarrhoea. This is because milk is more likely to spoil/be contaminated than porridge.
3. Solid food should be Alyssa's focus now. (We were also concerned that she was refusing milk)
4. Chicken is a good source of proteins for baby. (I can't remember if it's because it's easily digested)
5. Baby doesn't have to pass motion everyday. She is only constipated when she shows difficulty in passing motion.

He wasn't so concerned about her diarrhoea, but more about her height and weight. Apparently, she's supposed to be 3x her birth weight then and she has some catching up to do.

Luckily, this ended the diarrhoea episode and we just have to bring her back for follow-up check-ups about 2 weeks later.

Some interesting things did happen during this stay though. For example, she had biscuits for the first time in her life.

Overall, we were just so glad she's finally recovered after such a long period of time. I can only say it's really not easy being a parent.

Alyssa's Diarrhoea - Part 4

OMG. I can't believe a month went by just like that and yes, I'm still at Alyssa's diarrhoea, Part 4, when she's down with bronchitis now. Anyway, I should finish the story.

So, she got admitted into the hospital for the first time. It was the routines when we got to the ward. The doctor came and asked for the details of the entire diarrhoea episode and we were trying our very best to recall the happenings in its entirety while Alyssa was happily walking around her bed. I don't know how she managed to look so happy all the time, even when she's so sick.

Anyway, as diarrhoea patients don't just lose water but also electrolytes, the doctor decided to take some of Alyssa's blood to see if she's dehydrated where water and electrolytes are concerned. They took Alyssa to a special room for blood taking and since it could potentially be a traumatic experience for mothers to see their babies screaming in pain, I was advised to stay out of the room. Even before they started drawing the blood, we could already hear Alyssa's screams from outside. The screams just got worse during the blood drawing. When that was done, the doctor commented that she was a mighty baby who managed to give the nurses a few slaps.

Since Alyssa could potentially be dehydrated and may require the drip, the doctor decided to insert the connector into her hand first so she needn't be poked a second time. A thick piece of cardboard was attached to her wrist to prevent Alyssa from bending her wrists and hurting herself since a needle was stuck there. Besides being a mighty baby, she was also a baby without any concepts of pain. To my horror, she tugged at the tube which was sticking out of her hand and I had to ask the nurse to hide the tube from her. When the tube was missing, she went chewing on the cardboard. She eventually managed to free the cardboard from her wrists after 2 days of gnawing at it. I can't believe how mighty my baby is sometimes.

After she settled down, we had to wait for her to poop so we could collect her stools for testing to find the reason for the diarrhoea. She pooped about 5 times for the 1st day and the soy milk made her stools look and smell worse. The doctors couldn't do much while we waited for the test results and only fed her Lactoel Fort in an attempt to make her diarrhoea better (not that there was anything else which could be given to her). She did better the second day and actually did not poop for 12 hours till the next day. This was an indication to the doctors that the diarrhoea had stopped and the doctor-in-charge decided to send her home even before the tests results are out. By the way, stool tests will typically take 3 days for the results to be out.

I, for one, was quite happy to take Alyssa home. While Desmond stayed in the hospital during the day with her, I took the night shift. For the two nights Alyssa stayed at the hospital, I had to go to the hospital after work, go home to bathe and change, then return to the hospital to spend the night with her. It didn't help that the foldable bed at the hospital wasn't comfortable at all and it was freezing at the hospital. I left directly for work the next day from the hospital. One can imagine that I was really worn out during that few days.

I took the day off knowing that she could go home to spend the day with her and make sure that she was alright. However, her appetite took a turn for the worse when she got home and the diarrhoea returned...

random

See, see, see? Too busy to blog again. But worry not. Part 4 of Alyssa's diarrhoea will come soon (actually it's half written). And I still haven't done my online marketing...blimey.

Alyssa's diarrhoea - Part 3

What a lazy day it is today. Just been informed that the meeting with the Big Boss is postponed and could happen only tomorrow. Expected. So, I'll blog then. Muahahaha.

For those who have been reading and are anticipating, we'll get to the story of Alyssa's diarrhoea without any further a-dos.

I was praying hard that the infant care will take Baby the following Monday when we were on the way there. Although I didn't have to tell them that she was still passing motion 5-6 times a day, I felt obliged to because 1) she'll still need lots of care for her condition, 2) the infant care should know the truth and decide for themselves if they would take Alyssa. Afterall, there are many other babies around and I wouldn't want to harm them. So, I told the truth and they didn't want to take her in, unless the doctor could certify that she was not infectious. Desperate, I ran to my car to retrieve my phone (and this was caught by my colleague who also send his kid to the same childcare, and commented to me that I could run very well after I returned to the office after many days of leave) so I could call Bindu for help. Bindu, helpful as usual, gave me numbers so I could call the doc myself. However, despite paging for him and calling his clinic so many bloody darn times, he neither return nor answered any of my calls. Baby and I waited excruciatingly at the infant care for that Doctor's call and self-entertained in the meantime.

She is really quite a brave baby. Although she was sick for so long, she remained a happy baby most of the time.

In addition to the painful wait for the doctor's call, I had to endure the endless questions from the infant care regarding why Baby was still like that, e.g. why the last time she saw the doctor was last Monday, why I didn't bring her to the doctor again, why the doctor didn't change her antibiotics because antibiotics could induce diarrhoea etc. I swear I could have killed someone if the questioning persisted. 1) I brought already brought her to 2 doctors who both told me her diarrhoea will persist for about a week or so and she's already taking all the medicine she could be taking so what's the point of taking her to another doctor? Besides, her condition did improve, albeit rather slowly. 2) How the hell can anyone tell if her diarrhoea was antibiotics induced?! Her diarrhoea started BEFORE she took the antibiotics. Besides, if she didn't finish the course of antibiotics, how on earth would anyone know if the medicine would work on her?! Seriously, someone, please tell me what's wrong with these people.

Anyway after some 45 minutes, the doctor finally decided to return my call. He did not say Alyssa was fit to go to school, but something along this line, "She should get well by about a week, but no one can guarantee, sometimes they take longer. Since she's still like that, I suggest we take her stool for testing again to determine if she's still infectious." WTF?! If only he had told me that when I asked Bindu to enquire about her condition on Saturday. I wouldn't have brought her to infant care, right? Anyway, if she was still infectious, he would probably start her on another course of antibiotics and we'll have to take care of her at home for another week. Crazy!!!

Faced with such situation, I called Desmond and we both decided to send her to KKH again. She could have whatever testing she needed there. Most importantly, we, especially me, were pissed with the doctor who shirked all of his responsibility on this matter. I have been calling him every couple of days to check if Baby's condition was normal and he always said it's ok as long as she's drinking and now, he can't be sure if she's alright unless she takes a stool test again? What rubbish this is, indeed.

As it turned out, this would be the first time in Baby's life that she is hospitalised, besides the day she was born, of course.

Alyssa's diarrhoea - Part 2

It has been a crazy day. First, I set my alarm clock last night but it didn't sound this morning because the phone was flat. I thought Desmond would have charged the phone last night after informing me that it is almost flat. Goodness. Then, after rushing to get out of the house at the earliest possible time, I realised that Desmond didn't take out the keys from my bag and I have no keys to open the car door since he would have put Baby's bag and mine in the car before he sets off for work. Crazy. Then I had to wait for him to come home to rescue the damsels in distress while trying not to doze off playing with Baby. I must say she's a really adorable girl with a great smile but I was just too tired to appreciate it fully. When I got to the office, I had to rush and finish whatever I was supposed to have done last night or early this morning but didn't because I was dead tired after dinner last night, and Baby wasn't helpful at all as she had to wake up at 10:30pm and climb around till 12+ in the middle of the night. Thank God I managed to finish whatever I was supposed to do and now, I have an additional thing to present to the Big Boss tomorrow.

Alright, enough of me, and back to the story of Alyssa's diarrhoea. So, Bindu called up her doc friend and he asked if she had mucous stool. Now, how does one identify mucous stool??? Stools are mucous if it appeared jelly-like or have jelly-like substances in it. Mucous stools could indicate bacteria infection, which can be intercepted by antibiotics. Therefore I decided to pay Bindu's doc friend a visit and see if he could indeed help with her diarrhoea. Although Baby didn't pass any motion when we got to the clinic and waited for nearly 2 hours to see the doc, he prescribed the antibiotics (Cedax) to me first anyway and told me to send the stool for testing if she passed any. While we wanted to wait for her to pass motion before going back, Desmond couldn't wait any longer to get home because he was ill as well (yes, my poor husband also started to get sick on monday and didn't go to work, but accompanied us to the doc after he visited another doctor). Just as we were almost home, Baby pooped and I decided that sending her stools for testing then was the best thing to do. Poor Desmond had to drive us all the way back to the clinic despite being so sick.

In the meantime, Baby's diarrhoea worsen that day and the day after, passing motion more than 10 times per day on both days. Her poor little bum got so red she couldn't even bear with me washing her bum and would scream and yell whenever we change diapers. My poor thing. By then, we would have stopped all solid food for her and was only giving her formula milk. We thought that would be the best thing to do, to rest her stomach since there was a war going on in her digestive system. Also, both doctors never said to stop giving her milk, in fact the first one said she could continue the milk and both doctors agreed that it was a good thing she was still drinking milk despite her condition and we left it as it.

Tests results came out 2 days later on Wednesday and indeed, she had an E. Coli infection. Bindu's doc friend said the antibiotics should help with her diarrhoea and she should get better after 3-4 days. Indeed, she got better after the 2 horrendous days of pooping more than 10 times, however, it wasn't much better. After 3-4 days, that is, almost a week of taking the antibiotics, she was still passing motion about 5-6 times a day. Again, Bindu's doc friend said it's ok as long as she's still drinking milk, and she should get well in about another day or two. I didn't have much problems with that and thought it's not so bad, since she did appear to be getting better, even though my parents-in-law asked again if they could give other medicine (or medicines) to stop her diarrhoea (no, sorry, let me repeat for the umpteenth time, there is NOT MUCH medicines to be given to a baby with a diarrhoea and she was already taking all the medicines she could be taking. Thank you very much. And no, I was not angry, I was just slightly frustrated.) Also, I thought, maybe after being absent from the infant care for about a week, the caregivers would be ok with her going back to infant care even though she still passed motion quite a number of times a day.

Who knows, I ran into trouble again at the infant care the following Monday...

Alyssa's diarrhoea - Part 1

The diarrhoea started on that fateful day, 10th of July, which also happened to be Desmond's birthday. It was a happy day initially. Desmond and I took leave from work to spend some time together. We watched Ice Age 3 which was hilarious, shopped a little and played some pool. Then we picked Alyssa up from infant care, which informed us that she had already passed motion 4 times that day. We went for dinner with the rest of the family at Jumbo, Kallang Stadium to further celebrate his birthday and by the end of the night, Alyssa would already have passed motion for about 6-7 times.

Things didn't get any better the next day as she continued to pass motion more frequently than usual. By evening, I decided to take her to KKH to have her diarrhoea checked out. She actually started to run a temperature by the time we got to KKH. We got to see the doctor quite soon due to her condition. The doctor felt her tummy, asked if her poop had any blood and if she was still taking milk normally. He promptly decided that it was a viral infection since there wasn't any blood in her stools and she was feeding normal, and sent us home with a tube of nappy rash cream and some Lacteol Fort, with is Lactobacillus Acidophilus. The purpose of that bacteria is to flush out those bad ones from her gut. He felt that Smecta (a medicine to concentrate poop and therefore lessen the number of times she poops) isn't too useful and didn't give us any.

Now, doctors DO NOT give medicines to stop babies' diarrhoea, like they do to adults. This is because babies can't handle the side effects of these medicines. Also, they need to pass all the 'bad things' out of their bodies. So, doctors will let them have these runs for about 5-7 days, by which the diarrhoea should clear up on its own. I know, it is unbelievable to have diarrhoea for a week. We, the adults would probably be dead at the end of it, but that is what happens for babies.

Diarrhoea for a week was a big problem for us. Diarrhoea is an infectious disease for all of you who didn't know and can spread easily from person to person. To make matters worse, she started running a temperature again once we reached infant care on Monday, even though I had already fed her some paracetamol earlier on and these people are really strict about not letting kids with fever in. So there was no way I could leave her at the infant care to go to work. It's not that I didn't want to take care of her but I have little annual leave left.

Frustrated, I called up Bindu for help to see if we can improve her diarrhoea in a lesser amount of time so she could return to infant care as soon as possible. Bindu is a paediatric nurse at Mount Elizabeth who gave me lots of advice when Alyssa gets sick e.g. the first time she got diaper rash, when she had running nose etc. Helpful Bindu called up her paediatric doctor friend and asked if there's was anything else we could do about her diarrhoea. Then the key question came: was Alyssa's stool mucous...?

Sigh

Sigh. TFG has been complaining that I haven't been updating my blog. However, it's really not because I don't want to update my blog, but that I really don't have the time to do so! Baby has been sick for the past 3 weeks and I try to rest with whatever free time I have, not to mention I was ill for a brief period as well. Anyway, Baby's diarrhoea (that was what she was down with) nearly drove Desmond and I mad as well.

The next entry shall be about babies having diarrhoea and its management. Stay tuned (cos it's time to start work. Hehehe)!

New Poll

Dear Peeps!

I have been wondering for the last few days and dying to know, what exactly is everyone's dream phone. So, here's my latest poll - what's your dream phone. Please help me find the answer!!! Better still, please leave a comment to let me know why the choice was made. Thanks everyone!

My Poor Little Baby - Part 2

All seemed well the next day - fever's down, she seemed active and nose was still running but at least it wasn't the green and thick mucus anymore - until feeding time. For the entire morning, Desmond (and I at a later time) tried to feed her but she simply refused to let anything into her mouth.

We tried means and ways:

1. Nice warm milk
2. Nice warm milk in a nice cup
3. Water
4. Water in a nice cup
5. Feeding with spoon
6. Glucose laden water (last resort)

She was most receptive to Glucose laden water. Of course, any kid would love some disgustingly sweet stuff (and I mean it, even the few DROPS I tasted was damn sweet). I had always resisted giving her glucose water because I don't want to make drinking sweet stuff a habit and sweet stuff does nothing for a child except to ruin their appetite for proper food. However, I made an exception this time because I imagined she must be hungry after such a long time without milk and I wanted to prevent her from being dehydrated. She managed 60ml of that and refused any more.

Desmond and I finally decided to make a trip to KKH again after she had not had any milk in 12 hours. Luckily fees for the second trip to KKH made within 24 hours of the first trip were waived so we need not pay anything this time round. Desmond suggested to let her try drinking milk again while we wait for our turn to see the doctor and guess what - the girl gulped down all the milk as we watched in amazement and wondered what we should do next.

Nevertheless, we told the doctor of our problem and the doctor hardly said anything, except that Alyssa's nose was blocked and she had difficulty breathing while she drink, which was why she's refusing milk. I found that to be an unsatisfactorily explanation because this is not the first time my baby's nose had been blocked but she had NEVER refused milk so vigorously before. I think there's got to be some other reasons, which I'll never know. Options were then presented to us:

1. Take baby home and monitor her feeding
2. Admit her into the hospital and let the nurses there monitor her feeding. If she still refuses to feed, IV her.

IV sounded like a terrible option for a little baby like her. Desmond was excited about admitting her because according to him 'it's money back' on the hospitalisation policy which he had bought for her (duh). After a few moments of deliberation, we decided to take her home first and bring her back to the hospital if she still refused to feed within the next 12 hours.

Desmond's Ah Ma came by again to visit Alyssa and even made some barley water for her, which is really very nice of her. Again, it was pain again trying to feed little baby anything and we finally resigned to fate, to just wait and see if her feeding gets better. I was really concerned about her condition because it was obvious she wasn't urinating at all for the rest of the day and the risk of dehydration is very high.

Luckily she started feeding in the middle of the night and everything went back to the normal the next day. Just a day of hunger strike and my dear girl lost 150 grams. For your information, babies after the age of 3 months only gain about 400 grams per month which means that's alot of weight she's lost in a day. Even the teachers at infant care commented yesterday that she's lost weight when she finally went back to infant care after being absent for a week.

Now her nose is still running and she's even developed a cough. I wish my dear girl won't fall sick so frequently. We're planning to visit a paediatrician recommended by my friend and hopefully he'll be able to help us.

Little baby, please get well soon!

My Poor Little Baby - Part 1

Sigh. Last week had been totally crazy. I went to pick my little darling girl on Monday from Infant Care and they informed me that she was down with fever! That was a shock. She had been a happy baby on Monday and there was no signs that she was getting seriously ill. Desmond decided that we should give her some medicine and monitor her condition as opposed to taking her to the doctor. I sponged her almost the entire evening after dinner. It became quite clear she was rather ill, as she lost her appetite and refused milk (how could it be?! That's her FAVORITE drink) and fell asleep really early that evening. She got better later in the evening though. The fever subsided and she started feeding again.

I thought I'll let her rest at home the next morning as her head still felt a little warm though the thermometer did not register any temperature that indicated she still had a fever. She seemed to be getting well till her temperature suddenly shot up in the late afternoon.

That was quite a nightmare. My poor little baby just wanted to be comforted the whole time and did not allow me to put her down at all. I could not attend to my sister who had come by for her GP session and I had to endure Desmond's Ah Ma who had come by incidentally and went on insistently that I should not have brought my darling girl to the zoo, that I should have brought her to the doctor last night and that I should have brought her to the doctor then. I became really concerned by Alyssa's rising temperature and decided not to wait for Desmond to come home anymore and walked to the baby clinic with my sister. Unfortunately, the baby clinic was shut and would only open for consultation an hour later. This is something I cannot understand. Why does baby clinic operate only a pathetic 5-6 hours a day while charging exorbitant fees and when babies fall sick easily and quickly?

Luckily my father-in-law came by and gave us a ride home. Desmond reached home later and we decided to take my poor little baby to KKH, Singapore's famous hospital for children and women. I was horrified upon reaching KKH, to learn that my baby's temperature had risen to 39.1. The nurse had to force feed paracetamol to her immediately to bring her temperature down. One thing I like about KKH is that waiting time is almost zero. We were allocated a doctor immediately after registration, as opposed to the usual 1 hour wait at the rest of government hospitals. It was also colourfully decorated to make children feel better. Anyway, doctor immediately ordered suctioning of Alyssa's nose to clear her nose congestion. The experience must be a terrible one for her as she was wailing inconsolably throughout the procedure. My poor little girl. Besides the fever and blocked nose, she also had a bit of a sore throat. Doctor kept us at KKH to make sure Alyssa would feed before we go home as I told her little baby had refused to feed since late afternoon.

Darling girl didn't feed immediately but took another hour or so before she did. Thank god she fed because otherwise the doctor would have kept her at KKH overnight. Fever subsided when she was at KKH and we were allowed to go home after the doctor checked on her again. The whole episode was only over at 10 plus and Desmond and I were beat and hungry by the time we got home. Luckily she fell asleep rather fast after medicine later that night and we both managed to get some rest.

It is a real nightmare for mothers when their babies fall sick. :(

However, this was not the end of the story for me.......

I need more time!

Oh man, there's just been tons of things for me to do ever since I returned from my Australia trip. I've been meaning to update on the trip as well but I just couldn't find the time to do so. I wrote half an entry on Day 1 of the trip one night and Alyssa woke up and demanded my full attention before I could continue any further.

And there's too much going on at work for me to even slip a quick entry.

I'll try to update asap dear peeps.

Stay tune!

Testing

I'm preparing for my trip and see if I'm able to blog while I'm away. :D

New Poll

Looks like the little Tiffany & Co charm has garnered quite a bit of interest, not just from me, but the dear readers of my blog. Anyway, I am very tempted to get the cheaper version of the charm featured i.e. to get the 925 sterling silver version!

Therefore, my new poll would be to request you dear readers to vote and see if I should indeed get the silver charm for myself!

The charms featured are the ones I'll most likely get, if majority agrees that I should get the charm! Estimated price of the charm is USD 1245, which means *gasp* it's not cheap! Therefore, please vote wisely! LOL.


Tagged: Tiffany & Co, poll

Birthday Coming Soon!

My birthday is coming soon!

As the whole world will be on leave from the office next week, my immediate boss decided to give me a lunch treat today so another colleague could join in the 'celebration' as well. We went to Andre, this french restaurant opposite our office.

Despite having been at this office for 3 months, I NEVER knew the existence of this restaurant. I didn't know what I thought existed before, but I would never think a little french restaurant would be what is occupying the space. Anyway, we decided to make do with that since we had little time left for lunch to go further and the restaurant had the praises of our big boss who according to everyone, 'has a fine taste'.

They offer ala carte menu, 3 course set lunches and 5 course set lunches. The 3 course set lunch consists of an appetizer/soup of the day, a main course and a dessert of the day and prices of the set lunch starts from $20.99 to $45.90 depending on the main course selected. Sounds reasonable. We all decided to take the 3 course set lunch. My colleague and I settled for the seafood linguine and my boss had the chunky beef stew (I forgot the foreign french name for the dish). I also had the soup of the day, which is the pumpkin soup and some western red bean paste was the dessert.

The pumpkin soup was one of the best I've ever tasted. I don't normally like pumpkin soup because they are usually too thick and sweet, but this is done just nice, though at first glance, my boss thought the soup looked diluted. The main course was great, slightly spicy, with enough seafood to last through the whole main course. I found dessert so-so, actually quite good, for the fact I don't like red bean (or any vegetables for that matter) but I actually finished half of the dessert. My boss' beef stew was good too. The meat wasn't too tough, like how it possibly could be sometimes, with nice wine aroma. We were really satisfied with the food overall.

Ambience wise, the space in the restaurant was really limited and exuded a homely feel. However, I do not care much for the service. I couldn't really get what the server was saying due to his strong Thai accent and the other lady serving was as cold as ice.

I could go there again if I crave a good pasta in a hidden corner.

I love birthdays and treats. Another one is coming my way! Desmond will be taking me to Swissotel the Stamford for Champagne brunch this sunday! I'm definitely looking forward to it. However, I'm quite tempted to tell him to give me a birthday present I just saw online instead. It's gorgeous and comes with a gorgeous price tag too. I think he'll faint if I really propose that. LOL.

Guess the price. :)

Thumbs Up for Huggies.com

I am an avid fan of Huggies diapers. So far, it's been the most satisfactory of all the diapers I've tried for my little princess and I'll grab packets of these Huggies diapers whenever there's an offer at the supermarkets. Anyway, I'm not here to get into diapers comparison today - I'll do that another day.

What I want to talk about is the Huggies website. I happen to see the little ad on their diaper pack asking parents to visit Huggies.com for more information, advice and promotions on Huggies product. Since I always buy Huggies diaper, the word 'promotion' was of course, calling out to me loudly. However, that thought only lived in my brain for a mere 5 minutes before I forgot about it completely.

My trip to NTUC yesterday reminded me I needed to go to Huggies.com. They had a promotion where parents who bought the Huggies Ultra for Newborn could stand a chance to win a cool-looking nursery set from Mothercare. I wished they had this promotion earlier. I would have grabbed tons of those diapers. Even though I don't qualify for the promotion anymore as my darling girl has be promoted to wearing M size diapers, I decided I NEED to check out Huggies.com.

I was greeted by this pleasant looking page. Information was divided into mum-to-be and parenthood. An attempt was made to let users zoom in on the information they may find most useful once they get into Huggies.com. Of course, I needed to join the Huggies Club to enjoy special privileges and promotions so the next thing I did was to sign up as a member.
What was commendable during sign up was an effort was made to explain to users why huggies.com needed the information they were asking for. It gave assurance to users that 1)They were not asking for information for the sake of asking, 2)They knew what they were doing with your information, 3)Misuse of information will be kept minimal.

I received a welcome email from them immediately after sign up confirmation.

And to further orientate members on Huggies.com, they even explain the various features of huggies.com in the email, complete with links to the section itself if you happen to decide on the spot that you want information from that section. So far, I was very impressed with sign up procedures. It is a demonstration of engineering a product with the consumers in mind.

Usage of the website for information was easy. While some websites e.g. www.babycenter.com.sg categorise information according to the age of the baby, and then some common problems that parents may face (which is good for parents who generally want to prepare themselves and know what to expect during their child's development), huggies.com categorises information according to the common problems parents may face. Straight to the point, parents get solutions to problems with little navigation around the website.

Overall, it is an extremely pleasant website for parents to get information from. It is truly a website built with parents in mind.

Now I'm just waiting to receive some good offers on those diapers.

It Is NOT My Day!!!

URGH!!! Firstly, Mahjong Princess (a.k.a Me, since now Desmond's Ah Ma is the REAL Mahjong Queen) didn't win Mahjong again today! After 2 rounds of battle, I lost 32 bucks. I was actually looking good at the beginning, with a couple of diao zeng and quite a bit of zi mos. Who knows, I still emerged a loser at the end of the night! URGH!!!

Then Desmond and I went for supper. I thought it was a nice supper outing until we were on our way home. For some unknown reasons, I decided to run my fingers through my hair. Then I thought there were something strange about my hair. It felt like there was some cobweb of sorts of thing on my hair. Suddenly, this huge black insect, which I immediately identified as a cockroach, flew from my head, down my shoulder, onto my thighs and disappeared somewhere in the car! I was so terrified that I was jumping about in the car and demanded that Desmond stop the car right that minute. I even wanted to vaccuum the car then to get rid of the bloody roach because I was determined to walk home if there was even the slightest chance that the roach might still be around. Helpless, Desmond had to give me money to take a cab home while he drove back alone in the roach infested car, as he argued that it's too dark for us to be vaccuuming the car at that time and there will be no way we could spot the insect. I felt so filthy that I went for a good shower after I got home. I'm still in shock despite that happening some 2 hours ago. URGH!!!

Now I'm trying to find some information for my work, but to no avail. The Koreans and New Zealanders should learn from the Aussies and improve their national statistics system! URGH!!
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'Should I Continue to Breastfeed Post 6 Months' Poll Results

Dear Peeps!

Thanks for taking time off to vote for the poll. All votes received indicated that all peeps who voted are avid supporters of breastfeeding and have encouraged me to continue doing so. That is most certainly what I'll try to do, even though I have to go to Australia in mid May for 10 days. Hopefully little Baby will continue to like to be breastfed even after I return from my trip. She is already showing signs of resisting breast milk (according to the infant care teachers) and preferring formula milk instead. *Sigh*

Anyway, yes, I have started introducing infant formula as well because there will be no way I can store enough milk for her to consume while I'm away in Australia. I decide to introduce breast milk to her early so she has sufficient time to get used to formula milk because I read on some websites that some babies may have problem weaning off, as they are more used to breast milk and would refuse formula. She doesn't seem to have any problems with the formula, or any brands so, so far, my worries are really unfounded. I just knew she's an adaptable baby.

Anyway, I think she should be a big baby instead of little baby now.

It's incredible how much she has grown in less than 6 months. No wonder Patrick kept telling me that I'll miss the time when she is small.

Nevertheless, I'm still looking forward to her calling me 'mummy' some time soon.

Online Presence - Futuristic or Need?

This is sort of something I heard yesterday:

"The other people here don't have vision. They are not futuristic like us. That's why we are moving to online now. We are seeing the shift of advertising budget to the internet. We must be involved with the internet, even if we are not making money."

A couple of thoughts on this statement:

• Firstly, what is so futuristic about having an online presence? It's NOT futuristic. It is what businesses HAVE to do NOW. According to AC Nielsen media index 2008 (mind you, not 2010), 2/3 of Singaporeans consume about 3 or more media for their daily news and entertainment needs and among these media consumed, internet, along with the newspaper and terrestial TV emerged top. Some even claim they cannot live without their mobile phones or the internet. Now, doesn't this make the internet more or less imperative if businesses wish to reach the mass? This is not to mention the other benefits of online marketing such as interactivity and accountability.

What's futuristic? According to thefreedictionary.com, it is "Being ahead of the times; innovative or revolutionary." Merely having an online presence doesn't qualify as being futuristic. Futuristic is perhaps having a burger popping out of one's laptop screen after an order at MacDonald's.com is completed. Of course, we know that this is not possible.

• Secondly, it is no longer about having an online presence or not. Alot of money have already been shifted to the internet, not just now. It is about being practical and offering the right things to your target audience. Businesses can have online presence for relatively low cost compared to other business start-ups so it is really not a difficult thing to achieve. It is really about interacting with consumers and moulding one's business to really suit the target consumer constantly. If the art of business is about keeping up with the times, then this is only too true when it comes to the internet.

• Lastly, what nonsense. Of course money must be made, otherwise what is the online presence for?

Maybe whoever made that speech should go back to Business/Marketing 101.

Ugly blog

Dear peeps, I'm sorry if my blog has become ugly again.

After I went for 2 web design classes, I thought I'll try my hands at creating my blog skin again. However, it is really not as easy as I thought it would be. First of all, java script and CSS knowledge is needed for blog skins creation. I am clueless when it comes to both stuff. I only know CSS very very briefly and java scripting is a total stranger to me.

I thought I might take a look at how other people did the coding for linking blog skin to the actual functionality of a blog, however, once I changed the blog skin of my blog to something else, I could not retrieve my previous little ah ma blog skin again. This is means I'm stuck with the current unattractive blog skin, until I finally create my own skin. I'll put up the tagboard soon enough though.

One thing I learnt from my web design class, other than web design itself, was that it's really not easy to be a web designer or developer. Many skill sets are required - you must know web developing software, photo editing softwares, programming etc and lots of planning are required for a nice website. Although the WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) softwares made life alot easier already, it's really still a very tough thing to do (at least for a newbie like me).

So, salutes to the web designers out there and hope I can create my blogskin soon!

Breastfeeding Blues

Alyssa Baby is now 5.5 months old, which means I have been breastfeeding for close to half a year! This is an achievement to me. When I first started breastfeeding, I really wonder if I could ever last for 6 months. That looked like a damn bloody long time to me. Trust me, breastfeeding isn't a fun thing at all and I can still feel the pain when I see new mothers trying to breastfeed.

Desmond, Alyssa Baby and I attended the 'full moon party' (one-month celebration) of Desmond's friend's baby last Saturday. I was in the baby's room breastfeeding when the mother walked in and ask if I'm still breastfeeding fully. She was envious when I told her that Alyssa is still exclusively breastfed and asked if I have alot of milk. I asked her how much she could pump out, to which she replied 80ml. Now, seriously, 80ml of milk is a decent amount to drink for newborns! Alyssa only drank 60ml of milk when she was two months old and 90ml when she was 3 months old. She was convinced by her confinement nanny that she doesn't have enough milk for her baby to drink and supplemented her baby with formula milk.

Now, this milk quantity thing is a pain for many breastfeeding mothers. People from the older generation are used to being able to see how much the baby is being fed and they sometimes doubt if the small-looking boobs of the mothers can contain enough for the baby. It doesn't help when breast milk is more easily digested and absorbed by the baby so they need to be fed more regularly than formula-fed babies, thus perpetuating the misconception of 'insufficient milk' further. What usually happens next is that 1) the mother will be pressurised by the entire world to supplement the baby's diet with formula or 2) the mother will be convinced she doesn't have enough milk and supplement the baby's diet with formula milk. The inability to breastfeed on the 'lack of milk'.

Milk supply is of the fundamental economics principle of demand and supply. The more the baby drinks, the more the boobs will produce milk. Supplementing breast milk with formula milk will only lessen the baby's demand for breast milk, leading to a lower production. Many mothers will say 'but I pumped and could only get 'x'ml!' Well, one thing they don't know is that pump is not an efficient method to extract milk from the breasts! Babies are able to extract milk more efficiently than any pump, which really means they drink more milk than what could be expressed with a pump. Also, if mothers would continue pumping, they would realise that milk will flow for as long as they pump. That means, if mothers pumped for 2 hours, milk will continue to flow for 2 hours (with short pauses in between). If they let the baby latch on for as long as they need to get enough milk, they really don't have to worry that they do not have enough milk for the baby.

I was lucky no one pressured me to supplement my baby's diet with formula (all thanks to the nurse at Mount Alvernia who announced to the whole world that I have alot of milk. I don't think I really have alot of milk but she was trying to be as encouraging as possible). However, I faced the problem of being pressurised to feed my baby water. Again, as formula-fed have to be fed water to prevent them from being constipated and being so used to formula-feeding, people from the older generation thinks that baby needs to be fed water. However, they do not know that breast milk is actually high in water content so breastfed babies DO NOT need to be fed water. It is in fact not advisable to feed the baby water because 1) To feed baby water, it has to be through a milk bottle. To make the baby adapt to the breasts fast and feed properly, it's best NOT to introduce bottles or pacifiers to them and 2) Water can affect baby's demand for breast milk, thus affecting the breast milk supply. My parents know nothing about breastfeeding and accused me of being too lazy to even feed my baby water in the beginning. Now they haven't said a thing since my baby survived for this long but that was quite something to bear.

Of course, what is the breastfeeding experience without the pain??? I think I mentioned the pain before in a previous post. That might be the worst pain anyone can experience, other than the labour itself.

Breastfeeding is actually the most fundamental stuff of child caring and it's ironic how people have made it so difficult for a mother to care for her child. Although more people are opting to breastfeed, but more education needs to be done to help these mothers withstand and eventually enjoy the breastfeeding experience.

I'm glad I managed to pull through so far for my baby.

New addition to my blog!

Hi peeps! I've added something new to my blog (don't know if it works) - POLL! I've decided since I'm always so fickle or can't make up my mind, I'll seek public help. The first problem I have is well, whether I should continue to breastfeed my baby even after she's 6 months old (it's approaching!) I'd been thinking I'll wean her off, but after such a long time, I do enjoy breastfeeding her (except for the part I have wake up in the middle of the night to feed her). And I read that it's good for both the baby and I if I could feed her for as long as I can.

Poll starts now! I need your opinions!!!

Don't Scold Me Already...

Alright peeps...don't scold me already. I'll blog later today ok? :D

Yes! I did it!

Wahahaha! TFG, I broke your Geo Challenge record for today. :P

Geo Challenge

There's a Geo Challenge craze now. I need to break some hi-scores before I can blog properly. BRB!

Oh Man~ A quick update~

Oh no, I just received an official complaint on my blog that this is such a boring blog due to the lack of updates. Sorry la, TFG, it isn't that I don't want to update my blog but I simply don't have the time to. Anyway, I'm doing something about it NOW.

Alright, a bit of catching up on what had happened in my life while I've been absent from blogging. As all of you peeps know, I'm back to work and it hasn't been too exciting. There are lots of things to do, but I think none of which I'm really interested in. I think that's going to change a bit though. My big boss asked me today if I'm interested in doing web marketing for a website that my company has just set up. I think that will be fun. I have always been interested in online marketing and I finally get to dabble in it. Hopefully I'll learn something of use and be of use.

Health wise isn't so good for me. It all started with a sore throat last Tuesday night and now my nose is dripping like a damaged tap. It's no fun having to work, take care of baby and be sick. I was so exhausted that I slept the whole of Sunday. The sad thing is, I have yet to recover after all that rest. Anyway, I don't think I'll be able to rest much from now on. I have a new mission. Those of you close to me will know what I'm referring to (I think so!). Mission started today, hopefully it will go well. Kinda sounds like I'm sending a rocket to the moon, doesn't it? Lol.

I was depressed last Thursday to find out that they no longer do streaming of the Class 95 Morning Express over the internet.
How can they do that? I love listening to Morning Express. I love Glenn and his absolutely lame jokes. I listen to morning express on my way to work every weekday and when I get to the office. I was so upset with Mediacorp that I actually wrote a feedback to them, asking them how they could do such a thing and told them that I live on Morning Express. Apparently my life doesn't mean anything to them because they never replied to my feedback. Oh well, I suppose it's either I live with it or I get a radio. I can't decide which one I'll go with. Blimey.

Ok, it's really late now. I better turn in so I won't be late for work tomorrow. I promise another blog on my baby girl tomorrow.