PICTURES OF GWENDOLYN......

Just after birth, on mummy's chest

Sleeping so soundly....

Fresh and clean after the delivery

Looking at mummy for milk so innocently... :)

Hmm....Satisfied...

Smiling at daddy who was behind the camera

Resting....

Our baby girl Gwendolyn.....

was born on 19 January 2008 @ 12:07pm, 2 weeks earlier from the EDD. Praise God that everything went smoothly and she had no problem coming out with no complications. It was all seem still surreal to me and Jon coz' never have we expexted that she will come out so soon. Ironic part was, we went to see the gynae the day before she was born and neither of us was informed by the gynae that I will have early delivery. In fact, the gynae was mentioning about his absence on 7 & 8 of February due to CNY celebration and if we wants him to deliver our baby which means I have to be induced earlier which means early labour. But the next morning which was on the delivery date itself, I felt I have mild stomachache and was complaining to Jon who was half asleep. Well, nothing much he can do at that point of time, so I continued sleeping. But later at about 5:30am, I felt like going to the toilet but nothing came out. Strangely...I thought so to myself. Then without realising anything peculiar, I decided to continue sleeping after complaining to Jon for another time. He was of coz' convinving me that I might have Braxton Hicks which is very common to pregnant women. I couldn't sleep well and I starter to look at my clock everytime the pain comes. And the interval for each painw as about 5-6 minutes. The pain was still bearable so never did I thought to myself that the pain that I was having was basically the contractions. But about 9am plus...I have the blood spotting and I calmly told Jon that maybe I was having contractions. His ears perked up when he heard me saying I had spotting. He quickly got up from his bed and started reading a chapter abnout contractions and called our Godma as well.

Lo and behold, yes it was confirmed these were the signs of contractions. Jon encouraged me to go to Pantai immediately. I was contemplating at first coz' I read a lot about false labour and I wouldn't want to go to the hospital and then were asked to go back if it is for sure false labour. We took our own sweet time to pack some of the unfinished hospital bag which we should have done much earlier. I tool a nice shower and hairwash. It was then about 11am when we left our house to Pantai. My dear hubby even suggested to go for a nice breakfast before checking into the hospital and I agreed becoz' I knew mosy doctors discouraged those in labour to check-in early as the labour for first child will usually take about 12-14 hours. We decided in the end to go to McD in Bangsar as it was nearer to Pantai. Thank God we couldn't find a single parking and at that time suddenly I felt the urge to do "big job". We decided to skip breakfast and went to Pantai straight.

While I was waiting at the lobby waiting for Jon to enquire the receptionist as to where we should be headed to for emergency purposes, I just can't stand up and I just need to sit badly. I was wheeled to the labour ward immediately. At that point of time it was bout 11:40am. Once in the labour ward, I felt the strong urge to push badly. The nurse asked about my birth plan and I just couldn't answered her. Jon told her that as we have discussed ealier, we want natural birth with no epidural, painkillers whatsoever. The nurse did a check on my vagina and I was informed that I might be giving birth in an hour time. With shock on both of our faces, Jon got to rush out to register and my gynae was called immediately for duty. Thank God my gynae was in the hospital itself coz usually he doesn't come in on weekends and that day was Saturday. When he came in to see me about 11:50am, he did another check on me and with confidence he informed me that I will give birth in 15 minutes time. He just sat at the corner and tried to make some jokes to ease me but all I could think was the pain and I just want to PUSH badly. After 4 pushes (thats what I have been told by Jon coz each time I pushed i will squeezed his hands badly), baby Gwendolyn came out. The last push was pretty funny coz the nurse attending to me actually told me not to push anymore but just imagine you were having a really bad stomachache, we just can't stand not to push rite'? When our baby came out, water gushed out and blood everywhere. And then the gynae clamped and Jon cut her umbilical cord. Waited for about 2 minutes before the placenta came out. I felt so blessed that had a short labour without any anaesthatic or episiotomy and baby weight was alrite @ 2.56kg. But my butt still feel a bit sore now and hopefully it will go away in a few days time.

Baby's Weight

On our last gynae visit, we were both informed that our baby was underweight and if her weight does not increase to about 600 grams in 2 weeks, I have to be induced, which means early labour. Current baby weight is only 1989 grams. Our gynae told us that an average baby's weight is above 2.5kgs and for baby to put on extra 600grams in 2 weeks, oh well it does sounds impossible. Been eating lots of meat these few days as with much anticipation and anxious that baby is eating and growing well. I have problem in sleeping as well these past few days as my back is aching terribly especially my right hip. Will see the gynae again this week and Jon and myself are praying really hard that baby is growing well.:)

Make a postcard - it's easy!

4 weeks and counting....

I'm expected to give birth in exactly a months' time..*gasp. Pretty anxious about it. A lot of advices and concerns poured out to me lately like "Have I packed my hospital bag?", "what to expect during contractions?", "false labour vs real labour" and etc...It seems having a baby is definately a whole new experience to both of us as first time parents when everything seems to cost a lot of money from choosing the baby cot to breast pumps and the list seems to be endless each time we walk into a mall or a baby shop.

But the thought of holding and cuddling our baby girl for the first time is something both myself and Jon are really looking forward to. In fact, we have started assembled the baby cot and baby changing table and arranged them in our room. Yup, our bedroom kinda a bit small now with these two in our room but the idea of placing the baby in another room is not something we want to coz as much as we need much sleep, both of us agreed that we would prefer to bond with our baby girl as much as possible in her first few months before I'm back to work again after my 2 months maternity leave.

Praise God that we have found our much needed babysitter at last. Been searching for the right one for a long long time and it is a blessing knowing our babysitter is known to Jon personally and most importantly the babysitter is a believer herself and we pray that she'll be able to teach more and more about Jesus to her and she'll grow up to be a godly child.

After 5 months...

I have yet to know my baby gender....Well,maybe we will by our next gynae visit next week and thats if our baby is not shy enough to show us a peek! :) My pregnancy so far has been quite a relief with no morning sickness and etc...Praise God for giving me such a smooth 5 mths pregnancy...Although I have been putting lots of weight ever since and my legs are a bit of swollen and I'm now wearing shoe size "6" rather than my usual "5", I found myself pretty clumsy all the time and my short term memory is getting bad each day :( But nevertheless, I'm really looking forward for my first baby movement which I have yet to experience. Hubby has been very supportive in helping out with the chores at home. From doing the laundry and picking me up to and fro from the office, I knew that he is also excited about being a dad for the first time. Sometimes, we came across young parents with screaming kids and we both can't help but wonder, are we really ready for all these? But we pray that the Lord will always grant us wisdom in bringing up our baby and enjoying every moment seeing our baby grow each day.

"We're" Pregnant!
by: The Hubby

It started off as what I thought was my darling wife putting on lots of weight, which then escalated to her being a week plus late on her period. Since we were already "planning" ; ) for the past 2 weeks on starting a family, against my better judgment, while we were strolling past Watsons on a Friday night prior to cell group we purchased a home pregnancy test. Time at cell seemed to crawl as we were waiting to get home to take it. When we got home and got into our room, brimming with anticipation, we took the test. Having just taken this test for the very first time, neither my darling wife or I knew how to "interpret" the result. So after a minute or so, only one line remained which prompted me to respond with a huge sigh "We're not pregnant" which caused us much disappointment as we were expecting it to be positive. Since I wasn't thoroughly convinced, I continued "dunking" the test into the "test pan" convinced that we took it wrong. Lo and behold a 2nd line appeared, be it very "blurry". Naturally, I then put my arm around PS and said "We're Pregnant". PS was skeptical at first as we had a negative result moments before however, after reading the instruction manual, it brought to my attention that regardless of how "blur" the 2nd line was it meant she was pregnant and finally after showing her the manual, it finally dawned on both of us... "We're Pregnant" :)
We the phoned up our parents (at this point it was around midnight) who although were half asleep were ecstatic as were PS's parents. We went to bed elated but were still doubting the result as it was conceivable it was taken wrong so we decided to go to the doctor’s the next day to reconfirm.

The next day, when we got to the Dr’s office and after what seemed to be an eternity, the nurse brought PS into the next room as I waited with the doctor. Moments later, the nurse emerged from the next room and in a puzzled tone blurted out “Dr, I ingat dia tak pregnant lah” to which the doctor retorted “You tahu buat tak itu pregnancy test” and then instructed her. Again, in a rather “déjà vu”(shades of the night before) manner, the doctor then announced that PS was expecting as the 2nd “blur” line appeared. Naturally, we were delighted but again with a touch of apprehension, we shared the news with some of our closest friends and our pastor (who’s also our godfather) who prayed for PS. At this point, we were still a touch “skeptical” so thereafter, I did heaps of research on via the internet and did something that seems quite cliché’ these days when I made a beeline to pick up a copy of “What to expect when you’re expecting” as after 2 dramatic “could be” pregnancy confirmations, both PS and I really wanted to know absolutely everything about pregnancy and the 1st trimester.

A week later, still a little skeptical, we made an appointment with a gynecologist to “triple confirm” the pregnancy. After an unbelievable 4 hour wait for them to get through just 20 patients, we were ushered in to see the gynecologist who unfortunately for us, just adjourned from the OT. Conceivably tired from the scores of patients he’s seen or examined coupled with the emergency in the OT he seemed to be reluctant to answer most of our answers as he seemed to be in a hurry to be done with us. He did with the help of the ultrasound however, confirm the pregnancy much to our relief. Whilst we were gazing at the little white dot on the ultrasound and it began to dawn on us that we were going to be parents he interrupted us by informing us that there was absolutely nothing he could tell us about the pregnancy as there was yet to be a “heartbeat” as it was still early days. Now after all the drama we’ve encountered in the past week this understandably; left a tinge of anxiety on us… More drama… :) After the examination, we finally felt more confident in spreading our "good news" and so when we got to children's church our fellow children leaders laid hands and prayed for us which is very assuring that we aren't in this "journey" alone. Praise the Lord for fellow brothers and sisters in Christ!

We are to go back for an examination 2 weeks from now, so without taking anything for granted, do continue to pray with us.

So finally, with much confidence... "We're pregnant"

Stay tuned! :)

OH NO....!!

What an eventful weekend I had last week. Last Saturday, I tripped and fell in the middle of the pathway at the flea market in Curve and I was of coz pretty embarassed about it. What confounded it was as I was falling down, instintively I grabbed whatever that is within reach, unfortunately what I grabbed on to was a woman who was right in front of me, which in turn startled her as she yelled on the top of her voice possibly because she thought that someone was trying to snatch her handbag. There I was left in the middle of the bazaar pathway with a bruised right shin and my damaged ego as it caused quite a commotion with passerbys looking on and in no doubt judging me in their heads.

On Sunday, I experienced a little bit of Malaysian "mannerism". I was thoroughly enjoying the Spiderman 3 movie when this selfish guy at the back of me kept tapping his feet and pushed his legs onto the back of my seat. It was so irritating that I was on the verge of just turning my back and looked at him. Unfortunately me being my usual cultured and tame self, it was just an evil thought that came to me but something I would never do it but my body language showed that I was very uneasy with my seat but did he look a bit apologetic after the movie? Na-ah....

Perfect Eyes

Had a dinner with one my closest friend recently and we touched on the subject of having so-called perfect eyes. For someone like me who has been having bad vision since secondary school, the thought of having perfect eyes always comes to my mind. No more those geeky-looking glasses or even the need to wear those contact lenses just to avoid wearing those glasses. But for now, I can't live without my lenses particularly when I'm out. I just hate to wear glasses because I find, it makes my face really greasy and oily when I wear it and the idea of pushing it up now and then really irritates me. My friend is going for a surgical procedure soon for eye correction for perfect eyes and the surgery is intended to reduce her dependency on glasses or contact lenses. Well, the idea sounds good, but her explanation on how it is really done really scares me. The procedure is quite simple from what she said and its basically a surgery that permanently changes the shape of the cornea, the clear covering of the front of the eye, using an excimer laser. And all this can be done in within 5 minutes. GASP! Talked about technology. But from what I heard, the cost of the surgery is so expensive for a just 5 minutes surgery.

Having perfect eyes sounds really good to me and I'm tempted to do it, but having to think that I'm still awake and aware of what is happening during that laser surgery, really troubles me. Well....should I?*in deep thoughts.....maybe later or err...never!

Car Accident!

Was involved in an accident today, involving 3 cars. What a horrible day to start just after the CNY. :( My car was severely damaged and will be in the workshop for at least 2 weeks and looking at my car after the wreck, the cost of the damage will probably cost a bomb. I feel so handicapped without the car. Praise God, noone was injured, just a little bit traumatised by the incident. Sigh...

Got my mudpie fix!

I have craving for TGIF's mudpie since a couple of weeks ago. Jon brought me to TGIF today and oh YES....yummy! I sort of ate the whole cake myself, Jon just took a couple of spoons. But now, I feel really bloated. Gonna stop eating mudpie for a while.

Gong Hee Fatt Choy!

This time around was a bit different. Being a married woman, this is the first time I had 2 celebrations with both families and the *ahem...the joy of giving out angpows and yes..we still received angpows. I always look forward to seeing all my family members gathered together, having a great bonding time with one another. This year, went back a couple of days earlier back to my hometown, SP for a pre-CNY celebration. And we have the newest addition to the family this year, baby Isabelle Ann, little bundle of joy of my 3rd bro, Wan Kian and my sis-in-law, May! What a great joy to see all my nieces and nephew again. They were such a bunch of mischievious and playful kids.

We were back home on Saturday, just in time for a reunion dinner at Jon's side. Didn't take long for us to drive back to KL. No jam at all but for obvious reason coz' we were at the other side of the road heading to KL whilst those going down south, pheww.....the jam started in Sg Buloh itself up to the Slim River toll. Unbelievable, most probably everyone was rushing back just in time for reunion. Reststops along the highway was packed with cars and people. We both hardly drank to avoid the urge of going to the loo. Haha! But anyway, here are the brief summary of what we did for the past few days:

CNY - Day 1

Makan time at Jon's place and thereafter headed to his uncle's place for more makan time and of coz' the thrill of "gambling session" with relatives.(I was hopeless in it, probably just break-even the capital, Jon did win big this time around!" :)

CNY - Day 2

More makan time, went to Ming Palace for a reunion dinner(Mom-in-law's side) and more "gambling session" again after that.

CNY - Day 3

Again, another round of makan time.

BUT tomorrow, I'm BACK TO WORK.....Oh bummer! Took a couple of photos during CNY but was too lazy to upload them. Probably later. The idea of getting up early tomorrow for work...:( *sniff sniff

So people, heres to a Blessed Chinese New Year and have a great PIGGY year.

THERE GOES MY WEEKENDS....

Working non-stop for 2 consecutive weeks has left me without weekends. These days, I lose my temper quite easily...early signs of stress and not having enough sleep. Hubby pointed out that I have been a real nagger these past few days. Sort of finding fault with him in every little thing he does. Thank God for a wonderful session in CG last week whereby our icebreaker was to have everyone repenting a thing or two if there is any. Repented on my repetitious nagging...felt much better after that. But..sigh...have been working my socks off and I am SO looking forward to the coming long hols. I need that long overdue well-deserved break this time around...I'm for sure on a very strict diet for this coming CNY, which is to whack anything I feel like eating. No cutting on carbo and "jaga badan" this time around. :)

"Law Abiding Officer"?

Was on route home, passing through Kota Damansara and to our horror, there was this guy in the police car and he was on the phone while driving. My oh my, so much of abiding the road rules. The most depressing part was if we were to do the same thing as what he did, for sure we will be summoned whilst he can get away with it just because he was a policeman. So hypocritical! Hmmphh.... We felt disgusted of his behavior so much so that we thought of taking a picture of him with my phone camera to be sent to The Star but we were a bit too slow, he drove past us and he was seen tailgating another car. Sigh...what was that?!??!!

LIFT-PHOBIA!

One of my biggest fear has been realised today.What I considered to be a mundane Wednesday morning turned out to be anything but! As I alighted from my car and headed for the lift to take me up to the 2nd floor, my mind was racing through all the tasks I had for the day. As I reached to press the button, suddenly the lift jerked and descended rapidly and suddenly stopped from what I later discovered was between the ground and first floor!

I was stuck in the lift for half an hour before being rescued. Still in a state of shock & panic, I quickly pressed the emergency button to get the attention of my need for assistance. Two of the guys (one of them was my boss!) tried to open the door lift using their bare hands but they were only able to open it like 5 cms wide which fortunately, enabled some air to enter the lift.

Being down with flu and running nose, it was pretty hard for me to breathe using my mouth. The other unsung heroes in my little incident were my collegues who were very supportive, so much so that some of them even accompanied me all the way till I was rescued. Whilst I was in the lift, I was perspiring profusely, struggling for breath and was praying really hard all the while recalling the feeling of the lift descending suddenly. Phew.....that was scary. After half an hour of nerve-wrecking minutes, I was rescued! Once the door lift opened, I felt just like a star. Colleagues cheered and consoled me. I of course, pretended to be so cool about it but I tell you that from that incident onwards, I would never take the offce lift again. I rather take the stairs than be in that dreadful situation again.Hah!

SWEATING BUCKETS!

My car air-cond ran out of gas, so was practically driving around, sweating profusely so much so that I had to wind down my window once in a while because I really couldn't stand the heat! My hair flapped around like the "shampoo girl" in Pantene advertisement :) minus the convertible.:(

AMAZING RACE ASIA!

YES!...Andy and Laura are finally out of the race. I have always believed that "what goes around comes around". They were not the friendliest team that deserved the USD100,000. They were conniving. egoistic, self-centered and @$##%@#. Justice has been served today. Justice and fairness demands that they be eliminated today!! There is still justice in this world afterall ;) But hey, way to go Malaysian Teams, Andrew and Syeon & Joe Jer and Zabrina...they are in the last four. But I am really hoping for M&M brothers to win as well. I always look forward to watching the carefree, fun and animated M&M brothers. Such a likeable team. Yup..errr...its not a typical me to write all these but hey, Jon and myself are pretty esctatic to know that Andy and Laura got ELIMINATED !!! Woo--hoo!

PROUD "MAMA"& "PAPA"!

Yes, we are officially the proud "mama" & "papa" for baby Ophelia. Take a look at the pictures, Ophelia's first few baby pictures taken.

Isn't she adorable?

Just look how small she is incomparison to the Astro controller!

Oopss....err...Oliver and Karine are the real parents for Ophelia. We are just the proud-to-be called Godparents to her. :) What an honour for Jon and myself to be invited by them to be Godpa and Godpa to our "kai lui"...Shes such a cutie!

REALITY BITES!

Was practically dragging my feet today after a long 4-day break! Aww....couldn't sleep the night before, was turning and tossing...just the thought of going to work the next day, it was a horrible and disturbing feeling. Woke up extremely early today..*sigh, went for a nice breakfast ALONE near my office and started playing with my phone by smsing to a few friends, hoping that they will reply back. Yup, I know, it was a pathetic situation. But oh well, I have to at least pretend I was busy whilst I was in the coffeeshop right...It was bad enough I was having breakfast all by myself and slowly sipping away, enjoying my "teh si peng". What else can I do if I was not smsing? Thank God a few of them replied. :)

The time seems to pass so slow in the morning. Practically looking at my watch to see when is my next lunch brekkie. It was bad enough that I had "lo ma kai" for breakfast, it seems my tummy digested the food faster than I thought. I was a touch of remorseful later on after such a heavy lunch. Greedy greedy me! Guess I had put on a few kilos after my wedding. Sad but true, reminded me of an incident last week, prior to attending my friend's wedding dinner, I attempted to put on a gown and to my horror I doscovered I couldn't zip it up. It was too tight for me even when I tried to take a deep breath, hoping that the gown will fit. :( And Jon, well, we both laughed histerically trying very hard to fit me in the gown again but it just couldn't. I was in "reality", too big for it. Jon later tried to comfort and cheer me up(after he laughed at me) by saying that the gown probably just got shrunked! Yeah rite! Reality does bite! Ouch...!!

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!

A year has passed and its time to reflect on what have I done for the past year, 2006. Sounds cliche' but oh well, one thing for sure, I've found myself a great life partner ie. got married and have myself new in-laws. :) Oh boy, how time flies. Just had "makan" with 2 other closest friends of mine recently and I felt like it was just a couple of months back when all of us were just graduated. Well, to begin with, all of us have moved on with our own lives with different paths and priorities in lives. My dearest friend Mel, who still keep her primary "yearbook" till now (I wonder where I chucked mine??) ,showed me hers. The "yearbook" is basically a small notebook where friends will write something in it for her to remember later on in lives for example wishes and something to remember about that person. I saw mine written in it and oh boy, I just couldn't believe myself writing all those cheesy stuff to her like "Hope you study hard so you don't break your parents' hearts"...something like that.....Huh??Me, wrote something like that to her?? What on earth am I thinking when I wrote that to her? Then there was this short biodata about myself that I included in her yearbook as well like My favourite actress = Mary-Kate & Ashley Olsen etc...Duh!! That should summed up which era I was in that time. Ha! Ha!

Another year has passed and I realised that I'm not getting any younger as well. Never have thought myself getting married this year...ooppss.....I meant last year(gotta get used of 2007) and the possibility of getting pregnant later on! (*gasp!).

Oh well...I believe 2007 will be an awesome year for both of us with God as our strength and provider. So,here it goes..

Blessed New Year People!!

Yaa--ay! Its a HOLIDAY!

It has been a while since I really rested. Been pretty caught up with work lately like working on the weekends which was really pathetic. Was so exhausted and drained out. Thank God, today is a holiday. Been sleeping till 12 noon(awww...thats a luxury to me) before hubby decided to wake me up for lunch. Aww..www! I was really "konked" after attended a friend's wedding back in Ipoh last night. And when we came back home last night after the wedding, accompanied hubby to watch his favourite Arsenal against Chelsea. Did not manage to stay awake for the whole game, the bed was just so comfy that after the half-time, I fall asleep in just few seconds. Hubby was of coz' so into the game, cheering his team whenever they missed a goal or vice-versa. Even though I did not watch the whole game till the end, I was secretly hoping that Arsenal will win. Too many people supporting Chelsea d!Hah!!

Ok...Ok...where was I? Why I'm talking about football here...??*scratching my head. And oh ya, about my friend's wedding. Seriously, this month I was invited to 5 weddings altogether and my weekends are fully booked. My pockets are dry too. Haha! I was just wondering to myself, this month must be a good month then to have so many friends having it on this month. Had a conversation with my colleague the other day and was jokingly said to her when I'm going to hear wedding bells soon from her? Her response was, have to wait for "dragon" year first, only "ong"...I was puzzled initially but was even more puzzled when she told me even when expecting a child, if possible to make sure the child is born in the year of dragon preferably. Huh??That serious? I didn't know that. That was really something pretty new to me. Hmmm...I wonder whats the significance of it?Didn't manage to ask my colleague more about it coz' her bf came and off she went. Totally forgot about it till yesterday, after my friend's wedding. Talk about Chinese custom...confusing!