Time flies.....

 

Tomorrow, 1st April 2011 Insha'Allah I will be 7 months pregnant. I've not blog much about my second pregnancy as compared to my first. Alhamdulillah, everything is the same; feeling, treatment from hubby and loved ones and just everything is like that special first time pregnant feeling. From the moment before I found out of my pregnancy until today, I'm experiencing the same exact feeling as when I was carrying Khairaldin. The only difference this time around is that I have more aches and pains. Well, what would you expect, I've an active toddler who somehow suddenly needs my attention. Ever since the baby started moving, Khairaldin has been so clingy and demanding. Everything will be "Mommy this, Mommy that." I'm sure he's tad bit jealous but at the same time whenever we talk about 'the baby' he's the one coming to my tummy and kissing it. I pray that his love for his li'l brother or sister will grow stronger as soon as they meet each other physically, Insha'Allah.

Anyway, I remember compiling photos of my first pregnancy. It's like, everyone wanted to see how a "small" lady like me can carry such huge belly. So, this time around, I'm gonna do the same just because I wanna be fair. Speaking of "small", Iskandar kept saying that I looked bigger/chubbier when I was pregnant with Khairaldin, this time around, I'm not that chubby. LOL! He made my day for sure. :D The last time I checked, I've only put on 8kilos and to think I'm almost 7 months pregnant. I just hope I wont put a lot more at the very last stages. I managed to put on about 15kgs when I was carrying Khairaldin, so yeah you can see why I'm happy about the compliment. ;)  

Other than that, I'm just praying this will be a smooth sailing pregnancy and delivery. May Allah give me the strength that I truly need from now until the day comes. I'm still having trouble trying to get Khairaldin to sleep with others than myself. If he can't accommodate with this change then the next thing is to pray harder that I will give birth at wee hours in the morning when he's sound asleep. AMIN!!!! Either way, I'm sure HIS plan is way better than mine. So I'll do the best I can now and let HIM plan the rest. Insha'Allah.

Here goes, me being pregnant. Hahaha

6 weeks pregnant

I didn't know I was pregnant until 7 weeks later!

I was carrying Khairaldin for a total of 10 hours!! Beat that.

Such a long gap after that because I didn't know I was pregnant. Pictures above was just a coincidence as we were on holiday. I would've documented my journey if I had known earlier. But hey, you can't really see the tummy till 20+ weeks anyway.

20 weeks pregnant

24 weeks pregnant

26 weeks pregnant

Tasha at 6 months pregnant and I maybe 15 weeks pregnant

I just love how my cheeks aren't that pregnant like chubby, if u know what I mean! Or, maybe I grew into it? Blegh.

So, that's some random update from me which you will not get that often. Maybe the next time will be during my third pregnancy? Well, who knows. :)

Our healthcare experience in Malaysia (part 2)

So, day 2 didn't go as well as we would have thought. The doctor came and examined just once. We waited anxiously for the doctor to knock our door on day 3. All the 3 of us woke up early hoping we could go home before noon. Well, long story short she came quite late and Khairaldin couldn't be discharged by noon time. He had another course of antibiotic to finish up. So we had to wait.......

Oh, remember the doctor asked for Khairaldin's urine on day 2? Again I had to ask on the results. The doctor was soooo blur that she had to ask the nurse what the result was. That part wasn't so annoying, what was annoying was that the urine couldn't be processed because he was dehydrated!!! Seriously??? Couldnt they tell before taking it? I won't complain if the procedure was an easy and not painful on him. It's not that easy to put the urine bag on Khairaldin and it was painful!!! They should've thought of it first before asking us for the urine! Anyway, the doctor had the cheek to request for another urine sample. I had half my mind to not carry on with it because Khairaldin has became somewhat phobia with the nurses. But because it was for his health, we gave them permission to go ahead and literally stick another bag. The doctor then said she'll come back in the evening to give us the result. Heh.

We carried on with the waiting game. Khairaldin slept for a while after he was given his antibiotic. Around 3p.m, he was bored and wanted to run around. We took him round the ward and the room since we couldn't do much just in case the doctor arrives. Thankfully he managed to keep himself occupied regardless of being in a boring hospital. He went in and out the 'cupboard', not so sure how many times but he wasn't complaining. 



About 6p.m, the doctor came to check on him and of course by this time it's wayyy obvious that he was well and kicking, Alhamdulillah. The doctor asked if we were happy to be discharged and of course we couldn't help it but to shout a big "YES!!". She then told us that we could go as there was nothing 'seriously' wrong with him. We asked again.....how was his urine result and she said, "oh, that's all clear, no worries." We asked, what exactly went wrong with him? She said "it's "PROBABLY" just gastric and nothing big". And she asked, "oh by the way, has he ever had a rotavirus injection?" We confirmed that he never had one and asked why? She said, "oh nothing, but he's not got any rotavirus". Alright, fair enough. Even though we were given a 'probably' diagnosis, we pretended to be happy and packed our bags to go home. After all, every hour at a private hospital is billed onto your bill. So, escape as soon as they give you the green light to do so! No kidding.

That's us excited to go home and just waiting for our bill

Really my point of writing here is not to say that the healthcare service in Malaysia is all bad. I mean come on, we've only been to one and it was an unfortunate event that we were given the 'not so right' doctor. I'm sure there are a few good doctors at DSH, if not at least one. A few people asked us to change doctor but it was too late then. I don't get the idea of it being a specialist and private hospital yet we were treated as if we were not paying them enough. After the supposedly diagnosis, we even felt as if we were just being admitted for our money more than for his sickness. I was so sure we could be discharged by day 2 as Khairaldin was feeling much better. But sadly, the doctor wasn't around.

Anyway, we had a follow up appointment, and when we were in her clinic, she didn't even look in her file and started asking us, "is he the one with rotavirus?". We said, not that we know off. Then she carried on saying "I think it was him because we did a test and it came back positive for rotavirus." Seriously, if you are a parent, you would be so anxious and wanting to know more about it. Her "I thinks" were really disturbing and it took her 10 minutes to check with the nurse. In the end, she came back and said, "oh no, it wasn't him. It was another child who came in at the same time as him." WHATTTTTTTT??????? Sigh. It's really an unpleasant experience. If it was a government hospital, we wouldn't mind because we know how many cases they have to attend to in a day. Well, at least more than that of private hospital! So yeah, we had a reason to be upset.

My advice is for you Mommies and Daddies to check which 'good paeditrician' there is at the hospital you're sending your child to. Doesn't mean it is a private and specialist hospital everyone there is up to the standard you'd expect. :)

Journey to diaper-free toddler

Here's a video of Khairaldin on the 'throne'. Since many of you have asked how I'm dealing with it seeing that he's only 19 months old, Insha'Allah I will share our jouney to a diaper free toddler as soon as we hit the success point. For now, lets just say, we are still getting there at a very.............. slow pace...... after all I'm giving myself a limit of THREE months. LOL! Insha'Allah, slowly but surely!!!! Thanks all for ur support, even if it's virtually. :) JazakAllah Khair. *hugs*

 

Our healthcare experience in Malaysia (part 1)

Our recent trip to Malaysia was different in so many ways. One of it was to do with healthcare. Before 'going back' to Malaysia, I've had doubts about the healthcare system there. Even though we've not used the healthcare in the UK that much but I can assure you when we do, it's always up to our satisfaction. People say cheap things have no quality, I'd beg to differ because the healthcare in UK is free (yeah we are being taxed but that's still a small amount) and still we get really good service from the healthcare people.

As most of you already know, I was contemplating on whether to give birth in Malaysia or UK this time round so, I've been asking (blogging) people about their birth experience. Alhamdulillah, I got a few feedbacks about giving birth in Malaysia. Little did I know, we got the 'chance' to experience the healthcare system in Malaysia, unfortunate event but I'm glad Alhamdulillah we experienced it first hand. No doubt I should not judge our experience to the one of giving birth as I'm sure the services are different when giving birth.

So, what did we experience? A few weeks after we arrived Malaysia, Khairaldin wasn't feeling too well. He had stomachache and was purging one whole morning. It was only 3-4 nappy change that he suffered the stomach bug but because he wasn't his active self, both Iskandar and I were worried. We then brought him to the nearest private clinic. We didn't give much thought about where we were bringing him as we thought any DR/GP will deliver the same quality, yes?..... So anyway, we were prescribed with 3 different medications- 1) fever medication (he didn't even have any fever), 2) salt drink for his dehydration (good enough), 3) medication for his tummy (we thought, great! Just what we needed).

We got home, gave him his medication for tummy and salt water thingie. He then slept straight after. Iskandar and I were pleased as we needed the break too. About an hour later, he woke up and vomited everything he had in the morning. Alright! medication's kicking in, so we thought. About an hour later, he vomited again! And it's not a small amount of vomit, it's almost as big as his size. Yes, it was a huge amount of vomit!!!! We didn't feel good so we brought him to Damansara Specialist Hospital for further check up. Waited for our turn to be seen and Khairaldin was so lethargic by then. When we saw the DR, she told us that he was really weak and need to be admitted on drips. We were expecting that anyway because he didn't want to drink or eat anything. So he was admitted. I was asked who his paediatrician was but we said we are here on holiday hence we don't have any paediatrician here in DSH/Malaysia. The DR then said ok, I'll give you the on-call paediatrician to look after him. Ok, as long as Khairaldin's in good hands (Doctors and nurses), we were fine with it. Khairaldin was put on drips and he didn't bother fighting with the nurses when they were poking him with needles etc. He was too weak by now.

Later on, the paediatrician came to see and examine him. He was sleeping at this time so she didn't want to disturb him. The paed asked us his medical history and what happened to him. She also asked us for the medication that was given by the clinic we visited in the morning. We showed her the medications and she was ok with all except one medication. It was the one supposedly for his tummyache. She told us that the medication was for older children and not for his age group. The paed made sure that we threw the medication and not to give it to him ever again. So we threw it away. We were quite upset at this point because we thought the GP was helping us to cure him!!! Alhamdulillah we only gave him once and his body reacted straight away. Otherwise we could have made situation even worse. Nauzubillahiminzalik... The paed also requested for his urine to see if he was suffering from Urinary Tract Infection (UTI). We managed to give them the urine sample around midnight since Khairaldin didn't have anything to drink except for the drips.

So, day 1 at hospital went smoothly. Khairaldin had his rest, antibiotics and paediatrician visit. Alhamdulillah we are in good hands........

 

 

Having said that, day 2 came along. The paed came in the morning to see him. She asked if everything was ok. She saw that Khairaldin was still weak so told us she'll be coming back in the evening to see if he could be discharged later in the evening or if he needs anymore medication. Even though she seemed helpful, I had to keep asking her what is wrong with Khairaldin. I also had to ask if his urine sample came back OK. After asking only she explained to me that they couldn't test his urine because it was left outside the lab for quite a while so the urine wasn't "as fresh". She then said that she needed another sample and will ask the nurse to get it from us once it's ready. I thought fine, the hospital did seem rather busy so the urine could easily be faulty. We then waited for Khairaldin to wee again and called the nurse as soon as we had the sample. We made sure that the urine was fresh enough for them. We waited for evening to come as the paediatrician promised to see us again. By 5pm we asked the nurse where the DR was, she then said "Oh! Today is actually her day off so she won't be coming in to do her evening rounds. Just mornings." Iskandar and I both thought.... "Whattttttt? Isn't there like a replacement DR? I mean, she's dealing with a child here how could she not attend to patients? At least pass the case on to a different paediatrician....right????! Well, isn't that how it's soupposed to work???" We were so furious but we didn't want to take it on the nurses. Khairaldin definitely felt much better as he can talk, sit and eat as normal. But we are stuck for another day just because it's the doctor's day off!

Day 3........ To be continued. Insha'Allah.

Pantang schmantang! :D

Famous question: "how do you 'pantang' in the UK?"

11 days after delivery.....

I have been getting this question quite a lot lately- confinement in the UK. Or as the Malays(ians) would call it 'pantang'. Let me tell you that this entry may seem like I am an anti pantang lady but truth is, I am not an anti-pantang larang lady. In fact, I'm all out for it because it gives the Mother time to recuperate and get back on their feet. It really is very helpful to confine yourself for a while because it's not easy to sort things out whilst caring for the baby and yourself. So yes, confinement is indeed good for post natal. The thing that gets to me is when people try very hard to impose unreasonable 'pantang' because 'it was pass down from our ancestors'. There are things that we should strongly do and there are also those that we have to leave behind because it only causes further burden to the mother and/or baby.

There are a few pantang that Malays(ians) impose onto newly Mom's. The pantang starts straight after delivery up to 40-100 days. It 'concentrates' on aspects such as food, drinks, the way they walk, sit, sleep, bathe etc etc. Basically every single thing newly moms do is being scrutinised. I am sure there are reasons behind the dos and don't's. I mean, I strongly agree that mothers should eat proper food to help with breastfeeding. The food Mothers eat really do help with production of breastmilk. So go ahead and eat healthily!

Here are the pantang that I feel is rather inappropriate:

1) Sleeping in separate beds with husband for 40 days or more.
To me, there shouldn't be any reason at all to sleep in separate beds with Hubby once you are married. Separating yourself from Hubby is as bad as separation. So, it's best to be there for the Husband/Wife all the time. The birth of a child shouldn't make your life with Husband any more complicated. :)

2) Shouldn't have a bath straight after delivery. 
In Islam, we should always keep our self, home and everything around us clean and tidy. After delivery, there will be an awful lots of blood flowing and really it is not clean and hygienic to let it 'stay there'. In the UK, mothers are asked to have their bath as soon as they deliver to clean themselves. Yes it hurts but it's also for the Mother's own good. If you are given the chance to have for your bath, go straight in the toilet, run the shower and niat 'mandi Wiladah', it is not a must on you, but it's best to do something with a niat.--- full explanation here. You will feel more comfortable, clean and ready to get on with the day once you have had your bath. Once you've started feeding and caring for the baby, you won't know when's the next free time you have. So, whilst the baby is still sleeping and getting used to the surrounding, have your bath and clean yourself.

3) No to iced water!
Until today, I'm still not sure why we can't drink iced water after delivery. Anyone care to explain? Coz in the UK, the only drink we are given straight after delivery is cold iced water! No such thing as warm water. And I asked the Midwife if it's ok, apparently according to her, it helps with the blood. Which is rather weird.

4) Clothe yourself with as much clothes as you can. 
Ok only exaggerating, but basically when you are in the confinement period, Malays(ians) believe that it's better if you wear cardigan over your t-shirt, with a long pants or sarong and also socks. Personally to me, being in too much clothing only makes me uncomfortable and restless. When I gave birth to Khairaldin, I had a hard time breastfeeding him because he just wouldn't wake up for milk. Then he had jaundice and my milk wasn't properly produced. I was advised by the midwife, nurses etc not to wear any clothes and to put him on my chest. It's called the skin-to-skin technique where he was more comfortable and can smell my skin. So I did as I was told. Alhamdulillah, he instantly 'looked' for milk. From then on breastfeeding was a brezze for the both of us.

5) Not to go out of the house during confinement period.
But apparently going to the doctors fot check ups is ok? The first question my midwife asked me when Khairaldin got back home was, "have you brought him out for a walk etc?" "You can't lock him in the house for long because when you start bringing him out, his antibody might not be immuned to the surrounding." And my reaction was YEAY!! Which mother would want to stay in a place for a long long time? 2 days is long enough! So hearing those advice from my midwife made me jump out of bed and straight out of the house. Fresh air from outside is very much needed at this point in time.

I think that's about the only pantang that I am not too keen of. I'm not judging those who follow each and every pantang. By all means, it's a personal choice so do whatever suits you the most. However, it is when I am being judged for not doing what is supposed to be tradition that annoys me. Following tradition blindly could cause us to sway from our already prefect religion. It is best to weigh things first before attempting to do it. Insha'Allah, Allah will guide us through the righteous path if our intention is to do so.

Human beings are different in so many ways and it's difficult to impose a certain 'way of life' onto them. I mean come on, even the Quran states what we should and shouldn't do but it's not that we follow it as we are supposed to. Hence, imposing tradition onto someone who could not fathom the idea will only upset them. Like I said, most traditions were passed down from our ancestors so, maybe at that time those traditions were relevant but in this modernised time it may not make sense anymore. Respect others for their personal choice. :)