dancing+baby

last night i enjoyed watching a dance performance with the bride-to-be and came away feeling a little amused at myself.

there were mainly classical acts, with two contemporary ones which i must say, were actually my favorite. i don't know if it's cuz the usual excerpts of classic pieces are performed so often that i've become a little bored with the choreography (since the choreo can't divert too much cuz well, they're classics) OR i'm just dying to see the full story being performed.

OR it could be that i'm just more naturally intrigued by the challenges choreographers take upon themselves to pair non-classical songs with renewed creativity, producing refreshing pieces over and over again. while i love the fine lines and grace that ballet embraces, the way that contemporary and modern styles dare to break new ground and challenge the use of space, time and the human body is always exciting for me. yet there really is no better training (in terms of foundation) than what ballet is able to offer for a dancer.

that said, there were 'interesting' moments last night too.

a spectator who used flash photography during the performance who later had the camera confiscated (like, hello!!?? where's your manners and sense of respect for fellow audience and the dancers??)

a not so little girl seated in front of us putting her foot onto the railing before her, thereby blocking our view and confounding me when her mum didn't do anything about it.

highly enthusiastic members of the audience who kept applauding at totally inappropriate moments, drowning out the music that the dancers needed to hear and spoiling a few moments of suspense inherent in the piece.

i was also a little amused at how much the bride-to-be fussed over me so much :P the hubby just smiled when i told him about it. hee.

****

i feel a little perplexed at this stage of pregnancy: i'm not supposed to feel anything in the womb yet but last night every time i turned in my sleep, i could feel the shift in weight at the tummy. makes me wonder if i made baby poh giddy :P

my tummy's hurting again too. it happened the first time on sunday morning, when short sharp pulls in the right side of the tummy made it real uncomfortable. a friend said it could be the baby pulling at the umbilical cord or the womb's expanding, as it happened to her in her first pregnancy. this morning, the pain's in the left side. and still is happening as i type this.

with the number of things that can go wrong in a pregnancy, how did women in the past survive with the little knowledge they had? gosh.

not enough

as i lay in bed on sunday night while waiting for the hubby to come to bed, i suddenly melted into a puddle of tears.

fears of not being able to be the mum i want to be, of not being able to parent my kid(s) well, of the times of hurt i'll experience when they rebel (ya, think so far right)...fears that i'll not be enough.

as the hubby prayed for us and baby poh, felt God remind me "you're not meant to be enough. I didn't create you to be enough. only I am."

the Truth that i needed! even the hubby and i aren't enough for each other, and we can't be. i will never be enough for my kids, and this i must tell myself when the perfectionist-idealistic me springs up to attempt to conquer the world. or when the kids feel disappointed in their mum who is only human. they too will need to learn that i'm not meant to be enough for them. only God is.

time passing me by

it's been a week since our first gynae visit, but it feels way more than that. it's quite scary too, that i'm starting my 4th month into the pregnancy.

if i allow myself to, i might start freaking out at the expenses for the numerous baby stuff (essentials) that are needed, about breastfeeding correctly, about labor, about our hopefully soon to receive home, about putting on weight and not fat, about eating well for baby poh and me...about a million things. in a blink of an eye, i'm gonna be a mum, whether or not i feel ready.

*sigh* i MUST not allow faith to be shaken, especially if i only choose to look at myself or to cower when fear looms around. worry isn't of God, and without faith it is impossible to please God. when i falter, help me to overcome my unbelief Lord!

the miracle of creation

i had signed up as a member of babycenter.com and every week they'll send me an email to tell me how the baby's growing inside the womb, and what unseen changes are taking place. here's what it says of week 13.

Fingerprints have formed on your baby's tiny fingertips, her veins and organs are clearly visible through her still-thin skin, and her body is starting to catch up with her head -- which makes up just a third of her body size now. If you're having a girl, she now has more than 2 million eggs in her ovaries. Your baby is almost 3 inches long (the size of a medium shrimp) and weighs nearly an ounce. As you start your second trimester, most of your baby's critical development will be completed and your odds of miscarriage drop considerably

3inches is about 7.5cm, a growth of 1.5cm from last week. how in the world does 7.5cm contain all the organs??

it's real cool that the fingerprints have been formed :)

and i didn't even know we're capable of 2million eggs. but if we (i.e. gals) ovulate from say...13-50, that still makes it less than 500 eggs being used. what happens to the rest of the 1.9million eggs?? 2million eggs in a 7.5cm foetus??

don't even try to sell me the idea that evolution is the way man. nooooo way. this, has to be the work of an amazing God (:

wanting to leave a legacy

as part of my IBS homework to journal about the psalms, i was doing an entry on psalm 25 on friday and verse 14 stuck out like a sore thumb.

"The secret of the LORD is with those who fear Him, and he will show them His covenant."

having been reading and thinking quite a bit recently on David and Solomon, i became convinced that the fear of God is of utmost importance, no matter what spiritual gifts or wisdom one may have. and i was determined that baby poh learns this from young, and that we as his/her parents, will demonstrate that in our lives. it won't be easy! even bible bigshots had their pitfalls. but such a legacy will go beyond anything that we can offer our children in their lives.

as i began to pray for baby poh on saturday night while lying in bed, i suddenly became overwhelmed with emotion. it almost seemed like i had a delayed emotional reaction to the whole pregnancy cuz i cried like mad as i prayed, thanking God for creating baby poh, the way He protected the child while i danced like nobody's business in july-august, totally unaware of the little one inside me. it was a good cry, almost comforting actually.

i went on a shopping trip yesterday with joey, and headed to my sunset home for dinner with family. i thought i had shopped quite a bit, but when my mum started pulling out clothes from her wardrobe for me to try, i was quite astounded. in the end i lugged back another bag of clothes from my mum's stash, stuff that she rarely wears these days. i have absolutely no more space in my wardrobe for any more clothes, unless i try to reorganize the way things are arranged. but i'm really pleased with one particular top mum passed to me. it's a top that she wore when she was pregnant with me! :D can you imagine? it's 25 years old! i don't know if i can make it last till my own daughter gets pregnant in future but i just thought it's kinda cool to wear what my mum wore when she had me (: my brother thought it was really weird though. i told him it's probably a girl thing. i shall take a picture of it when i get around to wearing it.

when the hubby jets off around the world

last night i sent the hubby (and 2 other colleagues) off at the airport for their 5day recce trip to calcutta. this is going to be the first of quite a few of the hubby's trips to various places.

dec-church camp (my first time to KL!) + hubby's india mission trip (10days)

jan-production training trip to US (approx 2 weeks)

feb-1st week i've a retreat, 2nd week another retreat while hubby's at ICT

april-hubby's 2nd ICT, before baby poh arrives

this schedule is so deja vu, as we had experienced similar periods of separation early on in our relationship. the difference now is that we're married, i'm expecting, and staying with my in-laws. aside from the finances that we're trusting God to provide for all of these trips, we're needing to manage the emotional challenges this brings to the relationship.

since we confirmed the pregnancy, the hubby has been such a great source of comfort with his mere presence when i suddenly feel sick, become massively bloated at night, praying for us and baby poh while i struggle to keep awake at night. at the same time, i know i'm needing to learn to be reliant on Him for the strength that i need, and to learn to be independent. the latter will be crucial i think, if i'm seriously considering working and caring for baby poh in the future. it's a challenge to work the gynae appointments around this schedule though. and i haven't gotten to the antenatal classes yet. :P

that said, it was good to be able to see the gynae before the hubby jetted off. though we had an appointment, the queue for the ultrasound scan was over an hour long. we found out why there were possible delays as baby poh wasn't too cooperative that day.

as we stared at the screen with amazement when the images of baby poh came on, i realized that his/her size could only mean one thing: i'm more pregnant than i thought. true enough, the specialist (not the gynae) announced that i'm 3months pregnant. but i was totally distracted with staring at our little one to realize what this meant till we left the room. the specialist needed to vertically measure baby poh but repeated probing of my stomach failed to make baby poh move from a horizontal position. but the way baby poh floundered in the womb when probed was absolutely hilarious and cute (: even a walk proved futile to budge my probably sleeping baby.

once out of the room and waiting to see the gynae, i whipped out my calendar to count when i had conceived. last week of july. that means, my weird hormones had caused me to ovulate extremely quickly, for my period had ended just the week before. or maybe even a few days, since i don't keep track of these things very well. anyhow, baby poh is expected to be due on 26april, with the possibility of being a week early.

now that we have baby poh, it'll be 2 of us waiting for the hubby to return (:

a pleasant wednesday morning

the day started out with a relaxed journey to work as i had a late morning meeting outside the office. after purchasing the envelopes needed for newsletter stuffing, i settled into a nice spot at the refurbished coffeebean at paya lebar singpost.

i was quite happy to see that they had a small but thoughtful selection of caffeine-free teas. after confirming the pregnancy, i'm abstaining from caffeine as much as i can, which isn't easy since i love the aroma and calming effect various teas have on me. having already had my quota this month (so set by the hubby), i'm very mindful of what's available on the drinks menu every time i eat out, which is often. i chose a berry tea and quite liked how its red essence swooshed around in the fat tea cup. having been warned by the barrista that it has a sour tinge to it, i dunked four teaspoons of sugar syrup into it. i suppose the syrup was a tad diluted as it needed a few more spoons of syrup to make it drinkable.

watching the rain gently pelting outside, i began on my IBS assignment of memorizing 50 verses from the psalms. it is definitely no easy task, especially when the perfectionist in me wants to get every word right. i'm given leeway to make up to a few mistakes each verse, but...nah... :P

my lunch appointment arrived at 1130 and as i tucked into my very yummy 'brek-o-day', i was very glad for the delightful conversation that followed. though it wasn't a lengthy lunch, i learnt a lot about the dance scene and am thankful that God has placed this lady in the commercial dance circle. i only wish there was more of my lunch since it was so very yummy.

now that i'm back in the office, it's nice that it's so quiet for once, since most colleagues from the other two departments aren't in. i shall get moving on the envelopes. they look too blank for their own good.

morning sickness?

this post was going to be titled and detailed entirely differently, until this morning. having woken up at 630am after less than 5hours of dream filled and interrupted sleep, i was feeling rather confident about making it to office early to have my second breakfast before my meeting.

as hormones (or whatever the cause was) would have it, i began feeling really tired at tiong bahru (going by the mrt stations) and by outram, badly needed a seat on the really packed train. standing right beside the door, i was shoved into an even tighter space when this plump guy entered and chose to stand 5cm away from my face, with his weird smelling cologne right in my nostrils. the even more packed train didn't help. starting to feel faint and nauseous, i quickly scrambled out of the train to a seat on the platform. suddenly my stomach lurched, and though i frantically reached for a plastic bag, i threw up too soon, right on the tanjong pagar mrt platform.

man, it stank :S

it was at this point in time, even as i was embarrassed at my totally unglam moment, i wondered how many of the well-suited cdb people would stop to help me. it took almost a full minute as the crowds walked past me before a lady patted my back, and another lady offered me a huge pack of tissue. suffice to say, i was super grateful, and even more so for the mrt staff who wheel-chaired me to the staff quarters so i could rest. i just feel so bad for the staff who had to clean up my mess :( oh, and the staff even escorted me to the train later and got a guy to give up his seat for me :)

i eventually made it to work, just in time for my meeting. *sigh* i don't know if it was morning sickness or the bad smelling cologne or a mixture of everything.

in any case, what i was going to blog about was that i'm extremely pleased with 3 new tops that i got last night on an impromptu date with the hubby. it's the first time i'm buying M and L sized tops for myself, having to bear in mind that i need to give space for growing baby poh to fit in. more shopping is to come, with many of my normal clothes becoming a tad too tight already.

i'm looking forward to thursday, when we'll finally see the gynae, and find out how baby poh is (: