Wow I’m on a roll this week. Third blog post in four days! I guess part of it is having Fighter around and being very aware he’ll grow up so fast. Too fast, in fact! Which is why I need to document as much of life with him as I can before he flies away to college! *already experiencing empty nest syndrome.
Why, even now I look at him and marvel at how big he’s gotten compared to the days in hospital when he was this tiny titchy red-faced thing.
He’s still red-faced.
For some reason, Fighter hates getting his diaper changed. Vivy and I were swapping mom stories and she told me that Daniel loves getting his diaper changed. When they pull at his diaper he goes quiet right away cos he knows he’s getting a nice fresh diaper on.
Well, it’s nothing like that for Fighter. *slumped shoulders
Whenever he does a poo, he cries like he’s getting whacked. Cos presumably he hates sitting in a wet diaper.
Then when we change his diaper, he cries like someone’s out to kill him.
You could say diaper changing for Fighter is a slightly stressful and harried affair. Rush to unbutton his onesie, open his diaper, clean his butt as efficiently as possible, swab on the nappy rash cream and strap on the new diaper, all the while hushing him and trying to calm him down.
The other day he pooped and started wailing again. I rushed to pick him up and slotted my phone under my armpit so I could carry him better.
I’m thinking of getting ear plugs.
Then a weird thing happened. My phone which was under my armpit turned on by itself (probably because I was pressing it) and started playing music.
He stopped crying.
For the first time in his life during diaper change he lay there contentedly and let me change him in peace while the music played.
I already knew he liked music because I used to sing to him a lot when he was in the NICU. And sometimes when he was worked up, I’d sing to him and he would calm down, though not all the time.
But now we also know he has awesome taste in music. The song that was playing was the Beatles’ Blackbird.
How’d you know we named you after another of their songs, Fighter!? Hehe.
Wah I can’t remember the last time I blogged about an event (that wasn’t a product launch)! I get so lazy to take photos most of the time cos I just wanna enjoy myself la hiuh wtf. But I wanted to blog about Nuffnang Food Fest cos I thought it was an awesome event! Yay Nuffies for doing such a good job on it!
Anyway like Fatty said, we took some time off from Fighter last Saturday (insert mommy guilt) and headed to the Nuffnang Food Fest. The Food Fest is the first of its kind because you tweet to eat!
Loads of food vendors (chain and independent) set up stalls and offered free food. All a customer had to do was either scan the QR code with the Nuffnang Food Fest app, tweet about the Food Fest and the vendor, or like the vendor’s FB page and they’d receive free food!
It’s Malaysia and Malaysians love food and anything free so it was a recipe for success la hahaha.
When we got there it was already this packed. o.O
Another shot of the crowd, stolen from Fatty. Seriously so many people!
First stop was Niko Niko Onigiri for onigiri (obviously, wtf). Fats took this picture of the back of my head wah the back of my head also so nice WTF.
With my uhh twin sister Bobo. Hahahah no la when we were working in the same company loads of people thought we were sisters. Apparently we look quite alike! Bobo has her own twin though, sorry Gin take your place hahaha.
With Bega, Gin, Sherlyn and Bo. And my onigiri.
With Sherlyn and Bobo again. And Fatty the conspicuous photobomber. It was supposed to be an all girls picture haha.
Ok la Fatty we take our own picture! Fatty holding his liquid nitrogen ice cream from NBrew. I love liquid nitrogen ice cream…
But what I loved even more was this independent ice cream store called Cielo Dolci. I got a Tau Foo Fah flavored ice cream from them god I love tau foo fah (with white sugar ahem).
They also had a very interesting Nasi Lemak flavor ice cream there. It basically tasted like frozen nasi lemak with bits of ikan bilis (anchovies). Interesting but…. I don’t think I’m having it again thanks. Lolol.
Met super lots of blog readers there! Fats took this picture of me signing someone’s phone cover O.O I felt like I was ruining her phone hahaha.
Thanks for approaching me everyone!!! At one point we couldn’t move one step without people coming up to us hahaha and I was a bit overwhelmed but it was very nice to meet all of you!
Stealing photos I was tagged in on Instagram…
With Brian. His friend commented we were the Petronas Twin Towers lolol.
With Michelle (I’m guessing hahaha)
Vivian? Hahaha. I usually only realize how short I am if I take pictures with other people. T_T
Wen and her friend? Lolol.
All in all it was quite fun! Partly cos it was my first official outing after Fighter was born hahaha.
Me of the day! Dress is from Sherlyn‘s online shop – I like the side cutouts and the fact that it’s a dress and doesn’t press on my C sect scar wtf hmm maybe I should wear more dresses – and Converse sneakers.
Lots of people came up to Fatty and told him Nuffnang should do more Food Fests so I guess it was very well received! Again congrats to the Nuffnang team for putting together such an awesome event — but then they always execute projects well. 🙂
So last night I fed Fighter his bottle and because he drank a bit more than he does usually, the confinement auntie told me I should hold him so he’d be a bit more upright (so he doesn’t spit up milk or choke on it) instead of putting him to bed right away.
I held him for a while… then thought I’d better go shower before it got too late.
I said to Fatty who was playing GTA 5 on his Playstation, “Here Fatty can you hold him while I go shower?”
He said sure. So off I went upstairs to shower.
When I got out of the shower the confinement auntie came looking for me, asking where Fighter was.
I said, “isn’t he downstairs with his dad? That’s where I left him.”
Confinement auntie: “Huh really? The dad was playing his game, I thought.”
Went downstairs and saw this.
Who said men can’t multitask?
This morning I took Fighter to the hospital for his eye checkup. As a preemie he’s susceptible to eye problems present and future (especially retinopathy of prematurity) so he needs to go for regular checks to monitor his eye development.
(He’d already done one test in the NICU and this was a follow up.)
The nurse told me they had to dilate his eyes first. I had my eyes dilated before for LASIK and although it wasn’t painful it was a bit uncomfortable and I was worried how Fighter would take it.
Since he was a baby and was sleeping, the nurse dripped the eye drops onto his closed eyes. According to her, babies would open their eyes eventually and the drops would seep in.
Not this baby.
Not only did he screw his eyes shut, he also pressed his mouth closed tight in case we decided to pop anything else into his mouth.
Hahahahahaha I bet they never encountered such a stubborn baby before. T_____T
In the end we had to gently pry his eyelids open so the drops could go in. >_>
(the purple spot on his forehead is dirt on the inside of my camera >_>)
When his eyes were dilated enough, he was ushered in to the doctor who was wearing some sort of contraption on his head for him to study Fighter’s retinas.
The doctor used a metal piece to clamp Fighter’s eyes open while he peered into them with a penlight.
Fighter bawled and bawled. The worst part of it was I could see him trying to avoid the light shining into his eyes but he couldn’t even blink. And then the doctor had to do it all over again for the other eye.
When it was over, Fighter curled up and promptly fell asleep.
I was still bawling.
P/S: His eyes are all right! One good thing out of the entire ordeal hehe.
Don’t ask me, I don’t know.
Hahahaha all the people landing here from Google searches are gonna kill me.
To be honest, that’s something I’ve been going nuts over as well.
I read tons of articles and forum threads on this. How to lose weight after pregnancy, does breastfeeding help (yes, apparently), how many calories do you burn breastfeeing (something like 500 a day), how soon can I exercise after a C section (6 weeks at least), what exercises can I do after a C section, how to get rid of the ‘shelf’ you get from a C section. You name it, it’s probably in my Google history.
All sorts of tips are readily available if you do an Internet search so I’m not going to list all of them here. But I am going to say what I think worked for me, and what didn’t.
Admittedly, when I first found out I was pregnant, my first thought was HOW FAT AM I GONNA GET!?!?! From Instagram it looks like I’m back to my normal size now. Actually not really la wtf although I am close.
6.5 weeks postpartum I’m 40kg (down from 54kg), which is 2 kg more from my pre-pregnancy weight. My tummy is surprisingly flatter than I thought it could be although I probably cannot wear a bikini anytime soon wtf. My waist is 1-2 inches bigger than before and I still have some loose skin and flab in front and on the sides.
Besides that, like most other Caesareans, I have the dreaded ‘shelf’ above my incision scar. Like this:
Most clothes will hide it cos it’s located right at the bikini line. But no matter how flat my tummy gets, that curved line (which is skin hanging over the scar) stays and gives the illusion of a huge blob of fat hanging. 🙁
(I also have ugly red jagged stretch marks on the side, which depressingly, are not from the baby bump, but from all the water I accumulated from preeclampsia — the water collected on the sides of my waist like ‘handles’ and they drooped alarmingly and jiggled when I walked. I was horrified because I thought it was fat, but the doctor told me it was water and sure enough as I lost the water the handles disappeared but they left these ugly stretch marks. 🙁 )
Keep in mind this is an extremely good picture wtf. I wanted to take a photo for this post but weirdly today my tummy looks flatter than it usually does I swear. -_- Also this was taken in the morning before any food and the loose skin and flab and ‘shelf’ is hidden under my pants wtf.
Oh ya! I also should add that before this, instead of a straight vertical line going down, my tummy was slanted outwards, starting from under my boobs. It’s only gotten better recently and I’ll elaborate further later.
Ok so here are what I thought worked for me. I’m not a scientist so I don’t know for sure but like I said this is what I did which I think contributed. Or it can just be genetic. Lolol.
1. Eating healthy
You don’t say, Captain Obvious. But I believe that healthy eating habits helped a lot in losing all that weight! Because I was in confinement I only ate home cooked meals which are obviously healthier and less fattening. I haven’t had Mcds in 3 months. ._.
And don’t overeat la! Some old folks say you should eat more during confinement to replenish whatever you’ve lost but I don’t think that’s necessary. -_- Just eat if you’re hungry and stop when you’re full la your body is smart enough to dictate. You might feel hungrier if you’re breastfeeding but somehow I didn’t so I just ate like normal.
I did drink a lot of fluids though. My mom banned me from drinking water (traditional confinement no-no) so I drank lots of red date tea and milk.
2. Breastfeeding
Breastfeeding can burn use up to 500 calories a day so it can be a good way to shed weight! Your body stores fat during pregnancy for this very purpose anyway. After I lost all my water weight, I lost 4 more kg after coming home from the hospital which I think can be attributed to breastfeeding cos I definitely didn’t do any exercise.
3. Urut
Urut is the traditional postpartum Malay massage supposed to massage the ‘wind’ out of your body and to get back your pre-pregnancy body. I was a bit doubtful but since everyone kept raving about it I decided to give it a try.
The urut lady is supposed to ‘push the uterus’ back into place, thus flattening your tummy but because I had a C section mine didn’t. She did however give me a full body rub and massaged out all the knots in my muscles. If anything it’s a very good way to chill after giving birth. ^^
Best of all, my stomach (real stomach, under the boobs) prior to doing the urut was rounded and puffy. I thought it was fat but the urut lady told me it was ‘wind’. She massaged the area, I farted the entire day wtf and by the next morning, my stomach had flattened out! I guess it was trapped air in my midsection that she released.
4. Core exercises
Most women develop diastasis recti postpartum, which is when your ab muscles separate stretch out and split into two sides, leaving a gap in the middle of the torso.
I read somewhere that the separated muscles are weak and are not holding your organs tight, which also contributes to your tummy sticking out. It kind of makes sense because when I stood up my tummy would pooch out, but if I lay down, it became totally flat, as if the organs were really moving around inside.
You can check for diastasis recti by getting into the position of a stomach crunch (on your back, knees bent). Try to lift up your head a bit and your ab muscles will contract right? At the same time, push two fingers into your tummy, 1-2 inches above your belly button. If your fingers sink in and you can feel a hole, you have diastasis recti.
I had it too so I had to retrain my core first before I can do any workouts. If the DR is not so bad (less than 2 fingers in) it will probably go away by itself but I wanted to make sure la.
So I retrained it by just doing Kegels and transverse abdominals (which is basically pulling in your belly button to your spine) like 30 times each a day. You can do it any time. Gradually my stomach got flatter and tighter! There’s still some fat, but my torso and even my back feels tighter and stronger overall.
Oh if you have diastasis recti, don’t do crunches or situps or even certain yoga poses before it’s healed! They will only worsen your condition and then you’re screwed wtf.
5. Not gaining so much weight during pregnancy
A lot of the older generation told me “EAT MORE YOU’RE EATING FOR TWO NOW”.
So NOT true. Dr Teresa warned me that I am definitely not eating for two, and she gives all her patients weight gain limits (for health reasons and for easy birthing reasons). It varies from person to person but averagely a pregnant woman should eat 500 calories more only during the 3rd trimester (source Whattoexpect which is the highest figure I found already compared to other sources).
And you should make those calories count – ie no junk food or sugary food, but nutritious calories. (Although I was quite bad at this; blame Fighter for wanting sweet foods.) The less you gain, the less you have to lose after pregnancy. After losing all the baby and water, I was 5-6 kg above my pre-pregnancy weight. More achievable than trying to lose 16 kg lo please.
6. Belly wraps
I don’t think they work. I never tried shapewear or corsets (tempting but a bit expensive hahaha) but I bought a belly wrap from Taiwan and my urut lady also gave me another wrap. The urut lady’s one was better cos it was firmer and didn’t stretch as much as the other one, but I think I got complacent wearing it.
The wrap was holding my shape, so my muscles didn’t have to. So I think it’s counter-productive la. If I don’t wear the wrap I’m more aware of my muscles and keep them pulled in which helps to tone my waist further.
They say corsets work but you’re supposed to wear them indefinitely and I don’t want to be relying on something and faking it. I want to be slim LEGITIMATELY. Lol.
Despite all that I’ve just said, today my waist is still bigger la, even though it’s flattish, due to my rib cage having expanded to accomodate the baby (although weirdly my pelvic bones didn’t). It will go back to normal eventually but may take a year supposedly.
Either way I’m glad to be able to fit back into some of my old clothes (not all, some only lolol) and looking like my old self! I don’t know if this post was useful, but hopefully it helps some of you at least a bit. ^^
Lately I’ve been really proud of Fighter. Because he’s a preemie we don’t expect too much of him but he seems to be doing very well developmentally and doing a lot of things right.
For example ever since he learned how to nurse, every time he’s hungry and I pick him up, he starts opening his mouth and rooting around my chest for milk hahaha.
The confinement auntie said “Smart baby. He knows who his mommy is; when I pick him up he doesn’t search for milk.”
Fighter you so smart! ^________^
Then last night he did this:
Fatty said, “Err Fighter why are you trying to suck my nipple?”
Not that smart after all this baby. Lolol.
A little while after that, I noticed his mitten slipped off while Fatty was carrying him.
I tried to put the mitten back on for him but he splayed his fingers and struggled a bit so I kept failing.
“Fighter keep still! You need your mitten or your hand will get cold!”
He gripped my finger and wouldn’t let go.
There are few things I can’t resist. Fighter holding my finger is one of them. T_____T
Ahhh okay la Fighter no mittens. I just hold your hand to keep it warm.
Fighter – 1, Mommy – 0.
Success!
Comes to those who wait. ^^
After more than a week of unsuccessfully getting Fighter to breastfeed, I was on the verge of giving up.
The books say to try at night when he’s too sleepy and hungry to resist the breast. Fail. He’s never too sleepy to beat away the breast wtf. Or if he is, he just sleeps and ignores it.
Then the books say change to bottle teats that are harder to suck so he’ll prefer the breast. Gave him the tougher teats and he still won’t take direct feeding.
Every single time I tried, he’d press his mouth shut and whine and flail around and even hit and kick me just not to feed. T____T One time he even grasped my nipple wtf very painful ok hahahaha. Where is he getting all this strength to fight!? Oh yea my breast milk how ironic wtf.
The thing is I think he DOES know how to latch, he’s done it a few times; he just doesn’t want to. So he’ll be screaming and miserable and I’LL be stifling my screams and miserable and I figured it’s better for our relationship if I stopped.
(Digression: He super loves the confinement auntie who’s very good at soothing him. And Fatty who comes home and carries and plays with him. Not sure about me cos I’m the one who keeps pushing an unrequited nipple into his mouth and feeding him yucky vitamins through a pipette then spraying saline into his nose wtf. T_T)
I even told the confinement auntie not to wake me up to feed him anymore since he flat out refuses to latch.
Then this morning a miracle happened!
He was awake and looking around in his cot so I picked him up to bring him downstairs.
I noticed him opening his mouth wide and sort of smacking his lips so I thought, okay let me try one last time since I’m in the privacy of my room anyway and still in pajamas and no bra hahaha.
He took to it like a dream!!!! *tears of joy
Don’t know why!! Maybe he was hungrier than usual. Maybe he’s finally old enough to know how to suckle? He’s only 37 weeks gestation after all. But he knew exactly what to do without any guidance, just opened his mouth wide and latched on correctly and drank and drank.
The bad thing about bfeeding is that I can’t see how much he’s drinking though so we still gave him the bottle after that. But very happy!
Wendy (who is my mommy sifu) listed out the pros and cons of both direct latching and bottle feeding so I’m happy that he’s on his way to be flexible in feeding! That way we get the best of both worlds wheeeeee.
I’ve honestly been cooped up at home/hospital for a little less than three months thanks to the preeclampsia, then confinement then Fighter coming home, except for a friend’s wedding dinner and then a birthday the other day.
Me & Fatty all dressed up. I’m in my mid-pregnancy purchased dress which is now a little bit loose on me. *money flies away
Never expected to feel so torn though! All the time we were out, I kept wondering what Fighter was doing (ok probably either eating, sleeping or pooping -_-), if he missed us (probably not wtf), and how early could we make our excuses and leave.
However I had been feeling a bit suffocated at home with no work or deadlines or anything. Nothing to do besides pump milk like a cow and fight with Fighter every day about breastfeeding. -_- The confinement auntie handles Fighter like a dream so while I’m quite thankful for that, I feel a bit redundant wtf. I guess that will change when she’s gone.
And because I believe a happy family is based on a good husband + wife relationship, we felt it’s important for us to have our own time together, away from family and Fighter sometimes cos I believe
So last weekend I decided we had to go out and do something no matter what. We decided on catching a movie, I picked the movie (Prisoners!!! ironic because I was kinda a prisoner of my sickness before this wtf) and after making sure Fighter was all tucked in to his Moses basket and he had enough milk on hand, we piled into the car and left.
Got to the mall and marveled at the amount of people. Lolol. Got to the movie theater, got into line for tickets, smelled the smell of popcorn vomit wtf …. and found it was sold out. FOL.
By then it was late so the stores were all closed anyway and nothing else to do. Got back into the car…….. and found we lost our parking ticket. Double FOL.
Had to report its loss, pay an RM50 fine (in addition to the RM5 we’d already paid but probably left our ticket in the auto pay machine) and go home glumly.
Total price of a Night Out of Nothing: RM55. MCB.
The bright side is we got to see Fighter sooner. Lol.
Next time!! And next time we bring Fighter!!
So how is this Fighter? He’s okay, although I’m not even sure if he notices he’s out of the hospital now and at home. Lolol.
Continuing his love affair with Giraffe Friend.
Haha no la to be honest I don’t think he’s formed any attachment to Giraffe Friend yet. Again, not sure if he’s even noticed Giraffe’s presence in his life (and bed) lol.
Besides sleeping, Fighter has also been feeding… but not breastfeeding. 🙁
He refuses to latch. T________T Preemies are supposed to have trouble latching; even while at the hospital whenever we practiced breastfeeding, most of the time he wouldn’t even open his mouth but just stick out his tongue and lick up milk. -_-
At first we thought he hadn’t developed the skill to latch yet. But now I realize he does know how, he’s just lazy! When he’s really hungry and I don’t give him the bottle, he has no choice and latches on very well, with no prompting. But after a few minutes he’s not hungry anymore and just stops. -_- Then when I nudge him, he presses his mouth shut wtf. -_-
But when give him the bottle, he happily take. Damn sneaky lo this baby!
So now my days are filled with pumping and storing, then feeding him.
So much easier if you would just take milk direct from the source Fighter!!!! *tears at hair
In this picture he actually looks quite midsized right! Only because I’m short hahaha whenever anyone sees him they go “SO SMALL!”
I was using Avent bottles and Fighter would take like an hour to finish his milk. Switched to Medela and he drinks so much faster! Mommy readers, what bottle do you use and why do you like it ah?
Then burping. His arms out like Superman cos I know now that I put him too high up on my shoulder. D:
Fighter looks happy enough here but he’s actually been having trouble sleeping. Which means that WE have been having trouble sleeping too. *zombie face
Every night when we put him in his cot, he makes all sorts of unhappy noises – grunts, frustrated sounding whines, whistling sounds and sighs, and his arms will flail and he will clutch his face or head. T____T Every time he made these sounds I’d leap out of bed to check if he was still breathing wtf cos some of it sounded like he was choking T______T
Then we realized he was just uncomfortable somehow. Maybe too cold? Swaddled him. No wor. Unswaddled him, also cannot.
Thought maybe he felt insecure being in such a big bed compared to his incubator and put a bumper Suet got him around the bed but no avail.
Checked his diaper repeatedly but also nooooo *wails
But then in the daytime when we put him in his rocker downstairs he slept like a log. D:
We gnawed on our knuckles for a bit. I’m sure babies aren’t supposed to sleep in rockers the whole time right! If they were, why are they still selling cots wtf.
We finally found out why today.
Brought Fighter for his checkup today!
Doctor heard a little snuffle in his breathing and turns out that he has a bit of snot in his nose. The snot makes him breathe through his mouth more so he gulps air when drinking milk and it turned into a gas problem.
The gas in turn will cause burping but if he doesn’t burp it turns into farts (bingo wtf) and discomfort and grunts, frustrated sounding whines, whistling sounds and sighs. Sounds familiar huh.
So the doctor gave us a saline nasal spray to clear his snot and so far it seems to be working.
Only problem is, there’s no escaping feeling like an asshole every time you spray saline water into a tiny baby’s face wtf.
Hunny I’m home!
We’d kinda known for a few days that we could bring him home today but we didn’t want to jinx it by telling anyone.
Two days before Fighter already had his feeding tube taken out and yesterday he was disconnected from all his monitors and moved to the nursery — where normal babies stayed! The last thing he had to do was to get a final review from his neonatalogist and then he could come home!
So today we got up bright and early and camped out at the hospital, waiting for the doctor.
Cuddled him for a bit hahaha.
Doctor came in and asked, “are you ready to take him home?”
*angels singing
Doctor ran through dos’ and don’ts and the nurses took us through basic care steps, we settled the bill and signed the discharge papers, collected his reports and we were all set to go!
Except the nurses didn’t want to let him go lolol.
One of the nurses was like, “Fighter, janganlah balik hari ini…” (Fighter, don’t go home today…)
Hahahahah. They’ve been caring for him for a month and have grown quite attached to him. They also kept gushing about how cute he is! I was a bit surprised because I’d have thought they’d be used to cuteness, working with babies day in day out.
I discreetly asked, “Haha why cute? It’s because of his size isn’t it?”
The nurse said, “His size, his face, his attitude…”
Apparently his attitude is cute cos he acts like he’s a bigger baby hahaha. Like when they give him the bottle, he holds on to the bottle like an older baby would; I guess newborns don’t do that? Hahaha.
Very grateful to all the nurses who cared for him so well these five weeks! And to his doctor of course for bringing him so far so well. 🙂
Out into the world for the first time!
Not to mention his first ever car ride lolol.
So far today he has…
Peed on me three times while I was changing his diaper. -____-
Consequently necessitated a change of clothing three times.
Pooped countless times (Literally. I lost count.)
Rejected direct breastfeeding ALL the times and I had to resort to the bottle. T____T (preemies may not latch very well and he still needs all the energy he can get to grow faster, so in order for him to not keep wasting energy trying to latch, the bottle is the best for him. Although I feel super rejected and sad he dowan to breastfeed wuwuw.)
A very full first day home, but we finally have the littlest and cutest (okok you win) member of our family with us at home. So surreal hearing him grunt and make his other baby sounds from the crib next to us… and we couldn’t be happier. 🙂
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