The agony of blocked ducts

It's the same one I had yesterday, which my girl kindly cleared for me this morning by latching on and patiently sucking for 19 minutes. Then the next round, it's blocked again! No matter how many rounds of pumping, hot towel massage, cold compress and latching on, it simply refused to go away and simply grew bigger, sorer and harder like a very angry pimple on a very oily face.

So I took my syringe and started to clear the nipple area, and then - my syringe broke!!!! I had to bear with the agony for another few hours, waiting for the hubby to return so we could go and buy a new syringe from the pharmacy. So we had our dinner, and I decided to have a quick pump first. I managed only to clear half of the lump, but still, it simply refuses to go away, despite my pleading and my massaging. The hubby reminded me that I should still have 1 spare syringe and he was right! He fetched it for me and I started the clearing and tested with a quick pump. Nope, so back to a second round of clearing and suddenly a stream just shot out! I quickly grab my pump and starting pumping again, and that lump was cleared within 2 minutes. What a sweet relief! Not to mention, that lump alone was containing 40ml of milk out of the 100ml I expressed during the session. I am NOT kidding.

I had just changed my bed sheet today, but it's worth it having my breast milk sprayed all over it as long as that duct is cleared! *phew*

psst: the syringe is without the needle, just the tube and the plug.

Outdated Mummy

Geez, I'm so outdated with so many things, for example, I didn't even know that Flickr is with Yahoo! now ... and I didn't even know how to use the tags/ photo URLs anymore. So ... I cheated :P

The other things I'm outdated on? Baby learning tools - I didn't even know how to search for baby flash cards! Anyway thanks to my sister, I've downloaded some and printed them. Now to buy a laminating machine in case my girl decides to chew on the card instead.

Went back to the office yesterday and I was shocked to see the reception area gone. Yup, they are doing renovations to the place and it has moved to another floor. Thank goodness my office still remains the same (that is, the mess) so that's some comfort in the familiarity.

My girl was generally docile for the first 20 minutes or so (she was sleeping) until she decided to show her girl power (no give face to mummy dearest) and decide to wail my office down *sigh* Tried patting, walking, nursing and to no avail. My colleagues helped and took over her for a little, she quieten down for 10 minutes then she started again. Found out in the end, her diapers were dirty and she wanted a change. So my sister helped and when she was finishing, Vanessa decided to sneeze and *poot* some stuff shot out and didn't quite land accurately within the diaper area ... you can imagine ;P anyway barely 20 minutes later she started crying again - this time, she just wanted to fart! So after that, she was all nice, sweet and calm. Took a ride home from my colleague and she went to sleep quietly. I'm not going out with her alone EVER again - not in the near future at least!

Suddenly, I feel so out of touch from the world out there ... but really, not that I mind. My girl is providing me with enough entertainment and stress every single day to keep me on my toes!

Funny Shots - Photo 1

I'm going to start a series of her funny poses, so look out for them!

Today's picture is ...

First Month Celebrations Cakes

The first month celebrations was well ... I survived with my breast inflamation. Other than that, the only thing worth mentioning really was the cakes we got.

The ones we got for the family members were ordered from http://www.sweetestmoments.com.sg/. The pricing was reasonable, the packaging was "Oh so cute!" and the stuff in it, YUMMILICIOUS! I know because we devoured the items from one of the boxes (and I kept the box as a keepsake!)

For our friends who came for the celebrations, we gave them cupcakes that we ordered from http://www.cupcake-momma.net/. I had a hard time choosing the designs! They were so pretty, petite, and delicious! *slurp*

So if you are planning for your baby's first month celebrations, do consider ordering from above. This is not some paid advert, but rather comments from a very satisfied customer!

Tiny Weeny Hand

Babies' tiny hands never fail to amaze me ... so little, fragile and delicate and yet it has the strength of an adult when it comes to holding your finger.

So I've taken this to showcase one of the most fascinating aspects of my girl!

New pictures of Vanessa

Just got around to download the files from my camera and did some editing with Photoshop and Picasa =)

Here's my little princess (and also co-starring her pacifier!) ...

The Countdown Starts ...

Countdown to the day I start work has begun. Although I haven't quite decided to start work on June 5 or June 12, but it marks the pending end of my maternity leave anyway.

I know some mummies are eager to go back to work, but I'm not. She has grown quite a bit since birth and she's making all these funny faces and noises now. This morning, she was very smiley too. Besides, her cranky mood starts only at 6pm onwards and it will last till 10pm or so, if we are unable to pacify her in time.

What would I miss? Her smell, her smile, her funny "sign languages" and her angry "HMPH" when she gets awaken from her sleep for whatever reason (her own sneezing or Phoebe's sneezing), or even when the Hubby calls her a naughty girl. She latched on earlier and fell asleep in my laps, and continued sleeping even though I was using the noiser pump to express. I think this is something I would really miss most for mornings.

Anyway, I've started preparing for the D-Day, and I've bagged my 3 bag of BM in the freezer. It's a slow and painsaking process, since I cannot produce enough in a day to bag the excess, and I would have to have enough in the fridge (at least 5 bottles) for her daily feeds, before I take a gamble and store the milk from my pump sessions.

Ok, time to smell her again... I'm missing her scent already.

Drama Mama week

It has been another crazy week - 3 of my loved ones got into some health/ physical problems over the week, and I celebrated my birthday with a sweet, sweet cuddle from my baby.

My sister dozed off at the wheel while driving into her office car park. She drove into a tree, but luckily she wasn't hurt badly. She just had a very nasty shock and was still very angry at herself. It's probably due to the lack of sleep, but still, I worry for her. How long more can she last since she is only having a few hours of sleep each day?

Then her baby had difficulty in breathing a night later. Emily probably choked on her phlegm or reflux and they had to call for an ambulance. Emily only managed to break into a cry after the paramedics arrived, but still she had to be warded for observations. More things to worry for her family, I just hope Emily is doing better.

My ma-jie, blacked out at home the day after, and luckily, BEFORE the other family members went out. So they spend the day shuttling her to the doctors and X-ray, and I hope they were not grumbling about having to miss their shopping trip for that day.

Then for my birthday, the hubby made up for the boo boo on Mother's Day. He sent me flowers (a very nice touch) and left me a card on my keyboard. The card was very sweet, it's signed from Vanessa (using his left hand to write) and it's definitely a keeper. It will go into my girl's keepsake box. The hubby also brought me out for dinner, one of my favourite cuisine, Turkish food! Although not my favourite restaurant, but the food was quite good and they had different dishes from the usual haunt. Then we had yummy ice cream at Haagen Daaz *yum* and we promptly came home since I had to pump.

Then while I was finishing up my pump session, the girl was very irritable and was crying in short spurts. So I gave her my breast as a pacifier (she spit out her NUK pacificer earlier) and she latched on for a short while. Then she realised she wasn't hungry and detached herself while staring at me with her big eyes. So I gently rocked her on my laps and got the hubby to switch off the living room lights. She continued to stare at me for the next 10 minutes then promptly *ZzZZzz* 5 minutes later her arm was limp and I put her to bed and she continued to sleep for the next 2 hours. It's an accomplishment for me, and I think it was a really sweet present from her, re-affirming my abilities as a mother.

It has been a week of bad and good news, and I hope the weeks to come will only be of good news.

Baby at 6 weeks old ...

Vanessa went for her 6-in-1 jab on Wednesday and she was quite good - she didn't really cry much except to show her unhappiness at the cold alcohol swab. She also basically did some tricks to make the PD laugh, for example, faking a loud sneeze. She sneezed once, then went "AHHHHHHHHHHHH ... *mm* *zzz*".

We were also commenting on having 2 twirls on her head, which my PD said 2 out of his 4 kids (*gasp*) had them, and yes, they were the naughtier than the remaining 2.

She has gained 6.5cm in length since birth, but she looks she has gained a lot more length than she looks though =) Anyway she's gained some weight and length, she's now 5.06kg and 54.5cm long.

The poor girl developed a fever (38.0C) in the wee hours of Thursday morning, so we gave her 1ml of the medicine which she promptly spat out 1/2ml *sigh* Anyway, she did recovered pretty fast, although her appetite is affected. She's taking only 60ml per feed, not the usual 80ml. I will need to monitor her further to make sure she's OK.

Cutesy baby ...

It's one of those mother things, but bear with me, I did have a horrible time last week.

1) I've started playing classical music, the relaxing sort, to calm her down or to lull her to sleep. So far so good, it doesn't always work but it does work 70% of the time. The cutesy baby thing happened when I played the CD for the first time (Bedroom Adagios) - she was lying on her bouncer chair and when the music started playing, she did her mad conductor impression. Actually she was quite good! She was in sync with the music and waved them appropriately. Nevertheless, I enjoyed watching her doing that - it really made my day!

2) The other day I was carrying her, she was waving her arms around and she accidentally hit herself on the nose and her eye. She peered at me with one open eye while the other eye remained closed. I asked "Wah, you hit yourself for what? Pain or not?" In response, she raised her hand towards me, with her thumb and first index finger pressed together, the sign we used to indicate "a little bit". I couldn't help but laughed out loud.

3) We were discussing how to cook the fish for dinner and this girl, poked her index finger into her cheek! The maid and I had a good laugh about it.

4) I went to spend my Swarovski vouchers and I was pondering which piece to get - too many that I want to add to my collection! And this girl, did her best James Bond impression.

It's almost like she's making up for what she did to me during that horrible week *smile*

What a week ... final instalment

Saturday night - had a major lump in my right breast. Tried pumping and it didn't come out so I left it be. 3am another pumping session, so I tried using hot towel compress/ massage and still it couldn't come out. I broke down and after the following brief tantrum at the hubby, he went to get fresh supply of hot water and he helped me to do the breast massage. It was difficult for myself to do it because of the angle - the lump was located at the bottom on my right breast (exact mirror image of the left breast lump - so imagine my panicky thoughts that it might start another episode of infection). The thing is - IT WORKED!!!! So my hubby sat there and watched me pump it out - in case I have another meltdown again, and it was ok.

Sunday - had lumps on my upper left breast, but nothing a REALLY hot towel compress couldn't take care of. Actually at this stage, I'm already so immune to it. The problem was, baby was cranky, she rejected my breasts twice, didn't want me to carry and was wailing her lungs out - hubby carried and she promptly fell asleep. Later, the same thing, but I passed to the maid instead. I was so depressed, so extremely DEPRESSED. Of course, I had another meltdown and I started crying again *sigh*

Monday - didn't really carry baby much today - was pumping milk, cooking meals, clearing up the bedrooms and running errands. Then during dinner time, she wanted a feed but I only had 60ml in the bottle. So I BF instead and she took to it without much fuss. She fell asleep so I handed over to the hubby who had finished his dinner. She again of course did the merlion act, but the thing that had me laughing out loud was when I was trying to finish my dinner, my hubby came over to show me that the baby was still hungry. To illustrate, he used his knuckle to tease her mouth and she sucked at it HARD - just imagine like a very loud kiss. So I BF again, but this time on the other breast and she fell asleep after 10 minutes. She was so soundly asleep that I didn't dare to move her and I let her sleep on my lap for about 1 hour before I had to go to pee.

It had been a horrible week, but the ending was sweet. Somehow, it just makes it all worth while.

what a week ... and saturday continues ...

Saturday evening - discovered the second valve for my Ameda pump is also cracked. ARGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Went to take down the backup, my Avent Isis Uno which I thankfully did not sell away. Just hope it works! *shake head*

What a week ... (cont'd)

Friday night - we discovered to our horror, when trying to print our girl's chinese name, her actual characters mean "a reflection of (a chemical compound)". I just want to scream my head off. I was so FREAKING PISSED!!!!!! The stupid &*$^%)@(&%@(*&#^ centre!

What's wrong with the given name?
1) the character 映 is pronounced is ying4, not ying3. They wrote it down as ying3. We discovered it because we were searching for it and nothing came as as ying3. So we inserted the character and it popped up as ying4. The dictionary does not list this character as having 2 variations, so it cannot be pronounced as ying3 or ying4. It has to be ying4.

2) The character 蒽 does not = to 恩. It is in fact a name of a chemical compound! And I distinctively remembered the lady at the centre saying, "see got 恩 in the name, as requested". I certainly didn't asked for my girl to be named as a reflection of any chemical compound!

Went to bed, really super super duper duper low morale - what kind of name have I given my daughter! And what's more, with our lousy chinese knowledge, how are we going to replace the name with the same sound but better meaning? The 恩 can remain, but the ying how? The only ying3 we can find is 影 which means shadow, not very particularly meaningful here either. *sigh*

Saturday - got up early to pump milk at 5, by the time I ended it, it was 7 plus. Why? Apparently one of the valve for the pump broke, and so it couldn't work. I was so frustrated I couldn't have any letdown and so the milk flow was VERY VERY VERY slow. Amount was decent though, slightly over 100ml. Went to look after the baby after that so the maid could do her other chores as well. After a while, I got the hubby to get up so I could take a rest. In the end, I made a call to my sister in USA to tell her about my week, and asking how she's coping since she'll be returning to work this coming week. I also complained to her about the name, and she went to fetch her chinese dictionary and so we were discussing about the names and options. My sister found the perfect ying3 for us, among the few choices we had, and so we picked that. I'm not going to count the number of strokes or ask any shifu to look at the name. I had enough of such crap. Her new name stays, and that's it. The parking situation at the ICA is a different matter - but eventually I got my parking lot, although I sweared a little at this "tai tai". So what if she's driving a BMW, her car is SO DIRTY. *hmph* Anyway, the other good news for the day is that the sore spot is less painful and not so swollen anymore. Thank God for small mercies. Note to self: Trust in God.

What a week ...

It's been nothing but stress, stress, stress and more stress.

Monday - the full month cakes arrived and I delivered some out. So basically travelled from the west to Serangoon then to Yio Chu Kang with a lunch break at Thomson Plaza, then to tiong bahru, back to the west and home sweet home. I was feeling a bit woozy and decided to rest. Then I figured it doesn't feel too right, and I also had a achy spot on my left breast. Turned out I had a mild fever which we attributed to the long journey today (I drove) and I went to bed late because I simply couldn't sleep.

Tuesday - the achy spot got bigger and more painful. I got a bit alarmed by the lumps in my breasts on both sides and that I wasn't experiencing any letdown at all. Pumping wasn't helping so I let baby latched on 3 times but the lumps didn't go away. Nothing much I could do anyway since we were doing Vanessa's full month celebrations that night. We still had to prepare the place and entertain some visitors who had to come early since they weren't able to make it later. The celebrations itself? It's another story to drive my BP up, but nevermind, it's OVER already. Thank goodness. After the celebrations, pumped milk, went to bed.

Wednesday - fever shot up to 39.5. Took panadol and didn't work. Tried called LCs for help, one said, "Please make an appointment for tomorrow morning, we are closing soon." The other, no response at all. In the end, we went to a GP who gave me antibotics. He said it's Mastitis and I'm like so super duper low morale. I also rang up Rose who came over to my place in the middle of the night and to help me to massage out the lumps in both breasts. She said the more stress I am, the less likely I am going to get rid of the lumps. So to rest more, drink more water and don't worry too much ... but how not too ... when ...

Thursday - my confinement nanny is leaving this morning, she left at 930am. I cried because I felt so helpless and clueless. Anyway I am still not helping much around the house, as I am still recuperating from the fever. Good news though, it's down to mid to low 37. The maid seems to be doing fine with the baby. Baby seems to be doing fine with the formula milk.

Friday (today) - second day with out the confinement nanny. I'm feeling better, so I could breastfeed baby, just that my left nipple is getting SORE. Right breast is doing ok. I just hope my left breast gets better soon - it's still quite red, sore and SWOLLEN.

I'm just tired - baby won't let me pat her to sleep though, so now it's my hubby and the maid who's doing the burping and the patting to sleep.