My 2008

This has been an eventful year. I took up violin lessons, learnt how to Salsa, did a short certificate course in Advanced Certificate in Training, got promoted and oh ya, got pregnant too!

Violin
Ever since I was a kid I’ve loved the sound the violin makes but since we come from a family where my mom was the sole breadwinner, almost all of what was earned went to necessities, especially since we had 3 cousins living with us (they were abandoned by their divorced parents… it’s a long story).

After pondering for about a month or two, I decided I would take up the violin, doesn’t matter if I’m too old or not, at least I had tried. All I needed to do was practice it slowly if I couldn’t catch on.. right? Wrong! My teacher thought I progressed pretty well and encouraged me to sign up for the Grade 1 exam and I did. Preparing for the exam was the worst time of my life especially when I got pregnant, standing for hours practicing was tiring and I nearly gave up! I also had to overcome the tiredness of being pregnant.

The first trimester of pregnancy was a disaster for my violin practices as I was tired almost every night when I came home from work. Weekends were spent catching up on housework and then resting. Second trimester was better; I felt less tired and could practice more. It was not until the bump got bigger that I started having backaches and thus had to rest more. But all in all, I managed to stick to it, practiced like crazy and pull through the exam, even pass with Merit too!

Salsa
I organized Salsa Beginners’ lessons at work for my staff as one of the recreation activities. It was fun! I loved learning to dance and it was good exercise for me too since I didn’t get much exercises apart from walking to and back from the MRT station everyday. I started to Salsa when I was about 2 ½ months pregnant and stopped when I was 5 ½ months coz my bump was getting too big and in the way to dance with a partner. Salsa was fun, maybe I will continue when baby Matt is older and hopefully when I have more time on my hands.

Advanced Certificate in Training
I had to do 6 modules of this course, each came with 3 project works and an assessment at the end of the module. The modules were taxing but the projects were worse, course participants were given very short timeline to finish them and that meant I had to work late into the nights which caused me to be even more tired. I nearly wanted to give up but persevered as having the certification would really help my career.

Preggie
Kelv and I thought it’d be nice for Sam to have company in case we pass on, you know, so that he won’t be lonely. Our plan was to try for a baby by end of this year at the latest, else we’d give up. Since nothing happened by March, at least that’s what we thought, we were more or less resigned to the fact that Sam would be an only child. But God is wonderful and as usual surprised us with a beautiful gift of a baby. Sam was excited when we told him that he’d be having a baby brother.

I was so excited but scared at the same time as after all, I am six years older than when I had Sam, so many “what ifs” filled my head. I had to pray for strength to keep all the negative thoughts out of my head. The pregnancy was a roller coaster ride, there were days when I was in high spirits, and there were days when I’d be down! Apart from constant tiredness, backaches and moodiness, I was stressed because the chores around the house needed to be done and Sam needed to be looked after too. I constantly felt guilty because I could not spend more quality time with Sam as I was always tired by the time I finish all the daily chores. I felt bad not being able to hug him tightly because of the bump. Somehow, the process of having a sibling didn’t turn out like how he pictured it I guess.

Well, after 38 weeks, baby Matthew was finally ready to meet the world. My contractions came at around 1.30 am in the morning. Thinking that this being the second baby, he’s come out faster than the first, we decided to go to the hospital at around 4 am when the contractions got closer to each other. It was kind of a bad move coz the contractions stopped the moment we reached the hospital. The nurses were in a hurry to put me on the bed and strap me down with CTGs, etc., at 8 am, they couldn’t wait any longer and told me to get my butt on the bed. I hated being on the bed and I really didn’t like the part where I wanted to go the loo and was told that I CANNOT do so and was offered the bedpan instead. WHAT? What’s going on here? Are they mad? I protested but lost. I laid in bed for the next 6 hours, bored. The contractions got stronger around 2 pm and by 4 pm I really felt like I needed some painkillers, but seeing how I had decided against epidural (ya, I’m afraid of the needle in the spine thingy!) there wasn’t much relief for me.

I told the nurses how my dilation jumped from 4 cm to 10 cm in less than an hour for my first delivery and they didn’t believe me. At four they said I was 5 cm dilated, somehow I was sure they got it wrong coz I was ready to push the baby out then, my contractions were coming on strong and close. At 4.30 pm I asked for them to call my gynae, they told me that it won’t be so soon. But when the doctor on duty came to check on me I was fully dilated!! I was pretty pissed then that they had not listened to me. By then the pain was excruciating and I was pretty sure I’d push the baby out before my gynae arrives (they told me not to push!). Trying to keep the baby in when all your natural bodily instinct is screaming for you to push him out was really difficult and PAINFUL. By 5 pm I was too tired to hold him in any longer and was determined to get him out with or without my gynae! Lucky for her, she came thru the door at 5 sharp. I was relieved to see her and pushed like crazy. Baby Matthew came into the world after 3 pushes! That’s how desperate I was to get him out. I was so relieved and sore all over. My whole body shook partly because I just realized how cold the delivery room was and partly because I had had nothing to eat for the whole day and was very hungry and tired too.

Holding baby Matt for the very first time was incredible,it was like holding a miracle! My life is now complete.