RYAN'S BABY STORY CONTINUES ...

These were taken on the fourth day. It seemed like Ryan's condition had to get worse before it got better. He got hooked up to more drips & wires. He peeled more and he hardly opened his eyes. This wasn't the homecoming that I had envisioned. I was gonna be discharged the next day & I had to leave my poor baby ... all alone in the hospital. I felt numb & empty, all I did was cry in private. I was devastated that I couldn't bring my baby home. We had guests come over to visit our newborn - family & friends. I was happy that so many came but I had to hide the fact that I was always teary, I was in pain (from the stitches), all I wanted to do was go home & bring my baby with me. I don't think anyone suspected that I was feeling the "baby blues", I was feeling kinda down & my spirit was low but I had to smile & act "happy" coz I just HAD a baby. In all honesty, I just wanted to curl up & cry. I don't think anyone understood.

Although hubby was a real trooper, even he couldn't help me overcome the darkness. I felt rather lonely ... eventhough I had the company of hubby, family & friends. I did not help that hubby's boss wanted him to go back to work immediately. That's because we didn't plan on getting our newborn hospitalised for 11 bloody days, that's why! His stupid idiotic boss wanted him back in the office, whilst his wife was still in hospital recovering from a major abdominal surgery & his newborn son still warded for medical reasons. What a bloody "understanding" boss, so damn compassionate - NOT !!!

When we were leaving the hospital, the couple that also had the emergency c-section at about the same time as me took the same lift with us. They had their baby with them, they smiled at hubby (both husbands were waiting for their wives in surgery, together in the waiting area). They noticed that we didn't have our baby with us. I smiled back at them, weakly ... I think they didn't dare to ask us anything. I felt so miserable. I think I was on the brink of depression but I didn't know it then ...

This is the photo that literally breaks my heart. I don't think I need to say much. You be the judge, if you were his mother ... how would you feel? Can you feel my pain?... I rest my case!

I put this photo here, especially to remind myself ... how far we've come - Ryan, Steven & me. Ryan is now a gregarious, bubbly, happy boy who is so cheerful & chirpy, you would never had guessed that he was the same child, in the previous photo. Two & a half years made such a world of difference!

I am so happy to have him in my life. I am so grateful that he's healthy & here with us. I thank God for His blessings!

RYAN'S BABY STORY CONTINUES ...

Tis was Ryan's 2nd day of life. I managed to "peel" myself off the hospital bed. Hubby wheeled me up to see my son for the first time. I was still in my hospital maternity attire. By this time, Ryan had a drip on his hand too. Holding him for the first time, I felt strangely odd. This was my son, the baby that I have yearned for so long. Now that he's finally here ... why wasn't I jumping for joy? Coz I didn't expect to be cut up, coz I didn't expect my son to be warded. Silly me ... I thought that I would have a normal, safe, "natural" delivery & would be able to bring my baby home after 2 days. That wasn't going to be my story!

Ryan looks rather yellow here because he suffered from a bad case of jaundice. He had photo-light therapy to get rid of the jaundice. I wondered if the heat (from the intense light) was what caused his skin to peel like hell. I couldn't tell as I didn't really notice his skin on the first day that he was born. Hubby didn't either. I had to rely on hubby's account for he was the only one who got close enough to Ryan. He was peeling literally, it wasn't like sunburn, it was much much worse. I was shocked when I saw him. He was so tiny, wrinkly, skinny, & he had so many drips & wires on him. I wanted to sob so badly but I tried to hold my tears for later. It was really hard for me to see him ... like that!

A LITTLE BIT OF HISTORY ... RYAN'S STORY SO FAR

When I first started this blog, about a year ago, I had already begun on my humble journey of being Ryan's mum. First & foremost, that's what I identify myself with, these days ... being the mother of my only son. Sure the blog contains remnants of my otherwise simple (mostly boring) and absolutely mundane life but its mainly ALL about Ryan. Ryan has given meaning to my life, that no one probably understands (even I never understood how empty or aimless my life felt) ... until he came into my life. To say that life would be meaningless without him, would be an understatement! I will not be the first mother, nor will I be the last mum to say, I would give up my life for my child.

I went through some old baby pictures of Ryan recently and decided to put them up. I never blogged much about his early months and years because there were just too many photos and stories to tell. But I decided that some of these stories and pics are too precious to be to be kept hidden in my heart. They are stories that needed to be told ... for Ryan's memories.

As I conversed recently with my friend, Jess ... I write this blog primarily for Ryan - it is my gift to him. For when I am long gone, Ryan can still take heart that his mummy loved him ever so dearly & hopes he can remember how he touched her life, gave her hope, renewed her outlook, brightened her days, when cloudy skies abound. That he was my ray of light, my angel, and probably the only reason why I was put on this wretched Earth - to bear him, to love him, to cherish him, to treasure him ... and to be able to call him, my beloved son.

Ryan, my baby... this is for you!

P.S : I am starting a new section on Ryan's baby days ... this is the first entry.

Steven took this picture (the first photo taken of Ryan), after he was born in The Singapore General Hospital. Ryan was immediately warded to the Special Care Nursery due to some medical issues. As I had an emergency C-section, I was confined to bed rest. So it was up to hubby to troop up & down the floors (by lifts, of course) to visit his firstborn son. As this unit, serves mostly newborn babies that might need medical intervention, only their parents are allowed to visit. No other family members are allowed to enter. Before handling their babies, every parent had to wear a disposable "apron" that's provided & encouraged to wash their hands too, so as to minimise exposing the vulnerable babies to germs, etc.

Ryan had a drip attached to one of his legs, as you can see from the photo. The drip is the first of many that my poor boy had to endure during his stay there.

Ryan had a full head of hair & it had curls. That kinda tickles me coz hubby's hair is ram-rod straight & mine is only rather wavy. Hhmm ... must be the Malay genes on my side of the family. Funnily, after, we shaved his head when he was about 4 months old, he grew a head of straight hair. Wonder of wonders!

When Ryan was born, immediately after they cleaned him up, the nurse came over to show him to me - "ok ah, its a boy" whilst repeatedly showing my boy's small manhood above my vision (as I was still on the operating table). I saw that his eyes were open. He looked so cute. I did heave a sigh of relief, as I saw his eyes because Ryan was a healthy child. As some may not know, my gynae had given me a sombre prognosis that my firstborn son had a extremely high probability of being afflicted by Down's Syndrome. As this was discovered around the 1st trimester, we were of course offered the choice of an abortion or an amnio, if we were to choose to carry on with the pregnancy. Obviously, we rejected the first choice & decided to not go ahead with amnio as it carried a 1 to 2 percent chance of a miscarriage. There were many a times that I cried myself to sleep thinking of my baby and wondering if I made the right choice. I think I was in denial & repeatedly told myself (rather obsessively) that God would not have given Ryan to me if he wasn't gonna be healthy. I think I was just trying to lie to myself.

I am not a religious person (at all) but I prayed EVERY night ... asking, no ... pleading with God, to please help me save my baby. For him to be healthy. That was all I had asked for. God heard, listened and answered my prayers!

It really breaks my heart to see some of Ryan's early baby pictures. Everytime I see them, I feel like crying. I can't help it. It reminds me so much of the anguish & pain we went through then. We as parents, can make the best of plans for our children, before they are born but at the end of the day everything is in the hands of God. All the birth plans that I made were tossed aside coz everything did go wrong - from the emergency c-sec to my baby staying in hospital for 11 days. It was a roller coaster ride that I did not consent, nor expected. All I can say is that I never want to go through such an agonising time in my life, ever again!

I am just glad that Ryan is now a healthy, bouncy boy ... who is world's apart from that little baby that was born a mere 2.18 kg that fateful day in 2007.

ITS 1ST OF JULY ... HOW TIME FLIES!

Wow! Can you believe it? Its already the 1st of July and 2009 is more than half-way over! What have you done lately? For me, life has been pretty much the same ... taking care of my 2 boys (big & small), keeping my home intact, keeping up with extended family & friends ... & just trying to stay sane!

The past six months came & gone, more like a whirlwind! It all goes by so fast. Ryan will be 30 months soon (or 2 & half, if you may). Just looking at him, I know that life has passed by me sooo very fast. He's grown from a newborn, so helpless & dependent to a hyper-active lil boy. Whereas a year ago, you could not make out the mumblings, now he can more or less converse with us (although some might not understand his pronounciation). He has even picked up Malay (on his own) & though its still very limited, its a start. Well, for Mandarin ... now thats another issue alltogether. He's yet to really pick up Chinese but I hope when he goes to nursery next year, he will get the chance to start learning his mother tongue.

Well, other than that, nothing much is going on. Hubby's busy with work (since when, is he not?) & we have been trying to keep our weekends slow & steady, doing activities at our own pace. With the flu (H1N1) virus very much circulating in the country, we have tried to keep out of extremely crowded places. Even communal activities like swimming are put on hold, to a later date.

We have even cut down drastically on our shopping trips, as we try to avoid most malls & all. Though grocery shopping is still done, we try to minimise our trips. We try to stay home more these days ... which also saves us money. One complaint though ... the damn heat! I am always sweating (not perspiring like some people ... coz I sweat buckets in this heat). If only the heat will go away but then again I know this is Singapore's "version" of summer. One good thing to come out of the "summer" heat is the fresh, juicy & beautiful fruits in the supermarkets. Have you seen them? Its really a good time to go crazy with fruits especially the usually expensive ones, like strawberries, blueberries & kiwis, etc. Even if you are paying the same prices, their juiciness is unsurpassed. I'm just trying to think up more ways to eat those wonderful fruits other than just cutting, slicing them for consumption - salads, jucing, puddings, jams, the list is endless!

Hhhmm ... I think I saw a simple recipe for mango pudding somewhere. Just gotta find it ...

ANNOUNCEMENT - NATIONAL LIBRARY

I am an ardent book lover. I just love to read! I think if I can't read, I might as well DIE ... haha! I'm that serious! I guess reading is a form of de-stressing for me, an outlet to "escape the realities" of life or you may call it, simply ... my hobby. I need to read (nearly everyday, really its true!), be it the local Straits Times, my constant supply of women's & parenting magazines, borrowed books & magazines from the local libraries, my precious books bought from bookstores like Borders, Kinokuniya or Popular (which I am a member of & buy very frquently from).

I am a voracious reader & I hope my son will be too! I am certain my thirst for knowledge & love for reading has helped me a whole lot in my studies, especially in the English Language & Literature. That is why I am a great supporter of reading & encourage everyone, young or senior, to pick up a book or any reading material ... & just read, read, read! I am keen to share my love for books with my son, when he grows up. Already now, I buy him tonnes of books to read & ponder. Though he's not really reading yet, I am hoping he will love to read, just like his Mummy! This is one thing I am willing to spoil him in .... a love for reading!

Since its the June school holidays, library members can borrow double the quota amount (usually its 4 but its extended to 8). So the greed in me was nearly satiated when I recently borrowed 13 + 1 hubby's books recently (using my & hubby's membership, Ryan has a card too!). Wow! we had a hard time carrying those heavy books home. Lucky, my dear hubby was willing to humour me, by helping me carry them ... hehe!

Anyway, came across these information on their website. It seems like soon (next month), we can borrow 6 items instead of 4 ... woo-hoo! (including audio-visuals too). I haven't checked out what stuff they stock, but keen to "investigate" the DVDs, CDs very soon. You can also renew your borrowed books or magazines (which I just did, easy-peasy!) on-line through their website for FREE (previously you had to pay a fee for each book). So convenient!

Their website is here : National Library

I hope everyone will come to love reading ... just like I do! Happy Reading !!!

BACK-DATED POST - MILKSHAKE TIME

If you have been reading this blog for awhile, you might know that my son, Ryan is practically "addicted" to McDonald's Chocolate Milkshake. Here we are, in downtown Orchard Road and what were we doing? ... nothing much really, just window shopping & stuff. When we passed a Mc's, my dearly beloved insist on having his "Bup" (sounds like burp) - that's what he calls his milkshake.

So here we are ... having yet another milkshake! Since he won't be stopping his milkshake "addiction" anytime soon, I devised a sneaky little "plan". Sometimes (when I can remember), I request the server to half my milkshake & dispense it in 2 cups instead. This is so that Ryan will only finish up only his half-a-cup of milkshake instead of a whole cup. There are times he refuses to share his milkshake with us, being that we try to "force" him to share it with us so that he doesn't finish ALL the sugary drink by himself (yeah! spread it among the whole family ... daddy & mummy).

We're not being cheapskates here ... just using a trick or two (whenever I can). I guess as parents, we do have to employ some sneaky tricks (that we can get away with) ... sometimes we don't really have a choice. Until of course, the child turns old enough to understand that he's being tricked, straight in the face. Well, until Ryan gets this trick, we will still be using it regularly.

Until then ...

Playing with the digicam cover.

Standing tall.

There's a bird ... up there!

It's there, Mama!

On top! Really!

BACK-DATED POST (JACOB BALLAS)

I heard a lot about the Jacob Ballas Children's Park but never knew how to get there. It seemed so damn elusive! We first tried to get there when we visited the Singapore Botanic Garden's from the main entrance. Duh! the park was at the other end & it would have taken us ages to get there (not interested in doing that!). So that mission was cancelled. Second time, we tried going by the Bukit Timah way, near IE (Institute of Education) coz I read in some of the blogs that it was somewhere there. Ermm ... we couldn't find the entrance coz the only way in was through a car-park barrier (only one way in). So the park couldn't possibly be inside IE right?? Errmm .. yes it was! That's what we found out when we finally got there on our third try. I told hubby to go through the car park barrier coz my instincts told me so. I reasoned that if the park wasn't there at the most we just pay for the minutes of parking or it might even be free of charge because of the grace period. Alas, we finally found (Mr) Jacob Ballas!!!
The funny thing is this park has an odd criteria. Only children under 12 (I think) could enter the park, but they can be accompanied by adults. Adults who wish to see the park (without the requisite kids) need to make some arrangement (at the counter, I think). So any adult who wanna see the park ... go "borrow" someone's kids, if you don't have any!

To tell you the truth, the park was a bit of a let down really. First of all, there is the parking charge (I sorta assumed all public parks parking was free ... not!). Then it was the size, the park was much smaller than I expected. Thirdly, I had this impression that the park was some fantastic area for the kids to play & explore ... it wasn't! (in my view anyway). Ok, it did have a "miserable" water feature (looked like it needed some scrubbing & maintenance) that you have to constantly press (the sensor of sorts) to let the water "sprout". Ok, maybe the kids might enjoy doing that but I just found it rather irritating & unnecessary. There was also a rather small playground, some educational plant thingies, a man-made waterfall & a (only good) suspension bridge. That's about it, even if there were more, I didn't see a real need to explore further coz I felt very let down by the place. Oh, they have short vising hours too!

Maybe I was expecting too much or I let myself think that this place was gonna be sooo fantastic. Not that there isn't stuff to see or do ... its just that we took such a long time to find this place, I was rather disappointed by its "grandeur" (or lack of it), when we finally found it. A lot of people on the blogs & the kids magazines also made the place seem more interesting than it really is. Well, maybe its just me .... but I assure you there are better places in Singapore, for kids to play in.

Surprisingly, Ryan seemed to enjoy himself quite a bit (u know kids, any form of play will excite them to bits!) but Mummy really don't see what the big deal was. I guess what can you expect from a place that cost nothing (free) .. not much I guess! I think the Marina Barrage was actually more fun! Which makes me think ... hhmm, maybe we should pay the barrage a visit again, very soon.

Anyway, here are the photos. I doubt we will be there again ... but then you never know, anything for Ryan!

Ryan liked feeling the water on his toes.

Mama, where did the water go? Did it stop again?

Getting some water from the pump, with Daddy.

On tip toes.

Daddy was smiling happily!

Trying to convince Ryan that it was safe to cross the bridge.

Tiny, wobbly steps!

Hanging on for dear life!

Trying to look cool & collected!

Tried to upload the vid I took of Ryan playing with the water but 3 hours on ... the vid still didn't finish uploading. Arrgh! I thought Blogger is geting better at this. Sigh ... maybe its because the video is longer than the ones I uploaded in the previous posts. Seem like "gambling" / tikam-tikam you know, sometimes you win, sometimes it "hangs" ... haha! Well, what can you do ... just trying to live within the limitations of my life!

BACK-DATED POST (WEEKEND OUTING)

A simple lunch at Zam Zam. You can see Ryan being very intent on taking apart his Daddy's watch. Ryan's always very interested in watches, so anytime his parents are willing to humour him ... he gets a go at them. Since the murtabak took a while to get served (it was a busy day!), he got some time to explore the watch.

Trying on Daddy's "huge" watch!

The following were taken on a different day (Ryan was wearing the same shirt though). Daddy was on leave that weekday & had to run some errands nearby. As it was not convenient to have an active boy around, he dropped Ryan & me at a nearby mall to spend the couple of hours (doing nothing really). It was a bit boring as most of the shops were not opened for business yet, so I had to drag him to the supermarket. After a while of looking at groceries we were at a loss of where to go (there's only so much cheese that you can drool over). I finally took him to take some rides & later on a short spot of window shopping & we finally settled on a treat of Ya Kun bread whilst waiting for our ride back home.

Another kiddy ride with Barney!

This ride was for free as the other two seats were taken by a Middle Eastern family with kids & they asked if Ryan wanted to ride too ... ermm, why not?

Another one of those rides.

Is that Daddy?

BACK-DATED POST (MOTHER'S DAY)

I forgot to post these earlier. Its just a simple makan session (cooked by my dear mum, whom I told not to cook coz its mother's day, she should rest instead) at my sis place for Mother's Day. Sis bought a mago cake for mum (it didn't go well with the guys though, you know most guys & fruits, they don't get it). It was a change from the usual chocolate, that I always tend to buy, so its nice. Well, fruits are good for you ... so thats that!

I realised that though it was Mother's Day ... I didn't get any photos of my dear mum. Nor of the other mum's that were there that day ... duh! Shows how spacey I can get sometimes. To tell you the truth, I didn't really enjoy this Mother's Day coz I got extremely upset that hubby had to rush to work at 9.00am that Sunday morning. It was a Sunday ... for goodness sake!!! By the time he got home it was almost 5 pm. So guess who was in a foul mood! Ok ok, I know it wasn't his fault but I just couldn't help but be upet coz my so-called Mother's Day celebration went haywire. Isn't Mother's Day a day for rest & relaxation for the mother ... I guess not!

The (not-so-sweet) mango cake from Polar Cake.

Ryan having a go at his cousin's ride, wearing a big sunshade.

Shades ... too big!

My nephew, Sahmi ... holding on the the can party-decor thingy.