Breastfeeding

It just dawned on me that I have not mentioned anything with regards to breastfeeding (BF) totally this far. It was with mixed feeling that I decided to keep my breast pump for good and regain the ownership of my boobs after close to 9 months.

 

I would have to praise myself and give myself a good pat on the back since Zelyn had the privilege of being total breastfed for this long as opposed to Zethan whom was partial BF for only less than 6 months. Well it may not sound that great to some people whom might be rolling their eyes at this point since it's less than 1 year but certainly it suffice to a large extent.

 

It was a rough start of the BF career for me post partum since Zelyn had issues latching which the LC did not manage to rectify the issue. It was really upsetting since I did not manage to latch Zethan too and missed out greatly on the bonding aspect. However this time round, I was pretty much determined to push myself into exclusive pumping (EP). The second setback was my supply did not kicked in till 5th day or so which is really demoralising. I tried to stimulate the milk flow by pumping despite there is nothing yielded but I stood by the 2-3 hourly pumping. There are fair shares of good advices and encouragement as well as self appraising and proud advices by others even to the point of accusation of " oh you know you would have to wake up for midnight pumps which is tough". Trust me, it was agonizing to hear especially I am pumping every 3hrly round the clock.

 

I started to panic even though assurance from experienced LC said it is perfectly normal for milk flow to establish after 1 week and started resourcing for supplements and methods to increase the yield. Guess the obsession was indirectly stress contributing factor that might delay the flow. I resort to manual pump since it was supposed to be more efficient than electric pump. The first few pumps were very miserable with less than 1ml of colostrum after all the hard works and efforts. Not wanting to let the liquid gold go to waste, I was mad enough to syringe out to feed Zelyn or even coat it with my finger to feed her! Of course after thoroughly washing my hands.

 

I see light at the end of the tunnel on the 4th day with a vast improvement in the yield - 15ml every 3hrly. Sound pathetic and ridiculously low as it is but I was overjoyed to be motivated further by my hardwork. At the end of the day I am only yielding 45ml per pump but I persisted on. It increased to 80ml per pump the following day and by the 2nd week, the yield increase to 1100ml. In between there is an episode of engorgement after postnatal massage which is very frustrating and super duper painful. I had to get the massage lady to help massage off the engorgement and it was not even totally cleared. I had to pump every hour in order to clear the engorgement for one whole day which did affect my supply subsequently. I have read that the 2 weeks were crucial to build the supply in order to establish and stabilized the flow. I pushed myself further in order to be able to establish a stockpile of frozen BM in the freezer. As Zelyn is pretty much a small drinker thus I could freeze about 2 bags (280ml) a day and soon came the headache of insufficient storage space in the freezer despite removing the ice cube trays and allocating the whole of top shelf for BM only. I had to purchase an upright freezer with drawers to organize and freeze the BM before they 'expiry' within 6 months.

 

Midway through I had to feed her with half freshly EBM and half of FEBM otherwise I could never deplete my stash before expiry. Well okay there is this controversial thingy about feeding FEBM which is like 3months old since the body is supposed to regulate itself and BM's constitution at different stages will be tailored for that particular age thus feeding '1 month' BM when they are 3 months old might means that the nutrients received could probably be insufficient. But seriously who cares, that's the whole purpose of freezing BM isn't it, can't expect to throw them away after trying so hard for the yield, heartpain la!

 

Some might be asking then why not persist till 1 year old which is the ideal age to start off formula or even directly weaned to fresh milk. I have to confess that because of slacking and cutting corners, I dropped pumps here and there, lengthening the intervals of pumping and inevitably the supply dipped. The most drastic dip was dropping to 2 pumps a day which is a mistake and seriously to some extent I regretted it. The yield per day was less than 400ml and shortly dipped further to just 160ml per pump. I start to question myself if it is efficient to continue pumping, time spent versus yield. I struggled and fought with myself again with the familiar question of to stop or not to stop. After a long struggle, I kind of forced myself to decide okay that's it I am going to stop gradually. It took me only 3 days of single pumping per days to total no pump. The engorgement was not that bad and it was bearable so that end my career. Meanwhile she is still relying on the stash in the freezer which by the way is depleting real fast. Pretty emotional as it is not a reversible affair and yet overjoyed to regaining my freedom. Anyhow I was glad to have pushed myself thus having the stash in the freezer to prolong her TBF status.

 

Goodbye breastpump. Goodbye Breastfeeding. We will never ever get to meet again. Factory will be closed for good, no more Baby #3!

Ambition

What is your childhood ambition?

 

What do you hope your children will be?

 

Came across the news of Navy Open house on the radio on day which is happening the following week at Vivo city. Feeling very excited, went back to google for new information and was really disappointed that the balloting of tickets were over and that goes our opportunity to get on board the RSS Intrepid. Determined to try my best to get hold of 3 tickets, I posted on FB hoping that my friends might be able to help but as the days passed, no hope! Until one day, a Jul mummy asked about it and offer to check with the hub if he might be able to get hold of some tickets for us. I am more than elated when we got ourselves the tickets and at a good day and timeslot!

Zethan was equally if not more excited than I am after telling him about the visit soon. He asked about it various times everyday without fail. The day came and he asked every minute or so "when are we going up the ship" over early dinner, when we are shopping to pass time, when we are in the queue for the photoshoot.

Finally we got on board and went to tour around the ship. Even though he is a little too young to understand what is what on the ship, the excitement did not fade off. We took photos, he requested to take photo and we had a great time despite getting ourselves stucked in the ship for close to 30 minutes due to a bottleneck issue which is all very stuffy and crowded. Zethan spoke about it for a few days and even got the chance to show his classmates the photo in school.

 

We had planned to bring him for the larger open house on 19 May at Changi Naval Base and I even marked my calendar lest it slipped my mind. Unfortunatelt we are likely to give it a miss as we might be going away for a short break the weekend =(

 

Nope I am not trying to influence him into any probable career choice nor early exposure to steer him towards what I hope he will be. Seeing the look on his face, priceless!

More Celebrations

Both my mum and my bro are March 'babies' so we had a celebration at the beginning and another to end the month. Our usual celebrations these days are simplied, family dinner, that's it.

 

We did not managed to take a family shot for both days =(

Random Thoughts

As the saying goes, everything happen for a reason.

In our lifetime, there will be alot of people entering and exiting our radius of social circle. Pathways crossed, linked, split and exited. It was only after getting into a supposedly blossomed relationship that one would be able to judge positively the personality and characteristic of individual whosoever it might be. Given various similarities over time, one could simply not be oblivious to the extremely obvious differences and double standard one is subjected to, the extreme discrimination uncalled for. People changed over time and it is certainly inevitable be it for better or for worst.

I have always reminded myself that we have to be humble in all aspect and though we are not well to do in monetary aspect, we must have integrity and dignity thus looking down on people is the biggest taboo for me. With that in mind, I hoped to nurture my kids to be humble when necessary and that's how korkor's chinese name came about, humble. Quite unfortunately facing up to reality, we are subjected to prejudice but however based on my experiences, these people are best regarded as passerbys and unqualified to be acquaintance in my dictionary. There will always be people whom love to jump to conclusion, assume superiority over others and indirect back stabbing while on the preface holding up an artificial front, hypocritical drama-ing who can be awarded the Oscar award anytime. In any case who are they to be in the position to judge?

The weird thing is most of the time, the guilty conscience will be the very first to start the drama and the cat does slipped out of the bag repeatedly so much so that they are simply stepping on their own feet which is so interesting to observe as a bystander which is not a tough thing to discover at all. Which is why having a clear conscience is of utmost importance and once a lie is told, it required many more lies to cover up for the initial one. More often than not, these are the ones whom try to gather sympathy votes with hidden agenda to step on others.

Something I would have to learn in order to impart to my kids is to stand up for ourselves. Hub have always try to 'enlighten'  and warned me with his tiny voice in the background but somehow I have always waved it off thinking it's his prejudice so ultimately I was betrayed by the 'innocence' in me. The weakness I feel in myself is that given the situation of being wrongfully accused, I would choose to keep quiet and eventually fade into the background. Adding on to that, the drama starter would achieved its ultimate aims among the flock since it is only natural for the same species to take side and assuming the rights and wrongs by listening to one side of the story. What is not meant to be would never be.

Simple rationale, like it or not, we lived for ourselves and should never attempt to please others and we can't please everybody in our lives. Quality surpass quantity so it's enriching to have few genuine friends rather than having many superficial beings.

How very apt, just as this post is in the draft mode, I came across a friend who shared in FB "Weak people revenge. Strong people forgive. Intelligent people ignore". So which category do you belong to? =)

CNY 2013

The very first Chinese New Year as a family of four and certainly it's Zelyn's very first Chinese New year collecting hongbaos! Wooohoo....

Almost quite like the routine as previous years and suspected the next many more years to come, 1st day is still extremely hectic, rushing around. The weather did not helped but worsen the rush as it started raining heavily as soon as we reached the first destination with no proper sheltered walkway to shield the heavy rain, illegal parking at the not so sheltered walkway and crazily crowded carpark, sound like a bad start to the day especially so with 2 kids in tow. Anyhow there is no other option but to bite bullet and sailed through the day hoping for better weather soon.

Quite unfortunately the light drizzle continued for almost the whole day till late at night when we are leaving our last visiting place.

Day 2 were spent at "MBS" with the usual gang from late noon to early wee hours in the morning.

Day 3 had us lazing around till noon before making our way to Loyang for praying. As usual it was really crowded thus we had to take turns minding the kids and offering our prayers.

 Day 7 we had a gathering with July mummies as one of the mummy was nice to open house for our 'hometing', a new term crossed between home gathering. We had yummy fried beehoon, nuggets, pizzas and another Lo Hei not to forget great chatting session despite being on WA always! Never ending topics, everything and anything under the sun since Apr 2011. Mummies, toddlers and babies had a great time. Thanks MO!

After the gathering, we decide to drop by visiting Godma Ophe whom is in confinement as killing 2 birds with one stone; both cny visiting as well as visiting baby Chris for the first time. Both kids had a short nap in the car during the journey from East to West. Blissfully sleeping always, Aww, how I love the little infant period but nope, no way for #3! Godma was really nice to host us dinner and we were initially a little reluctant for disturbing her rest which is much needed! Spare Godma of her being not in tip top form so no photos taken.

Day 14 finally get to meet Godma Sue Lin as we have been trying to arrange for a visiting but in vain for the past 2 weeks! They are nice to offer us the convenience by coming by our place and though short, we had a good catching up chat especially so on baby talks from helper hiring to care giving to pregnancy woes to strollers! Oh we bought a preloved Bugaboo Bee as spare stroller to be placed at home. Both C and Z had a great time playing with each other!

Final day of CNY, we had a mini gathering at our place ending the festive season with a fusion dinner; Lo Hei and pizza before settling down in front of the TV looking out for Uncle Gumball featured in Chingay and indeed he was on screen for 2 seconds!

So that's it, basically sum up our new year! Perhaps we should consider going for a short holiday next year? Any chance?

More Photos

We took so many photos and our dear friend Yiyi Gumball took even more nicer photos. Would be a waste if not to share more.

 

Thank you to both yiyis for the expensive birthday present which Zethan had a hard time deciding on his choice and the cupcake (represent birthday cake) which the bad mummy forgot totally till the next day!

 

Let the photos do the talking.....