Painful ear infection

This is the third time Wayne is down with an ear infection. Wayne woke up crying, complaining that his ears hurt. He wasn't running a fever but we decided to bring him to Dr Irene's to get it checked, already suspecting it was an ear infection. It was. He was really grouchy that morning, visibly in pain and discomfort, clinging on to mommy and daddy for comfort. Usually even with a fever and running nose, it wont keep him from being his active little self. So this must have been quite painful for him. Good thing that 2-gor was able to stay home to look after meimei for us while we brought Wayne to the doctors (thanks 2-gor!). And again, Dr Irene advised us to keep wayne apart from mei mei, so for two days, Wayne was 'deposited' at grandma and grandpa's place.

Really time to strengthen my little boy's immunity.

New skin

At Day 14, Amanda's skin is at its peak of peeling. Old skin peeling to make way for new baby skin - soft, tender and all babyish. Her skin has been peeling for about 2 to 3 days now, mostly on her legs. Below is a photo of her scaly looking thigh. 

1030pm Surprise from Mindchamps

We had all tucked into bed when we had a call from the guards informing us that we had a hamper on the way. We were wondering who it was from (as both Hk and I were not expecting any from people we know) and what more, who sends hampers at 1030 in the night! Sounds strange right..

Turned out it was from Wayne's school. Such a nice gesture!!

Breakthrough!

At Day 13, my milk supply has caught up with Amanda's demands. Hooray! I am so glad my efforts had paid off. All the extra pumps in between feeds, even in the middle of the night when my body feels like its breaking, has been worth it. 

So I have gladly stopped Amanda on formula milk, after 7 days of supplementing. 

Night times are a long affair now. Firstly, with breast milk, she wakes up every two hourly, two and a half if we are lucky and she is sleepy. This is compared to the three and a half to four hourly interval she does with formula milk. Every feed now starts with (1) bottle feeding her expressed breast milk (2) changing her diapers (3) putting her to sleep (4) pumping out milk (5) washing the pump parts and sterilizing them. This takes slightly more than an hour to complete, and I sleep for an hour before she wakes up again and the cycle repeats.

I try to latch Amanda directly for day time feeds in the hope I can do away with all the pumping and washing. That will save a lot of time, especially at night when sleep is precious! However, she is not good at it, and often even after 45 minutes of direct latching, she would have only taken in a little, and we would then need to bottle feed her further.  And the whole steps (1) to (5) above repeats.  I need to work harder on latching but its really tiring and time consuming.

But the good thing with expressing out my milk is that often there would be surplus, so even at less than a month, I have managed to freeze up quite a bit of milk.

Anyhow, I am just really thankful that my supply has increased. It has made me really happy and I hope Amanda will reap the full health benefits that comes with being breastfed.

P/s Thanks to my mom for praying for me (that my supply would be adequate for A), it touched my heart knowing you knew it mattered to me.

The cord has dropped!

Amanda's cord fell off on Day 11. (Wayne's cord had dropped on Day 8.)

Managed to find it within her onesie. A keepsake for her. And now she has got one cute little belly button.

Showed Wayne this photo of Amanda's belly button with the cord still attached and he asked me "Whose eye is this momma?". So cute, it does look like an eye doesn't it.

Amanda's belly button before the cord detached

Amanda's belly button after the cord detached

A sneak out of confinement

Daddy will be starting work tomorrow after eleven days of being away from the office - since the arrival of meimei. We just had to sneak out for our first family outing before he returns to work (doctor visits not counted!)... Or maybe mommy was just finding an excuse to go out again. Being cooped up at home is no fun!

So anyway being a Sunday night we decided on somewhere quiet and less crowded.. And that was the newly opened DFS. We needed to get a baby bag so it was the right place to go shopping. 

Some photos we took inside DFS, meimei on Day 11.

When we left the house, meimei was sleeping and when we returned home two hours later, meimei was still sleeping. So she basically slept throughout the trip, not even catching a glimpse of Orchard Road or DFS.

The other highlight of the trip, simple as it may sound, was grabbing a Starbucks coffee! After being deprived of coffee for so long, it tasted really good (*yay!*).

Wayne also took the opportunity to 'complain' he was hungry despite having just had his dinner, so we also stopped by Macs for supper (*double yay!*).

So as everyone had what they wanted in that short trip we took, it was a happy night for us all, before reality sinks in again tomorrow. Back to confinement for mommy. Back to work for daddy. And back to school for Wayne. As for meimei, I think for the moment she's just contented with sleeping 24 hours a day, or maybe 23.

To all daddies

Nuggets of A's Day Ten of Life

Amanda's arrival : 10 Day Special (Day Ten)

Another happy day for mommy.. as we get to go out again! This time with Wayne too, even happier.

#1 Follow up jaundice test

Amanda had to go for another jaundice heel prick (*dread*) to make sure that her levels had reduced from 3 days back. Again, she screamed... while we could only stand outside and hear her cry. Sigh, why can't they at least allow the mommy to be inside with her. Anyway, good news, her jaundice reading was at 170 down from the previous 234. That meant Amanda is well on recovery and no further heel pricks needed (whew!).

#2 Breakfast

Since we were out, we gladly took the opportunity to have breakfast outside! Our first meal outside, the  four of us. We had breakfast at Cafe Manuka at Paragon. Just a quick one, but enough to leave me with a big smile. Amanda of course, slept through the entire 'meal', while kor kor Wayne was busy eating and playing.

#3 Steadily gaining weight

Amanda's now 3.440 kg, up 0.165 kg. Can't wait to fatten her up so she will fit prettily in her many dresses! 

#4 Family photos

Rare days where I look decent, so had some family photos taken. I try not to bathe and wash my hair so often, if I can bear with it, once in 3 days, but that usually leaves me pretty gross looking by day 2 as my hair oils up really quickly. Grandma, grandpa and San-yi were over as well, so we all took some shots with Amanda.

  

    Only noticed that one side of mei mei's socks had dropped off while I was viewing the photos - happens all the time! 

    We have since gotten her tighter socks!

     Mei mei yawning!!

And this wraps up a summary of Amanda's first ten days in this world. It has been a hectic first ten days, with us 'learning' to cope with a new baby, trying to find a routine and juggling everything else in our lives. It has been a roller coaster ride of emotions, with low and high moments, but it has been enjoyable and I'm sure it will only get better. We are excited and we are looking forward to the rest of our days with little Amanda, who just like kor kor Wayne, would be bringing lots of joy to us and the people around us. We love you A.

Nuggets of A's Day Nine of Life

Amanda's arrival : 10 Day Special (Day Nine)

#1 Amanda's kor kor Wayne turns 3 years and 3 months

#2 Its the 4th day since introducing her with formula milk. We continue our routine of supplementing some of her feeds with formula as I continue to build up my supply. At Day Nine, Amanda now drinks about 60ml each feed and my supply is only about half of that. Each day my supply increases a little. Every morning, as I hit a record for the day, I go 'Yay!' and am encouraged. It gives me hope that one day it will increase to a level where I can wean Amanda off formula. 

Sleeping better these days (cos she is well fed!), at times she sleeps up to four hours straight. According to the nanny, usually this is the case for the first two weeks after which it gets harder to look after her as they are awake more often and would want to be carried. Hopefully it would not be too bad. *fingers crossed*

#3 Amanda-licious

Caught a few smiling photos of Amanda as I carried her in my arms today. Usually its after drinking her milk, in her state of sleepiness, that she will treat us with a few of her adoring smiles.. with eyes closed.

And a last photo which momma kinda likes as she looks so.. 'soulful'. Love how she makes her lips so small here..

Nuggets of A's Day Eight of Life

Amanda's arrival : 10 Day Special (Day Eight)

#1 From black to yellow

Finally Amanda's poo has turned from black to yellow, an indication she is getting enough milk.

#2 Amanda-licious

Can you believe these Chateau rompers I bought for A are now getting too small? She has worn each piece only once, and they are already too small! They were meant for one month olds.

Pouting baby girl

Another hairband - little sunshine girl!

Love this shot, her mouth so wide open and eyes shut tight

Some black and white photos taken by daddy

Nuggets of A's Day Seven of Life

Amanda's arrival : 10 Day Special (Day Seven)

Amanda's a week old!

Day Seven was fun, it was the first time we were bringing Amanda out and we were excited. Although it was not out for 'fun', the trip to the doctors today (better than staying at home, right?) still made it a happy day for all of us! We had almost forgotten how long it takes to prepare to go out with a baby, including packing the baby bag - hot water flask, diapers, wipes etc etc. Needless to say, by the time we were ready to leave home, we were already late for our doctor appointments. We will be better prepared next time!

#1 Visit to Dr Lee's clinic

First stop, was to Dr Lee's, to get mommy's wound checked. When we arrived, the staff all swooned over A's hair. Even Dr Lee commented on her hair.

Mommy's wound was healing well, it looked better than the last time, but we will have to wait a few more weeks to really see how visible the scar will turn out. Some parts of the scar already seems to be fading and not that visible anymore. Fingers crossed! Its an expensive scar, better be worth it!

Dr Lee asked if breastfeeding was going well and I shared with him my disappointment with the lack of supply. Dr Lee tried to take away some of my stress by sharing an article on how "Breastfeeding won't make your children smarter". Heh, I found that quite amusing. Actually, we never thought that breastfeeding would make our kids smarter, we were coming more from the health angle. It was still nevertheless a good read.

On another note, I now weigh 53 kg. Lost 5kg from the delivery and I have another 5 kg to lose to get back to my pre-pregnancy weight. 6kg would be better. With all the confinement food I'm eating (which I'm really enjoying!), I doubt I can achieve much in my first month!

#2 Visit to Dr Irene's clinic

We next headed to Dr Irene's, just a floor up from Dr Lee's clinic to get Amanda checked. 

Amanda weighed 3.275kg on Day 7. Not yet reaching her birth weight but I was happy with her weight gain considering how little milk she has had since her discharge. Amanda looked yellowish so we had to bring her for a jaundice test. Otherwise, she looked good. Dr Irene then went through the vaccination plans with us and we were done.

Oh, before we could see Dr Irene, Amanda decided she was hungry and needed a poop too... so we made ourselves comfortable in one of the empty rooms in the clinic and fed and changed A. 

#3 Jaundice test

Third stop was then to the 16th floor to get A's jaundice heel prick done. The nurses refused to let me in  to watch them extract the blood from her heel, we had to wait outside and could only hear A's screams *heartache*.  She really really cried. Sigh. Little baby girl, must have been painful.

One hour later, Dr Irene called, her jaundice level was at 234 - below the 300 level for admittance to hospital for phototherapy. Phew. 

#4 Acceptance of nanny

Finally, we are getting used to having the nanny with us. Starting to enjoy having home cooked food prepared daily.

#5 Wayne is finally home again!!

Yay, after two nights.. finally precious boy is home with us! Not fully recovered, but well enough to be home. We missed him so much, we surprised him with a new toy all wrapped up and left on his bed. He was delighted, and so was mommy and daddy. He deserved it for being a really good boy the past couple of days when mommy and daddy were busy with Amanda and didn't have much time for him.

#6 Amanda-licious

Took lots of photos today. It is reflective of my mood, which has gone up notches.

A wore a onesie bought by her san-yi, and mommy thinks she looks so much like Wayne in this first photo. Maybe her face shape is changing to look more like her kor kor.

Got her to wear her pretty pink hairband as well. I recall Wayne used to hate having anything on his head, so we never could get him to wear a hat or anything. So this time, I better make sure I train Amanda from young to have lots of stuff on her head cos there are so many accessories for baby girls I'll be devastated if she refuses them all!!!

Doesn't she look quite the darling!