Who you calling a Chinese dumpling?

I went for my 28 week check-up yesterday morning, and it was after a very fitful sleep since I made the mistake of drinking 'teh tarik' (milk tea) at dinner the night before (I have zero tolerance for caffeine and get high even on green tea and coffee sweets, really!). Even Rosabelle seemed to be on a caffeine high and was moving, twisting, turning, kicking throughout the night...aiyo, I was so afraid my blood pressure readings would shoot up (not helped by the fact that my eczema was making me itchy, and I had to wake up extra early to eat breakfast, since I needed to fast for my two-hour blood sugar test reading)!

Luckily, my blood pressure readings were at a normal level, but maybe it's due to the fact that I don't have a habit of eating too much at breakfast, my blood sugar at two hours after food was at a low 4.9 (normal is 6.0) -- the nurse who took my blood thought I had purposely starved to clear the test (haha!). I normally have a cup of milk and eat about 3 biscuits for breakfast, before heading to office for a cup of Manuka honey water, and a serving of fruit an hour later, so my stomach doesn't normally go empty for 2 hours flat.

Upon checking my tummy, my doctor indicated that I have a smaller-than-usual tummy for baby's term. Coupled with the result that I seemed to have low blood sugar level, she was worried I wasn't eating enough and affecting baby's growth, and asked me to go for an ultrasound. Aiyo, got me worried for awhile as I was wondering if I was over-doing my cut-back on sugars/carbos after the last GTT re-test. What if baby's really too small, or what if my tummy's not growing fast enough to accommodate a growing baby?

Anyway, the ultrasound cleared all our fears and doubts, heh - Rosabelle is now 1,103 grammes, and the scan doctor even said at such a size, she's actually 27 weeks 6 days old (instead of the previously measured 27 weeks 3 days). This means that she has about doubled in size since the last check-up, and we could even see her mouth opened during the scan (so cute!). Wayne remarked that her nose seemed quite big (like mine!), but after seeing photos of all the newborns at the hospital - we've reached a conclusion - there is NO infant born with a non-big nose (see Simon's and Marianne's at right - they in fact look alike).... haha!

Little Rosabelle was cleared with a healthy slate of major organs, and my womb fluid is also at a normal level (I thought if baby's size is ok, could it be due to the fact that I don't have enough amniotic fluid..phew!).

So my doctor was quite relieved at the results of the ultrasound and encouraged me to continue with my daily walks, and the level of food I was eating. She mentioned that I could be one of those women who are "薄皮大馅" (i.e. in reference to Chinese dumplings that have very thin outer skin, but can actually hold alot of fillings - hahaha!). However, I have been "punished" with having to do a two-hour blood sugar test for my next check-up at 30w as well, so as to continue monitoring if it is within healthy levels.

I have also been instructed to keep close track of the foetal movements - Rosabelle has really been getting very active these days (I read that babies from 28-29w sleep/wake in five-minute intervals, my goodness, so busy, this daughter of mine!). When I sleep at night, it helps for me to prop my leg up to a level in line with my heart, and to sleep on my left-hand-side (but I do get breathless at times when there is a constricted feeling on my chest from the increasing weight).

Oh well, am happy as a lark all's nice and normal for Rosabelle and I. Only glitch is - I have met quite a lot of people who tell me "Oh, you're expecting a boy, right?", just from looking at the shape of my stomach. Our neighbour downstairs who has a one-year-old boy, some of my colleagues, and even some people I meet for the first time. They assume because from the back, I do not look like I am pregnant (yaay..I still have an outline of a waist, albeit a thick one; though Wayne says "From the waist, you can't tell. But from your butt, can tell you are pregnant." - haha!). Also, maybe it's because my stomach looks slightly pointy, and is low, not round and flat if it was a girl inside - you can read other (some rather ridiculous) old wives' tales about how to tell the sex of the child here.

In any case, the three scans we've done all show Rosabelle to be a girl, but I've heard stories of how it turns out to be a boy at the end of the day (because for various reasons, the boy's "part" does not show up on the scan), and for obvious reasons, I am not going to name my friend (you know who you are *wink*) who had to bear the childhood humiliation of wearing a pink, knitted sweater his Mum prepared for the daughter she thought she was going to have ("Oh, so is this a boy or girl?" relatives asked at the one-month celebration where the pink sweater was proudly shown off...with him wearing it).

Well, as we always say, boy or girl, so long as it's a healthy child, we are blessed - and we also have not bought any gender-specific clothes/toys/furniture etc (except that the poor kid, if it ever turns out to be a boy, would be confused as to why I now keep calling him by a girl's name and saying I would buy beautiful dresses for him...). I have a back-up name if it's a boy - Jayden Shi (yet to have Wayne's blessings, but again, that's also the name of Britney Spears' kid...ewwww....).

Since we're on baby stuff, we also took the weekend to look at baby bath tubs. As I'd mentioned before, I won't be buying alot of things in China before I leave (as I will be doing my confinement in Singapore), but we'd considered getting:

• a cot (now realized we don't need one as our study room can accommodate a sofa bed and a super single mattress side by side, demonstrated during Wayne's parents' visit - so good, Rosabelle can sleep on the mattress next to our Mums)


• a hot water flask so we don't have to keep re-boiling water in our electric kettle (I redeemed a free one using my mobile phone points - yaaay!)


• a heating plate (we'll get this when we are back in March when the stores have more of these, as there will be a few days before it gets cold in the house since central heating stops only on Mar 15)


• a wardrobe (we'll also get this after we come back, to assess how much storage space is required for Wayne's Mum and baby stuff - we've amazingly managed to clear a fair bit of space from our spring-cleaning a few weeks back)


• a drying rack (for nappies and baby clothing - we now have a minuscule balcony that we use for hanging out clothing, but the racks are high up and inconvenient for me to reach, so the kinds that can you can spread out on the floor would be more practical - but we also have to consider the space issue and where to place this...heh...)


• a bath tub (we saw bath tubs ranging from SGD8 to SGD55 - Mum said "no need so expensive one!", where the 'high-end' tubs had fitted measures to prop baby up so she can lie down comfortably - such features are actually quite a hindrance when baby grows bigger and needs the extra space to kick around in the bath tub, so guess we'll settle for an ordinary one and place an anti-slip mat at the base)

Goody, not that much to-dos before heading home, but knowing me, I will likely be pottering around here and there before I leave for Singapore!