Succumbing

I. took. my. third. serving. of. ice. cream. in. a. week. Today. A Meiji treat creamy chocolate a colleague bought for all of us.

I had Haagen Daazs on Monday.

And a Dairy Queen cone on Wednesday.

Bad mother, bad mother! STOP!!!

(If you aren't aware of why I shouldn't be taking so much ice creams, other than the fact that 3 treats of ice-cream a week is already in excess by normal standards, for normal people, much less for a preggie lady... you can read more here.)

Yin Yang - cool, or not...

There are two Chinese medicine students who are in our office this week, with some cool gadgets that have attached tendrils/pods to be stuck onto various muscles on your body to alleviate shoulder/back/leg (etc etc) pain. They (the students, not the gadgets) can also take your pulse/blood pressure and advise you of any health conditions. Cool!

As I am not allowed to do massages of any sort during my pregnancy, I decided to let one of them take my pulse (another pregnant lady in the office told they can diagnose the sex of the child from the pulse) - he indicated I have cold/clammy hands (my hands/feet get cold easily, whilst the rest of my body remains very hot/heaty).

I was happy to hear that baby's healthy, and he confirmed it's a girl - hah! - but he said I should take less cooling stuff (e.g. watermelon, pears, ice cream, cold drinks), as it might make Rosabelle have cold hands/feet like me, and make her suffer from menstrual cramps in future. Hmmm... from now on, no more ice creams and cold drinks for me (might even need to cut away my daily cup of Manuka honey)! He said that baby girls are naturally 'yin', and I should then take note to cut down on such 'yin' types of food, so as to strike a balance. Well, according to these websites, I should eat less of the following foods then (classified as 'yin'):

Almonds. Apple. Asparagus. Bamboo. Banana. Barley. Bean curd. Bean sprouts. Beer. Broccoli. Cabbage. Carrots. Celery. Clams. Corn. Corn flour. Crab. Cucumber. Duck. Eels. Fish. Grapes. Honey. Ice creams. Lemons. Mushrooms. Mussels. Oranges. Oysters. Peppermint tea. Pineapple. Salt. Shrimps. Spinach. Strawberries. Soya beans. White sugar. Tomatoes. Water. Watercress.

I love deep-friend stuff, which is 'yang', so good news for me then? Haha! But hmmm... lesser water? Goes against all my anti-water retention measures, and the Chinese medicine student told me I should drink more water (albeit not cold water)... Lesser bananas? What about constipation problems faced by pregnant ladies? Lesser bean curd/broccoli/fish/oranges? But I thought they are great sources of nutrients!

Guess Wayne sums it all up very aptly when he said "Aiya! Baby's already 7 months, it's too late to change anything now - so long as you are happy, can eat what you want lah!"

True, true... but I had my dose of Haagen Daaz and Dairy Queen ice cream this week, and I don't think I will be touching ice cream/cold water for some time to come... just to play it safe, heh!

Newborns and Kodak moments

Before I go into the contents of this post, a random musing: is it by mere coincidence that the core Line 1 of the Beijing subway (the longest east-west subway in Beijing spanning some 31.04 km) broke down during evening peak hour (no less) last evening - the day right after the Beijing Olympics ended? Woe betide the Beijing organizers if there was any transportation breakdown of sorts during the sacred Olympics season, and it's funny to see the same chaos I've come to expect of Beijing at the subway station yesterday. (I wasn't going to take the train, but was going into the underpass that links my office building to the shopping complex across the street to meet Wayne for dinner - subway personnel were ready to padlock-grill up the entrances to prevent overcrowding of people...)

Anyway... Rosabelle has been kicking/twisting/turning more and more these days - she is very, very active, and these past few mornings, I could not sleep in late as she will kick me awake (maybe she's hungry and wants me to get my lazy bum up to eat breakfast). Whilst sitting down still, I can at times even see my tummy heave from her wriggling, or see pokes of her body out of my tummy, so much that it's all quite cute to me, haha! Mum was advising me to give her pats on my tummy when she moves too much, to reassure her and put her at ease - it's a fun way to "interact" with her as well.

As Rosabelle grows from day to day, I was looking through photos of my dear nephew and niece (Simon and Marianne) when they were born, to get an idea of what my newborn might look like (bloody/grimy/wet/big/small?)...

Judging from the photos of Simon and Marianne on the day they were born, newborns look alike, are very sleepy, have "blur" looks on their rosy and chubby faces, and in both their cases, have very thick hair (maybe cos my sis drank alot of bird's nest...). And both of them look oh-so-cute, but when I think of how big Rosabelle has to grow before she pops out (and what I have to go through to pop her out), I am just amazed at how much more she, and my tummy, is going to grow over the remaining 2.5 months...wowee... Goodbye waist, hello backache!

Looking back at the photos when Marianne was born, Simon was only a "baby" himself at about 16 months old - but see how he tenderly stroked and "sayang" his baby sister - I remember when I saw these photos some three years ago, I was thinking to myself "How sweet...".

I was never present for the births of either of them, which is really a pity, and am really glad that my family will be around to witness Rosabelle's, and that she will immediately have Kor Kor Simon and Jieh Jieh Marianne to learn from, and to play with.

On a more practical note, Wayne and I have also started thinking about the paperwork of bringing Rosabelle back to Beijing next March - we'd need to apply for a Singapore passport for her (a passport for an infant - how cute!). I am also in the midst of getting information from the China Embassy in Singapore on the visas for her passport for her to get into China for long-term stay - the last thing we want is for our infant to be retained at customs for lacking the proper papers to get into the country, or get deported! Shudder...

When anybody talks about passports, they will think about how good/bad they look in passport photos, and I'm thinking - Rosabelle is going to use this passport for travels until she's five years old - but we all know infants change their looks hour to hour - how is the immigration officer going to ever ascertain that Rosabelle at three years of age is the same infant in the photograph taken at say, three months of age??? That, I leave to the experts to make their own judgements... but I then started looking around for tips on how to take photos of infants for passports. Passport photos have very strict guidelines, and I found a site that gave some tips for how to get best passport photos of babies and kids.

According to Singapore Immigration rules as stated on their website, Rosabelle's photograph must, amongst many other things, be:

• Taken full face with her looking directly at the camera with head straight and eyes open with no hair across and/or covering your eyes. Both edges of her face and the top of her shoulder must be clearly shown. She must not look over any shoulder and her head must not be tilted
• Taken with the image of her face measuring between 25 mm and 35 mm from chin to crown of head
• Taken with uniform lighting with no flash reflections, no shadows, no uneven bright spots on the face and no red eyes (her eyes have to be open in the first place, of course...)
• Of white background, except that where if her hair, hat or head covering is white, the background must be light grey
• The photograph must show her alone with no chair back, toys or other persons visible

So... my daughter has to prop her own neck up at 3 months of age, preferably without any clothing on that will risk blocking her face/shoulders, look straight ahead at the camera, open her eyes and close her mouth for the perfect shot.

It's probably going to be a nightmare for us to do it , as you can see from the below examples that are rejected (I think the final photo of this poor infant isn't exactly the cutest, but who needs cute when you are passing through customs, I guess):

Maybe we'll just have to hire a professional, like how Simon and Marianne took day-old photographs that look lovely, and meet all the requirements of a passport photo if they are close-ups. (Now, don't you think newborns all look quite alike? That's Marianne in pink, if you are trying to work out who's who...)

Shots at Fame

This guy on my left in the photo - familiar? No? If his face does not strike a chord, I can only assume (a) you are a non-China person (b) you did not follow the recent Olympics (c) even if you followed the Olympics, you do not follow badminton.

Because this person next to me is LIN Dan, winner of recent Badminton Men's Singles gold medal at the Beijing Olympics leh! Well, this photo was taken some time back over dinner (nope, not a candlelight rendezvous) almost two years back, in November 2006, when he was already a world champion. He's a good, personal friend of my boss and when we brought an out-of-town Client out to dinner that night, he was also asked along. I did not go ga-ga over him, but thank goodness I was sane enough to still ask him for an autograph on my namecard (no less - to prove that he signed for me, and not for anybody else)... My personal "Shot at Fame"... a personal photograph/autograph with a gold medal Olympiard... how cool is that? Tee hee.

Still on the Olympics (though I almost had to stab myself to not get bored to tears watching last night's closing ceremony...), Beijing, and China, and has really done themselves proud this time round with such a great show of the Games, and topping the medal tally with a record-breaking 51 golds. You really have to be here to soak it all in - all I can say is that I wouldn't want to be facing the international pressure organizers of the London 2012 Games must be feeling! 38 world records were broken at the Games, Usain Bolt can put "Fastest man in the world" on his business card (and you can imagine the play on the surname "Bolt" by his sponsors in their future ad copy), but my highlight of "Shots of Fame" instead would focus on the dismal... for the following athletes in question, at least:

• Team USA, on the very same day, got disqualified from the finals of both the 4x100 meters relay - for the exact, same novice slip-up - they dropped the batons whilst passing. You would think that the ladies, after witnessing their men go through such a traumatic mistake less than 30 minutes ago, would think to hold on tightly to, and pass, their batons more carefully?
  



• Sydney Olympics 2000 Taekwondo gold medalist Cuban Angel Matos, was disqualified for taking longer than the one-minute injury time in his match against Kazakhstan. Angel decided not to live up to his name, and showed off his remaining skills with a Taekwondo kick to the poor referee. Both Angel and his coach have been banned for life from this game.
  
  

How about our very own sunny island, Singapura's, "Shot at Fame"? Well, issues of foreign talents in table-tennis matches for the Games set aside, I think Singapore has now made its mark as a pro-marriage/pro-pregnancy/pro-baby/pro-family country. Our Prime Minister announced in his National Day Rally Speech that amongst other benefits, maternity leave have now been extended to four months (instead of three months), and the baby bonus for first kids are now SGD$4,000 (up from the previous SGD$3,000), with an additional maximum matching government contribution of SGD$6,000 for Children Development Account activities. Woo hoo! Now, I only need to be around long/often enough to tap the use of the latter set of funds.

3 of us @ Olympics 2008

View full set of pix here.

It was a very fulfilling day for Wayne and I on Tuesday as we caught some Olympic action (we did not want the tickets to go to waste even though Wayne's parents could not stay around to watch the events) - we both took half a day off work and headed off right after lunch to enjoy a leisurely trip to the event venue (even though our events started at 6pm). As we weren't sure whether the roads around the Olympic Green were open to public transport, we took the subway (my first time in many, many months), where we then had to walk about 200m to catch a connecting train (Line 8) right to the doorstep of the Olympic Green.

I was wondering prior whether Beijingers would be civic-conscious enough to offer their seats to a pregnant lady on the train. On my first ride, I stood in front of a couple in their late 30s/early 40s, who continued chatting on happily, oblivious to my tummy, until about 5 minutes into the ride. The woman gave up her seat, and (hopefully) the man was embarrassed enough and also gave up his own seat to his girlfriend/wife - shame on him, tsk tsk!

The new train stations in Beijing are very erm...new, almost like Singapore, and we even took shots at the Line 8 station which had special porcelein-like paintings on the walls/boulders/notice boards. The train rides weren't as scary as I thought, and on the Line 8 trip, a man nicely gave up his seat immediately for me (his wife even joked that his tummy's as big as mine)! However, I'd heard alot beforehand about the strict security measures/checks, and true enough, there were alot of security posts set-up before we entered the Line 8 station, where they checked on your tickets (only those with tickets to Olympic Green venue on that day were eligible), and that you do not bring any food/drinks in (Wayne and I had to finish off the packet of milk and apple I brought, right after a filling lunch - BURP!). However, the volunteers all have to be commended as they were all very friendly, knowledgeable, and efficient - kudos! And I've long heard about the various scalpers who positioned themselves strategically at the entrance to Line 8 - in spite of signages all over the place stating that scalping is punishable by law - haha!

After coming out from the train, we arrived at the door step of Olympic Green, where if yesterday's reports are anything to go by, we experienced Beijing enjoying its cleanest air for 10 years (and the blue skies are set to continue long after the Olympics), according to a top environment official. It wasn't sweltering hot, but luckily I had my shades and cap on, as I'd read before that there aren't too many sheltered areas in between the various sporting venues, and the walks can be quite long.

We were lucky to be minutes from the start of a float parade of the various Olympic mascots, where they displayed the 'Fuwas', and had dancers dressed according to the themes of the five dollies. The poor dancers were all so 'chao tah' (blackened), presumably from being under the hot sun for so many days. My photos/photo-taking was not helped by alot of brollies poking into my view, and of overly-excited aunties wanting to get a good view (had to tell an aunty to stop pushing me).

The reason we'd gone earlier than needed (other than the fact that we didn't want to have to rush during peak hours on public transportation) was that we'd heard of the various hospitality tents of the sponsors, and were eager to get into them and have a look-around. (Note: tents here do not refer to the canvas stuff you put up for sports days/company BBQs, but are actual, nice buildings put up to hold sponsors' exhibits/showcase.) Just a few days ago, I was reading in reports that the sponsors were piqued that there was not enough traffic, but from the massive crowds Wayne and I witnessed on Tuesday, looks like the organizers took the complaints seriously and there were throngs of people around, with snaking queues outside each tent!

In the end, we only ended up viewing the Omega tent, since that was the only one that did not have a queue. My guess is that the "higher powers" have instructed for the crowds to organize visits to the tents, as when we were queuing up at security checks, there were old aunties/uncles with "visit passes" (not for events) that they said were handed out by their companies - state-owned companies, I presume; and we saw volunteers/army boys milling around. Not exactly target audiences of a sponsor like Omega, but still it added loads of people to the place - guess the sponsors have nothing to complain about anymore!

So after a twirl of the various sponsors' tents (I just took photos of the exteriors of them, for memory's sake, haha), we proceeded around the various venues like the famous Bird's Nest with the lighted Olympic Torch (or perhaps infamous, depending on if you are somebody like Liu Xiang and have bad memories of the place, poor thing), the Water Cube, the International Broadcast Centre, the Beijing Olympics Broadcasting Tower ('玲珑塔')... I was quite impressed with the layout, massive space, upkeeping, and the grandeur of the various architecture - am sure this place will remain a huge tourist draw and source of national pride long after the Olympics is over.

Only grouse is there weren't many areas for proper food - they only sold snacks like Chinese hot dogs, ice cream, cakes, instant noodles (at an exhorbitant SGD6 a bowl!). Well, they had two McDonald's restaurant in the whole area, and I was hoping to hitch a ride on the trolley bus to get to the restaurant in time to grab a burger before the event (such rides are only for the pregnant, elderly, and kids - but these "golf carts" have limited seating space and we gave up waiting). In the end, Wayne walked over to the nearest McDonald's and also similarly gave up...there was a long queue to get into the restaurant, and ANOTHER queue to place your order...

Well, we then decided to head on in to the National Indoor Stadium where our events were held - see me gloating with my tickets in hand! There were more snacks sold inside so Wayne bought us bread and a Snickers bar, heh - have to prepare for my hungry tummy as we were going to be in there from 6 pm till 9 pm!

Upon entering to get to our seats, it was quite awe-inspiring to see such a huge stadium, and with all the flags of the participating countries hung up. We were 37 rows from the top gallery, so you can imagine how small the athletes looked below. Luckily there were large screens around, and we had a small pair of binoculars (that made me have a headache from straining to focus...).

The seats were mostly filled (since it was the finals), and the next three hours can only be described as shiok!, as China went on to sweep golds in three of the four events we watched (men's parallel bars, men's horizontal bar, and men's trampoline - got a bronze in last event too, and China also managed a bronze in women's beam). This meant that we stood up to sing the Chinese national anthem three times (I only knew how to sing the last line '前进、前进、前进进!' - 'forward, forward, forward!'). But still, it was a very overwhelming experience to see and hear Chinese supporters cheering loudly for Team China, and seeing the Chinese flag in top place for three of the events. Speaking of supporters, the family sitting next to me was particularly loud/vocal, with the Daddy decked in red and cheering China on, and his daughter was dressed up in Chinese costume and dancing enthusiastically (also caught photo of German fans with their mohawks)...

There was a five-minute interval between the gymnastics and trampoline events as a group of 16 helpers matched out to set up the trampolines... in military precision - was an interesting watch. Also, I tried to take photos of the Chinese athletes doing their sequences, but most were blurred or too small.... I was particularly irked by the many people who used flash photography despite being reminded countless times by the volunteers that it will affect the atheletes. So irritating and inconsiderate...

After the events, we headed out to eat McDonald's (situated near the subway station), and since there were so little seats indoors, we packed the food outside to eat on the benches - yummy as I was practically starving by then, haha! The McDonald's here seems to have a slightly different menu from the usual outlets - seems more Americanized and healthy (e.g. has chicken salad). We were lucky to capture some nice night shots of the place and various sporting venues - looks nice and different at night!

In total, we'd spent about 7 hours at the Olympic Green, including catching a wonderful series of gold-studded events, and capturing day and night scenes. By the time we headed home, I was frankly quite tired from a packed day (with alot of walking and sun), but I think it was all worth it. Before coming here, I was not keen on attending any of the events for fear of the crowds and noise, the hassle, as well as wondering if Beijing's security levels at such an important event/venue were safe enough for a pregnant woman like me (I saw no more than 10 pregnant woman at the grounds, heh!).

I guess all my misperceptions have been corrected, and my fears put at ease, heh! The Chinese have really done their country proud... I'm glad I took the trouble and brought Rosabelle (no doubt still in my tummy) and enjoyed a day with Wayne - his first time there was brief since poor Dad was feeling unwell, so he at least spent time touring the place and soaking in the atmosphere on Tuesday.

I'm proud to have been a part of the Olympics in my own, small way, and to enjoy the experience with my loved ones - absolutely priceless.

Becoming parents

Name: Carina He Hui Xuan
Popped out on: August 12, 2008
Mom & Pop: Tang Bei and Jeff He

Jeff was my ex-colleague in Weber Shandwick Beijing and is now studying at Wharton University in the US for his MBA. He was with the Agency as well when Wayne was around, and they were both even room mates before. His wife also joined him in the US, as did her parents, when they found out she was expecting. They never managed to find out the exact sex of the child during the scans, and it turns out they have a healthy and beautiful baby girl as well, Carina He.

I particularly like this photo of Jeff cradling his newborn - the shadowy, peaceful lighting; his hidden expression; his careful and tender cradling of the baby... it just speaks volumes.

Congratulations to a dear ex-colleague and our friend.

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!