Reflections after sickness

I had a very bad Urinary Tract Infection (UTI) few days ago. I'm still on antibiotic today. At it's worst, the pain was so bad, I could hardly walk and when I collected urine sample at the General Practitioner's (GP) clinic, my urine is red - not pink but RED. It was so scary. The pain was awful. I never had UTI that hurts so much when I pee. I never had UTI that hurts so much that my lower abdomen aches when I walk. I was also running a fever.

I started to worry that it may be more than UTI. Maybe it's really something less benign than UTI - like bladder cancer. 

There are many things in life that we have no control over, like death - like when we die and how we die. My colleague who is a doctor asked me to do some test. I think I should. 

I started to think about God when I think about death. I hope that when I leave this body one day, I will be able to go back to where God is. I hope to think of death as a reborn into another world, where I become, once again, a little baby, snuggling in God's warm embrace. In the back of my mind, I seem to have memories of such warm, loving, unconditional love and care. Such memories often fill my eyes with tears. God's embrace is like telling me, "It's ok, I know what you are, who you are and I see your imperfections, but here, in my bosom, you are safe from the hurt and the troubles of the World. It is safe to be dependent. It is alright to be needy." Perhaps such warm memories stem from my infancy, when my mother held me and I felt her love unconditionally, like God's love. 

As a baby, we are dependent on our parents but as we grow older, we are exposed more and more to the harshness of the world and we depend more on ourselves. As we grow even older, we have to care for and be responsible for others. These burdens rest on our shoulders like weights. We have to adopt some grown up thoughts and behaviours, just so we can carry these burdens and move on. Sometimes we put down our weights and we become children again, praying and being with God.

In my youth, I used to believe that being right is the most important. Now, I believe being kind is more important. There are many ways that people can prove that they are right. There are many rights in this world. But if I make the choice to be kind, my choice will be indisputably mine. Being kind does not mean I will be a pushover and I will not stand up for myself. On the contrary, being kind means that I will put others before myself, and if I have to say something or do something, it must be for their benefit, and not just to save guard my own benefit and pleasure. If I must stand up for myself for the other person's benefit, to show him that bullying is wrong, then it is an act of kindness. It matters how I do it and why I do it. I generally hate conflicts because I hate knowing people being hurt. Others cannot be hurt, I cannot be hurt too. A lesson has to be learnt and it is beautiful if the bully can learn it in a positive way. 

I wish before I die, I can do meaningful things. I hope the footprints that I leave behind will be one of significance and of positive influence.

34 weeks 5 days

Here is me at 34 weeks and 5 days into my pregnancy.

Tummy doesn't seem to be very big. I didn't have very big tummy during my first pregnancy too, but I had water retention which made me look swollen. This time, hurray! No water retention and not much stretch marks too. But belly button popped out, sadly. Took one year to flatten back after first child birth and now its out again.

My baby Caitlin is kicking me more strongly now, as if she's protesting that there's no more space for her inside. I asked a friend who has a baby girl, whether her girl kicked her strongly too. I guess some girls are more gentle. She said her girl never gave her strong kicks, whereas her boy (she's pregnant with a boy) is now giving her strong karate kicks and punches very often. Hmm that means both my boy and girl are "violent" babies huh?!

Sadly I'm having flu now and I wake up with stuffy nose and sore throat everyday. When I sleep, I also had to bear with one side of my nose blocked, whichever side I'm lying on.

And I have to protect my tummy every time I hug Kieran to sleep because he likes to kick his legs before he doze off. I think some mummy somewhere must have invented some tummy protecting armour just for mummies with little toddlers.

My symptoms now are:

• Frequent urination. At night, I have to get up about 4 times to go toilet.
• Frequent contraction. I feel tummy tightening to become rock-hard, and sometimes if I'm lying down when it happens, I get backaches too.
• Aching legs. If I walk too much or stand for too long, it happens, usually at the end of the day. 
• Urge to drink water or beverage. I drink lots of liquid now. Listening to my body. I think its because my breasts are producing milk in preparation for baby.
• Cravings to eat sweet stuff but the urge is lesser now. Last few weeks, I guess baby had a growth spurt and everyday after 4pm, I was eating and eating and eating. My fridge suddenly became filled with food.
• Right side, upper thigh, and near to waist area hurts terribly if I sat down on the floor in one position for too long. I guess its sciatic nerve pain. Had that for first one too. It's getting increasingly difficult to get up from sitting on floor to standing position.
• Had insomnia sometimes. 
• Panicking about things occasionally... especially when I start to worry about what happens after baby is here, how we can adapt to another baby, and how to be control of my life when everything becomes chaotic once more.

I'm looking forward to seeing Dr Ho again this Thurs for 35th week review. Looking forward to seeing baby on the ultrasound monitor again. Every time I sees him, Dr Ho says everything is well. This pregnancy is too smooth sailing to be true. In fact, I never get extra fats, never had very nauseating symptoms or extreme exhaustion or that irritating eczema all over my body, like I had with my first.

Sick and rest needed!

This is so irritating! I am sick now, and I have been sick for very very long, and I desperately needed a rest!

The worst is I have to care for a sick toddler for past one week, and he didn't go to school, and my mom wasn't here to help full time, and this toddler is sticky only to his poor mummy.

And today, everyone had their own activities. Today is Sunday. We are supposed to go to my parents in law's house. Parents in laws are busy with activities and hubby is busy with activities, and so the care of baby is left to ME again! And I am sick. For goodness sake. This sucks.

Yesterday I took care of baby whole night too but that's ok as he never really cry much but I will try to let him self settle awhile and if he couldn't, I'll go to hug him. And hubby had to come into the room trying to help every time baby cries. This made me so irritated as I will feel obliged to have to go and take care of baby every time he cries, otherwise hubby will take over or carry him away. But I do not want him to carry him away. He CAN self settle at times! Carrying him away is not necessary to deal with it! He'll never learn to self settle if we kept doing it.

Woke up with runny nose and blocked nose that has already been bugging me the whole night (and actually for every nights for the past week), and that already made me feel so horrible. And I had to leak urine every time I sneeze (due to pregnancy- the hormones that relaxes the muscles and the heavy weighing down on the bladder)! I had to change pantyliners and wash the panties twice last night. And my throat was so parched during the middle of the night, I had to go and drink some water to relieve the dry itchiness.

All these and today, everyone tells me they have some kind of activities to be busy with and cannot help to take care of baby.

I wished to leave baby there for awhile and take a good break, and just focus on taking care of my own body for a change. And nobody will understand. Why can't a stay home mom get MC leaves? I'm going to go on strike today.

Everything just sucks to the max today.