Preview of our "Little Mungbean"!

Yes, the little one finally arrived on a rainy early morning on 24 June 2007.

Thus far, we have yet to decide on a name for her.

Baby's vital statistics

Date of birth : 24 June 2007
Weight : 2.97 2.95kg
Head circumference : 33cm
Apgar Score :
1min : 9 5min : 10 10min :10

Her birth story / my labour experience was a long and traumatic one (for me, that is). More on this in my next post.

21 June 2007

Stone Dancer Greets The Dawn
Originally uploaded by tarotastic

Today's supposed to be the day "Little Mungbean" is out to join us.. but from the looks of it, she's still quite contented staying in!

Today is also the Summer Solstice for the northern hemisphere, the longest day of the year (and hence, the shortest night). It would have been nice too, if "little mungbean" is born today - such an eventful day it is :)

Perhaps she just needs a few more days' rest in the warm womb. Like her mom, me, I was overdue a few days as well :P Like mother like daughter, eh?

Week 39

Our "little mungbean" (our affectionate nickname for baby since she was 12 weeks old) is due in 2 days' time. But judging from the way she is engaged (3/5 engaged), she may not be arriving so soon, much to my disappointment. :( Yes, I'm a little impatient, but only because she is getting heavier (and putting much strain on my back). I know this sounds abit selfish but walking now is taking more toll on my back and also my legs - which leads to frequent oedema (swelling).

While waiting in the antenatal clinic watching baby-tv during today's weekly visit, here's what I learnt : "Duck's quack doesn't echo, and nobody knows why". A very useless piece of information, but I decided to check it up. Here's what I found. Apparently, not so true.

Also, another piece of information I learnt from baby-tv was that "Sharks do not get sick". Hmm, I wonder if there's any truth in this?

My last week's ultrasound scan (Credits to come soon...)

It is not normal practice that NHS will do more than 2 designated ultrasound for a normal pregnant lady. I was referred to this one last week as the midwife was worried that the baby might be on the "small" side due to my tummy measurement. Well, turned out her weight's just fine - at an estimated 7lbs!

News from Malaysia

The PM getting married??

This came as a total surprise to me.. o_O

1 June

Officially the first day of Summer.

Effectively, another 20 days of waiting (if we're lucky!).

Sometimes...

.. you lose some ($$$) in order to gain some (sanity).

**Fingers crossed anyway**

Friday, friday...

Joy, originally uploaded by tearoom.

Don't you just love fridays? More so if you are a working class... :)

I just had a session with the diebetologist (didn't even know such an occupation exists!) this am and looking at my Glucose Monitoring diary, she gave me the all clear and assured that I DO NOT need insulin injection - phew! What a relief. The high readings that I get once in awhile was due to dietary reasons (once I had dessert after dinner and the reading rocketted to 9.0).

And I'm just so totally absorbed in doing my digital scrapping! I've been warned by Mom2Ashley that it is addictive... :) It definitely is. Somehow though, I take about a day or more to complete a scrap. (Going at a snail pace)

Have a good weekend! It's a long weekend here, hopefully can persuade the hubs to bring me to the park. He hesistates due to the high pollen count these days. But I tell him it's good for the baby too! Hopefully that will sway his decision. :P

Waddling at 35 Weeks

Swarovski-Horse
Originally uploaded by Tsu Lin.

Last Mon an old friend Sanny came to London for a visit. Actually, she's just stopping by London on her way back to Holland from a long weekend visit to her husband's cousin's place over in Bath.

We decided to meet up in the city since it's only a bus ride away from my appointment in the morning. We decided to meet up near Oxford St and i thought of making our way to try out the new jap restaurant that took over my favourite jap place (their lease expired so now there is a new owner). This new place doesn't seem to be opened most of the time (Hubs & I wanted to try it out during one of the weekends and they were closed)... And i thought of just walking to the other jap place nearby - Sakura.

Sakura is such a crap place! First of all, they told us that they don't serve Sashimi & Sushi anymore (maybe cos we were there at 3pm). Fine, then when the manager came to sit us, we requested to sit at the back of the restaurant as there were people smoking near us at the tables infront. He had the cheek to say this to us "Sorry, that section is closed. I know of your condition (ie pregnant), but if you don't like it, you can walk out & go to another place." I would have walked out if I wasn't quite hungry. Anyway, Japanese are known to be top notch in their service! That man has obviously been in Britain for too long (although his English is passable). Anyway, the last straw was when the waitress came to take our orders and said that it was their policy to take orders of main dish for every patron on the table. Sanny & hubby was still full from their lunch just an hour ago. We took our coats and walked out of there. Snob restaurants do not deserve anyone's patronage...

We settled into a cafe instead and chatted away for 2 hours... then bade our goodbyes and went our separate ways. I did some window shopping along Oxford St, walking into Gap and looking at the 2 toys I'm most likely to get for the baby later - a monkey & a dog soft toy - both of which makes a sound when you squeeze them! Too cute!

Edit : I don't believe in getting too many soft toys for babies, but I do believe in "educational" toys, toys that will excite a baby's 5 senses.

Exactly 31 days..

..till the little baby emerges. Meaning only 1 more month before I can see, touch, smell, hear and cuddle her!

Exhilarating yet scary at the same time.

Experimenting with brushes

Baby's first pair of shoes :)

The last week, I was busy downloading and reading on tutorials about how to (effectively) use brushes in Photoshop after enviously looking at so many blogs with beautifully done up pictures. There are just so many things you can do with brushes, and various techniques of using them.

Here are some useful sites that I found for Photoshop tutorials or for PS brushes:
Brushes Tutorials on "Tutorialized"
Brushes tutorials on Photoshopbrushes.com
Free brushes and tutorials at Tutorialblog