Qaiser Mateen Birth Story

**May this be a reminder for me and H, the moments before we called ourselves parents, and for our firstborn Qaiser Mateen to learn how he came about to this world.**

Monday 6 June

Petang around 4 pm macam tu pergi jenguk Mamunchkin (our milkshake kiosk at Taman Perpaduan Ipoh. Asyik tangguh nak post about this), buat apa yang patut. Masa kat situ dah rasa tak sedap perut, but I didn't think I was having surges because I know how it feels like sebab masa miscarriage first time haritu dah rasa. I thought it was the maternity jeans that made me so uncomfortable. Sempat jugak pergi bazaar belakang kedai. Tapi on the way balik rumah, dalam kereta, dah macam cacing kepanasan, tak boleh duduk diam. Still thought it was the jeans -___- sampai sumpah taknak pakai dah jeans tu huhu.

Sampai rumah, I sat on the gym ball, and H gave me light touch massage (one of the massage techniques we learned from the Hypnobirthing class) to calm me down. It worked! I felt fine throughout the rest of the night.

Tuesday 7 June

It was a normal day. Tak rasa apa-apa.

Wednesday 8 June

Again, around 4 pm macamtu rasa tak sedap perut. Sempat jugak pergi bazaar kt Stadium Ipoh with H and my parents. Balik tu rasa 'maybe I should time the surges', so I did. The surges were irregular, but ada masanya app tu said something like 'You should go to the hospital now'. We were like, naaaahh it couldn't be right. So malam tu layan je la surges tu. Whatsapp-ed my sister, and she said it could be Braxton Hicks contractions since it was irregular. Mama pulak before pergi night duty malam tu, dah siap2 pack kurma and air zam-zam, in case I went into labor that night. She is doing locum dekat pusat bersalin yang kitorang decide nak pergi.

Thursday 9 June

3 am

Bermulalah episod 'purging' atau 'membuang'. Lepas sahur around 6 am tu pergi lagi toilet. Pelik jugak, ingat macam kena food poisoning ke sebab semalam tu ade beli pecal kt bazaar, takde la kata basi tapi tu je boleh fikir time tu. Tapi everybody was fine, it was just me.

8 am

Another 'purging' session. Bila Mama balik from night duty pagi tu, tanya Mama ada sakit perut ke, Mama said yes. So betul la kot sebab bazaar.

9.30 am

I asked mommies dalam Telegram Hypnobirthing Support Group (awesome mommies yang rajin share tips and tricks) pasal 'purging' before labor and also about my irregular surges. Ada yang kata maybe dehydration, ada yang kata practice labor. So I just waited it out.

10 am

Masa nak  mandi, baru sedar ada 'bloody show'. Stayed calm, told Mama and Mama suruh mandi hot shower and after that she would do VE. My mom is certified midwife :) So lepas mandi she did VE on me, dah 4 cm. Rupanya I was in real labor, LOL. Boleh ingat food poisoning. Siap-siap barang semua, had breakfast (nak beranak uols, kena la bukak pose :P) and off we went to Pusat Pakar Permata Raaofah. Mama estimated I would deliver before bukak puasa, so dah bagitau Ayah siap2 nanti datang around 6pm bawak makanan untuk berbuka.

12 pm

Sampai je PPPR, terus masuk labor room sebab dah 4 cm. Masa sampai-sampai tu dah bagi the nurses on duty my birth plan. Basically in my birth plan I set out to deliver in the most gentle and natural way possible - no drugs, no episiotomy, no unnecessary interventions, delay cord clamping, direct skin-to-skin, allow time for breast crawl, breastfeeding and family bonding right after birth and few other things.

Midwife on duty buat another VE, dah 5cm. She alerted Dr. Raaofah, she gave me 2 hours to get to 7 cm, kalau tak she would rupture the membrane. Huhu. So selama 2 jam tu alternate walking around the hospital and duduk atas gym ball. Bile surge datang, I did the surge breathing while visualizing rainbow balloons, and my three babies (2 from the previous pregnancies) main-main dalam taman syurga, and eventually one baby (the one I was carrying) slid down the rainbow to meet me in real world. Aih susah nak explain hahaha. But memang setiap kali surge datang I visualized the same thing and that helped me manage the 'pain'.  This is one of the techniques we learned from the class, to hypnotize yourself as one way of pain management.

2 pm

Midwife did another VE, it was 6 cm. Dang it. Dah nervous dah sebab kalau tak 7 cm doc akan buat ROM. Rasanya masa ni diorang dah put me on IV drip, katanya utk baby. I wanted to refuse it tapi sebab diri sendiri tak buat homework pasal IV drip ni, so redha je la. But midwife still allow me to be off the bed, takde lah keras je duduk atas katil.

3.30 pm

Doc masuk, did another VE. Berapa banyak kali VE daaaa. Padahal dalam birth plan dah kata max 3. Again, redha. Masa ni 7 cm kot. Tetibe rasa banyak air keluar, rupenye mase doc buat VE tu my water broke dengan sendiri nya. And there was light meconium stain in the fluid..dalam kata lainnya baby dah berak sikit..

Lepas tu, bermulalah intense surges yang hmmppphh..lupe dah macamana rasanya. A few times midwife tanya and my mom tanya nak Entenox (the laughing gas) tak, I kept declining. Dalam kepala ada la a few times bila surge datang tu fikir arghhh nak amik je la gas tu, tapi dapat tahan jugak dari keluar kata-kata keramat tu. Yang jadi mangsa siapa lagi kalau bukan my darling H. Bila surge datang akan peluk leher die kuat-kuat, sambil visualise macam kat atas tadi, and told myself this would be over soon. Yelah surges paling lama pun macam 40 seconds to 1 minute camtu kan. So tahan je.

Lepas doc check tu, I dah lost track of time and memory pun dah hilang dah. Kena tanya H apa yang exactly jadi. Throughout the time in the labor room, nurses ada ambil my BP reading and baby's heartbeat pki doppler. Rasanya ade midwife tanya boleh tak saya buat VE, I gently declined. Cakap kejap lagi ye. Sebab I rasa macam tak perlu..tapi hujung-hujung tu ada la jugak die buat skali lagi and I was fully dilated. Lepas tu diorang dah start suruh push the baby out. OK ni saat yang malas nak ingat. Sebab masa ni ilmu Hypnobirthing dah ke laut. I did J breathing tapi midwives suruh push, cakap what I was doing was wrong. Sigh. Masa diorang suruh push, I was a bit confused actually. I didn't have the urge to push. Diorang tanya ada rasa nak poo tak, I didn't feel anything. Masa ni, surges yang datang pun dah tak rasa sakit sangat. I was confused sebab from my reading and hearing other people's experiences, akan rasa 'the ring of fire' yang sakit gila tu, the thing is I didn't feel it. 

After around 40 minutes cuba push, doc came in and said we couldn't wait anymore, we had to use vacuum. I was like OK ape2 je la dah tak larat actually, bukan takde tenaga tapi macam dah hilang kesabaran, I just wanted the baby to be out. And out he went at 5.58 pm. Bergegar labour room tu dengan suara Qaiser Mateen kui3. They had to clamp the cord right away despite my wish to have delayed cord clamping because of the light meconium staining. They took him to a side room to aspirate his nose and mouth, before bringing him back to me to have skin-to-skin bonding. Walaupun tak lama, I was really happy that we did have the moment together. Feel of the vernix coating yang melekit-lekit tu, wah typing this makes me want to relive that moment. It felt so crude. I tried to breastfeed him but somehow it didn't happen so my mom said let the nurses take him away for clean up, kasi can the nurses buka puasa because it was almost 7.

All in all, I enjoyed the whole birthing experience. I managed to go through it drug-free and although I couldn't tick everything on my birth plan off, I am grateful that the process went smoothly and both mom and baby came out of the experience healthy and happy :)

I'm ever so grateful to have shared this wonderful experience with my husband and my mom. Thank you Dr. Raoofah and her team, and thank you Kak Ayuni Zainuddin, my Hypnobirthing 'cikgu' for the knowledge. 

I must say, going into labor with knowledge is so empowering, both for me and H. 

Till then, adieu.

Masa buat 3D scan ni dah boleh teka QM macam muka siapa :P

Day 1 of life

Ramadhan Kareem

Salam,

It's not too late to wish everyone

'Selamat Menjalani Ibadah Puasa'

You know when people wish you 'Semoga Ramadhan tahun ini lebih bermakna daripada tahun sebelumnya', for me, it already is a better Ramadhan this year, Alhamdulillah.

Why, you asked? 

Last year during Ramadhan, specifically on 21 June 2015, I miscarried my 6-weeks old baby. It was my second miscarriage in less than a year, because before that, I miscarried in September 2014. It happened so fast. That day I was at my sister's house helping her with some chores when I noticed a brown spotting. Hati dah tak sedap, because it reminded me of my first miscarriage experience. I tried to convince myself it was nothing serious, because in some women, spotting occurs right up until the baby is full term. 

Before going back to Puchong, we went to a clinic in Putrajaya to check on the baby. The doc said she could not see the sac, probably because it was still early or because my bladder was empty that she could not get a good view of my uterus. So off we went back to Puchong. That day my in laws decided to have iftar outside, but I followed the doc's advice to have 2-3 days of bed rest just to be on the safe side. 

Next day when I woke up for sahur, the worst happened. I saw fresh blood on the liner and told myself, 'it's happening'. I was sad, but I didn't cry, because deep down I think I knew it was coming, and it wasn't my rezeki, again. So H and I went to the clinic and the doc confirmed that miscarriage was in process, and it should be completed in 2-3 days (or something like that, I can't really remember now). 

And the rest was history. I wrote this note last year when it happened, and no one has ever seen it other than myself. So consider yourself lucky for seeing this for the first time :)

Alhamdulillah, this year, this Ramadhan, we will be expecting our third baby (2 angel babies are already in Heaven) :D 

To all TTC mommies out there, don't give up hope. I don't have any tips/tricks to share with you but just remember that Allah is The Omniscient and He is The Best Planner. Keep that in your mind all the time. Never stop praying to Him, inshAllah, 'The Best Is Yet To Come'.

'Demi Allah yang jiwaku ditangannya !Tidaklah Allah memutuskan sesuatu ketentuan bagi seorang mukmin melainkan mengandungi kebaikan baginya. Dan tiadalah kebaikan itu kecuali bagi mukmin . Jika ia memperolehi kegembiraan dia berterima kasih bererti kebaikan baginya , dan jika ia ditimpa kesulitan dia bersabar bererti kebaikan baginya'

-Riwayat Muslim-

Anything for the sake of knowledge.

This post is long overdue, and I have to thank my mentor, Dr. Azizan Osman for finally making me write this post.

After much deliberation between me and H about going to any DAO's seminars, we finally settled for IMKK (Intensif Magnet Kejayaan dan Kekayaan) back in December 2015. Before that, while we were in the UK, we would watch DAO's videos on Facebook while having our meals (sebab situlah ruang tamu, situlah dining area, situlah office). Then we thought why not balik Malaysia nanti we go for his seminar. At that time, we went with zero expectation. We actually didn't know exactly why we went. Konon masa tu rasa business Kedai 1UK was doing well, we as a couple were doing well, so pergi IMKK macam just to test the water. Little that we knew, IMKK really opened up our minds about everything - life, business, connection with Allah and so many other things. 

We learned a lot from IMKK, but I must say we were not really good students because from 1000 things DAO taught us, we probably just practiced 1%, and one of them was to hire a permanent staff for K1UK. Before this, it was us who did EVERYTHING, from replying messages, taking orders, packing etc. Thank God we have H's family to help with the orders distribution once the items arrive in Malaysia. So whenever we went for a holiday or something, K1UK page would be unattended, which meant no sales. But Alhamdulillah things start to change once we hired the new admin. I must say she is a good one :) The best thing is, we gotta help add value to her life because she was unwillingly dismissed from her job. Since then, we got to go jalan-jalan or pergi kenduri without worrying about our beloved customers.

Why do I only share about us going to IMKK now? Ha, this is one of the 99% of ilmu yang DAO ajar but I didn't really practice. I still listened to 'suara budak kecik' or 'biawak biawak' kat luar sana yang made me skeptical to share about my experience. I thought nanti mesti orang ingat poyo ke ape ke, plus DAO pun ada controversies jugak kan..if you know what I mean. 

But after going to MMM (Millionaire Marketing Mastery) last week, things changed! I said to myself, no more hiding. I am gonna say it out loud that DAO is my mentor, and HE IS THE BEST MENTOR anyone could ask for. We paid for MMM right after IMKK ended, and were supposed to go to the January session. But something came up during that time, I think it was multiple friends' weddings during the weekend that we decided to postpone to another session. Then there was one in March, and we had to skip that one as well, I think sebab wedding jugak. Since we lived in the UK for 4 years and didn't get a chance to attend many family and friends' weddings, so it was payback time. Alhamdulillah we managed to go the May session (initially they said there is only one MMM session per year, I guess DAO just want to help more and more people hence more sessions).

I was 37+ weeks pregnant then and even I thought I could not last the whole time. Dah siap plan dengan H we might need to book a hotel room so that I could rest while he continued with the seminar. Mind you, IMKK and MMM are a three-days seminar, with the first two days being ~15 hours long (9 am to roughly midnight) and the last day from 9 am to about 6 pm. Alhamdulillah Allah permudahkan, 15 jam duduk atas kerusi takde sakit pinggang, cuma kaki je lah bengkak macam gajah kui3. Anything for the sake of knowledge.

OK macam dah panjang pulak. I'll continue with what I learned from MMM in my next post inshAllah.

Have a great weekend everybody :)

Adapting our wallet

H and I got back for good last October. We lived a nomadic life until early March this year because I hadn't started working until mid March. So it was either Puchong or Ipoh or Penang (boleh kira dengan jari berapa kali balik Penang). Since most of the time we stayed with our parents, we didn't do much grocery shopping ourselves (in other words makan freeeee). Now that we've finally settled down in Penang, I have realised one thing (or two) about our spending, be it for food, housewares, babywares etc. If I were to put a positive tone to it, I'd say we are money savvy. But some might say we are just plain kedekut. Hahaha

Everytime we go on grocery shopping, we'll make sure nothing too expensive goes into the cart. We didn't buy seafood for two weeks in a row because we thought they were just too expensive. Udang XL (yang tak besar mana) is average RM 25-30 per kilo, one time we saw sotong for RM 29.90 per kilo. Sanggup tak beli walaupun dah berminggu tak makan seafood. Now, money-savvy or kedekut?

The thing is our brains have not properly adjusted to the RMs. We used to buy groceries for much less in the UK that we couldn't help but to compare the prices here and there. For example, 2 pint (1.14 L) milk in the UK cost 75p (75 sen) and here it costs almost RM 8. Now don't convert between GBP and RM because Britons earn the same amount of pay as we do here, on average. Let say engineers get a basic  of RM3000, diorang pun dapat GBP3000. Cuma bile bab makan, memang murah amat. Weekly groceries (half full trolley) there costed us around £15. Here, dalam RM 150. *cries* That's why sometimes our brains refrain us from buying sebab rasa it's not worth it, but seriously we need to tune our brains back to the 'Boleh Land'.

Our second problem is that we run a business on discounted items. So our brains are trained to look for/buy stuff only if they are on discounts. Most of the times, when we plan on buying something, we end up not buying it after we see the price tag. We'll go like, 'Takpelah tunggu die discount dulu'. And we never bought it.....either because the item is NEVER on sale or we simply forget that we need it. For example, we were so in need of an extra sofa/chair for the living room because the one we bought from UK, let's just say, nice to see, not so nice to sit on to watch TV haha. Plus it is just a 3-seater sofa, we need to have more! For months we put off buying new one because after once or twice we went to survey on them, we gave up. Nak yang cantik, selesa, tahan lama tapi nak yg murah. How lah? Eventually, we ended up buying another 3-seater sofa yang super comfy (so in love with it) just two days before we organised a small dinner party at our place. Kalau dah terpaksa tu, semua terus OK je lol. 

Now that a baby is on the way, we need adjust and adapt to family life in Malaysia pronto! Nanti kesian baby, semua benda kena catu sebab mom and dad asyik nak tunggu sale baru nak beli benda, ihiks. 

Our 3rd anniversary

Scratch that 'nothing fancy planned this year' on my previous post. 

We had a nice time-out on our anniversary last week. At noon on 26 April, H booked a room at Holiday Inn Penang and off we checked in right after work. Perk of living on an island :) Since H said he never drove to Batu Feringghi via Balik Pulau, it was the perfect time to do it that day. OK that'll be the first and the last time, because the road was very challenging at times and obviously it took longer to reach because of the hilly road. The good thing was, H got to feast on a RM 60 durian (now I can't remember which one he bought). That hantu durian I tell you, he can't stand the sight of durian tepi jalan, mesti nak berhenti.

We made full use of the 14 hours we had there. Soon after we checked in, H took a dip in the sea then in the pool, while I made myself busy taking photos and observing people. We then went to Hard Rock Cafe for dinner (first time for both of us). All this while we went to HRC just so H could add on his HRC t-shirt collection from the places we traveled (no he's not getting one from Penang, or even KL lol). Surprisingly, it was H who suggested we had dinner there, and boy was it a good choice. We loved the food and the waiter was so helpful in suggesting the menus. 

After dinner, H had a foot massage. It was 11.30 pm when he finished and I was supposed to have my manicure but too bad shops were closing and no one wanted to take last minute customer :( So I can say, this year's anniversary, H got treated the most :D 

But it was ever so easy to please me. Staying in a hotel for one night is already a treat for me. I have always loved hotels since I was a kid, following my dad around when he had outstation meetings. He once told me his staff was so nervous about booking his hotel room because they knew I could make a fuss if I didn't like it. 

H feasted on durians, I feasted on the breakfast buffet spread. Fair and square :) Then it was time to check out since I got doctor's appointment that morning and then off to work. 

Short and perfect anniversary celebration, it was. 

I recommend the HRC tangy chicken wings and Strawberry Basil mocktail. They are so good!

New venture

It's our 3rd anniversary tomorrow. We don't have anything fancy planned this year, though I really wanted to have a 'babymoon' since it'll be the last time we get to travel/spend time together, just the two of us before the baby pops out. Something came up about 3 weeks ago, and we have been working on that ever since that we decided, our anniversary cum babymoon will have to wait. 

Rezeki Allah itu luas. And this one came when least expected it. For the past three weekends, we have been traveling back and forth from Penang to Ipoh to settle things. 3 weeks ago, we drove back to Ipoh after solat Jumaat (oh there was a drama on that day. I shall blog about it later). Then as soon as we arrived, we headed straight to the site to see the place. We then drove back to my parents' place, H had his shower and zaasss he went on the ETS train to KL to settle K1UK things. Full day Saturday and Sunday he was packing customers's orders, attending to customers who came to the house to collect their orders and etc. On Sunday he took the 7pm train back to Ipoh and next day we drove back to Penang early in the morning since I gotta go to work.

The following weekend, we drove from Penang to Kulim to see the regional manager just to submit our SSM certificate (old school man, he didn't do email or anything like that). It was a nice short meeting as we got to meet him face-to-face and listened to his business advice and whatnot. Something we may not get if we just sent the cert through email :) Then from Kulim we drove to Ipoh. We spent that Saturday driving all over Ipoh meeting with suppliers and whatnot, and only managed to have lunch at 4.30 pm (sorry baby). We went to see another supplier on Sunday then it was rest day for us before we went back to Penang that night.

We just arrived from Ipoh at 10.30 am today. We went back on Saturday morning, and off we went to see three suppliers within 1 hour because it was Saturday and everything was going to be closed by 1pm. Meeting on weekdays is a big no-no for us since I'm working so we had to rush to do everything on Saturdays. On Sunday, after sending my dad to the bus station, we got ourselves some paint supplies and went to the place give it a new look. We could have hired a painter to do the job for us, but H insisted to do it himself because it's way cheaper. So we spent the afternoon painting, only to find out that we didn't have enough paint and we could not get more since most paint shops are closed on Sundays. As if we were still so 'wangi' after all the hardwork, we went to Aeon Kinta City to have lunch and did some shopping for baby (ehem and mommy) supplies (been putting this off for quite sometime).

Now why am I writing all this? It may mean nothing to you, but I just feel like I need to document this memory somewhere, to remind us how it all began. Also, when the baby is big enough to read later, I'll let him read how good he/she has been throughout this starting journey, braving the highways, the scorching sun and the nonstop walking, yet never gave mommy a hard time :)

Happy anniversary to us, yay!

At 31 weeks..

You kick/wrestle (or party..hmm) like a champion in my womb. This is not just one kick with one leg, but there are times when you poke my belly with all your limbs, AT ONCE. Whoa that moment, it feels like gempa bumi in there.

You listen to me very well. After I found out that you are super active than the previous weeks, I was a bit nervous to drive to work because you know, with the earthquake and its after shocks that you give me, sometimes I get a little startled. So the other day before I started driving, I told you to keep calm while I was driving, and you did! Soon after I reached the office, the gempa started -__- but all was fine. 

I'm gonna miss these gempa bumis once you pop out, for sure.