21st week - More than halfway through!!

"Yay, we're more than half way through!!
Wonder if you are a boy or a girl?
Well, we'll find out soon, won't we?"

:)

London bombs!

This is not directly related to Bambini. However, its just too BIG a thing not to record in our blog.

Many of our friends have earlier emailed, smsed or called us to check if we were alright. Just want to give thanks to God that both of us are indeed safe and sound and not very affected by the series of explosions in London earlier this morning (London time).

YL was going to take the underground tube to school at 9am. A train had arrived and he was about to board it when there was a message from the PA system to say that they are shutting down the whole underground service and the station itself, because there was a series of incidents. He tried another nearby tube station but it was the same and he even saw explosive experts patrolling the area.

At that time, I was surfing the internet and there was newsflash about the blasts in London. We were horrified to hear of so many explosions throughout central london business area. The images, statistics and reports that were coming through the tv and internet gave us shivers. One double-decker bus was ripped apart by a bomb, one bomb exploded in a litter bin and there were several explosions in the various underground tube lines. A lot of the less injured commuters came out of the tube visibly shaken with a lot of soot on their faces...

We were just glued to the tv and everything appeared so surreal. You see, just a couple of months ago, there was a docu-fictional show that was staged to show how London might respond to a similar attack...My mind was going, "is this for real or is it just another drill"??

We continued to monitor the situation from home via tv news and internet. Thank God we are staying just outside central london, and are therefore relatively unaffected. We had also found out that all our friends and colleagues in London were physically unaffected by the incidents. However, we still felt rather upset.If this was one year ago, I might have been affected, as I would have been travelling down to school to write my MSc thesis in one of the school libraries near Russell Square tube station (one of the station that had been affected by the blast). And the timing of the blast might have well affected me as that would have been my travelling time!! Thoughts like these made us feel really thankful for just being alive.

We're really touched when we received so many smses, emails and telephone calls from friends and families to check if we are alright. We need to continue to pray that the situation will become much better for those Londoners and tourists who are caught in the blast and that there would be as few fatalities as possible and a sense of normality restored to London soon. In a way, London has subconciously become our "second" home, and it just distress us to think of what the families and friends of those who were injured or worse, killed, in this senseless incident must be going through now...

Its strange that just yesterday, the whole of London was celebrating how they have clinched the honour to host the Olympics in 2012. Today, the sense of jubilation has suddenly been replaced by such tragedy and confusion...

Life is totally unpredictable. We all need to cherish TODAY.

"Supernatural Childbirth"

Recently, my pastor's wife passed us this book called "Supernatural Childbirth".

I recalled friends who are Christians and themselves mothers all having read this book and getting very inspired by it. There was a friend WHL who even experience it herself and told me that she didn't feel much pain during the labour and even managed to laugh through it! WOW!

The stuff in there were really quite inspiring to both YL and myself and if we were to act on it, it would be a really faith-building event! I will readily confess that whilst I believe that it happens, it is difficult to claim it for myself.

Well, we've still got about 5 months away before D-day, so have got plenty of time to build up my faith level! :)

Result of maternal serum screening blood test

Received a letter today from the hospital to inform us that the recent maternal serum screening blood test has shown that bambini is not at high risk for Down's syndrom or an open neural tube defect.

Totally forgot about having done this test during our 1st NHS visit....but certainly thankful of the outcome.

:)

1st encounter with NHS Maternity - 15th week scan

Yuan Liang has tentatively called our little one "Bambini", which means "multiple children" in Italian, but we know that we are only expecting one. We do not know yet whether it is a "bambino" (little boy) or a "bambina" (little girl) and therefore gave it a more neutral/generic term.

Today's our first encounter with NHS maternity system. We have registered with the Maternity Department of Queen Charlotte and Chelsea Hospital in Hammersmith. They are supposed to be one of the newer hospital and therefore are better equipped with supposedly high tech machines...

After a short wait, we were called upon by a midwife, who happened to be a Chinese Malaysian lady. The UK system is much more personal...the midwife patiently explained to us the various procedures and did the various tests (apart from blood test and ultrasound), and gave us stacks and stacks of free magazine, and brochures to read. Over in UK, u don't see the doctor/gynae himself/herself at such an early stage, and only do so if you have a problematic pregnancy or are about to give birth. Praise God that so far, the pregnancy has been really smooth.

Unlike the Singapore system of "public hospitals" (which only admitted the mother into the ultrasound room, at least that was what happened to us in KK Hospital), Yuan Liang was allowed into the ultrasound room this time, and had the pleasure (for the first time!!) of seeing his Bambini stretching his/her hands and feets and sucking his/her thumb, all these "live and real time". It was all very exciting for him! The nice ultrasound lady printed two images for us, one of which is shown below.

You should be able to spot his/her facial features and clenched left fist...the legs are curled up and cannot be seen clearly here.

The baby is currently approximately 15cm long head to toe. Too bad, we couldn't yet spot the gender. The ultrasound lady said we should be able to have a better look at it when we next come back at the 21st week. We're now only in the 15th + week.

Beginning of 2nd Trimester!

Yay, the baby and me have passed our first trimester together with FLYING COLORS!! :)

Things that we need to thank God for:
a) No morning sickness! Actually, my appetite has been pretty normal!
b) No food craving...(can u imagine, if i crave for singapore chilli crab, YL has to fly back to Singapore to buy that for me???)
c) No bleeding scare
d) No skin blemishes/outbreak
e) Not much discomfort of any kind....

Subtle experiences which didn't really bother me:
a) Sleepiness: Just kept feeling extremely sleepy and was taking daily afternoon naps!
b) Frequent Urination (thats common 'cos the womb is pushing down the bladder)
c) Slight backache : Need to adjust sleeping position to sleep at the side.
d) Slight nose bleed for a short while
e) Slight sore eye for a short while

So we have done pretty well so far! *Pat tummy!*
....ok, lets now move onward, and outward into the second trimester!! :)

Looking forward to tomorrow's checkup

Looking forward to tomorrow...
Wonder if our child would be as vain?? :)