After so long

I can now personally attest that motherhood warps time and each day passes by like a blink of an eye. This is the reason why this space has been neglected for so long. Just like that four months of maternity leave has come and gone and I’m back at work. I’m still trying to find my jive and balance work and taking care of my little angel. Good thing our nanny arrived a week before I had to go back to work.

So how are things since I last checked in? Everything is going quite well. I adore my Bee and I still can’t believe that a love this strong can exist. She is doing really well, she eats and sleeps very well. She likes to smile and giggle when we talk to her.

I got used to less hours of sleep, breastfeeding is still going well. During my first three days back at work I still manage to express milk. The nanny that we hired is coping with the new environment and with bee.

I sure hope that this would be the start of me being able to post more regularly in this site again. I sure missed it.

Charlize Jaeden: Our Birth Story

It has been exactly three weeks since our little angel has arrived and yet I remember the events as it happened as if it was yesterday. Our saga started on the 16th of November. I knew honey would arrive home at around 3pm so I decided to wait for him to have lunch so we ended lunching at around 3:30 pm so that night I decided not to have dinner coz I was still full from the very late lunch. I was happily re-reading new moon in anticipation of watching the movie in a couple of days when I remembered to bug honey to buy our tickets online for the coming Thursday (19th of November) which was the first day of showing of New Moon here in the Netherlands. He ended up buying the tickets at around 10 pm while telling me to stop reading and to go to bed.

I was still reading at around 11pm when all of a sudden, a gush of liquid came out of me. My water broke! I immediately called honey and told him “honey, I don’t think we’ll be able to use those tickets after all, my water just broke.” My general practitioner instructed us that in case my water broke late at night or very early morning, I should sleep and call them in the morning, so I tried to sleep. However, the contractions started, at first mild but were gaining strength by the hour then at around 4 am, when I went to the toilet, there were traces of blood in my undies and so I told honey to call the midwife. When the midwife and the assistant arrived, they told us that they we’re not sure if it was really water or pee that came out of me so they said I should rest coz I might not even give birth any time soon.

So I tried to rest but no avail, the contractions started to get stronger. At around 9 am I told honey to contact the GP again and when they arrived, they checked me and told me that I was 2 cm dilated, they told me that I should just wait a while and they will come back to check on my status after a couple of hours.

At around 3pm, the GPs arrived and checked on me again. At this time I was really exhausted and I haven't eaten except for 2 pieces of bread that honey insisted I eat. After checking on me, the GPs told me that I was only 3 cm dilated so it was going really slowly. They suggested that we go to the hospital already so that I could be given morphine for the pain so that I could rest coz the labour process could be long.

Honey and I arrived at the hospital at around 4pm and when we arrived, the doctor explained to me the options for medication but that time, the pain subsided so I decided not to have any medications. However, around 8pm, the pain was already too much and I was too tired from the long labour, not to mention lack of food coz I was not able to eat anything at all (I tell you labor messes with your appetite), so I asked for medication. However, since I’m already 7cm dilated, epidural was out of the question, I was given morphine, but the medication didn’t have any effect on me so it was a long and painful labour. Honey was starting to worry about me as I writhe in bed with agony. Now I know why they call it such.

After what seemed to be an eternity of torturous pain and squishing honey’s hand that would definitely require him to undergo therapy, the doctor finally said that I was fully dilated and should push when I felt the pushing contractions come. Within half an hour of pushing, the doctor told me that I was pushing well but the heartbeat of the baby rises each time I push so they would need to make the delivery quicker by using a clamp. With a few more pushes and through the help of the clamp, our little angel was out, finally. The moment they placed her on my chest, all the pain seemed to have vanished. Honey cut her umbilical cord and he told me it was a really strange feeling, good kind of strange.

Giving birth to our little Charlie is something that I would remember for the rest of my life. I have experienced pain that I have never experienced in my whole life. But in spite of the exquisite pain, I would go through it all again just to have Charlie in our lives.

7 going for 8

I know this weblog has been neglected for so long. Ever since we got back from our vacation from Rome, things have been crazy busy at home and at work. It doesn’t help that I have to slow down my work pace so that I can teach the person whom we hired to temporarily replace me while I’m on maternity leave, which by the way is in two weeks!!! Yey!

I noticed that after I completed my 7th month of pregnancy, my tummy grew bigger and is now much heavier. It’s becoming more difficult to turn around in bed. I am grateful that I still get my much needed sleep at night.

Highlights of the 7th month:

@ Birthing classes kicked off and I’m really learning a lot. Our classes are every Thursday night and we discuss breathing, relaxation and exercise techniques that are supposed to be very helpful during D day. Our classes also touch on maternity care here in the Netherlands, common practices, stages of labor and how to cope once the baby is out. I have learned gazillion of things that I know would be very helpful when Bee is finally ready to come out. Oh and it’s a plus that our adorable birthing class instructor informed me that with the kind of health insurance that I have, I can actually claim the maternity class fees. Sweet!

@ Furniture for the nursery has finally arrived although all of them are still in boxes stashed away in the other room as we are still in the middle of repainting the nursery.

@ The wall papers in Bee’s room have already been stripped off, the walls have been cleaned and the part where the mural will be painted has been painted white for the base. Our dear friend, who agreed to do the mural, started sketching on the wall and from the first strokes that she has left on the wall I know it’s going to be perfect!

@ Honey has already had the car checked, as hubby wants to make sure that we are all safe when we’re in the car. And as Bee is coming on the dead of winter, Honey also scheduled an appointment for our heater to be checked and all sorts of preparations to make sure that when Bee comes home, it’s going to be comfy and cozy.

@ We received the maternity box from our insurance company. This is one of the benefits we get from our insurance where they will send us a box filled with baby goodies one could ever think of. Actually, I don’t even know that some of the items in the box are but I will definitely ask some of my friends here about what they are.

@ The hospital bag is taking shape. Honey and I have placed all the things that we already have (which are the basic stuff) in a bag ready to be picked up when Bee finally arrives. There are a couple of things still missing (I call these missing things as nice to haves) but Honey and I are shopping for the rest of them when my maternity leave starts. (Anyway, in theory that is still 5 weeks away from my due date).

Looking forward to:

@ completing the nursery
@ completing the birthing classes
@ Shopping! (I’ve been avoiding baby clothes shop for so long coz I might not have enough strength to not buy so much clothes for Bee)


Whew, it has been a whirlwind month for Honey, me and Bee but I’m really looking forward to the next stage. As I told Bee a couple of times, I’m so happy to be carrying her in my tummy but I also can’t wait to finally hold her in my arms.