Thirty minutes

On the spur of a moment tonight, I passed the baby over to H and told him I was going out for a quick walk. Just to walk around the neighbourhood, on my own and enjoy the winter's night and lights.

I have not had a moment to myself since baby A was born. That's four months. Thirteen months if you consider all the months i carried him inside me (and consistently feeling his presence). I'm loving every minute of it, but for just a while, I'd like a bit of time to be on my own.

The significance of that hit me within thirty seconds of stepping out into the night. I almost teared up for the simple joy of having my thoughts to myself for a change. Time-outs and solitary moments are very me. I've always been one to go off on walkabouts (or driveabouts). Oxford. Sydney. KL. KT. All the places I've ever called home, I've treasured my numerous alone time. So to need it here, in Den Haag, is just natural.

Life has been overwhelming this past year. And for just thirty minutes tonight, I had me back in the centre.

Wish

This is where I should listen to my own advice. But when does anyone ever listen to their own advice?

I now find myself wishing for something I never thought I wanted. But I am too scared to commit to that wish, or to even acknowledge it. For now I'll just toy with the thought of it in my head. If I ever get there, I'll let you know.

Stay

I love how really good books have paragraphs that stand out and leave a mark for reasons you can't exactly name.

"It seemed to Edgar that Tinder was still making the leap onto that ledge to join Henry, and in one way or another, he would be making it every day for the rest of his life."

- The Story of Edgar Sawtelle, by David Wroblewski

Revisited

I hate waking up in the middle of the night (well early morning) and being bothered by something I can't fix. Reminded of a mess I thought I've left behind.

Stupid blackberry. I woke up for the usual task of tending to the baby's needs. Then I saw the blackberry signaling I've got mail.

It's a query about a piece of work done way back in 2009. Turns out there is a discrepancy somewhere. This is a job with clients whom I wish to never work with again. I wanted to put that experience behind me but now I have to think about it again and feel all uneasy as the realisation of a mess-up that had gone unnoticed (by everyone - the clients and me) is now being uncovered.

Do I ignore and let it go, or do I even dare to revisit the mess and (try to) fix it?

It's a long time since I lost sleep over work.

Meaning

I am sitting here with a feverish baby A sleeping restlessly on my lap. He had his second round of vaccination shots this morning, and all day he's been softly whimpering while he sleeps. Poor baby. [editing this at 3 a.m. and he is still restless.]

H just called. From Dubai. He's been to Milan a few weeks ago, and now in Dubai en route to Iraq. Yes Iraq, and next week to Oman. Tomorrow morning he's going to a desert somewhere to go on a hot air balloon ride during sunrise. 

I told him I am feeling a touch of freedom-envy. While I love having A be the centre of my universe right now, there is no denying that my world came to a grinding halt and I am now completely and utterly grounded, while at the same time H has taken off and is going places. 

He said that may be true, but my life at the moment has greater meaning.

I like that.
But I also realise it is pointless to envy him his experiences, or to compare who has more meaning and what-not. We share our lives and what we do and our experiences complement and enrich each other's.

And who says I have to stay grounded forever. I do have a choice. And for now I choose to nurture my baby boy. It is the biggest human resource development task in the world. 

Day 4 of 26: super-me

Who would have thought, of all the things that could break me, it was finally the bookstore that drove me to tears.

H is away for 26 days and that leaves me single-parenting a 2.5 month old baby. Baby A is an easy baby, but he's still a baby. I'm playing superwoman, juggling so many things (two work deadlines this week alone). I surprise myself by being able to do it. There are moments where it feels like insanity is creeping in (day 4 of no substantial human contact - baby doesn't count. how would you fare?). But in general, I'm okay.

But when I decided to take the baby out in his stroller to go to the American Book Store in town here, the one bookstore that stocks decent selection of English books, I didn't expect to be reduced to tears. It's my hormones, I'm telling you. And why did I feel the need to cry? (ok so I didn't cry, but definitely teared up in frustration). Because I really, really wanted to get to the Stephen King section all the way at the back and the stroller wouldn't fit and I kept getting stuck at corners of the book aisle. I left the store without King.

I now have a whole new level of respect for single mothers.

p/s am looking for Stephen King's Colorado Kid.

Crazy Beautiful

The past year has been such a whirlwind. And I haven't even had a chance to reflect. Four months of sickness. Moving continents in the midst of all that. Two weeks upon arrival off I went again on not one but two assignments, one in Papua New Guinea, another in Bangkok. Had a glorious second trimester. Moved into a new home in The Hague, pretty much single-handedly handled the moving house and unpacking and supervising the furniture set-up. Gave birth to a whopping 3.8 kg baby boy. Parents came, parents went. All of that while managing a company and twelve employees and multiple projects running simultaneously. And now I'm adding on a long list of constant vigil, diaper changes, breastfeeding, bottle feeding, interrupted night sleep and navigating the stroller around town. I'm coping with motherhood, managing a career from home, with no domestic help and experiencing a whole life change with close to zero external support, in a new country, with a grand total of four people on my local contacts list.



Don't get me wrong though. Am absolutely loving it all. Just tired.

And a tad lonely.

I've always been okay being on my own. I don't need to have people around me all the time. In fact I tend to prefer to be on my own. But these past nine months have been overwhelming and I just need a little bit of, I don't know, 'contact'.

---

Did I mention I gave birth? Yeah. He's beautiful.

My mum's parting words at the airport came as a whisper in my ear, saying "You're a good mother".

It meant a lot that she said it. It meant the world.
But for once, I didn't actually need to hear it. After a lifelong of insecurities and self-criticism, I truly feared being a mother. But the very moment I held Adam in my arms, I knew. I just knew that I am a good mother. I question whether I am a good person. I worry about what people think of me, how they see me, what they say of me. But as a mother, I have no doubts. Heck I'm going to be an amazing mother.

Transfer

So now I have the brilliant idea of moving back all the existing posts in theharddrive back to this blog and keep it all here. excuse me while this blog is under (re)construction.

hey

so i'm back. sort of. let's see if i'll stay.

Crime of prejudice

The empowerment of women

My recent trip to Bangkok on a work assignment was an eye opener.
Without going into too much detail of the nature of the assignment, I'll just say that the work involved an in-depth discussion with a group of women who are living with HIV, and they were helping some of us researchers conduct a study about HIV-positive mothers' or expecting mothers' access to and quality of maternal and child health services in various countries in South East Asia.

There were a lot of things discussed that day. But two things hit me hard. The issues of forced termination of pregnancies and coerced sterilisation of HIV-positive women. The operative words being forced and coerced.

In so many of the countries we were surveying, the reports (albeit anecdotal) were the same. There are doctors and health care professionals who impose their own personal prejudices when attending to women who are  HIV-positive. This is despite beautiful national-level policies on maternal and child health programmes, and the prevention of HIV transmission from parent to child. What is on paper, documented as the 'official' government policy may not necessarily be translated into actual practice. Especially in the rural areas where in some of these countries literacy rates are low and the role of women in society is still highly oppressed. And often, in these settings, doctors are figures of authorities. Women seldom question the treatment or recommendations given to them by their health care providers. I can relate to that. A lot of times I find myself putting on so much trust in my doctor. If they say so, then it must be the best thing for me.

We received so many reports of medical professionals advising HIV-positive pregnant women to either a) terminate their pregnancies; or b) undergo sterilisation e.g. tubectomy/tubal ligation; or c) both. This is purely on the basis of the fact that the mother is HIV-positive. No discussions about the probabilities of actual transmission of HIV from mother-to-child, or the ways available to prevent or lower the likelihood of such transmission. What is worse, instead of presenting the mothers with these options, what is often done is that they are told that they are required to undergo these procedures in order to receive the free-of-charge health care services.
Despite the fact that the services should have been free-of-charge anyway.

It is shocking. At one point, when one of the women told us about one woman who was six-months pregnant, unsure about her HIV status (her husband is HIV-positive, she has not been tested), and the doctor gave her some 'medications' upon knowing that the woman's husband is HIV-positive. It was only when she showed the medication to her outreach worker was it discovered that the medication was an abortion inducer. Thank goodness she was taken to a different doctor and was taken off the pill immediately. She carried on her pregnancy and safely delivered.
But as I was hearing that, I felt like running out of the room and go cry in the toilet. Maybe its the hormones and being pregnant myself. It is just unthinkable. It is criminal. And yet it is going on.

I am not saying all doctors do this. It is a probably a very small number of incidences (though my numbers do tell me otherwise, in certain regions). And of course I have a lot of respect for all the selfless medical professionals who do such amazing work helping women go through safe deliveries.

Here are some bottom lines.

Yes HIV can be transmitted from mother-to-child.

But the probability of transmission (which is not high in the first place) can also be drastically reduced with proper measures that we call PMTCT (prevention of mother-to-child transmission), which involves treatment with antiretrovirals, the appropriate choice of delivery method, and the appropriate choice of infant feeding (either exclusively breast-feeding or exclusively formula feeding).

Parents should be informed of their options. And the decision should be theirs; they must give consent to whatever is done to their bodies and their child.

Blessings and gratitude

Stop and smell the flowers.

A week or so ago, as I was walking down the street from where we are currently living (a temporary home until we move in to a more permanent one), I caught myself humming and smiling.

My life is blessed.
Not for one moment do I ever forget that. Outwardly, it is always so easy to be expressive and vocal when things go wrong. The previous posts about my hyperemesis would be a case in point. But how often do we actually verbalise our gratitude and joy?

We must be careful not to mistake pride for gratitude though. It's all in the intent. Do we talk about how good life is as a means to keep up with the Joneses, or to be 'one up' over everyone else? In this day of over-sharing (and with that I am referring to Facebook status updates!), it is so easy to use that platform as a place where we brag and show off what we have, what we do, who we are.

What is more important, really, is to internally truly appreciate what we have, what we do, and who we are. And also who we are with. I truly believe I have been given all that I can ever ask for, and much more than I can ever deserve. And for that, I am eternally grateful. I am not an outwardly pious person. You don't hear me speak of God and religion as much as some. But in my heart of hearts, it is always Him that I thank.

In this time and in this world where there are so much ugliness, we all need to make a real effort to focus on the beauty. The news is depressing. It's all doom and gloom, really. The chaos in the Middle-East, natural and man-made tragedies in Japan and so many other regions, political mess in, well pretty much everywhere, financial uncertainties, the list goes on. If I may quote the Black Eyed Peas, of all people (for the record, we like the BEP ok), where is the love?

So have a good look around. Count your blessings. Appreciate the people around you. I myself, can't get over how many good, good, people God has thrown my way. To feel so loved, so cared for. What more can we ask for. Spare a thought for those who do not have what we have. Maybe that'll give us a bit of pause before we voice out our next tirade of complaints.

i love you more

"there are places I remember

all my life

though some have changed, some forever, not for better

some have gone and some remain

all these places have their moments

with lovers and friends i still can recall

some are dead and some are living

in my life

i've loved them all

but all these friends and lovers

there is no one compares with you

and these memories lose their meaning

when i think of love as something new

though i know i'll never lose affection

for people and things that went before

i know i'll often stop and think about them

in my life

i love you more"

in my life ~ the beatles

How are you feeling today?

I didn't want to blog my personal issues anymore, but I need the outlet. That was how blogging started for me anyway.

Well. After seven years of silent heartbreak, trying to conceive, we are now finally pregnant. The significance of it is beyond words. My doctor, bless him, who was thrilled, said "Yes I know all pregnancies are precious. But this, you, this is medically precious." 

So I am thankful to God. This is right. This life inside of me, is a gift. All the love I feel for that wonderful man I get to call my husband, is all bundled up into that life.

There is, unfortunately, a but. Starting from week 6, I started developing symptoms of hyperemesis gravidarum. Never even knew such a thing existed. But then, I've never paid any attention to anything pregnancy or maternity related in my whole life. So what is HG? I started off by describing it as 'an extreme form of morning sickness', but very soon realised that that was a gross understatement. Women kept saying to me oh how I had that too, I couldn't eat this or that, here's a tip on what can make you feel better {insert various home remedy} and although the nausea was terrible, chin up, it goes away, by week 12 you'll feel great. Multiple versions of that. They are all well-meaning, I know. Showing their empathy, but it only makes me feel terrible because I end up getting annoyed with them all because I just want to scream to them NO it is NOT the same and you DON'T know what it's like.

I can't tell you what it is because even the medical profession seems to have problems defining it. I have pretty much all the symptoms described in Wikipedia, except for hallucinations. Now wouldn't that be fun. What I can do is I can try to describe to you how I feel.

Imagine feeling very nauseous and on the verge of vomiting. I wake up in the morning and this is the first thing that hits me. But I don't actually vomit, not yet anyway. The feeling just stays with me all throughout the day. The whole time. Not a single respite. Add on to that an extreme sensitivity to so many triggers, mostly smell and some sights as well. I can smell things that other people can't. These things I smell can instantly kick-off a retching mechanism. When strong enough, vomit follows. It's horrible either way. The bedroom, the toilet, the kitchen. I take one step into these places, I retch. My husband - his smell that I once used to adore, now makes me go into instant vomit mode. We've tried with cologne, without cologne, new cologne, new soap. I retch. Add further on top of all that the fact that I cannot eat, barely drink. I am so hungry, sometimes when the food is in front of me I want to just gobble it all up. Frustratingly, they taste bland in my mouth, and as soon as I swallow, all the pleasure of eating is gone immediately, replaced by discomfort. So eating has to be forced, and I have not had tasted anything pleasurable since week 6. This is now week 14. All that I have been feeling, has been present (to various degrees of discomfort) for eight weeks. No breaks. I have been nauseous for eight straight weeks. Now, you tell me you know what that is like. During the day, I simply can't focus on anything. My attention span is about two minutes. My work is piling up, people are demanding this and that and I just can't do anything. Somehow, in between all of this, I have to manage a company, and work on at least three different projects at the same time. I have lost about 5 kg of my pre-pregnancy weight, which is not good, but luckily I was somewhat above my normal weight at the start. My doctor, in an attempt to offer some words of comfort said to me, "good thing you had some weight to spare at the start of it all". Couldn't help but laugh at that. At least I can still see some humour in life. Good thing I adore the guy, if someone else had said that I would have flipped. The dehydration apparently is a factor on my moods too. There are times I just start to sink down into depression and just sheer hopelessness. The worst thing though, is having to feel guilty. Everything feels terrible but there is that nagging voice at the back of my head that says I can't complain, how horrible it is of me to complain when this is all about being pregnant and that is something I should be thankful for. It's as if I have stripped myself of the right to feel bad, all self-imposed of course. By about 7 or 8 p.m. each night, the physical discomfort increases significantly and all I can do is lie down and try to watch whatever is on television. The nausea increases until midnight when I will finally have my vomit marathon, which gives me just a little bit of relief, for about half an hour after which I inevitably (and I must say gratefully) fall asleep out of sheer exhaustion. Then I wake up the next morning. And repeat.

There. All my hopelessness and negativity summed up in that one long paragraph. I need to get it out. It's hard when people who care, who truly are concerned, ask me (sometimes on a daily basis), how are you feeling today. And I have no answer that I can give them, unless I give them that truth that is that paragraph-ful of pessimism. I hate being so negative. I hate this vibe I currently have around me. People ask how I'm feeling and I am starting to run out of adjectives equivalent to 'horrible'. A little bit of hope is that things are not actually getting physically worse, I am the same pretty much everyday. But the same, like this, for eight weeks straight, is taking its toll. I know what you're going to say. It's what I would say. Hang on in there. It'll pass. I know that. But right now. It's horrible.

The only thing that I can accept now, is validation. Luckily H understands this. Just to be acknowledged that what I am feeling is real to me. To have others know that there really is nothing that can be done. Not ginger, not crackers by the bedside, not anything. So please spare me the tips. This is not morning sickness. My other source of validation (and some comfort) is the website helpher.org where the ladies in forum are those who are going through or have gone through exactly this. They understand. I read their stories and I get my validation.

As I was writing all that, a friend was chatting with me on Skype. Asking me how I was, and I told her a summarised version. She's HIV-positive. She's been living with HIV for a long time. How rotten I felt to be complaining to her and feeling sorry for myself. So naturally, everything's diluted down. Hide behind some poor attempt at humour. Tell people yeah I'm coping, yeah it'll be over sometime. Fake optimism.
This is why I am blogging this. I need my outlet for all the truth that is so negative.

As for my baby. I love you. I do. You are going to be worth every single day of this.