Jemima's jaundice

We were surprised to find that Jemima had jaundice on day 4 when we thought it would be just a routine check-up and it didn't happen to our 2 older girls. She didn't display any signs since birth on Sunday and we happily went home on Tue. But she started becoming yellow on Wed, though I completely forgot there was such a thing as jaundice to look out for. Wish the paed had reminded me upon discharge from the hospital. But thankfully since Fri was going to be a public holiday, we had the follow-up on Thur and so she was diagnosed earlier than usual.

From a level of 17.5, after being admitted overnight for phototherapy, she has dropped to 11.9 so we can go home today (Fri)! Yay! Paed had estimated that she might need to stay 2-3 days but so thankful it's just 1 night! Praying it won't increase when we go back home.

The unfortunate thing during the overnight stay was that the night nurses didn't seem to know which ward I was in and didn't follow our requests for total breastfeeding with formula supplementation if necessary (advised by the doctor to bring down the jaundice level faster). So the midnight feed was missed and formula milk was given in place. I woke up at 2.30 am, feeling the hurt from the engorgement and thankfully managed to call for my baby in time for the next feed. Phew!

Birth story of our 3rd child

It took us a while to think about having more than 2 because things had gotten much easier without any more hospital follow-ups for Annette and both girls were getting so much more independent.

But after moving to a 5-room flat, with the additional space, our thoughts of having a bigger family resurfaced. And about 5 months later, the pregnancy test was positive! We were elated but it was short-lived as we had a biochemical miscarriage soon after. But we trust the Lord and all things are in His hands, and by God's grace, we had another positive pregnancy test about 2 months later!

With this pregnancy, we were grateful that the blood test done at 3 months didn't show any CMV infection like Annette's case. So it was a huge relief. The only time I got a bit worried was at the last scan when it showed that the umbilical cord was around baby's neck. So monitoring baby's movement during the last few weeks was important.

I was hoping that baby could last to May so that she could share the same birthday month with daddy. Edd was 29 April 2015. But we had a busy Saturday on 25 April, with the Jie Jies having swimming/tennis lessons, followed by a last-movie-opportunity-before-baby-comes with the Avengers, and a friend's ordination service. Lo and behold, that was enough for a labour sign to occur.

Probably a small leak in the water bag at the top resulted. So I got to the hospital around 130 am because we thought labour for the 3rd child would be quick. My gynae only came in to break the water bag at 530 am. And I still took a long time to get fully dilated. Baby's head wasn't engaged and the contractions weren't strong. 

Thankfully with the help of my experienced gynae, the medication helped baby to descend. I pushed like never before even though I couldn't feel much with the epidural till I put too much pressure on my face and had red spots all over my face. But I still couldn't push baby out. So with assistance by forceps, our 3rd daughter was finally delivered at 1214 pm! Very grateful an emergency c-section was not necessary.

We truly marvel at God's creation. Things can easily go wrong or we can just take for granted the many successful births and think that nothing would go wrong. It's really out of our control and only by God's grace, does He give the breath of life.

Thanksgiving for Annette's results

We finally received Annette's muscle biopsy results on Thursday. With great joy and relief, we thank God that she does not have any metabolic disorder that the doctor had initially suspected of. Her lactate level tested under GA was also normal instead of the constant high levels from the past blood tests.

Although they don't know the cause for that period when she was delayed in her gross motor development, had low weight gain and abnormalities for her MRI scan, the doctor says she's progressing well now. We'll just need to keep monitoring her weight gain and do another MRI scan when she's older (when sedation is not as risky) to see if there are any changes. She also just has to take a normal balanced diet instead of supplements etc.

But we are still trying to keep her on a casein-free diet. Taking the advice from this osteopath who said Annette was sensitive to casein, she seemed to have less of a bloated tummy and constipation has not been much of a problem anymore. And it has coincided with the progress in her development. This osteopath helped our niece tremendously with her eczema so we're glad his advice worked for Annette too.

So thankful that God has healed her... especially since the doctor who's rather advanced in the area of paediatric metabolic disorders was quite certain from the past test results that she had a disorder. Now that she's moving much more steadily, it's so much easier to bring her to the playground.

How much more amazing then is that Jesus heals us from our condition of sin and will give us a new and eternal body that is not temporal and weak like our earthly body in heaven.... (2 Corinthians Chapter 15, ⁴² So will it be with the resurrection of the dead. The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable; ⁴³ it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power;) Praise and thanks be to God!

Super busy period...

The past few months have been another busy period for us because we were busy getting ready for renovation works at our current home. We initially planned for it to be carried out during the June holidays but ended up only getting it done in August.

Work to be carried out:

1. Changed air-cons (as we didn't change them when we first moved in 6 years ago) and installed another unit in the 2nd bedroom (as there wasn't any previously)
2. Painted the whole flat (as the walls would get dirty from the air-con work)
3. Removed some built-in furniture
4. Added ceiling fan
5. Changed some lights
6. Added a sink in the toilet
7. Had to redo flooring for one room (although the contractor didn't think at first that the removal of the partition wall would affect the flooring)
8. Installed window  film
=> Duration was supposed to be 2 weeks but ended up being stretched to a month.

Pre-renovation preparation:

1. Pack things that we needed to move to the temporary place

2. Seal up and cover the things that we were leaving in our current home to minimise post-renovation cleaning.
3. Move to my parent's place at the next block so that Sam's school bus routine wouldn't be affected (and we did the moving ourselves, doing countless trips with the trolley, to save on cost. It helped to save on rental costs as well but we had to make do with less space since we had to share the space with the gramps.)
=> There were times that I even had to piggy-back Annette while doing the packing as she kept wanting attention from me.

Renovation period:
1. Moved things from room to room after some of the work was completed (as we didn't have extra space to store our things).
2. Had to settle the flooring with our previous contractor half-way during the renovation work due to unforeseen circumstances.
=> It was quite troublesome trying to give the kids their breakfast outside the flat while trying to confirm the details with the contractor. In the end, I overlooked some details unfortunately or else the renovation would have been better.

enjoying their 'new' room!

Post-renovation period:
1. Packing again at my parents' place.
2. Moving again back home.
3. Unpacking at home.
4. Bought new IKEA furniture and fixed it up ourselves (as we had to clear up space slowly as we fixed up the furniture)
=> It's been a month since we moved back and we're still not done with unpacking! :) Just can't wait for everything to be completed so we can finally enjoy all the new changes! :)

Oh and in between, we were busy too planning the birthday celebration for the girls! But it was a really fun and exciting time which we enjoyed thoroughly! :)

Wild wild west birthday

The girls wanted a Jessie-cow-girl-themed birthday party this year. As we had been busy with the renovations/packing/moving etc., we decided we'd just have a small group of friends and family over at Secret Recipe, opposite Henry Park Primary School, for tea.

To entertain the kids, we painted this jailhouse (recycled the cardboard from the IKEA furniture we recently bought to refurnish our place) and played games like "Pin the tail on Bullseye", target shooting, horse racing and gold mining.

We thank the Lord for such lovely daughters and people to celebrate our joy with! :)

2011 ilovemuseums activity

Recuperation week

The doctors advised that A should not walk for 3 days so I had to carry her around the house and sit her at different locations to play with various toys, watching over her because this active little girl kept wanting to move around. S and A both missed being able to walk around and play together but S was a great help being my extra hand to get things for me and A.

A has been coping better than I had expected with the healing process, with hardly any complaints of pain (except once when I lifted her leg too high when I was changing her diaper, and once when I had accidentally pressed on the wound because it was the usual way I would hold her to sleep - so I had to make adjustments to the way I had to change her diaper and held her to sleep).

However, I didn't expect her routines to be so messed up, mainly because of her sleep. Even though she's tired, she still fights sleep (yawning but still singing away/talking/delay tactics of asking for this and that), and when she's over-tired, it's even more difficult for her to settle down (more singing/talking/delay tactics) so it takes soooo much longer to finally put her to bed. And just when I thought she'll finally nap for a long time because she must be so tired, she's up after a while! And she doesn't go back to sleep like she usually would. Sometimes I need to feed her because she's already hungry by then. But sometimes when I'm warming up her food, she shows signs that she's sleepy again but after feeding her, she's energetic and doesn't want to sleep. You'd think "If she's not sleepy, then just tire her out or let her cry it out" but if Annette actually does have a mitochondrial disorder, it means that she has an energy producing problem so if she doesn't get enough rest, her body might be overcompensating for the loss of energy because she's still so active.

But at least when she's down for the night, she'll be able to go back to sleep when she wakes up. But there were some nights when she won't so that left me real tired because I'd be sleepy but yet sort-of awake to keep an eye on her as she moves around her cot and my bed. Then when she finally goes back to sleep, most of the time it's on me. But at least I can finally get some rest. Then a while later, S's up and comes into the room so I try to put A down so I can go out of the room with S, but A stirs and doesn't go back to sleep. There were mornings when she'd be up earlier than usual, even before S.

So it's been crazy trying to know when to feed her or make her sleep, and of course I still have S to think about, to prepare her food etc, but yet the going in and out of the room also causes A to be fully awake and A would also want to play with S if she sees her so S has to be out in the living room on her own for a long time.... There was once I spent 2 hours in the room making A sleep (though she still didn't in the end! and was awake for like 8 hours before she finally went down for the night) and S actually napped on her own during that time (something rather rare!) So I've been extremely exhausted and depressed this week. Just don't seem to know what to do. Can only keep praying and calling out to God for strength.

Post-op

The biopsy was taken from her right thigh - the bulkiest muscle. There was superficial bleeding that could be seen from her dressing. One of the surgeons told us to watch if the bleeding had spread then we could just come back and get the dressing changed. We asked about bathing her and he said the waterproof dressing should  be able to last a week. However, this wasn't the case on Wed when the bleeding did seep out of the dressing. I called the careline (supposed to give support after discharge) and A's ward but got differing answers. Didn't want to just go to any GP to get the dressing changed because we wanted to make sure that the wound wasn't infected etc. Ended up going to emergency and had to pay $95 for consultation though we think we shouldn't have had to since we weren't a new case and it was post-op issues.

The surgeon at the emergency told us that we actually didn't have to change the dressing but since we requested for it, he would take a look. Then after changing the dressing, he said it would be good to keep it dry for at least the next 2 days. Wasn't that confusing instructions? We wanted to change the dressing in the first place because we were worried her wound would get wet when she bathes since part of the dressing had already come undone because of the blood that oozed out.

A was very upset to be put down on the bed for her dressing to be changed. Probably due to so many bad experiences at the hospital. But when it was done, she sobbed, "Not painful. Finish." Poor girl even repeated these few words a few times as she was about to sleep at night.

Biopsy operation

Ready for the biopsy

A had fun sitting with me in the wheelchair (it's now another word added to her vocabulary) as the nurse wheeled us to the operating theatre. I was glad I could go in to the operating theatre with her and I only had to leave once she was under GA. We waited quite a while for the surgeon though the rest of the staff were ready. She was calm the whole time she sat with me except when the anesthesia was administered, she was quite upset, but within a few seconds she had fallen asleep, after which I placed her on the bed and left.

The whole operation was to take about an hour but we waited a lot longer for A to wake up from the GA. It was such a relief to see A fine in the nurse's arms and the nurse told me she kept saying 'mummy coming'. Thank God everything went smoothly.

A was still very drowsy, falling in and out of sleep but unfortunately I still couldn't get much rest as I was her bed. And there were medical students dropping in to ask us questions but thankfully C entertained them most of the time. Thank God A only burped a bit of gas, didn't vomit or complain about feeling nauseous (possible effects of GA) and she hardly complained about the pain and didn't want to take the painkillers too. The nurse said A was such a good girl because they usually see kids after such operations being very upset.

A's drip had come loose so she had to get the dressing changed. Thankfully the nurse allowed me in the procedure room and I held A so she was not upset. She even thanked the nurses on her own after the job was done such that the nurses were so pleased with her. And said "Finish. Not painful."

We waited for the surgeon to discharge us but he never came. So we finally got discharged only around 6 pm. The op started at about 9 am. So it was a really long and tiring day for all of us. We all knocked out that night, including Sam, who wasn't able to sleep well at her gramps the night before because "the bed was not comfortable" - too hard for her liking.

Arterial lactate sample

After the doctor's attempts to take A's arterial lactate sample, her wrist had lots of pokes and even one had a blue-black bruise. Then the doctor said her senior might try the procedure later again. We should have checked that she was just a houseman before we allowed her to do the procedure for A because it's not easy to get the arterial lactate from a young child and we've had failed attempts in the past too such that more experienced doctors were needed to take the sample. Really need to remember even when we're tired to be more insistent and demanding (but in the nicest way possible) even though the doctors may be irritated with us so that it makes life just a bit less painful for A.

The appalling thing was that before this doctor was going to do the procedure, we had already asked if it was going to be done when A was under GA because her lactate levels might increase when she's crying. And she just brushed us off saying, "Who else is going to do it? The anesthetist and the surgeon will be busy so no one else will be able to take her lactate?" So after her failed attempts, we decided to ask around and thank God a more senior doctor checked with the anesthetist the next day who ended up taking the sample while A was under GA.

Even though there are quite a few pokes near her left hip, and a bruise too (guess anesthetists aren't experienced in taking lactate samples either), at least she didn't have to experience further trauma or pain.