Today is my first day back to work after 16 weeks of maternity leave.. with heavy yet haste footsteps, once again, back to a working-pumping mom.
I always wanted to write about my second pregnancy, how to cope with Pregnancy and a Terrible Two toddler… but only managed to do it now in the nursing room. I guess it doesn’t get easier even when it’s the second time. In fact, it’s much more difficult! I felt more shocked and scared than happy when I first know I’m pregnant again.
Oh shit, is this real or not??
Well well.. when it’s the second time, I am a lil bit less excited, I shared a lil bit lesser on our Fb/Ig, and I am a lil bit less wary of being pregnant, I am a lil more worried about Vera, but I did become a lil braver and stronger so time passes a lil faster this way. Even for Daddy Pail, the day I told him i was pregnant, he went out to sing Ktv w his colleagues! See the difference? Haha.. but he still made it a point to accompany me to every single check-up! 😉
Vera was just about to turn two years old, and beginning to show all the terrible two syndromes that drove both Pail and me off crazy and mad and angry every single day… It was a time where we need to introduce Rules and Punishment to her world.
Looook what she has done, and that face!
Both Pail and I lost our temper for god-knows how many times whenever Vera was trying to test our limits, and even though I am pregnant, with all the morning sickness kicking in.. there is no leeway. She only cries and wants Mummy to carry, she became more unreasonable than before.. I was all the time bending up and down, carrying her.. altho Pail tries to do most of the carrying (i wasn’t able to use the baby carrier at all), she only became even more clingy to me than before.. Especially BEDTIME BATTLES. Only Mummy can go to bed with her, she cries big time when it’s Daddy. Even if it’s just passing a milk bottle. I got so worried that how am I ever gonna cope with two crying babies at bedtime every night???? Reay fustrated whenever I hear her say “I don’t want Papa!”, and it’s also hard on Papa because which parent likes to hear that at all?!
Whoever told me 2 years is a good gap to have another child, either you must have forgotton how tough it is to survive the pregnancy with a two-year old, or your elder child is such an angel, or your pregnancy was a super easy one?
That’s the little seed. 😉
With my gynae’s approval, we went ahead with our Melbourne trip even before first trimester ends!! Haha!
No regrets at all! Only thing was I couldn’t eat poached eggs, and drink coffee. Boo! But it was still fun, as it was our first time travelling with Allen and Wanqi, and it was FUN esp. for Vera!! They are such great travelling partners, helping to take care of Vera, and me too.
Thankfully, thankfully.. all the scans and tests I did in this pregnancy were ok, I also did the Harmony blood test after 12 weeks, that was for checking Downs, which could also tell us the gender of our baby. 🙂
To be honest, deep in my heart, I thought and hoped for a girl soooo much, I wanted a sister for Vera…… So I was quite disappointed to know, it was a boy. The whole world says Girl and Boy is just nice, is great, is wonderful. But maybe because I longed for a sister myself, I hoped to give Vera a sister too. Practically, I felt so sad that all the pretty clothes and shoes that Vera has outgrown, cannot be passed to her brother now. 🙁 And our flat only has 2 bedrooms, which means, we need get a bigger flat so that they can have their own bedrooms in future! Even thinking of a boy’s name was soo much more difficult, we didn’t have any feel for any boys’ names… but finally settled with Oliver, just a few days before I popped.
Meanwhile, in Sept, we celebrated our birthdays! Oh Oliver, sorry we didn’t managed to make your birthday fall in Sept. But you get your very own birthday month while your Daddy, Mummy and Jiejie has to share one birthday month. ;p
Oh ya, this pregnancy, I can drink plain water, no need Fiji water anymore!! Haha… but before I got too happy, I had another very weird pregnancy syndrome that no one else I know had before.. I STRICTY can’t take anything sweet or strong flavoured, at all! Those tastes only leave me with a very very bitter and disgusting taste that caused me nausea and want to puke. My taste buds simply went crazy, in fact, I was only able to take citrus fruits that I hated all my life, I actually craved to eat the most sour and bitter grapefruit everyday! Wth… I can’t even eat an apple, banana, papaya.. or drink any sweet beverage. I can only go for Teh-O-Kosong! This kinda lasted throughout my pregnancy though it got better bit by bit after 5-6months.
To be more positive, this kinda “this cannot eat, that cannot eat” diet kept me under control, I didn’t get Gestational Diabetes. But, that doesn’t mean my weight gain was under control, my gynae wondered why because Oliver was growing so rapidly that she says I’m gonna have another big baby! She warned me every month, that stressed me out…
We went for many morning/evening walks..
Before my second trimester went by just like that, we also went for a solo-trip to Bangkok without Vera!!! Hee hee.. I planned it in such a way that we will be away on weekdays so that most of the time, she is in school and doesn’t miss our presence so much. This trip was certainly a much needed good break for both Pail and myself. Break from being parents, and back to just two of us before we become four of us.
We also went for Mayday concert when we came back to Sg!!
So…. that was how I struggled with my second pregnancy.. how about Vera? How did she cope with having a Didi… I read up a lot on how to break news to your elder child, and the best way was thru reading books to them. So I got two books from Carousell to introduce a new baby to her, “My New Baby” and “There’s a house in Mommy”. And I am pretty conscious of siblings jealousy.. and kept reminding myself not to neglect her feelings.
We read the books almost throughout my whole pregnancy.. and she loved those books! She kinda got the idea that she is having a didi, and didi is in Mummy’s stomach, and Mummy gets sick because of that because she also saw how much I puked into plastic bags in Papa’s car whenever our car goes over a hump… she even tried to imitate me! But with the whole world kept asking her about her Baby-didi, she really gets reminded of it all the time until there was a period I felt it was too much I stopped reading the books and mentioning Didi to her. She was having all these tension, she started biting her friends in class and pushing them. Again, I read up a lot online and found that tension might be the reason. So to all those having a second child, pls take note of these signs in your elder child.
Then third trimester came by, I was heavily pregnant, but I was still able to move about quite freely. Phew, we still went out a lot and also did visiting during CNY, (can’t eat much CNY goodies tho because of being wary of gaining too much weight may result in a huge baby), but being pregnant, I’m not at all afraid of those annoying questions abt “When u having the second baby” and “Wah.. u put on weight ah?” anymore!! HAHAHA!
Since I was moving about ALOT, bending up and down picking Vera (and her toys) up all the time.. I was hoping for natural contractions but still.. it didn’t happen. Oliver grew at a much faster rate than Vera in my stomach, my gynae advised us that most likely we can induce labor.. so at around 38 weeks, we already decided if he is not coming out yet, we will induce labor in a week’s time.
I took much lesser bump shots this time round, in fact, I almost forgot to do that!
What we didn’t expected was… *thunder and lightning strikes* Vera was diagnosed with the freaking #1 hated HFMD at this time!!!! WTH.. I was all the time in my mind, thinking and planning of how we will let her come hospital to visit her didi for the first time.. and now this?! She cannot stay near to me as advised by my gynae and her Pd, because she may spread to me/the newborn. So she was being sent to Grandma’s place for two weeks.. the most critical two weeks.
I was sooooo upset whenever I had to say Goodbye to her every evening after we have dinner at In-laws place. Especially when she started to miss us, and says she wants to go home with us… Though we managed to get doctor’s clearance so that she can resume school. But she still has to stay away another week (as advised by doctor, just to be safe for the newborn baby). OMG, now that she knows she is well already and thought she can go home with us, we told her Sorry, she can’t, because the next day, I am gonna get admitted to induce labor. I had a talk with her, and she seems to understand… she looked down, and after pausing awhile in deep thoughts, she said Ok Mummy. Awwwwww…. Oh dearr, my girl seemed to grow up so much within a week! (physically and mentally!) Physically because at In-laws place, she really put on alot of weight, her face got so round, because she was all the time snacking and snacking. Haiz.. anyway her “Ok Mummy” made me cryyy on the way home……. I missed her so much! From my first trimester to last day of my pregnancy, I felt like it was such a long longgg journey for her… tho she was still Terribly-two, but she grew with me.
So, finally… next up, Oliver’s birth story. I don’t know how long again will that take to write up an entry. Stay tuned!
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Categories: Motherhood, Pregnancy