Baby H v. 2.0

Currently writing this while breastfeeding baby H 2.0. Yep, you read that right. Our small family of 3 has increased to family of 4. Bae, coming from a big family, has always wanted to have another kid. I don’t really mind either way, but we decided to wait until his employment status becomes permanent. And when it did, I found out that I was prediabetes lol. As I had history of GDM during my previous pregnancy, I decided to wait until my blood sugar normalised and to lose some weight before removing my Implanon and TTC. 

While I was on Implanon, I had prolonged bleeding. And after I took it out, I haven’t even had a normal period yet before I got pregnant lol. Took us about 2 months before we got that positive UPT. How did I know when to check the UPT? I remember it was 3rd of Jan, I was feeling tired at work - because I was fasting - and while scrolling through the IG, I came across friend’s picture of laksam, and I had this instant craving of laksam as well lol. We could blame it partly to the fact that I was fasting lol but I felt like the craving was unusually strong? So after work, decided to take the test and yep, it turned out to be positive. Thus our pregnancy journey started.

 

Pictured here is said friend’s screenshot of our DM when I told her the exact date that we found out we were pregnant lol. 

I was quite paranoid and anxious during this pregnancy, hence I didn’t really tell anyone, except when needed to or when it couldn’t be avoided. I had couple episodes of PV bleeding during my first trimester, so at first I was scared that I would go into miscarriage. Lucky that I have my own personal doctor friend to help check me out and also to listen to my worries and reassured me - shout out to F! Going into second trimester, I thought to myself, OK so this is definitely a viable pregnancy, surely there won’t be any issue now. Then it felt like God wants me to check myself, because I came across this IG reel by an O&G doctor, about one of his patients who came to him complaining of reduced fetal movements for 2 days. Turned out to be IUD (which was suspected to be already few days as evidenced by the overlapping skull from the scan) and the “fetal movements” that she felt was actually just the amniotic fluid. I think watching that reel brought my paranoia to a different level. I just couldn’t be sure if I counted the fetal kicks correctly. Is this a true kick? Or fetal hiccups (which is not counted towards fetal movement)? Or worse, just amniotic fluid? Up to a point that I had to go to the hospital while I was outstation because I felt reduced fetal movements. Though part of me knew I was probably too tired at that time, I was still quite anxious, and the fact that I - and my colleague who was staying in the same room with me - heard some kind of “paranormal activity” the night before did not help.

I was not even too excited about preparing all the baby stuff. Firstly, because of my paranoia. What if I prep everything too early but ended up with a stillborn? Yes, I was having these dark thoughts almost everyday. Hopefully my worries are not embedded in 2.0’s gene. Secondly, I wasn’t too sure whether to prep according to the scanned gender (which is different gender from baby H 1.0) or just gender neutral. Bae said to just use 1.0’s old clothes but me, on the other hand, lowkey worried that 2.0 will have some kind identity confusion lol. Also, I don’t want to believe the scanned gender 100% until I have seen the gender by my own eyes, because what if it turned out to be ambiguous genitalia? See, me and my worries and what ifs. 

Anyways. Pushed myself to prepare everything. Tried to reassured myself that statistically, there are more pregnancies which are uneventful compared to those with complications. Slowly unpacked all those baby stuff from 1.0, clean and set them up. Even managed to pack the hospital bag and put it in my car for standby. 

Oh, I mentioned that I had GDM in previous pregnancy. Gratefully, my MOGTT x2 during this pregnancy came back as normal. So antenatally, I don’t have any issue apart from my weight gain (sometimes it can be too little and sometimes too much but overall, the weight I gained was still in normal range) and my Hb - but that was because of my (non) compliance towards my iron supplement lol. I even managed to fast the whole month during Ramadan. Because I couldn’t bear the thought of replacing fasting during breastfeeding period. Also, I read that fasting could help in controlling blood sugar in pregnant mothers hence highly unlikely to get GDM. So what did I do after I was cleared from GDM (and when they said I had inadequate weight gain?) Of course I ate a lot. And the fact that it’s durian season did not help at all lol. I ate A LOT of durian. 

So, that’s the story of my pregnancy journey with 2.0. Will write about my labour journey soon.