Baby @ 21 Weeks

Its a girl! We are going to have another girl.

We had our detailed scan this morning and the gynae pronounced that baby will be a girl.

Sure... we don't mind either ways, although it would indeed be nice to have a pair of kids with mix gender.

This way, there are several pros immediately. Firstly, the name has long been decided. Way before we planned for #2, we kinda decided on another name for a girl. To date, we are still clueless about a name for a boy.

Secondly, there's economies of scale - I've got lots of Faith's clothes neatly packed away in wardrobes. Clothes that are mostly in good condition. We might not need to buy too many, although we still need to buy a few new pieces e.g. for the home trip from the hospital and for the 1-month baby shower.

Thirdly, girls are sweet. Faith is... so we hope #2 would be too.

The detailed scan indicated that all is fine with the little one. I'm a little jittery myself though. I'm nearly 5 months along and my total weight gain so far is a miserable 2 kilos. Jittery becos I only ply on 8 kg the last time with Faith and she came out so small at birth.

Most certainly, the tummy looks a lot bigger this time around. I think the size of it is closer to how big I was with Faith at about 6-7 months. As much as I hate to admit it, I think some of that 2 kg weight gain might have gone the way of my hips and butt cos my maternity jeans feel snug when I put them on.

So, if I've put on weight, my tummy is bigger this time around (I'm sure its becos the tummy's less elastic this time) and I've only gained a miserable 2 kg, I'm wondering if its going to be another low birth weight baby despite best efforts and measures to work around it.

Oh well... as always, the key is as long as mum and baby have a safe and uneventful delivery. There's really not much I want to ask for at this stage :)

Deepavali Treats

Louis and I are fortunate to have known and count many Indians among our network as great friends. Even though we have always enjoyed the local Indian fare, it is through our Indian friends that we'd learnt to understand and appreciate the culture a little better, along with the great curries, dals and myriad creativity of the cuisine.

And becos a number of them are vegetarians, I've learnt to make a few vegetarian dishes along the way and picked up other dishes from my own little limited collection of Indian cookbooks to create my own favourite home-cooked Indian dishes.

We really dig the diverse and tantalising Indian cuisine and on the occasions that I do make some of these dishes at home, Louis would be happily mopping up the curries with roti/naan or covering the top of his basmati rice with it.

Today's Deepavali, as it is known in Singapore. For many of our friends who are of Northern Indian origins, it is called Diwali. I guess they mean the same thing, just that its called differently depending on whether its in Tamil or Hindi.

Our neighbour right across from our units are Indians. Other than the nodding of heads and the occasional smiles when we see each other on our way home or in the estate, we have not really built much rapport or talked much to.

However, in recent months especially, they have been particularly friendly towards our little girl, smiling and talking to her when they see her at the lift lobby. Maybe its becos Faith smiles a lot even to strangers or kids just have this knack to break the ice even among the most reticent of adults.

This morning, the door-bell rang at lunchtime. When we opened the door, it was to find our neighbours with 2 big bulging plastic bags, filled with containers of briyani, chicken and mutton curries, prawn masala dishes and Indian sweets.

We were absolutely surprised and touched by their gesture. In fact, when I was reading early this morning in the living room at 4-ish am (I've become an insomniac ever since I'm conceiving #2), I could already smell the tantalising aroma of curries wafting through the corridors and into our unit.

They must have been hard at work, chopping, cutting and preparing to cook all the curries and great food fresh for the festive season.

It was a lot of food for the 2 of us and Louis brought most of the food for our in-laws. The great thing about curries is that they keep well and taste even better a day or more after cooking.

So, Louis and I are going to have us a great lunch today, compliments of our neighbours.

To all our Indian friends out there, Happy Deepavali or Diwali!

#2

Most friends that we know of who have had 2nd kids professed that they adopt a less hands-on approach towards their offspring for a number of reasons. Or rather, they display lesser anxiety and are generally more laid-back compared to being first-time parents.

That might well be true for us too going by the number of posts we have posted on our #2 so far.

Zilch, nada, zero, none.

After reaching the milestone of the 3rd month, which we could publicly inform all and sundry that we are expecting #2, I had merely updated our profile to indicated that there's a bun in the oven.

So now, I'm about 19 weeks along, or think I'm about 19 weeks cos I keep losing count of how many weeks along am I, and other than close friends, I've not really made any announcement on this blog.

So there you go. Now you know. We are expecting #2 in a matter of months.

Do we know the gender yet, do we have a preference for which and when am I due?

For the first question, we'd probably would be able to find out at the end of this month when I go for my detailed scan around the 20th week. Do we want a boy this time since we already have a girl. Well... I'm not sure. All we are hoping for, given our last experience, is that mum and baby would have a safe and uneventful delivery.

Technically, I'm due on 12 Mar 2010. Owing to my placenta abruptio from the previous time, the gynae is pre-empting that it might happen again. So, we are targeting for me to go for a scheduled c-sect around the 37th week. That would put it around end Feb 2010.

I do hope that with this post, we would be a bit more diligent about our posting. After all, we do not want our #2 to feel neglected.