I'm so glad I survived my last quarter end for now - phew! And my replacement at work is finally identified, after so long. Now my manager is so anxious and keen for me to pass on everything I know to him. Which sort of irritates me because I gave her a 6 month heads up but she didn't really act upon it until in the last couple of weeks, where it was an almost desperate situation. Oh well, one more month to go until I go on leave, whoop whoop!
Our house is finally more or less done, after more than 7 months. It's a huge relief, although it didn't end very well which I shall not go into too much detail here. We just wanted it to be done and not see the builder and his workers again. To be fair their workmanship is very good, and everyone comments on it when they come and visit our house, so we have to give credit where credit is due. Our nursery-to-be, which is the biggest room in the house (we planned to move into that bedroom but we are so settled in our current bedroom that we think we will stay put for now), still has raw planks on the floor! We finally ordered the carpet last weekend and the earliest they can fit it is in 2 weeks' time. I do think we are not very prepared at the moment... oh well at least this is the last room we are trying to kit out.
We started some prenatal classes too! Everyone here recommends signing up for NCT (National Childbirth Trust) classes to learn more about labour, caring for baby, etc. Basically how to adjust to our new life. Interestingly, the main positive which everyone says, is that you get to know other new mummies and daddies in your neighbourhood, and apparently such friendships forged will last very long because you understand one another and are at the same stage of life. This is a five part, paid course, and so far we have attended four, with one last one to go. The teacher will organise a meet up in the new year when all babies are born - aww can you imagine the sheer anxiety and excitement in this statement? It is a very small class actually, only four couples (us included). As expected, all three other couples are as English as can be, and K and I are the only Asian couple.. not that we mind :). Everyone is very friendly and already, one of the mums-to-be has set up a whatsapp chat group for us 4 ladies, and we have started sharing links to baby stuff. Things which I never thought I'd be sharing. Our baby is due the last in our NCT class so I think I'll get to hear some labour stories till we meet our little one. :/ The first baby is due on 5th December.
In addition, the hospital we chose to give birth at has some free, and some paid prenatal lessons. A good friend highly recommends me trying out hypno-birthing as it worked for her so I agreed to be open minded about it. Some people think its some sort of hocus-pocus, but if you don't attend classes and just download the audio to try to calm you down, I can imagine you rolling your eyes to what you are hearing. That's what our friends tried to do. They thought they could embrace hypno-birthing just by buying some CD to listen, but without the right context on breathing and positive thinking, they did eye roll at what they were hearing. In fact, it worked on the husband so well he never fails to fall asleep very promptly. Back to us.. so this is also a 5 part course, held at the hospital and we paid a small sum of £50 to be part of it. It's all about breathing, they tell us. And they teach you to breathe and relax.. I think it's actually good to know for both K and me, when life moments get too overwhelming we can choose to control our breathing and try to relax. To be fair it's a lot of classes we have committed ourselves to, and we are struggling a little to attend all of them. K calls it the Singaporean kiasu-ness (fear of losing out). I guess he is right. But in my defence, we are gonna be first time parents and we are both clueless!
Besides my anxious manager as described above, to be fair she has been very understanding and supportive of my time off work for hospital appointments, scans, midwife visits and now leaving early at 5pm for our evening classes.
I imagine our life to be a continuation of this in the coming weeks as my belly grows larger.. attending lessons and kitting out the nursery (people tell me it's the nesting instincts, where a mum wants the nursery and everything to be ready - pronto!) and of course doing handover at work.
Next weekend is an exciting one - I'll blog about it so stay tuned!
Our house is finally more or less done, after more than 7 months. It's a huge relief, although it didn't end very well which I shall not go into too much detail here. We just wanted it to be done and not see the builder and his workers again. To be fair their workmanship is very good, and everyone comments on it when they come and visit our house, so we have to give credit where credit is due. Our nursery-to-be, which is the biggest room in the house (we planned to move into that bedroom but we are so settled in our current bedroom that we think we will stay put for now), still has raw planks on the floor! We finally ordered the carpet last weekend and the earliest they can fit it is in 2 weeks' time. I do think we are not very prepared at the moment... oh well at least this is the last room we are trying to kit out.
We started some prenatal classes too! Everyone here recommends signing up for NCT (National Childbirth Trust) classes to learn more about labour, caring for baby, etc. Basically how to adjust to our new life. Interestingly, the main positive which everyone says, is that you get to know other new mummies and daddies in your neighbourhood, and apparently such friendships forged will last very long because you understand one another and are at the same stage of life. This is a five part, paid course, and so far we have attended four, with one last one to go. The teacher will organise a meet up in the new year when all babies are born - aww can you imagine the sheer anxiety and excitement in this statement? It is a very small class actually, only four couples (us included). As expected, all three other couples are as English as can be, and K and I are the only Asian couple.. not that we mind :). Everyone is very friendly and already, one of the mums-to-be has set up a whatsapp chat group for us 4 ladies, and we have started sharing links to baby stuff. Things which I never thought I'd be sharing. Our baby is due the last in our NCT class so I think I'll get to hear some labour stories till we meet our little one. :/ The first baby is due on 5th December.
In addition, the hospital we chose to give birth at has some free, and some paid prenatal lessons. A good friend highly recommends me trying out hypno-birthing as it worked for her so I agreed to be open minded about it. Some people think its some sort of hocus-pocus, but if you don't attend classes and just download the audio to try to calm you down, I can imagine you rolling your eyes to what you are hearing. That's what our friends tried to do. They thought they could embrace hypno-birthing just by buying some CD to listen, but without the right context on breathing and positive thinking, they did eye roll at what they were hearing. In fact, it worked on the husband so well he never fails to fall asleep very promptly. Back to us.. so this is also a 5 part course, held at the hospital and we paid a small sum of £50 to be part of it. It's all about breathing, they tell us. And they teach you to breathe and relax.. I think it's actually good to know for both K and me, when life moments get too overwhelming we can choose to control our breathing and try to relax. To be fair it's a lot of classes we have committed ourselves to, and we are struggling a little to attend all of them. K calls it the Singaporean kiasu-ness (fear of losing out). I guess he is right. But in my defence, we are gonna be first time parents and we are both clueless!
Besides my anxious manager as described above, to be fair she has been very understanding and supportive of my time off work for hospital appointments, scans, midwife visits and now leaving early at 5pm for our evening classes.
I imagine our life to be a continuation of this in the coming weeks as my belly grows larger.. attending lessons and kitting out the nursery (people tell me it's the nesting instincts, where a mum wants the nursery and everything to be ready - pronto!) and of course doing handover at work.
Next weekend is an exciting one - I'll blog about it so stay tuned!
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