I'm pregnant!

It's time for some updates and an announcement to make.

I'm pregnant again. After the last miscarriage, I took longer to announce this time. I became a little superstitious. Only family and a few close friends know about my pregnancy.

Gosh! This pregnancy is the TOUGHEST. I'm not having morning sickness. I'm having ALL-DAY sickness. I constantly feel like puking and I puked a few times a day. I have no appetite for anything. I can even feel like puking by going through food blogs looking at their supposedly delicious-looking food pictures. On weekends, I gagged myself through cooking Adele's meals that I wish the husband can actually do the cooking instead. I'm fortunate enough to have my mummy to help me during these tough times with Adele and her meals. 

Now I truly understand what pregnancy blues are all about. It feels really lonely because no one really understand.

My belly is actually showing already. It's very much sooner as compared to my first pregnancy. Probably because the muscles are loosen now.

My doctor told me not to take any Chinese herbs especially ginseng but he said chicken essence is fine. So, my mummy had been boiling chicken essence for me. This really help my fatigue and I noticed that I'm not so pale anymore.

I actually had bleeding in between week 6 and week 7. When I saw the blood, I thought I was going to miscarry again. I was so emotional that morning. I rushed myself to the hospital but I couldn't really rush because it was a Monday morning and I got stuck in the usual morning traffic. I prayed and cried so much in the car on my way there. Thank God, the baby's alright. Beating heart and growing on par. I was ordered to bed rest for a week. The doctor wanted to give me another week off but I told him I had to go to work. Lol!

Bad News

It started during dinner last night. I felt something flowing out and I thought is was just some discharge. When I went to use the toilet, I see blood on my liner. I knew I had to get it checked.

So we rushed back from Seremban to Pantai Bangsar's emergency. The medical officer did some initial q&a and asked me a few questions. Then he called my gynae and my gynae advised him to give me a jab and if I am still bleeding I should go back again. My gynae's clinic will be open on Monday and I was asked to visit him on Monday for a scan. 

I was so happy. I thought everything would be okay after the jab. I was wrong. I woke up this morning and found that I'm bleeding even more. Some slight cramp as well. I panicked. Called my mum and told her that I will be sending Adele over.

After we dropped Adele at my mum's, we went to the emergency again. So disappointed that my gynae didn't bother to come to check. He told the medical officer to give me Duphaston (some hormone pill) and to come back tomorrow for a scan. I decided to go to any women specialist clinic out there and I found one that is open on Sunday in Bandar Puteri Puchong.

After 2 hours of waiting anxiously, we finally got to see the doctor for a scan. And that was when he told me the bad news. There is no heartbeat and the embryo is supposed to be bigger based on the date given to him. Looks like it stopped growing for 2 weeks already. It's a miscarriage. 

I have 2 options now. 

1) To wait and have it out naturally

2) Suction currettage

Just did some reading and I thought I should paste the link here for reference:

http://americanpregnancy.org/pregnancy-complications/d-and-c-procedure-after-miscarriage/

How am I feeling? I was sad of course. I cried. That was it. It happens. I'm alright now. :)

Hope it's not too late

Happy new year! Lol!

It's Saturday and the daughter is taking her afternoon nap. Since I have some time for myself now until she wakes up, I'm gonna update my blog a little.

You know, once you have a kid, you'll eventually push aside your own needs and your baby will be given first priority to everything. I seriously do not have the luxury to sit down in front of my computer at home and surf aimlessly or blog or watch TV. Nevertheless, I'm still lucky enough that I have a lot of help at home and so, I do get to go out and chill with my friends every now and then or even go for a round of golf on weekends. 

I didn't have the time to do my yearly review last year. All I can say is 2014 was awesome! I hope 2015 will be even better. 

My little sunshine

I love putting my daughter to bed at night and then I'll lay down next to her and watch her sleep until I fall asleep.  :)

Reflection on 2013

Yeah, I know it's been a while! I was too busy living life. ;)

So, it's the time of the year and I'm doing my annual reflection on what 2013 has delivered for me.

I got married this year which I did not finish blogging about it.

And then I got pregnant. So easily. Just one try. I'm not complaining. It was just unexpected. :D

As compared to last year's gila traveling, I only went to Da Nang this year. Oh and not forgetting the pre-honeymoon sorta! trip to San Francisco and Napa Valley.

Attended Steph and Denny's wedding in Jakarta which sort of like a reunion with my Beijing crew. It was a short trip but I had a good time meeting them again and catching up.

Work wise, I got posted to a client company since February and met a few new people.

I started investing.

Moved to a new place.

I became a mother. I gave birth to my baby girl, Adele Chew Zhi Xuan, which I will blog about it later.

Fell in love with my baby girl.

Read my reflection on 2012 here.

Starting to Invest

So, now that the baby is coming along and I have been thinking a lot about money. I started to learn the ropes of investing a few months ago and started planning for my child's education fund.

Sigh.

"If only I started early..."

This thought is always in my mind. It's like this quote from Warren Buffett, "Someone's sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago". Lol! Yes, I kind of regret that I didn't save much before. I've spent most chunk of my savings to travel and splurge on nice things. I'm going to stay grounded for a while now and be more frugal on my spending until I build a solid foundation for my future financials to make up for lost time. In one word, I'm planting that tree now so that I can sit in the shade tomorrow. Haha!

I actually love the fact that both my husband and I produce income and not relying on only one sole bread-winner. Therefore, there will be no single source income problem in this household. At least if something bad happen to anyone of us (touch wood!), the other one can still contribute to the household income.

So I started investing in the stock market since July. So far, I'm quite comfortable with the stocks I'm holding at the moment and at least I think I have a healthy portfolio. Below is the comparison between my portfolio against Bursa Composite and Fixed Deposit assuming my capital is put into bank's FD at average of 3.5% per annum (the current position as at 25 September 2013).

KLCI is up 0.72% now from my first investment date.
If I were to put my capital into the bank's FD, my earnings is only up 0.59% today.
My current portfolio is up 8.43%.
Therefore, the average earnings p.a (up to the date) is 37.52%.

This is so much better than keeping my money in FD.

Journey to Motherhood

I am 26 weeks pregnant now. The journey has been great so far.

When I tell people that I am going to move to a new house (which is still under renovation), I get questions and statements like:

"Aren't pregnant woman not supposed to move to a new house?"
"Pregnant woman should not enter an empty house"
"You shouldn't do renovation when you're pregnant"

I know that there're a lot of Chinese superstitious beliefs during pregnancy but I'm not a superstitious person. I think that those beliefs must have been created back in the olden days by someone with a motive. For example, maybe the pregnant woman is lazy, so she cooked up some story to say it's bad luck to help out in the house renovation. Or maybe there were some family politics like some monster-in-law who tried to keep her daughter-in-law away from meddling in her son's matter. I know it sounds like some Chinese soap opera but hey, anything could happen right?! Oh, don't let me start on the other superstitions I heard especially those food to avoid. Lol.

Talking about renovation, I'm really excited to move in to this new house. It's been progressing well lately and we all aim to move in before I'm due. There are still some stuff that we need for the house like made-to-measure curtains, cabinets, etc. So, I'm currently looking at some good bargain for some stuffs that we still need. If you know any, let me know. Sponsors are welcome too! :D

Okay. I digressed a little. Back to the pregnancy. It's thrilling to be going through something that I have not experienced before. I am just going with the flow. I do read here and there and I listen here and there. You know, when you're pregnant, there will be a flock of people around you giving you advises without you even asking for it. Then there are those type of people who thinks that they know-it-all which is kinda irritating.

The sad part of the pregnancy is that I do get lonely sometimes. That's because I can't hangout like before and I'm growing distant from my friends. That's normal I guess. I think every pregnant woman goes through the same thing. Good thing is that I only feel this way like 2% throughout of this pregnancy so far. Some had it worst and that got them into depression.

I can't wait to have my baby. Oh no, wait. I'm not ready for her yet. I still have a list of shopping to be done for her arrival. Gosh. I don't really like shopping now. Can someone shop for me, please? Haha!

Reflection on 2012

The year is drawing to a close, so it is about time to reflect on what 2012 has delivered for me.

I got a pretty good offer from this company in Singapore doing SAP Business One which I almost took up. Thanks to my ex-manager and especially my ex-boss who talked to me and retained me. So, for some personal reasons, I have decided to stay. I sometimes wonder what could have happened if I really did go to Singapore. Will I still be seeing Ryan? Am I gonna be the Joyce today? Like all settled down and moving on to the next chapter in life, etc. It's hard to say. Anything could happen.

I got a raise.

I was assigned on an upgrade project in Johor Bahru for 3 days 2 nights with a junior. It was a memorable trip because I got a really bad cold and fever the night before (ugh! talk about bad timing to fall sick!) but I had no choice but to go ahead. I took off at 6am and drove all the way down to JB with my nose running a marathon and feeling like zombie. I was really in bad shape but I still did a good job. Thankfully, my client the lady boss, was really kind and gave me herbal tea and medicines and it did help me a little. She's such a kind lady. She threw me an appreciation glance when she knew that I drove all the way from KL and also made sure that I was okay to drive back to KL on my last day. Oh well, I'm a soldier! I'm strong! LOL.

I made a tough decision to resign from my previous company to take up MDEC SAP FI Functional Training. It was something that I wanted to do long ago but I never got to do it because of all the uncertainties. I didn't regret that decision though. Thanks to Ryan who gave me his full support. I love you baby!

I got certified and found a job that I really wanted although it was tough and stressful. Well, I'm still learning but I think you can never stop learning if you are in this industry. We must continually sharpen our skills, or risk trailing behind the pack.

My maternal grandmother passed away because of cancer. It was really sad because I think she suffered and she was in so much pain. Looking at the bright side, at least she didn't have to go through the pain anymore and it wasn't for long.

I got engaged. Ryan proposed to me in Koh Samui and so many things happened the night before the proposal. Seeing so much blood gushing out and him saying that he was feeling dizzy made my heart stopped beating right there. I just can't describe how I felt. It was a horrible feeling.

Threw a birthday party for my best friend at Somerset. Gotta thank Sean for doing all the work though...Lol!

I've traveled quite a bit this year. I went to Tokyo, Koh Samui, road trip to Penang Island, Ho Chi Minh City and went for a Mekong Delta day trip, Hong Kong, Krabi-Phi Phi Island and this month alone I'm going to Vientiane-Vang Vieng and Macau. I'm so looking forward to it!

Read my reflection on 2011 here.

Signing Numbers

Signing numbers can be different in other countries.

How do you sign the number ten? Usually, I will show the sign below for ten:


I went to this bar and restaurant in Beijing. The music was really loud. I had to repeat many times when the waiter took my order. I asked him the price for one shot of Tequila. He answered but I just couldn't hear him because the music was so loud. He ended up showing me the sign below:


Then only I realized he was telling me ten. Chinese character for ten is 十.

In Japan, we asked the hotel staff for directions to this hot spring. She kept telling us "H" floor or "H" level. She kept emphasizing the letter "H". We didn't get it until she showed us the sign below:


Okay, that looked more like a sign for "people" or "person" (人 in Japanese character) but that also got me thinking she must be pronouncing "eight" as "H". Japanese character for eight is 八 which is quite similar to 人. So I drew the character 8 in the air and asked her if that was what she meant and her face lit up immediately while saying "hai! hai! hai! hai!". :D

Bill please

"Okanjo one gaishimasu"

It means, "bill, please". That's how you ask for the bill in Japanese. 

Jess and I struggled to finish the whole sentence when were in Tokyo. We always get stuck after okanjo. Anyway, we still got what we wanted because okanjo means bill.

Well, there was this one time I managed to say the whole sentence in a very Japanese way. The waitress's reaction was hilarious. She was looking at Marina and she said to her in Japanese, "Gasp! She speaks like a Japanese!" LOL. Ah, too bad that wasn't captured on video.

Watch us how we asked for the bill in Japanese.

Pictures taken with Piano Black Instax 50s polaroids

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I see a lot of #gifrus around so I'm gonna jump on the bandwagon. :D

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That's me carrying my cute lil' niece Macy Tan Rae Ean

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I was greeted by this lil' froggy guarding my main entrance. Should I give it a kiss to see if it'll turn into a handsome prince charming? Lol.

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Valentine's Day

So the other day, Ryan and I was having this Valentine's Day conversation in the car.

LOL, I'm not kiamsiap! It's just that I think Valentine's Day is so overrated. Nevertheless, it's definitely good for businesses. I remember back in the days, I loved looking forward to Valentine's Day. As I got older, I just didn't feel the hype of it anymore. It's just like any other day. Probably life is too good for me I guess. Hehehe!

By the way, this will be our first Valentine's Day together. We are not going to do anything special. No candlelight dinner. No gifts. We're just going to have a normal crabby dinner somewhere "normal". Probably gonna drag my parents along if they're into it.

Whatever it is, I'm still wishing you HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY! Have a great one if you're celebrating. :)

Translation
Kiamsiap - Stingy in Hokkien dialect

To Eat or Not to Eat

There are people who do things that they know they shouldn't.

For example, an overweight who can't stop eating.




There are also people who do things that they don't know they shouldn't.

For example, a skinny who didn't want to eat.



Lol! Does this sound familiar to you?

2012

Happy New Year!

This is gonna be my first blog post in 2012. Gosh, time flies. It's 2012 already.

So the other day I was doing my annual resume update (yep! it's something that I do every year as part of my personal year end review), I was so reluctant to change my age from 29 to 30.

The thought of me not being in the twenties bracket anymore sort of freak me out a little. I actually still feel like I'm in my twenties.

Then, I thought to myself, "Hey, technically, I'm not 30 yet. My birthday is in October!"

So, I'm just gonna leave it as 29 for now. Hehe!

"Inside every older person is a younger person – wondering what the hell happened." - Unknown Author

LOL

What Are You Doing New Year's Eve?

So what are you doing New Year's Eve?

On this same date last year, I was in Bali with the Beijing crew. We went for a yummy lunch at Bebek Bengil (Dirty Duck) and then to this art museum in Ubud. We had our NYE dinner at the hotel and then we walked to Kuta beach for the countdown and fireworks. It was raining and super crowded. Nevertheless, I did have a great time with my friends in Bali last year.

All of us at Bebek Bengil

Now let's fast forward to today's new year's eve.

Today, I woke up in the morning feeling a little down with the flu and I'll be doing a lot of packing and taking them to the new house.

It's my parent's anniversary today. We are going for a dinner to celebrate the occasion.

People are asking me where am I counting down tonight. To be honest, as much as I want to go party, my health just doesn't let me. I'm sick. I'm just going to stay home tonight and pack my stuff.

Happy New Year everyone and have a great one!

Here's my preferred version of "What Are You Doing New Year's Eve" by Diana Krall.

"New Year's Day… now is the accepted time to make your regular annual good resolutions. Next week you can begin paving hell with them as usual." - Mark Twain

LOL.

Blending In

So I was talking to Lena about how I sometimes felt when I'm in a group of people who speak in a language that I'm not really good at. Well, I can join in the conversation if I totally understand what they are talking about. Sadly, most of the time I don't.

I think it will be hilarious if I misunderstand the conversation and end up saying something irrelevant like the comic below.



Lol! Have a great weekend guys!

Reflection on 2011

As the year draws to a close, it is about time to reflect on what 2011 has delivered.

In 2011...

I was awarded the best new employee for 2010.

I got a raise.

My beloved grandmother passed away. I miss her. Sometimes I wish that I could have spent more time with her. This got me thinking that most of us are usually too busy with our own life that we often forget to stop for a moment to think of the people we care about. We simply take it for granted that they will always be there.

A colleague who was jointly awarded the best new employee for 2010 passed away. It was a total shocking news. I actually saw him and his girlfriend doing their CNY shopping in Midvalley two days before the news and he was perfectly normal. Life is so vulnerable. You'll never know what's going to happen tomorrow.

Made the toughest decision to break up with someone who means a lot to me.

None of us could take care of the puppy anymore, so he was given away to a distant relative who lives in Taiping. I missed him terribly!

Went for a sleepy relaxing weekend trip to Langkawi with my bestie.

Found a way to get rid of my hormonal breakout. Read this.

Fell in love again.

Went for a momentous trip to Bali with the boyfriend and his business associates

News of a classmate from high school who was battling leukemia passed away. At this point, I seriously think that a lot of people passed away this year.

My sister in law got pregnant. So I'm going to be an aunty soon. I can't wait!

Went for a long holiday cruising to Ho Chi Minh City and Redang from Singapore with my beloved boyfriend.

Reconnected with a few good old friends.

Met a few new good friends.

Celebrated my birthday in a club for the first time.

Moving to a new house soon and I will be sleeping in a big room with a walk-in closet.

Well, those are some of the highlights and lowlights. I'm pretty sure that my next few weeks before 2012 will be just...awesome!