Almost Due

Thanks to my cousin Yvonne, I have some recent pregnancy photos to share. I am in my 35th week, 5 weeks or less to go!

Dev is home here for 4 days. We have been meeting up with friends and relatives, and we have been enjoying lots of local food! His next trip home will be end of May when our baby is born. That is when our journey to parenthood begins!

Greetings from Malaysia

Hi there. It has been a month since I left Abu Dhabi and have been home in Malaysia. Nothing like home, honestly. Despite the terrible heat (I feel sweaty all the time mainly because of the stage of pregnancy I am in right now, 7 months), I enjoy being home. I do miss my life in Abu Dhabi, though. Just a little.

I have been meeting up with friends and former colleagues. As long as I can still sit comfortably behind the steering wheel, I drive myself to the malls and shop on my own and have coffee with friends. Some friends have been extremely nice, offering to fetch me from home. Thanks guys!

Yesterday and today, it poured heavily in the afternoon for several hours, which was nice. It is much cooler, and I love the cool breeze that blows in to the house from opened windows and doors. Aaaah, this is what I call home! Fresh air, no air-conditioning but just fans, and the after-the-rain smell.

Above all, I do have some days when I am dead bored at home with nothing to do. I have to keep myself occupied, so I move around weeding the garden, washing the porches, watering the plants, mopping the floors and a little bit of cooking. I think I have done enough shopping for both baby and myself, so no more shopping! I have got everything ready for the arrival of our baby end of May.

Keep those e-mails coming. Love hearing from all of you ;)

Congratulations, Shannon!

Congratulations, Shannon! Great news indeed. Shannon is expecting her first baby, due in November. Just last week when I was in my hometown, I took a trip down memory lane when I went through some old photos of Shannon and some of the girls I attended college with ten years ago. The wonderful pictures of us taken in Brockport, New York.

My best wishes to you Shannon and also to Brian. Enjoy pregnancy, and hey, if you need tips or information on pregnancy, eating habits and what to shop for when you enter babystores, do not hesitate to e-mail me.

By the way, I am in my 28th week of pregnancy, and as the newsletter shows, I am 84 days away! Nervous and excited at the same time. I am going natural, with no epidural. Wish me luck! I am mentally preparing myself for the "BIG" day!

Chinese New Year Holidays

We left Abu Dhabi on Valentine's Day, arrived in Malaysia on the 15th and were home in Malacca, Dev's hometown, on the 16th for the Chinese New Year celebration. On the eve of Chinese New Year, we had a family reunion lunch with the family. This year's celebration was rather mellow in Malaysia. Not much firing of the firecrackers, which was good. All of us had peaceful nights of sleep.

There was plenty of food and cookies to feast on. It was hard to resist. Dev gained some weight, and so did I. I can still blame it on my pregnancy hormones, but in the last two weeks, we have been meeting friends and visiting relatives and feasting on sumptious meals.

Two weeks went by really quickly for the both of us. We spent a few days in Malacca, and then we were back in Kuala Lumpur to visit some friends and to enjoy a few days in our own home. My nieces were so happy to see us. So were we to see them. Gosh, they have grown so much since we last saw them in November. Then, three days spent in Sitiawan, my parents' place, were awesome too. We had so much to eat, including lots of crabs!

Despite my constant complaints of the unbearable heat here, Dev and I did have a wonderful time. If only he could be home longer. Today, he left for Abu Dhabi, back to work in two days' time.

Tough luck, no KL route scheduled for Dev in March. Soon, 777 will be taking over the KL routes based on the summer pattern-heavy loads in the summer. Oh well, Dev can only count the days to his next long leave, 3 weeks end-May, when our baby is due.

Until our next blog, adios for now.

Happy Birthday, Kurt!

Dev & I hosted the last dinner before we leave for Malaysia. Coincidentally, Kurt's birthday happened to be on February 10, so dinner was hosted on the 9th.

Shoba came over to help prepare chili chicken with onions, and it was so delicious! I truly enjoyed it. I prepared the Malaysian-style pickle (acar)-carrots, cucumber, long beans & pineapple cubes. Our friend Atikah prepared chili anchovies (sambal ikan bilis & petai). We also had boiled eggs, cucumber slices and a Jamaican dish "jerk chicken", chicken marinated with jerk sauce. It was spicy and lovely, prepared by Ian's dad.

Rice was cooked with coconut milk, and the entire dinner combination was known as the famous Malaysian cuisine "nasi lemak".

Ian's parents are in town for two weeks. After dinner, we played the board game 'Taboo'. At midnight, carrot cake with frosting, made by our friend Rosie, was a surprise for Kurt. The cake - just delicious!

Our Malaysian friend Devaraj brought chocolates, and indeed he had a fantastic time with us. It was indeed a truly Malaysian dining experience!

Dev's Second Flight to New York

The date on the camera was set (yet again) wrongly. It should be the year 2007.

Sunrise over the Atlantic, view from the cockpit, followed by pictures of Madison Square Garden, Empire State Building, Times Square, Radio City Music Hall & NBC Studios.

At the Abu Dhabi Formula 1 Festival

February 3, 2007

First Experience in the Desert

Dev and a couple of his friends went on a desert adventure to Fossil Rock, 32kms off the highway of Dubai. The most amazing part was that some dinasour bones were found there and have been excavated.

Dev was very thrilled that his 'other wife' the Land Rover LR3 did a superb job on the sand dunes. Camels were also roaming that area when he and his friends were there. Navigation was done through GPS, as there were no roads, only sand.

Dev's First Trip to New York

View from the cockpit over Iran, on the flight back from JFK to Abu Dhabi
















"Ground Zero", site of former World Trade Center, which was destroyed in the 9-11 incident

Baby's New Crib

Our baby's crib arrived today. The excited Daddy assembled it carefully. The crib is now ready with matching fitted sheets and cot bumper, in aeroplane motive.

Tour of a castle in Munich

Old castle in Munich...old, eerie and smelly.

















These are not paintings. They are hand-woven carpets that are hung on the walls in the castle.

A Trip to The Falls

Niagara Falls in October ... freezing!

Baby's first kicks

Somewhere between weeks 18 and 22, after a few days of wondering if what you're feeling is gas bubbles or some kind of strange muscle spasm, you'll feel tiny flutters as your baby moves. I had my very first experience on 16 January, 1AM to be exact. Dev was in Frankfurt then. I felt it again at ten that morning, and I was so excited I wanted to pick up the phone and call home, but it would have been 5 in the morning Malaysian time. I decided to enjoy the kicks until I fell asleep.

There's something really special about feeling your baby's kicking, squirming and hiccups. Your baby goes from being an abstraction to a real moving, stretching, living little person. You begin to realize that somebody is really inside you, and that can be just as exciting as the first time you heard your baby's heartbeat or caught a glimpse of her moving during the first sonogram.

"Quickening'" is what sensing first movement is called. It was once believed that mother's first feeling of movement was when the baby's soul descended down to earth. But pictures inside the womb show that babies are actually very active long before their moms ever realized it. You just begin to be able to feel the movements as your baby's bones harden.

First-time moms usually feel their babies move weeks later than experienced ones, and if you're overweight it may also take longer to detect movement. Sometimes, the placenta can be located toward the front of the uterus, making it harder to feel baby movements until the baby gets larger.

As mischievious as our son already is, he refuses to let his daddy feel his kicks. Last night while we were laying down in front of the tv, I felt his gentle kicks, so I told Dev to quickly place his hand on my belly, but as soon as his daddy put his hand on my belly, our boy decided not to kick. Moments after giving up on feeling his kicks, baby decided to kick. Our baby could have heard our conversation and decided to play a trick on us.

I feel his kicks several times a day, every day. It is just amazing!

Too cute to resist!

I went shopping the other day at a British store called NEXT, and here are a couple of things I just couldn't resist. The best part was they were on sale!

Baby's first pair of shoes ... and socks. Aren't they cute??? The shoes are for "pre-walkers", between 3 and 6 months old.