Dumb Ways to Die

I am currently in the midst of completing my Digital Marketing program from Udacity and one of the projects I need to do is to choose a successful or creative marketing campaign that I love and blog about it. Coming up for a topic for this is easy because I have always been a fan of the creative works and ideas behind an advertising/marketing campaign. What works and what doesn’t. It’s one of the many many topics that always came up in conversations with the dear darling since he’s in advertising and I studied advertising/media innovation at school.

So one of my favorite successful campaigns is the Dumb Ways to Die campaign. It was an Australian public service announcement campaign created by Metro Trains Melbourne.

Image from Google

It was created to promote rail safety and the campaign video went viral through sharing on social media on November 2012 with currently  being viewed at 152,182,616 times.  The campaign was devised by McCann Melbourne to tackle the issue of safety for the Metro’s commuters and so they came up with an entertaining and catchy music video featuring animated creatures who die in comically unintelligent ways, before finally highlighting that due to train predictability, accidental death due to contact with trains is quite possibly the dumbest way of all.

The reason why I think that this campaign worth the shout out is because it was a truly engaging campaign and the creative ways they used to re-purpose their content resources to create more assets to the campaign itself. After the successful launch of the mucis video, McCann Melbourne went on to generate more content including GIFs and a downloadable song on iTunes. The campaign even got featured on Reddit’s front page and free downloadable game for mobile and children book soon followed. Not only that, a website was built so people can take a pledge not to do dumb things around trains. Supporting posters and karaoke versions at the stations bolstered the campaign and international radio stations picked up the song and broadcast it to its listeners.

It’s 2017 now. Five years since the campaign first launched on YouTube and it still lives on with no sign of fading away with more content generated by viewers themselves in a form of parody and spoofs. This is definitely one of the best campaign I ever encountered even though I live 4000 miles away. And thanks to the worldwide wonder of the internet, I’ll be sure I mind my steps the next time I’m at the train station.

Definitely didn’t want to end up with the Darwin Award at the pearly gate, do we? So don’t be dumb and watch the video.

Playing Tourist in Phuket

Sàwàddee kâ

We just recently came back from Phuket.  It’s our first family holiday out of town together and Baby Girl’s first trip out of the country. It was also our first experience of bringing the small toddling teeny human through the airport securities, immigration and all that jazz. At first the thought was intimidating hence the reason why I have been putting the idea on hold for as long as I can. But it turns out, little girl was a champ. Probably because she’s almost 2 and can understand quite well of the situation she’s in (I guess it’s a good idea that I waited as long as I did). No tantrum and no drama in both flights in and out of Phuket which was a huge relieve for me despite I did noticed she was experiencing some ear pockets (that uncomfortable sensation you got in your ears when there’s a pressure changes in the air space) during the journey because I experienced it too. I understand this can be scary for small children. Lucky for us, breastfeeding has made it easier for us because any slight discomfort baby girl is experiencing, she immediately will want to nurse and that saved us from us having to put a thick face in front of other passengers while dealing with a tantrum laced bebé. Plus she was such in a joyful spirit, she couldn’t kept quiet during the 1 and half hours journey. Of course there were times where she got restless. Which 22 month old baby doesn’t?  But like any 22 month old, she’s really easy to distract. And like any parents, we came fully loaded with distractions for her ( Ahem! my handbag weights more than 4kg)

Good job, honey bunny. Mommy’s proud of ya.

It’s was a very mellow holiday for us. Baby Girl was down with a motion sickness the second night we were there with a first sign where she vomited in the taxi ride halfway from Phuket Town to Patong Beach after we took her around to explore the Old Town on foot the first morning we were there. So after that, we pretty much spent our days there trying to lessen our journey in any moving object as much as we could for her. We spent much of our time in Phuket Old Town itself and went down to Patong Beach only when Baby Girl was in a better health and mood. A usual journey from Town to Beach will take us about 35 minutes. I insisted to opt only on metered taxi and usually we just used GrabTaxi (Uber is not available in Phuket) because of a stark difference if you hailed the normal(?) cab or a tuktuk and they always refused to use their meters when we asked. Ok, Tuktuk dont have meters but that doesn’t stop them from charging you exorbitant amount of money just because you’re a tourist. A journey from Town to Patong Beach will only cost 300 baht at maximum (including 50 baht service charge) if you use GrabTaxi as compared to if you flagged down a tuktuk or unmetered taxis. They’ll immediately will charge you 600 baht up front. So if you don’t plan to rent a bike (I heard it is a much better and cheaper option to travel around Phuket but we got a mini human and a stroller with us at all time) always go for GrabTaxi. So proud with our persistence of not using the blood-sucking tourist trappers’ services.

We decided to stay in Phuket Town for the entire 5 days we were there and we made a right choice after seeing Patong was so dense with tourists and the area is too overcrowded with bars and party scenes.

Ever since her vomiting episodes, I had to forego with the idea of traveling beyond wheels on gravels. Which means, of course, no speedboat on bumpy sea water (plus little miss-not-so-sunshine was terribly afraid of the seawater anyway). So I had to strike out going to Phi Phi Island from our itinerary. Lucky our hotel was strategic enough for a few short walks to some attractions in the Phuket Old Town itself and the Thalang Road was really close by. It was only a short walk from our hotel. Thalang Road is the main central street of Phuket’s charming Old Town with some of their Sino-Portuguese architectures still well preserved.

Taking a small child on a trip across the border was really a new experience for me. It was far more easy-going because for once, her well being plays a far more important role as compared as how much coverage we get to do on the trip. I can no longer have a list to stick to like before. Places to go and things to do will all be depending on how the Little Miss is feeling on that particular time. Which doesn’t really take much. A running around the playground near the hotel or a swim after dinner were enough for her before she surrender for the day. In fact that what make her the happiest. Definitely not a relaxing one because we got “an almost” 2 year old toddler running around in her littlest feet to care for but it was a good experience and I enjoyed every bit of it.

Initially I wasn’t intending to write a long entry and this is not going to be a blow by blow travel tips. Traveling tips to Phuket are not that hard to find. But mi esposo wrote an entry about his experience for his work here so I thought I’ll match his. Go read! It was a funny one reading from his perspective. He made it sound like he a stingy, grumpy old man in his article. I mean come on!! Spending your hard earn money on traveling (especially on us) is so worth every penny, dude! hahaha

Anyway like every family holiday that we go to (ok, maybe not “every”.. only when we have enough videos to put together), I’ll make him compile it into a short music video where the song is taken from the country we visited. The first video he made was this and I was inspired from then on to make more. Which means for you, Dear Husband… get ready for more traveling, Hanneh!

Original music is by this band.

Nevermind the title of the video though. Mi querido esposo has weird way in naming all his videos plus that was what Phuket is to mi bebé. You can hear it at the end of the video when she said her goodbye to Phuket (bye poo poo cat). This has already became Baby M’s favorite video. I cant wait for more holiday videos like this.

Laagàwn kâ

Rear-viewing 2016

Happy New Year!

It’s that time of the year where I’ll pay a visit to my dear ol’ blog to see what’s up and dig all the past posts I did for the past year only to realized…. Yes, I’m well aware that it’s already the 11th day of the brand new year and I only got 2 posts for last year. I’m such a bad blog owner. At least for year 2015, I did manage to badly blogged more than 2 posts (yeah! a whopping 3 entries!). Hahahaha So I guess this year wont be much different and “blogging more” definitely wont be part of this year’s resolution.

So, how was my 2016? Art wise.

I have to honestly (and shamefully) admit it…. I let art play a very little (almost none) role last year. I tried to pick up once or twice, but I just gave up half way. The beginning of 2016 was when I finally decided to focus on my career and I did. I guess Mr Coelho got it right when he said “when you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it” because I did get a raise (wanted to move on so bad from where I was that I was wiling to jump to a new career path and start over). Talked to the boss and was ready to tender in my resignation, but he counter offered me with a new position and that became a conforming matter that brought me to new single direction for my career. It made me decide what I’m going to do in the next 10 years. A “career goal” if I have to name it. So yeah, art wont be part of my big career plan and I decided it last year as much as I thought I have the passion and talent for it. But then again, as per the very beginning of why I started this blog, it is to record my ever changing mind. So we’ll see, I might change it again half way through my “goal”. Maybe I’ll achieve it in less than 10 years or I might get bored. So we shall see. OK, I’m rambling and don’t make that much sense and this will definitely not translating into an interesting reading material. Moving on..

Back to my art. I guess it will still be my driving point to blog. I could write about my baby girl but it will be bias where all entries will be about how great, beautiful, intelligent and wonderful my girl is. I don’t want to go there. But what I can do is share the most current picture of her…. but my Instagram is flooded by her pictures and only her with the occasional appearance of le mari et moi. So… nahhhh. What I’m going to do to kick-start my blog for this year is to share my digital art. I did make some when le mari chéri bought me a Wacom Intuous.

I, of course, start dabbling into it right away and I drew baby girl and her cousins. But that was it. I forgotten all about it and moved on with my life.

So here’s hoping I can dwell more into digital art this year? Maybe.

Selamat Tahun Baru!

**This is not an interesting reading material. hahahaha never intended it to be one pon**

Working Mom FTW

Stands for “For The Win” in case you’re not up to date with the current abbreviation of the hipsters. (this goes especially to the YB Queen Mother cause she’s kinda old school hahahaha) Oh Ma, hipsters are young kids that stole your “back-in-the-days” styles/trends. You can spot them anywhere and they will make you feel like you’re just took a step back in time. Nah, I don’t have anything against hipsters. I’m just feeling a little bit snarky. That is all. So please don’t shun me from of your coffeeshops. My husband loves your overpriced curated coffees. hehehe

Ok back to why this post exists. This post is not about which set of mothers are the best and which side I’m choosing (although it’s pretty obvious, isn’t it?). Not a pro and con list of being a working mom either. The choice on which road to take if you ever come to this junction, is entirely up to you. This is only the reasonings of why I choose to spend my 8 hours, 5 days a week away from the little buds. This is a reminder for myself because there will be at one point or another, I’ll question my choices and the decision I made. Especially on those bad days at work being away from my baby.

Number 1 – I’m a pro-choice. I choose to pay my bills. hahaha Well I’m not sitting on a pile of gold bars that I dont need to factor my personal expenditures when it comes to making a choice of going back to work or stay with baby girl at home and be the the dear darling wife that I am expected to be. I have bills I collected even before I got married. Like my car loan and my student loan. Can’t be expecting the husband to just pick it up once we were married, can I? Eh wait.. Can I? I don’t know. I would like to see myself as a modern wife (or in Queen M’s term – the lazy wife) who won’t cook or iron. I’m  ok being that the kind of wife that balances the husband’s cheque books, make sure all insurances are paid for and files his income tax and zakat. I fusses more on good credit standing rather than a well ironed shirt. Plus he hardly wears shirts because he works with the hipsters where they wear tshirt and jeans all day errday and inhale popcorn caramel smokes anyway (he works in the advertising fyi and by smoking popcorn caramel.. I’m referring to Vaping. Gosh who are my readers here? Oh yeah… my mom. Just her.)

Numero Dos – I can’t stand being at home for too long. I had a taste of staying at home with baby girl during our confinement for two whole months and it was tough. I cried and clinged to my husband like there was no tomorrow. I coaxed him into bringing me out on a date once on the pretext of we had to go and update our passports. Yeah I went and watched the Avengers 2 in my confinement stockings and the cesarean scars was still fresh. I walked very slowwwwwwlyy though. Don’tcha worry, YB. (dah lepas… jangan marah.. janji tak buat lagi). And by third week, I was already driving around sending and picking the husband up from work. Majority of my highlights during those days at home were the fact that there’s a promise that I can go out even to do random chores. As long as I’m out.

Nombor Tiga – Encik Suami wasnt keen with the idea of me staying at home. Case and point of number 2. I went crazy and he doesn’t want me to be all up in his grill. Imagine I’ll be doing this for good? I’ll be crazy waiting for him to come home from work right on the dot. I did talk to him about the idea of me being a SAHM. His immediate response was a straight N and O. Which was kinda strange because he was raised by a SAHM and it worked out well.. ok, except his mom wasn’t a clingy wife and she has bunch of friends  and activities up to these days and I have none of those. Oh yeah. Ok, I get your point, babe.

Four – I like earning my own money and I get my high on workloads and paperwork. Imagine if I’m a SAHM with no source of constant income except from the husband and an occasional freelance gigs. I wouldn’t be able to keep a car of my own which will bring us back to number 2 (again!). I want to be able to shop and spend money (whenever I have any left after the bill mountain is all sorted out at every end of the month) the way I want it with no question asked because it’s mine. I also acknowledge juggling stuff at home is way harder than at work. A lot more tiring too and it keeps on going. Stuff at the office are seasonal and you can see the ending to every project no matter how hard it is. So the choice is pretty much sets on stone with this one.

Ke lima – I was raised by a working mom herself. Although she did it way better. Did all the cooking, cleaning and the whole nine yard while climbing up the corporate ladder with little to no help at all. At one point in my life, she was away the entire 8 years, working overseas all on her own. Tough woman, I tell you. So it’s the same example that I want to set for baby girl and her future siblings. I want her to be able to see that I am an independent woman and I have my own free will to be anything I want and I can still be a mother to her.

So why can’t I excel at work and still be a good mother? I know it’s going to be hard (whichever road I chose to take). But (in my mind) at least with working and a good few hours spent outside being my own person will keep my sanity at bay. That way, everyone will be happy. This doesn’t mean I don’t love and miss my baby. I miss her terribly, every second that I’m away from her. I’m always on #workingmomsguilt. Why do you think I’m still breastfeeding my 16 month old tods and still pumping at work? My breast-pump (which by the way is a single electric pump from Avent) is what I can safe to claim as my best friend for now. I have been using it religiously for the past 16 months and i don’t know if I’m stopping any time soon. Yes! Breast pumping feels like a religion right now! Uggghhh The devotion it took me! I’m not even kidding.

So, Bahijah. When one of those mornings came and you find yourself looking at that angelic face sleeping beside you and you began to wonder if it’s a good idea to quit and just stay at home and be the mother that bakes shits, just remember this….

You’re bad at baking. Get up and go to work!

And to the other mothers… no matter if you’re a SAHM, WAHM, FTWM or whatever other acronym hell they tend to label us with as moms, it’s gonna be tough and it’s gonna be for a very long time. So, Good luck!

We’re one

Our little bubble turned 1 year old last Friday the 25th. Which means we turned one year old as parents too. The days do feel long but the year feels oh so so short.

Happy birthday, boo.  May you grow up to be a sensible and respectable young lady. We wish nothing more but only the best for you.

We love you to infinity and beyond.

xoxo
Mommy & Daddy

Two Oh (Sweet) Sixteen

Happy New Year!! 2016 huh?

Oh wow. It feels like there were only 3 blog postings from the day I talked about my plans for 2015 and now it’s already 2016. Look at how time flies.. oh wait… it WAS only 3 blog posts!! That was all I had in here for 2015. Three shameless postings. My life must be too awesome that I had no time and room for my blog, huh?

But my other social media platforms are well and lively and full with updates on baby girl. Especially in my Instagram and Facebook. Yeah, I’ve become one of those mothers who are obsessed with their babies. Although I faintly remember promising to myself I would never ever be that kind of mother… you know.. those who lose themselves once the baby’s out. What ever happened to that delusional girl? Hahahaha Anyway….. What’s the update on any paintings? Drawings? Anything? Well..let’s put it this way.. nowadays even my basic beauty regime sometimes took a step back, giving way and the spotlight to baby girl. New mom syndrome I called it and I don’t mind it at all. Lucky I haven’t compromise on my basic hygiene regime yet. If I ever get there, time for you to hang up that intervention banner, ok hubba?

So what’s up now that the new year is finally here (Don’t you dare point it out that it’s already day number 18th, young lady). For once, after years of trying to avoid thinking out loud about it, I’m planning to give my career another serious thought. So this year will be all about boosting my career (and of course to be better mom to baby girl, focus on family and all that jazz). I don’t know what to make of that yet. I’ve grew too complacent with my career for the past years that I think it has loses its cool. Make no mistake though, I worked hard, left my family for days at times due to work commitments and pushed boundaries when I had too but that was it. I don’t think about it serious enough to a point when someone asked me where am I going with my career and what am I working hard for, I don’t know what to answer. I always went for higher pay but paid little thought on the career growth/development. I know I need to up my game this time.  I don’t plan on quiting anytime soon and be a stay-at-home-mom despite all the temptations. So that’s one thing. Next is to figure out where I’m going with this “plan” of mine. Before baby girl, I signed up for an MBA course (even studied and sat for GMAT and IELTS) and got 2 offers from the universities in UK. Didn’t go through with it because I found out I was pregnant. So yeah….. that’s that.

Wish me luck. I hope I’ll be back posting better things in here too.

Here’s to having better skin, shaping a better body and becoming a better person. *raises glass*

Feliz año nuevo!

 

Introducing Baby M

Hi! Here’s a picture of her taken when she was just out from my beautiful round tummy. I think this was taken a day after her delivery.

She just turned 7 month last week and it has been an amazing 7 months of a roller coaster ride. They said time flies when you have a baby. Oh well.. for me, it freezes at times, and when it does move, it moves at a super slow pace but it also flies so fast, it almost matches the super light speed. One day it can get from this – “Ahhh baby.. why aren’t you walking yet? Mommy’s tired from carrying you too long. When will you be walking? 1 more year? This means I need to carry you for another one more year?” to “Wahh why are you so heavy now? It only feels like yesterday you were just so tiny and weight of a pea!”  catching yourself wondering where the time goes. And then it went to “Your baby can army crawl from the TV area to the sofa in no time, you better keep your eyes on her when she’s in bed with you” The Queen M told me when I got home from work. Woahhh baby, stop with the growing up when Mommy’s at work, please. Let’s do it when I’m at home, Kapish?

So you get what I’m sayin’? No? It’s cool if you don’t get it and I’m not even exaggerating here.

During the first few days when we brought her home, we were in for a very long night of trying to understand one another. It was different from those nights in the hospital. There, I have an army of nurses to help me out. At home, when the lights were off, it was just me and the new daddy against the tiny bundle. Elated but scared shitless we might screw this one up. We’re talking about a breathing, tiny human here. Gosh.. We were all over the place. We didn’t know what to do with a crying baby at 3 freaking AM. Obviously I can’t go knocking down my parents’ door anymore since we’re the parents ourselves (but I did once knocked at my mom’s door, crying when Baby girl had her first fever. Her temperature shoots up to 38.8degrees celsius at 2AM and I was in panic mode. Beep. Beeeeeep. New mom alert). Yupe, we’re in this alone.

Anyway, the baby and I were still in the get-to-know basis during the first week we’re home and we’ve yet to establish a proper and most comfortable way of the breast to mouth system. Worst because I had Caesarean. So it was kinda hard to come up with the supply base on her demand without triggering any pain since it was hard for me to shift from one position to another. She had no problem latching though. Sucked with a champion (still do). But I was very adamant to breastfeed her. So most nights, after I feed her (or trying to) I’ll pump for keeps. In the morning, as soon as my mom woke up, I’ll pass the baby and the expressed milk to her and go get my much needed sleep. Lucky, my mom was very understanding and more than willing to take her off my hands for a few hours. That arrangement saved my sanity and kept my sleep deprivation down to a minimum throughout my confinement period. Thank you, mama. Sorry for the many tantrums for the past 31 years. *puppy eyes*

7 months down that long winding road of diaper change, pukes, loud cries and giggles, baby girl still breastfeeds exclusively. Yay! I’ve passed my first breastfeeding milestone. This is us at 7 month old.

Yes, I’m a 7 month old too. 7 month old mother. Duh.

Still young but not quite dangerous.

I’ve been meaning to come back and blog but I got occupied. So lets backtrack for a while. It has been slightly more than 4 months since I popped the little bean out (Oh~ I made it sounds so easy~) and 8 months since my last blog post. I’m a mother now, a full time working mom and it doesn’t get any easier leaving her at home every freaking morning for work. But I know I’ll survive. Just like the Queen Mother did when she had her babies. I wont be OK, but I’ll manage.

Anyway, Mom’s guilt aside. I intended to write more. Catch up on things, but I got a progress meeting in 5 minutes. So….. here’s the short one because I want to share a video of our recent trip to Hong Kong. Yeah, no baby because I left her with my mom (You can see me facetiming with the baby in the video). The worst 5 days of guilt ever! (and I’m gonna take another trip next week to Bali without her too *sigh*) I’ll talk more about it when I get the chance to. That and maybe about my birth experience too. I’m sharing the video here because I find it cool. The Dear Darling compiled it and he’s really good at stuff like this and I always love his works.

Enjoy!

I know I am, maybe because I was in it. hehehe. Oh he tittled it “Young and Dangerous” after the famous 1996 Chinese movie. Hope this explained the title of my post. Music from 85 Crew.

Awesome.

Babe, how come we didn’t think of it before? From now on, I’ll be expecting more cool videos for all of our future trips together, OK?

A brand new year.

Artwork by Lucille Michieli

2015.

Wow. It has been 15 years since the day I celebrated the turn of a millennium. I was only 16 then. Witnessed the world went crazy over the Y2K bug that year which turned out to be nothing.

Fast forward to today. I’m at the office when most of my colleagues and friends traded their annual leave for a long weekend. The office is pretty much very quiet this week. People are still in their holiday mood and the feeling is the same like every other year. Boring.

So what’s in store for me this year? Well for a start, if everything goes well, I’ll be turning 31 (Hello, adulthood!) and going to be a mother come March (Hello, motherhood!), my marriage with that boy I have been seeing since 12 years ago will turn 4 come July (I should start hinting from now on what presents he should get me for all of these occasions) and I guess I have a decision to make career wise too once I popped the bean out.

As usual, like every beginning of the year, I have big plans. Not really a resolution, more like what I’m planning to do and go this year. But I’m not gonna dwell with my future plans just yet and plus, whatever plan that I’m about to make now will totally and definitely be flying out of the window once Baby M made her debut. Lets just say, from now till March, my plan will be involving a lot of baby things.

I’m just here to say Hello and wishing everyone a great year.

Cheers.

The Misadventure

It’s been one crazy month after another and I got 1001 things to do today and for the rest of the week. Lets add on to the fact that my body is getting bigger and bigger by the day and I am getting more and more slower too. All I want to do today (and almost every other moment of my life right now) is just to lay down and enjoy the kicking and tiny little movements from the inside of my tummy. Is that too much to ask? Turns out, at this moment of time, it is.

So you probably heard by now that I’m carrying a bundle of responsibility, growing steadily at 28th week. But this is not my first pregnancy. I had what I like to call as a misadventure almost 10 months ago. A day before I turned 30 and also a day before the mysterious flight MH370 gone missing without a trace, I had a miscarriage. Yupe. Spent my big day of turning 30 on the bed because I was supposed to be recovering from a D&C I had the night before.

We did not plan the first pregnancy (nor this one) and I wasn’t going to say that I’m not excited all the same. That’s just down right lying. We’ve been married for more than 3 years and although we have decided to hold off on the expansion plan, when news like this came knocking, of course I was elated. I was practically dancing right in the middle of the road while we were walking towards our car after our first appointment at the clinic and the doctor confirmed it. Yeah. That how overjoyed I was.  I even carried the ultrasound photo everywhere I went and whenever I can, I kept pointed it out to the Dear Darling on how cute my baby was (yeah you cant see much but a tiny blop) going to be.  No one but the family members knew though. I was trying hard to be all cool about it. So hard for wanting to keep it hush hush, I often found myself ignoring the fact that I was carrying a child inside of me and I went on with my life and workload just like I normally would. Not a care in the world. I was happy but so, so clueless. It was definitely not a good combo.

So eight weeks into the pregnancy, I discovered a blood stain while I was at Mom’s. Just a small stain but that was enough to throw all worries in the world right in front of my doorstep. Hello, panic attack! So that evening of March 6th, 2014 (2 days before my 30th birthday) we sped off to see our caregiver, hoping it was just a threat instead of the real thing. On the way, I was praying hard that God would let it easy on my first time experience of being a mom. Prayed that I won’t come home with a broken heart and I get to tell the amazing news to my friends on my birthday. Wasn’t that an ideal situation? The journey was quiet and long for us. Well, for me at least. I don’t know what was in the Dear Darling’s head at the moment. But we were quiet as I was busy praying hard in my head.

When we arrived, the doctor can’t confirmed anything because there was no new blood other than the original stains. The ultrasound showed that everything was still intact but he didn’t tell us anything other than that. No mentioned of tiny heartbeats or anything and don’t think we asked any because we were that clueless. So he sent us home and I was requested to be on a bed rest for the rest of the week. I was a little relieved by the piece of information, that it might be just like what I prayed it to be.. a threat. All I needed was a good rest after all, I thought.

So as soon as we arrived home, I didn’t waste any time. Took a quick bath and straight on the bed, all fresh and ready to get that rest that I thought was all I needed to get back to being happy and pregnant. Mind you, there was still that worry nagging in my head but I decided being positive was the way to go here. I spent the rest of the night Googling about it. Fuh! At the rate I was reading about threaten miscarriage, there’s hope (at least that was what I like to believe). There were hundreds that got out of it and still happily pregnant. So there must be hope for me too.

Then the stomach cramp came with a slight squeeze down the nether region. So I checked and there it was – fresh, red, hot and a little lumpy but not too much to shocked me into thinking it was the end. It was just fresh stains. So I kept on hoping, crying, praying and Googling up for more info. Up till I was too tired from all the panic crying, I slept with a very heavy heart (not until a call to the doctor and he reassured me that I needed the sleep and I can come and see him the next day if the bleeding persisted).

The next day, I was feeling slightly better and not too panicky any more. The bleeding seemed to subside and leaving only brown stains from the night before but I was still on bed rest just to be sure. Spent the entire day on bed has got to be the worst idea that the doctor had ever suggested to me. I can’t do anything much but to wonder with my worries and cry. Thank God, Dear Darling was super understanding. He even took an emergency leave from work just to be with me and making sure I’m all OK and that I ate on time. Till to this very day, I am amazed at how cool he was through out the entire ordeal when I was right there, in front of him, with all of my panic attacks, drama and oh! all that crying. I’m slightly jealous of him too for being so calm about it. But I guess someone needs to be the sane one in order to keep the boat afloat or else, we’ll drown. So it was better him than me.

By the evening, I was much calmer and somehow ready to whatever outcomes that might turned out. There was no sign of fresh blood by 5pm, so I decided to go to the loo because I have been holding it in for quite sometimes (Well.. I was scared that I might flushed the baby out if I did). And then there it was.. in the toilet..  red and hot and bloody.. came down pouring as soon as I stand up. At that time, I knew that this was it. Bye bye birdie. Called out for the Hubster, cleaned the toilet and we left to get that official confirmation. I wasn’t crying any more because by that time, surges of pain kept appearing 2 to 5 seconds apart. My mind has shifted completely on managing the pain. Mom said that was how contraction felt like. I must had contractions then. We opted for the D&C right away as suggested by the doctor. How was I feeling after? Numb, thanks to the anaesthesia. I know that the anaesthesia only lasted for a few hours, but days after the incident was a total blur for me and I’m thankful for that. Especially right after the procedure because I would be a total wreck.

So on the day of my 30th birthday, after the procedure the night before, I pestered the Dear Darling to take me out on a date because in my defence, I deserved it. So he took me for a quick movie date and a lunch and we’re home and I’m back on the bed 3 hours later. Well I was supposed to be on a bed rest like any normal patient who just had a procedure anyway. Couldn’t argue much or wiggled my way out of that.

It has been 10 months since then and I am now back at being pregnant and so far, it looks promising. I’m in my third trimester now and this little bean will due somewhere in March next year. How am I feeling? Excited of course. I’m back to doing my happy dances whenever I get the chance to. Ask the Hubster. It is all I talked about ever since I found out that I’m pregnant again. Now a day, every little kick, hiccup and movement can send me over the moon. Yupe, even at 7th month, heavy, all that body aches and my carpal tunnel syndrome, this little bean makes me all sort of happy. Maybe when I can find the time and not too lazy, I shall pen down about this pregnancy.

For today, I’ll leave you with a story of how eventful was my day turning in to decade number 3 with a very strong set of hands by my side and a supportive family.

It was a good experience in the end. It made me more aware with the development of my current baby and the pregnancy itself. No more going around acting like it did not happened. It also made me more appreciative towards my man, family and of course, my own body.

Alhamdulillah.