Our gift from Santa Claus: she is here

On Christmas eve, Santa Claus sent us a gift.
Our daughter, Aelig is born after around 15 hours of labor in the hospital.
We stayed in the hospital for 6 days, receiving excellent good care from the healthcare team.
Unfortunately, due to the swine flu precaution, only the father is allowed to visit the maternity ward . The family and friends only manage to see her after we discharged from the hospital.

Stuck in the snow

Hubby went to work from 7.30am and only arrived at 12.30pm due to the snow! The journey usually takes 1 hour so he was stuck on the highway for 4 hours. He went out of the car and managed to shop at a local market. He also saw my carpoolers (he was going to the same city) who got stuck along the way too. I'm glad I didn't have to go to work that day.

Excellent guide service at Paris Charles de Gaulle

My aunt has arrived safely in Nantes. Despite the pain in the booking process, the escort interpreter and her colleagues from the guide service at Paris Charles de Gaulle have provided us excellent services.

The person in charge called me three days before her arrival to confirm about the service reservation. Once my aunt touched down at Charles de Gaulle Airport, she was immediately greeted by the escort interpreter, Miss Cecile Mo, who happens to be a Malaysian. She was there since 5am even though the flight was schedule to arrive at 6.40am. Well, the flight arrived earlier than expected at 5.45am. So, she brought my aunt passing through the immigration and custom check point, then brought her to check in for her next flight. When she called me at 7am, my aunt was all set to board for her next flight. Since she has no job assignment after, she stayed and chatted with my aunt until 9am. What an excellent service she provided!

I would strongly recommend you to use this service if your friends and family are visiting you in France but have no confident to find their own way in the airport for the next connecting flight. Unfortunately, this service is limited to Air France passengers, I hope they would open up to every Airlines in the short future. This service was established about one year ago. Miss Mo was very surprised how I managed to book the service from France. According to her most of the requests are from Mainland China or Hong Kong. Well, I paid 88 euros + 4 euros transaction cost (I have to pay in HK dollar), but it is worth it.

Buaian / Sarong cradle Vs crib

Everyone in my family grew up with a buaian (Malay) or sarong cradle. It is called "swinging basket" in Chinese. It is designed so that the button part of the buaian is holding the baby, giving baby the feeling that he or she is still in the womb and being held. I was a colic baby, I won't not fall asleep if my mother didn't swing the buaian, it was in the swinging sensation I slept sound. Now they have modern electronic buaian so baby falls sleep without having someone manually swing it. The machine would do the work.

Hubby doesn't like the swinging idea so we didn't ask my family to send one for us. I know that some of my friends in the US got their family sent them one because their baby didn't sleep well in a crib but sleep well in a buaian. I think it really depends on babies as some like the swinging sensation but some don't.

In my generation I don't know anybody growing up sleeping on a crib. In my family, one of my sisters bought a crib, but my other nieces and nephews sleep on the bed with the parents or on a mattress on the floor once they got home from the hospital. They would take the nap either on the buaian or on a mattress or on the sofa.

It is a totally different story in France. As far as I know, you don't put baby sleeping on the floor with a mattress.

New born baby sleeps in a basket. My in laws gave us this, a basket used by my FIL when he was a baby (just guess how old this basket is). We custom made the mattress and my MIL covered the mattress with a silk cloth. According to my midwife, it is better for the baby to sleep in something smaller size instead of the crib so she will feel safer.

I don't know how long the baby can sleep in the crib before needing a bigger size bed. In this case a baby needs a basket, then a crib, then a small bed, and an adult bed. No wonder people need to live in a big house with garage and store rooms, there are just too much things and space needed whenever we add one family member.


A friend lend us this so we can transport the baby in our car. Since the law in Malaysia does not require this, most of the time the mother will hold the baby on her arm while the father driving. Kids here sit quietly in the back as they are trained to sit on baby chair since they are born. Kids in Malaysia sit and play in the car without car chair. My nephews fight to sit in the front passenger seat, leaving the adults jump pack in the back. Well, they have gradually changed the law and I hope one day all my nephews will just sit quickly at the back.

One month to go

Our daughter will join us in a month and it is amazing how much she has influenced our life even though she is still stuck in the stomach.

First of all, I don't sleep sound like before. During the third trimester I snore a lot due to the blocking airway, and that disturbs hubby's sleeping pattern. Then, it is getting hard to change sleeping position, not to mention that she wakes me up when she does hiccup. By the way, a lot of older generation didn't know about baby hiccup, but most of the young mothers told me that they did experience baby hiccup during pregnancy.

Then, my feet got swollen so it becomes a bit uneasy to walk around. During the day, I keep telling myself to drink plenty of water, making sure I eat somethings rich with calcium and protein, never skipping a meal.

Whenever we plan about trips here and there, we need to consider there will be a baby to think about. We have to contact the in laws for possible baby sitting help.

My doctor asked me to go for the H1A1 vaccination, it I was alone I won't even bother about this, now I need to consider protecting the baby.

The immediate dilemma is how to organize for the coming Christmas celebration. We don't know when the baby decides to come so for sure we won't be able to travel to my in laws place so instead they have to come over. They are not quite comfortable with our lodging arrangement though. Well, in our tiny apartment we couldn't provide everyone with a bed so it is something we still need to deal with. I wonder if every household has so much space at home to welcome their guests for big events.

The baby is becoming the center of our life even before she is born. Wow.