Dear Gaby

Dear Gaby,

It will be about 10 weeks before you pop out. I can feel your increasing muscular strength as you make yourself comfortable in my uterus, elbowing, kneeing, heeling me. Unlike in many areas of my life, I have no control over when you would move and cause a ripple over my tummy. And that makes your being, and more importantly, your individuality, more real than before.

I cannot wait for you to arrive. I don't know what you're going to bring to this world, or at least to Daddy and Mummy's world as we know it. In all sorts of baby books, we've been warned that you're going to turn our lives upside down. And ironically, we cannot wait for that. I do not know what physical and personality traits you are going to inherit from us -- two also very different individuals. I do not know what antics and perspectives you're going to surprise us with as you, without even trying to or realising it, teach us about life.

As I write this now, you've started another bout of hiccups in my belly again. It feels like a really strong regular heartbeat -- like the pulsations I feel through my whole body after a sprint -- but only much slower. You really must have Daddy's genes. I am sure I will tell you at some point in your life how amused I am that your Daddy seems to be the only person I know who can hiccup in his sleep and not even rouse from that.

Your impending arrival is getting us all excited -- not just Dad and I, but Grandmama, Nek Nek, Uncle Jo, Aunty Cui and all other interested friends and relatives around us.

Uncle Jo is a son, a brother, a cousin, a nephew and quite recently, a brother-in-law. But you are going to make him an uncle very soon -- a new role he appears to be very thrilled about. In fact, he is planning to make two trips all the way to Switzerland from the US during his upcoming school vacation, just to see how his new and only niece (for now) is doing. Uncle Jo, I hear, is very good with babies and children. He is also a very good cook. He has a good brain and is studying very hard now to be a doctor or professor one day.

Aunty Cui is also excited about your coming. You are going to be her new experiment. She is now passionately studying Speech Therapy in Brisbane and she learns all about the development of speech in children. But Aunty Cui is also a very practical person -- like all us Chens/Lims are. She knows everyone is going to be thrilled with the novelty of having a new baby in the family and how they are getting you all sorts of 0-6 months clothes and accessories. Aunty Cui has told me she'd hence get you stuff that you can grow into when you're way past 1 year old and those gifts start dwindling.

Nek Nek is Daddy's mummy. She has already bought you some 5kg worth of clothes and baby necessities in Singapore. Grandmama will bring it up to Zurich when she comes in early October -- hopefully comfortably before your arrival. Nek Nek didn't look so excited when we told her you were starting your journey into the world some seven months ago. However, the realisation has grown onto her and the last I spoke to her on the phone, she was really really excited. She teaches primary school children in her home several times a week. She is not going to take on any more students soon in anticipation of the new little "rabbits" (as she calls all of you born this year) she will take under her wings in four years to come. Nek Nek loves teaching children and takes great pride in it. You will be spending a lot of time with her when we return to Singapore and Mummy has to go back to work.

Grandmama is Mummy's mummy. Grandmama had Mummy when she was much much older than I am now. She gave birth to me when she was 37. Because she was an older parent, experienced in life and established in her career, she brought Aunty Cui and I up with all the wisdom of her age. Grandmama is a really cool mummy herself, bringing us to the theatre and musicals even before we were in primary school, and never quite telling us what to do. She did get her message across, but never in a top down way. Aunty Cui and I have great mother-daughter relationships with her, and we talk to her like a friend. (I hope you and I will have that as well.)

While Grandmama didn't let Mummy do many what she considered high-risk activities (like roller-blading, skiiing, ice-skating, or scuba-diving), she actually let me go to Primary 1 without knowing how to read. I am afraid I don't have the same confidence in going so easy on you though. And even if I did, Nek Nek will push you hard to make sure you are reading and doing your times table by the age of 5, just as how she did with her two now very academically successful sons. I am certain that Nek Nek will also be the one who is going to teach you Chinese since Daddy speaks or recognises none of it, and Mummy is probably better at German now than she has ever been with the Chinese language.

Daddy is the nicest man in the world -- that's why I married him. OK, of course, you'd know a thing or two about opinions, exaggerations and perspectives in time to come. So Daddy may not be the only nicest man in the world, but I am sure, as he is to me, he will be to you. I can imagine you being one of those lucky girls who are not ashamed to tell your friends that your Daddy's a really nice man. He will definitely make you Daddy's girl -- but you are not to bully him, promise?

Daddy is a very patient man -- but he can be very impatient in some areas. He likes to get some things done really fast. Do you know Daddy got his Masters before he turned 24? And barely had I outgrown my wedding hair highlights did I find myself pregnant with you. Even now, before you're out, Daddy's planning for no. 2 already and when to increase my insurance coverage here so that we could deliver no. 2 here by water birth. Well, dear Gaby, not that I am complaining. Setting up our family is a priority both Daddy and I share.

In the past month, Daddy's been busy setting up your room for you. We've got you a basic but decent cot with a good mattress, a luxurious pram and a comfortable car seat for our occasional trips when Daddy feels in the mood to rent a car and drive up somewhere. Daddy becomes an advertiser's dream when we go baby shopping. He wants to get you so many things that you probably won't be able to use till you are at least six months old. I tell him to wait so we can bring you and you can show us what you are interested in.

Mummy, at the age of 25 now, doesn't have the benefit of all the years and experience of Grandmama. However, I do have the energy that a young Nek Nek had when she had Daddy 27 years ago. And because Daddy is doing his PhD here in Zurich, I am by these circumstances, removed from Singapore and my very busy teaching job. That equation comes up to you getting a full-time Mummy for the first four years of your life in quite a nice city with four pleasant and not-so-pleasant seasons.

You will realise how much a privilege this is for us, given that most graduate women automatically feel obligated by societal norms to go all out in the work force and be financially independent. I am sure, by your time, you would feel this pressure even more. Mummy is still getting used to not earning and saving her own money, after doing so for the past 9 years giving lots of tuition and teaching. However, I think that life, especially work-life, is getting longer these days with active ageing and delayed retirements. Yet even with medical advancements, reproductive years have not increased by the same proportion. Therefore, Mummy thinks it ok to take a hiatus early in my career to bring you, and Toby and whoever comes along, up well first. If life goes well, we'll have many years ahead to enjoy one another's company.

Many of Daddy and Mummy's contemporaries put off having children (or even getting married) any time soon, because they feel they aren't quite ready financially or emotionally. However, I don't think anyone is ever ready to be a parent. The ironic thing is that you have to be a parent itself to get you any closer to that elusive Masters in Parenting. And even then, as you will discover in your teenage years, parents are never perfect.

What a long first letter to you, my baby. Mummy's in this writing mood now because it is close to 11am here in Zurich and Daddy's still sleeping -- a luxury he will most likely be willing to sacrifice from the point you come crying into this world.

Love,

Your Mummy