My Mammal

I love the way Gaby feeds in the middle of the night.

She'd cry out suddenly in her sleep. Short, staccato jerky, frantic cries. Her eyes remain closed through the whole event.

When I carry her on my shoulder to the bed, already her mouth is furiously seeking the nipple. Occasionally, her mouth gets a grip of my skin and I hear a "smuack" sound of futile sucking.

With her tiger suit and mittened hands that bring all her fingers together into a paw, she is my epitome of primitive baby cute when she snuggles up to my breast. Eyes still closed, she curls up across my chest with her mouth expectantly opening and closing like a goldfish. She is briefly patient as she waits for me to adjust her body and position her head. Then, she takes in my nipple with a desperately hungry bite while she places her white paw possessively on my mound like it were her prey.

Gaby's tiger suit

Then it is full concentration as she rhythmically suckles. I remind her, "Slow down, darling..." and stroke her baby head.

When she is done, she falls asleep at with my nipple still in her mouth. Otherwise, she would throw her head back firmly, and focus on sleeping. So strong is the resolution to go back to sleep that her head is corked stiffly like a meerkat, a frown of concentration on her brow, and her eyes and lips tightly pursed together.

Oh, my little mammal, I sigh with contentment, even as I am groggy from the broken sleep.

We did it!

Two days after my Mum and Sis returned to Singapore and Lionel is back at work, I braved my greatest practical fear as a new Mum alone in Zurich -- bringing Gaby out on my own without a car (which would have served as a refuge for us if she decides to bawl and draw attention to us).

To maximise Gaby's happy time, immediately after a feed, I rushed to put on my socks, jeans, blouse, warm jacket and baby carrier. Forget the make-up, or even habitual eyelash curler and lip balm. This was followed hastily by putting Gaby in a thick snow suit and into the baby carrier. Darn, I forgot to wear my boots first. I hopped into them while holding onto the wall for support, grabbed the keys and the shopping bag, and rushed out.

Why the need for all that haste? Gaby our Singaporean baby cannot tahan the heat. She would not last more than 2 minutes in that thermal wear.

Outside supermarket Migros

I'm all smiles from a very successful outing. So proud of myself, thought I that I had to camwhore and quickly snap this picture of us. Achievement: We were out for half an hour doorstep to doorstep.

And the moment we stepped into the house

Talk about Gaby being kind to me. She held on to her tantrum long enough for us to enter the house and close the door. Mmmuack Gaby!

Mission Bottle Basics

My advice to all breastfeeding Moms: Don't let Baby survive completely on the breast. Alternate between bottle and breast so that you won't have this problem we are now faced with...

Moms-to-be have heard horror stories of how hospitals give the bottle to newborns, only to have them reject Mom's breast later on because it is much easier sucking the milk out of a bottle than from a breast. And much has been written about nipple confusion where baby doesn't know how to suckle at the breast because bottle suckling requires a different technique. But alas, I was not warned about the reverse -- breast affinity leading to bottle rejection.

Lionel and I have his workplace's Christmas dinner to attend this coming Friday. We have no intention to bring Gaby, just as we believe they have no intention to have a bawling infant at the nice restaurant. My Mum and Sis are here to take care of Gaby in her parents' absence. They can feed her expressed milk or formula in my absence. The plan sounded simple enough when we signed up for the dinner before Gaby was born.

But Gaby, as we have recently found out, absolutely refuses to take the bottle now that she has grown so accustomed to fresh milk from the warm pliable tenderness of Mummy's nehs.

Gaby had earlier been on the pacifier and bottle from the time she was in neonatal care shortly after birth, and even when we brought her home in her second week of life. However, so well was she putting on weight that the visiting midwife told us to do away with formula supplementation. And at the same time, I was getting more confident of my milk supply and proficient in breastfeeding, so Gaby stopped taking the bottle.

Since then, Gaby has had a good month without the bottle or the pacifier.

It was till we started making day trips and thought handling a bottle with expressed milk might be easier than breastfeeding in public when we returned Gaby to her bottle. It was then we found out that Gaby would retaliate with all her might, and volume, against any introduction of an imitation teat into her mouth.

With all our manufacturing wonders today, why couldn't they shape bottle teats they way nature moulded breasts, thought I. The answer came pretty immediately after the question arose. Such teats won't just be bought by parents of newborns for their newborns. They'd be a regular item in www.xxx.com kind of websites and dodgy shops I am sure. Come to think of it, I may just be able to find a pair of fake breasts at one of those kinky outlets.

Anyway, how how? I lamented. How can I go for my Christmas dinner when my baby insists that I have to be present at all her 2-3 hourly feeds? How how will she survive when the time comes for her to wean off my tired nehs? How would she survive if I am suddenly taken away from her? Aiyo Gaby, you'd have to go on the drip.

These concerns kicked off Mission Bottle Basics to get Gaby to reacquire the survival skills of a baby in these modern times.

Goal: Replicating this taken-for-granted act

The best part about this difficult mission for me is that I, the Mum with the smell and the voice Gaby can identify,  have been advised by books and midwives not to be the one to deliver the bottle. Gaby would be confused as to why Mum's nehs were there but tasted like rubber.

So that has left Lionel, my Mum and Sis the arduous and ear-piercing task of getting Gaby reaccustomed to the bottle. I hear her angry screams and pleading cries while I take that time as my break. In fact, as I write this entry, my Sis is trying to bottlefeed Gaby.

We celebrate tiny achievements.

• Achievement 1a (5 days ago): Dad holding the pacifier in Gaby's mouth, and her not crying
• Achievement 1b: Gaby keeping the pacifier in her mouth herself, even if it is for just half a minute

• Acheivement 2a (yesterday): Dad getting Gaby to accept the pacifier first, and then quickly switching it over to the bottle when Gaby's caught off guard
• Achievement 2b: Gaby having the bottle teat in her mouth without crying, even if she is not sucking
• Achievement 2c: Gaby sucking clumsily at the bottle, but not swallowing the milk
• Acheivement 2d (just today): An unsuspecting sleepy Gaby finishing 15ml from the bottle fed by my Sis

Friday's dinner is four days away. Will we be able to accomplish this mission by then? Stay tuned.

Update:  We went ahead bravely for dinner and Gaby finally drank half a bottle of milk out of hungry desperation just before we returned home. However, we have not been able to replicate that miracle since.

Random Assortment of Photos

Nehspray on Gaby's face

And her bath toy that has an uncanny resemblance to her

Gaby's very own supermarket loyalty card

Gaby in her different moods with Grandma

Gawking time with Dad

What happens when you ask Uncle Jo to take care of Gaby

Gaby on her playgym

My sleeping angel

Short arms that don't go past her head

Finally!!!

Guess who's FINALLY arrived?

VITAL STATISTICS (for uncles and aunties to buy 4D)

Name: Heng Kaili Gaby
DOB: 31 October 2010
Time of Birth: 04:55 PM

Weight at Birth: 3380 g
Height/Length at Birth: 50 cm

More pictures to come once Mummy and Gaby are more presentable, and Daddy has more time to upload photos...

37 weeks and waiting...

When are you coming Gaby?

(Sketch courtesy of my talented sister, Cuiwen. Colours added by Lion Daddy.)

What's in a Name?

Dear Gaby,

Today marks the 37th week that you have been growing in Mummy's belly. You are officially full-term now and if I start getting contractions and signs of labour, the hospital isn't going to worry.

From the sonogram last week, you were a pretty average and healthy 2.5kg. Mummy's belly has gone all ugly from you stretching my skin as you get bigger. Now, my belly looks like a canvas with an abstract painting of tongues of fire. But alas, I think you will make the battle scars of pregnancy all worth it.

Dad and I have been spending some time on your name. For someone who is not particularly sentimental or into rituals and symbols, I never thought I would be fussing over the meaning of your name. To my surprise, I found myself shooting out emails to friends who have a better grasp of the Chinese language to check whether the characters I chose for your name convey what they are intended to.

So now, what's in a name? Afterall, a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.

Let's start with "Gaby". 

Unfortunately, you were not named after some commendable personality. Dad and I are avid followers of this American drama series, Desperate Housewives. One of the leading characters is called Gabrielle, and is frequently called Gaby. So that's how it started.

But deciding on "Gaby" took a while because it needed self-convincing and a lot of "personalisation" to make the name "ours". To begin with, "Gaby" isn't quite a popular name in Singapore, nor is it popular among Daddy's relatives as we came to find out when they asked about what we had in mind for you. Furthermore, it sounds incomplete and improper, because it is seen to be a truncated form of "Gabrielle" or "Gabriella". Gaby has the potential to sound too babyish, or too bimbotic as well. 

Why we still went ahead to stick on with "Gaby":

• For the lack of any other pleasing alternatives, we were referring to you as Gaby for a good while from the time we the gynae spotted three lines on the sonogram and told us we were expecting a girl. Thus when we had time to rethink your name after the less than favorable responses came from Dad's family, we found it even harder to find a replacement, because it was hard to change the name that we had grown so accustomed to, and had so much affection associated with.
• From the Singaporean kiasu perspective: The "g" in Gaby would put you in the first half of the class register. Having read some research done in classrooms, and my own experience as a teacher, I have found that teachers call on names higher up in the class register more often. I think that that would give you a slight advantage at school, especially in a Singaporean classroom where we still have 30 to over 40 pupils.
• Why extend your name to a Gabrielle or Gabriella, which both sound distinctively Latino -- a culture far from ours -- when in the end, most people will call you Gaby? Besides, Mummy isn't very fond of girl names that end with an -ah at the end. With no offence to people already called these names, the -ah's in names like Anna, Adrianna, Luana, Julia, Sonia and Sophia make them more palatable and predictable as feminine names.
• "Gaby" is a name that is slightly confusing because it is androgynous -- it could have been short for Gabriel, a boy's name, too. Mummy, in her own quirky sociological way of thinking, likes that kind of uncertainty and fluidness. People aren't going to be quite sure about whether you're male or female, until they see a sex marker, or you in person. I like that because there are so many unconscious gender expectations we have once we know the sex of someone, and keeping that a mystery for a while gives people more time to figure you out as a person first, before understanding you as a girl, or a woman.
• Gaby is short and phonetically easily pronounced by people of any culture. We are afterall living in a very globalised world these days. Just look at Daddy and Mummy's families. Uncle Jo is studying in the US, Aunty Cui is in Australia, Mummy studied briefly in California too, while Dad did his Degree and Masters in the US, and now we're in Zurich while he does his PhD. We have cousins and friends who have made their homes in so many parts of the world as well. So since you are going to be exposed to many cultures, we want to make sure that your name doesn't get horribly mangled by speakers of other languages, and that you do not have to go around correcting people on how to pronounce or spell your name.
• Mummy believes that if you grow up to be a nice girl, "Gaby" will become a much more popular name simply because people associate the name with someone nice. Right now, for the lack of exposure to people of that name in Singapore, "Gaby" is just not immediately popular.
• The process and rationale behind choosing your name, is also partly how Mummy hopes your life can turn out: down to earth and fuss free, not having your sex come in the way of your decision making and those made for you, self-defining and confident of being different.

As you can see, most of these thoughts come from Mummy. There hasn't been very much use of the pronoun "we" to include Daddy in this description of how we came to settle on your name. Daddy, the much more practical person that he is, doesn't care so much about what goes into your name, as much as what goes into your cot and room, and which breastpump to get for Mummy. 

(Mummy was pleasantly surprised to find that Dad had done some research and printed out some application forms on childcare for you already. There is a crazy waiting list here in Zurich for childcare, but we hope to get you some exposure to other children and caretakers before you get back to Singapore.)

Now, for your Chinese name. The characters chosen are again, not going to be who you are as much as they are the aspirations Mummy have for you.

 慨立 

kăi lì

A similar rationale was used in ensuring that the phonetics of your Chinese name are pronounceable. That meant that I was avoiding sounds like qi, qin, ci, jing, xi, xing, xiu etc., which non-Chinese speakers have difficulty figuring out how to pronounce, and even when they do know, find it hard to shape their mouth correctly to make an accurate sound. Furthermore, your Daddy speaks no Chinese.

Kai Li also has an English-sounding equivalent, Kylie, which is also a name made popular by singer Kylie Minogue. We did not have so much trouble getting approval for your Chinese name, especially from your Nek Nek, because it is definitely way more feminine sounding, and less uncommon. Daddy, too, took to "Kai Li" way faster than he did with "Gaby".

And well, if you never grow to like "Gaby" the way we have, you can always choose to use the safer "Kai Li".

So after figuring out the sound of your Chinese name, Mummy had to choose the characters.

慨 (kăi) comes from 慷慨大方 (kāng kǎi dà fāng) -- which means generous. This is one of your Daddy's strongest personality traits. It is this generosity of not just resources, but of heart, that makes him both so likable and happy. Daddy is always willing to give. He takes care of his friends and even people he doesn't know very well. He is also not quick to judge, and doesn't bear grudges.

立 (lì) is taken from 独立 (dú lì) -- independence. As what Mummy's Chinese advisors have told her, 立 has never been traditionally used for female names since independence is not a classically desired attribute of a female, especially not in Chinese culture. But independence, for Mummy, doesn't mean being all feminist and independent of men. The independence I hope for you is that of your mind and life. I hope you will be able to confidently choose your own paths in life without being excessively subjected to peer pressure or mass culture. While there still are societal norms that are worth abiding by, we let many less consequential ones limit us needlessly.

Dear Gaby, even before you are born, there are so many hopes and dreams for you. I hope, too, that I will not crush you with these aspirations I have for you. Imposing her desires on us is what my own mother has made sure she never did, and I hope I can give you that gift as well. If I ever do get stifling, promise me you'll gently let me know.

Love,

Your Mummy

Gaby Rocks My World (or well, the globe of a belly)

This very short video is dedicated to the amusement of my never-been-pregnant readers.

( I had to add in some semblance of music to hide my heavy breathing.)

I had initially intended to take a video of Gaby hiccuping. Unfortunately, the lighting was poor and the movements too subtle for my Nokia camera phone to pick up. However, Gaby decided to surprise the recording with one of her very sudden and violent movements -- which is quite characteristic of her behaviour these couple of weeks.

The ultrasound last week indicated that she is a healthy mid-range 2.06kg baby for 33 weeks. She refused to show her face during the twenty minute session with the sonogrammer (if that's what they are called), so I do not have any nice new sonogram pictures to put up. So sad. =/ The first disappointment from Gaby.

Oh, and I just realised that my Countdown to Parenthood ticker-widget box on the right of my blog is suddenly showing a rotating picture of a baby -- upside down! I guess this is when Gaby's expected to be in her kick off position. I sense that she probably is because the hiccup movements are constantly in the lower left part of my globe these days. I cross my fingers and toes hoping she will cooperate so we can have a natural birth...

And while I am at this entry, here's a visual update on my globe:

37 inches and counting (Courtesy of IKEA)

More Big Deliveries before the Grand One

Guess what made me so happy on Friday when I was, for the first time in Zurich, left all alone at night because Lionel had an office party to attend?

Our Dell Desktop finally arrived after a 1.5 month wait! No more sharing of my small ThinkPad in the evenings with Lionel. No more lousy laptop speakers when we watch our cheap DVDs from Germany. Instead, I now have a huge screen to do my blogging, Facebooking, weather checking, 1000-word e-mail reply writing and prenatal Yoga-ing from.

I spent what would have been a lonely miserable evening taking my time to set up the whole PC, and forgetting about my dinner. Say hello to my new 24-inch screen. We would never have had such a big screen if not for the fact that we're doubling this screen as our TV for movie screenings. We decided that it wasn't worth getting a TV here because there is more or less only BBC we can watch that is in English, and we did not need an additional TV license fee added to our monthly bills. especially when we do not have time to watch TV anyway. Also, Lionel's workplace has two of these big screens attached to his desktop. You know, the kind where he can click and drag a window from one monitor to another, and where his mouse can suddenly cross the air space to the next monitor...

Before the Dell delivery, we had another big delivery all the way from Singapore! Lionel's Mum excitedly bought a lot of clothes and baby-related stuff for our dear Gaby. She had them flown over to us by their SIA pilot friend who was A380ing to Zurich. My own mum threw in 2 tubs of Body Shop Body Butter that I bought at almost half price in Singapore too.

Can you spot the difference? I took the first photo without realising my belly had been caught in the shot. Then I remembered the old Nokia phone that we requested from Singapore as well., and included it to take another shot. 

With this spare phone shell, I can put in my Singtel SIM card and leave it on. Now our dear friends and family in Singapore can SMS us and pay local Singapore rates. This is all in preparation for the Big Day when well wishers want to shout us to us from Singapore.

While I am on the topic of Gaby and preparations for her, see the state of her cupboard! It's a little messy now, and it has gotten more filled up with Gaby's new clothes, bedlinen and swaddling cloths from my MIL (mudder-in-law) since this photo was captured. I definitely underestimated the size of Gaby's wardrobe. Lionel and I are now looking for how to increase storage space so that my Mum can put her clothes comfortably when she comes over for three months to help me out. (Aren't Mummies so wonderful?)

We have relocated some of Gaby's stuff to our wardrobe to make room. Since diapers are something she would definitely grow into and will consume faster than she digests milk, we've been stocking up on Size 2, 3, and 4 Pampers when they are on Aktion (sale) here. We save about 30-40% with these buys.

Ah, and we haven't updated you with our, well, some would say obiang or gaudy hall curtains. Lionel and I love colours, and since we probably will not be able to afford sending Gaby to playschool here, we wanted to make home as visually stimulating as possible with bright colours and pictures.

|I see myself carrying Gaby around the house and talking to her about the pictures on the curtains as a daily routine before she starts talking and when she is at the stage where she is content to just being talked to...

Additions to the Home (no, addition isn't Gaby yet)

Guess what arrived last week? Kekeke.. the 20kg box we shipped via SingPost before we left for Zurich. It sailed the seas for about nine weeks before arriving in this state. I'm glad we kiasu-ly did the Scotchtape reinforcements all round the box. I am a little stunned though at the number of stamps the post office put on the box. Surely there is a more efficient way of indicating S$120 worth of postage?

What did we have in this box?

• 
  
  A slow cooker that was given to us by my mates at NIE (National Institute of Education) for our (Singapore) housewarming
• 
  
  Lionel's Food of China cookbook, which he swears he survived his four years in the US with
• 
  
  Two baby carriers kindly donated by Lionel's cousin, Hwee Ling, and my friend, Saiful
• 
  
  Two big vacuum packed bags of winter clothing for Gaby, mostly donated by Hwee Ling too
• 
  
  Cartoon-print reusable cloth diapers for Gaby we bought at a baby fair in Singapore -- I thought I could do my part for the environment since I have the luxury of being a stay-home Mum (but allow me to update you with the reality of reusable diapers several months from now)
• 
  
  Hehe.. a packet of pads -- I know Zurich should be more advanced and well-equipped than Singapore, but I couldn't help putting that in to give me peace of mind
• 
  
  Lots of Watson's pocket tissue packets to pad the slow cooker 

When Lionel went to collect the box in the morning, guess whom he got waylaid by? An elderly lady from the Jehovah's Witness. I am certain it is the same team attacking Asians, especially Chinese looking Asians. I had a couple of women from the sect knocking on my door and ching-chong-ing me in Chinese several weeks back just because we had a Heng and Chen on our door label. These are the publications they try to hand out to people they evangelise to.

After my incident with them at my door the last round, Lionel and I went to read up a bit more about them. Apparently, they are an organisation with very tight social control and norms. Members are obliged to fulfil a quota of new believers they bring in, and it is very hard to leave the group. They do not mix much with non-believers also. Even when I told them I was a Presbyterian, they were still trying to convert me to their particular brand of Christianity.

Jehovah's Witness is a Christian sect banned in Singapore and several other countries because they do not carry arms -- i.e. males in Jehovah's Witness, for religious reasons, would refuse to participate in our compulsory National Service.

Ah, the third mop stick I have broken in my mopping life of six years. I must have some superhuman upper body strength, or these aluminium sticks just aren't made to last.

Our loot from the second trip to Konstanz last weekend! German prices (way better than what we get in Switzerland) plus duty free shopping!  We have enough toiletries, natal supplements, highlighters, colourful Stabilo soft-tip pens, imitation Post-it notes and cleaning detergent to last us at least next six months. *rubs Aunty-hands gleefully* Can you spot the new mop stick?

I had to buy new highlighters because I fell asleep while doing my German homework one day with my highlighter caps detached. And unlike in Singapore, the humidity here is lower, so that sapped the life of my highlighters.

And more stuff for Gaby:

• 
  
  The cheapest car seat we could find (since we already splurged so much on the baby vehicle they call the pram, and since we are not planning on yet owning a car)
• 
  
  Yellow cot pads to prevent Gaby from bumping her head on the bars of the cot
• 
  
  A waterproof sheet for the mattress
• 
  
  A baby nail clipper (which really is no different from an adult nail clipper, except for the plasticky colourful add-ons which supposedly makes it more ergonomic for cutting baby finger nails -- oh, curse the profit-making baby industry that feeds on naive parents' excitement and trust!)
• 
  
  Pacifiers -- for crying emergencies. I hope not to use them, but at the same time, my own mother has taught me to be less idealistic. And baby books (at least the ones I am reading) are quite sympathetic to the use of pacifiers and reassure me that my child will not end up having buck-teeth nor remain addicted to it past societal norms of the pacifier-totting age
• 
  
  That white dress looking item is what they call a sleeper. I would probably never have heard of that if I had not been living in this winter-susceptible country. Apparently, you are not supposed to put any pillows, blankets or loose items in the cot when the baby's small because they increase the risk of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. So how do you cover the baby in winter then? The sleeper is a stiff padded dress you wear over the baby while she's sleeping in the cot. Since it is stiff, it is less likely to get entangled in baby's face, neck and limbs.

And this ends my themeless update for now!

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

Getting Gaby's Pram from Konstanz

Lionel and I have been akin to the rather unrefined, unappreciated, uncultured Singapore tourist voyaging merely for bargains. Because I have just entered my third trimester, we have not had the luxury of time to take in the scenery and culture of this new city and its neighbours. Instead, we have been using our evenings and weekends to scour for the best bargains to make our apartment a home, and to get ready for Gaby's grand arrival.

During the last weekend, we trained up to Konstanz, Germany, which has been likened to the Johor Bahru for us living here. Konstanz is a pretty university town just across the border and slightly over an hour's train ride. And unlike travelling to JB, there is no causeway jam, corrupt officers to be wary of and the infamous JB snatch thieves on motorbikes. So on the other side of the human-defined boundary between what is called Switzerland and Germany, lies not just significantly more decent prices, but also tax free shopping! And when you consider that the tax rate there is 19%, it basically means you perpetually have a 20% discount on all purchases there.

It cost us 15 francs each one way for the train. So double us and make the journey a return trip and we pay 60 francs for transport.

It was fortunate that we had Euros (although very badly depreciated from the time we bought them late last year) leftover from our honeymoon in Eastern Europe last December. Lionel has a student account with UBS here and we found out that he had a 2,500 francs withdrawal/expenditure limit per month. By the last few days of July, we could not take out any money.

So with our honeymoon Euros, we set out to buy Gaby's pram. Asian prams, American prams and European prams are so different. In Singapore, I would never have dreamt of getting a bulky big-wheeled Mercedes-equivalent pram with excellent suspension. However, considering that we tram and bus around here, rather than drive about, the stroller needed precisely all that. Foldability and lightweightness became the last things on our mind.

So at the end of a couple of hours at BabyWalz, we left with (still) one of the more Asian sized big-wheelers. This pram is petite enough to manoeuvre supermarket aisles, and has the bottom carrier to double up as a marketing trolley. We got a three-wheeler because it seems easier to aim to get a single front wheel up and down a tram first. We parted with about 700 euros, of which we would get back 110 euros in tax claims. This German-made baby vehicle basically cost us more than S$1000 -- and it wasn't even in the BMW or Audi series of prams.

Don't I look all Mummified with the practical sports shoes, track pants, mummy figure, sun hat and well, the stroller? That is the store, BabyWalz, in the background.

Oh, that pink shopping trolley bag is what we came to Konstanz with -- all geared up for aggressive retail exercises. I think of Lionel as such a self-assured man, all confident in his masculinity, when he pulls this around on our Saturday grocery stockpiling trips. (Except in designated areas, all shops, including supermarkets, close on Sundays -- so that means we need to make sure we're adequately prepared for the weekend's meals and Monday's breakfast. And of course, Saturday is when my macho husband goes supermarketing with me -- and he can carry all the heavy stuff.)

And finally, what better way to end a day's shopping trip with a good meal? No wursts for us -- Lionel gets sausages at almost every breakfast. So here, we have our first Asian meal in a restaurant since our arrival a month ago.

Ah.. good clean Japanese food. Although it was more like Sakae Sushi in standard, the pricing was like going to a true Japanese restaurant in Singapore. Nonetheless, it was a relatively cheaper restaurant meal than what we would have had in Zurich.

All pictures are of me because Lionel was holding the iPhone. ;p

We took the 7pm train back to Zurich after an eventful day at Konstanz, which included a superb 80cent cone of gelato ice-cream, four colourful mugs at 50cents each, 3 DVDs at only 5.55 euros each, a nice jacket in preparation of the colder weather for Lionel, toiletries, detergents and two contented bellies.

The journey back gave us a trial run of what pram travelling was going to be like. And that test drive went well. The pram's suspension took the cobblestones, the ups and downs of pavement to roads and platforms to trains, and also passed the narrow supermarket aisle S-course test.

The only awkward thing was that elderly women would smile at me. Pregnant bellies attract a lot of friendliness, even in Europe. And to add a pram to that (Wah, the first is not even out of the baby carrier and she's having the next one!). Womenfolk would lower their heads and bend their bodies to peek into our pram to spot the baby, and I could never bear to see their disappointment when they found none. So eventually, Lionel and I decided to pull the pram cover all the way down -- so we ended up looking like over protective parents with an unbelievably angelic sleeping baby, or parents with a suspicious baby criminal to hide.

Gaby's Life in Black & White

At 2 months (8 weeks)
Ugly undefined little blob of cells with lots of space in the waterbag. That white curve is the umbilical cord.

At 3 months (13 weeks)
More human looking now, but could probably still pass off as a rat.

At 4 months (16 weeks)
Definitely human-like in form now. Space in the waterbag is getting tight. This was the gynae visit where he checked for the baby's sex and said, "Well, I don't see a boy. It is more likely to be a girl, but it could still be a boy."

At 5 months (21 weeks)
Very unimpressive sonogram picture from NUH. The gynae at Mount Elizabeth had a better scanner and printer. But notice how Gaby does not fit into one single photo anymore.

At 5 months (22 weeks)
Ah! I like this picture. If you haven't figured it out, Gaby's lying on her back and her head is on the left. The top left series of curves show her side profile. I told Lionel that he may not be the father. ;p Because both Lionel and I have thicker lower lips and Gaby here seems to have a more pronounced upper lip. But she could have taken the Heng grandfather lip -- Lionel's dad's upper lip sticks out.
Can you see her heart? It's quite high up in her chest. That black cavity in her chest. In the live sonogram, you can see it pumping quickly.

At 6 months (25 weeks)

Here we have moved over to Zurich. This is our first visit to the gynae here at the University hospital opposite Lionel's office. They are really thorough here. This is the first gynae visit which left us with not just 1, but 4 photos!!!

Gaby's left footprint!

Gaby waving at us with her right hand and all 4+1 little fingers of hers.

Gaby sucking her thumb?

Gaby's thunder thigh (left) -- taking after Mum.

Hallo Gaby! (In 3 months' time)

Gaby, you're coming out in 3 months' time! Dad and Mum can't wait for your arrival!