[all packed up, not]

Here's a break from the tale of the rat.

I'll be leaving in a week's time for the final portion of this journey. 

63 days to go according to the ticker.  Apparently some people look forward once they get double digits.  I think I was more excited when I passed the 100 days-to-go mark for the wedding.

How do I feel?

A mix of feelings as I mentioned previously.  But how am I feeling about going home?

Truth be told, I'm not looking forward to it as much as I anticipated.  Last year when I envisioned this period, I thought - yay, I'd be home hibernating, waiting for baby to arrive.  Last year I was so eager to go home I leaped at the chance of going twice.  Last year I was sure my family would change when I told them I was pregnant.

I don't doubt that they are excited to see H and all, but I still feel disconnected.  My dad, the "sober" one, has hardly asked me anything about the pregnancy. I only remember him congratulating me at the beginning. Then again, he's always been silent, so I can't fault him, I guess.  My mother was not so involved initially but she got more and more excited as time went by. Yet, with her living in her own world, and certain characteristics of her which not many of us like, makes me wonder how much she's truly interested in knowing about my journey.  As usual, it seems like she wants a one way effort in our relationship, and no, I don't want to do that.  Sakura has been the most eager, asking me for updates constantly.  Anyway, despite their reactions, I'm sure about one thing - even if they're not going to pay me any attention, H will definitely be loved by them all. Loved and spoilt...heh.

One of the main reasons I'm suddenly reluctant to go back is because Mr F has been taking so good care of me.  Ok, so his enthusiasm to be the in charge of the house chores died down about 2 weeks after it started.  But I can say for sure that he's been such a doll when it comes to comforting me, being there for me on my lousy days, being there at every doctor's appointment, giving in (sometimes) to my cravings.  In his words, "Who is going to run down at 12 midnight when you're hungry to get u food?"  I guess he also knows my family's helpfulness and he's a little worried about whether I'll be able to be independent for a couple of months.  I guess I wouldn't be feeling so insecure had my darling parents helped me with some stuff I had requested.  My mother's current wave of "you don't care about me" is making me even more stressed. I am in no mind to have any arguments with her when I'm back, yet I am also in no mood to play pretend and act as if all is well between us. Sigh...

To top it all off, my in laws will be coming to Sg for the delivery. They have every right too and I am amazed at their enthusiasm.  Yet, with the way things were when they came over the last time, I am pretty worried how things are going to turn out.  MIL has decided to come over everyday to be with H, and my mother will be home during that period because of school holidays. Two strong characters in the same house the whole day, I hope I don't lose my sanity. For now I must remind myself that my job is to focus on H, and Mr F can deal with the family policitcs. Good luck to him lol.

The option of staying on here and doing everything just the two of us suddenly seems very enticing.  These past couple of weeks have seen us being very mushy to each other.  Apparently, as much as I don't like it here, the F factor has made me want to consider delivering here. I even requested that Mr F be mean to me this week so that I won't miss him so much. As if that's working...

I guess for now I'll just go with the flow.  Tickets are booked. Luggage bag taken out. Now for me to fill it up...

Shall just tell myself that things probably won't be as bad as I'm imagining them to be.  In any case, will be looking forward to Mr F joining me in Dec to welcome our firstborn. Yippee!

[The Tail of the Rat - Chapter 2]

Mrs F awoke the next morning feeling refreshed. It must have been the exertion of the night before that made her sleep very well.  That, coupled with A's hospitality where she spread out a beautiful bedsheet and even included a candle in the corner of the room, made Mr and Mrs F feel as if it was their honeymoon suite. 

After breakfast, it was time to head home and face the inevitable again.  Mr F bought some rat glue to which Mrs F expressed her disappointment.  Rat glue = trapped rat ≠ dead rat. Furthermore, how would Mr F get rid of the rat if and when it gets trapped on the glue?? When they stepped cautiously into the house, it seemed that everything was alright - there was no sign of the rat.  Mrs F was secretly hoping that the rat had gone.  Mr F then literally forced Mrs F into facing the rat with him.  She was, however, not ready to see it again, nor face her fears.  This ensued into an argument, but thankfully after calming down, Mr F braved the front himself.  He put the glue onto all the doorways so that they could see where Mr Rat was going.  Work done for the day, they headed out for a picnic.

That night when they returned, they noticed that some of the glue near the main door had a smudge. Upon looking closely, there were also traces of blood.  Mrs F felt sorry for the rat, instead of ending its life quickly, they had instead hurt it.  This also meant that the rat was still in the house. Gasp! So much for her hopes of it being a figment of their imagination.  That night, she went to sleep with a stick next to her bed. Even if she didn't dare kill the rat, she could still shoo it away with the stick.

The next day, Mr and Mrs F went to a hardware store to purchase some things for the rat fiasco.  Their theory was that the rat might have entered through the main door since the gap at the bottom was pretty big.  After some unsuccessful attempts at looking for wooden boards to seal the gap, they ended up at S to see if they had anything useful. Guessing that a place like that would sell rat poison, Mrs F urged Mr F to ask the salesman if they had any.  To their suprise, the salesman was standing at the exact location of the poisons.  There was another customer there trying to decide which kind to by. "Apparently we're not the only one having rat problems," Mrs F said.

After some deliberation, they settled on a slightly expensive version of rat poison; Mrs F had faith that something costlier would be more effective.  They went off armed with a wooden board they had picked up in an alley beside one of the stores they had gone to earlier.  On the way out of S, they found a construction bin which had bits of ceramic which they thought would be useful for doing the job.  Feeling like scavengers themselves, they picked up a few pieces and headed home.

Mr F spent the rest of the evening sealing the gap at the door with the ceramic pieces and placing rat poison all around the house.  He did not want Mrs F to panic again and wanted her to have peace of mind, especially since the previous day's panic had made their unborn child very quiet that day. Mrs F was very grateful that Mr F was putting in so much effort into easing her worries about being "attacked" by the rat.

Feeling slightly more relaxed, Mr and Mrs F went back to the living room and watched a movie together. It was now a waiting game - would the rat appear? Would it eat the poison?  Time would tell...

                                   -------- End of Chapter 2--------

[The Tail of the Rat - Chapter 1]

Once upon a time, Mr and Mrs F were sitting peacefully in the living room of their humble abode.  Mrs F noticed that Mr F was staring at something at the corner of the room.  She enquired as to what he was staring at, but he continued staring, and looking back at Mrs F, and staring back at the corner again, as if deep in thought.  Finally, he looked up and calmly said "I think there's a rat in the house."

Mrs F laughed it off and started making jokes about rats in houses in general.  How could it be? Rats never entered apartments in Sg. Moreover, they were living on the 2nd floor, how could it have come in?  After some time passed, Mr F got up and went to the toilet that they seldom use (let's call it Toilet #2).  He seemed to be looking for something.  Mrs F being amused, followed him to see what he was up to. As she was about to open the door to the dining room, something caught her attention. There it was, a black furry creature with a long black tail running across the hallway, scurrying towards the main toilet (Toilet #1).

"There's a rat in the house!!! There's a rat in the house!!! It just ran into that bathroom!!!!"

Mr F came out of toilet #2 and asked Mrs F if she was sure she had seen it.  She ran into the living room and started screaming at the top of her lungs that "THERE'S REALLY A RAT IN THE HOUSE!!!!!"  Mr F tried to calm Mrs F down because he felt that the screaming would do their unborn child no good.  He was also worried the neighbours would misunderstand and call the police to "save" Mrs F from whatever calamity had befallen her.

Finally, after about 5 minutes of panicking, Mrs F calmed down.  Mr F had even resorted to slapping her face lightly although she thought she wasn't going hysterical given the circumstances.  All she wanted was for Mr F to stop calming her down and do something about the rat.  Quick! Thereupon, Mr F went to conduct further investigations as to where the rat might have gone.

Alas, after almost an hour of searching for it, the rat was nowhere to be found. Not in Toilet #1, not in the kitchen, it was nowhere to be seen.  Since it was already 12 in the night, the "investigations" would have to be called off for the time being.  However, Mrs F could not bear the thought of sleeping in the same house as the rat. What if it came crawling all over them on their bed at night? What if on her way to wee-wee in the middle of the night, she accidentally stepped on it or got freaked out by it? What if it bit her?? With all these thoughts racing through her mind, she convinced Mr F to let them stay over at a friend's place that night.  She promised she would be braver the next day and help him face the rat.  So they changed and hurried off to A's place, with Mrs F hoping that it was all a dream and that the rat would be a figment of their imagination the next day.

                                             ------- End of Chapter 1--------

[the final lap]

I can't believe so much time has passed that it's already the 3rd trimester of the pregnancy. Wow! How did the 6 months pass by so quickly???  Still remember the time I was convincing Mr F that we should go to the dr to check out my lower abdominal pain, followed by the surreal feeling when the doctor said our pregnancy test was positive.  One significant obstacle I've overcome, and am deeply grateful for, is the passing of the morning sickness that lasted till the 4th month.

Tummy is growing steadily bigger.  Baby is kicking steadily harder lol.  He's been a really good boy, cooperating during ultrasounds and such. I love the way he responds when his dada sings to him.  Sniff sniff he doesn't respond when I sing to him heh. He's gonna be daddy's boy!!

Not sure if I blogged about this but a lot of people around me have a lot of unwanted comments.  Nose puffy, darker skin, carrying big, acne breakout and so on. Other than the big tummy, I think the other things they just see because they want to see. Especially after telling them the gender.  The DHs never fail to bring up one comment or another every single time we meet. Like come on, I feel conscious enough, it doesn't help that you're helping to point out my "flaws". These days I've learnt to filter these people out. Am focusing on the people who acknowledge that H is a good boy and that I can't control the way I look during this hormone-crazy period.  Why can't people just keep comments to themselves??

According to the ticker there's 82 days to go. Sounds really soon!  Are we ready to be parents? Will we be good parents? Will I survive the labour pains according to my birth plan?  Will baby wait for daddy to arrive in Sg before he greets the world ? (I really hope so!) So many questions that can't be answered till the time comes.  This sentence (not ad verbatim) I found on a baby site rings so true; at this point, we are fluctuating between feelings of "Yay it's the last trimester, can't wait to welcome baby into this world!" and "Oh dear, are we ready to be parents? It's coming to soon!"  I guess some things you can never fully prepare for.  As in my friend's experience, her baby greeted the world 3 weeks early and it's still sinking in that she's a mother.

Well our dear H, we are ready to meet you. Till then, all we can do is say our usual prayers - that you be a strong and healthy boy who is always happy. Love you so much. xoxo

[hiatus]

So I haven't blogged in a while.  Haven't been in the mood really, coupled by the fact that I don't think anyone, or maybe just a couple of people, are reading my blog.

What's been happening so far?

Eid this year was fun in a different way because we celebrated it with our babymoon in Dubai.  It was a little hectic for a pregnant woman who couldn't get enough sleep because her hubby is so relaxed during holidays that his snoring score is 10/10.  The searing heat combined with the uncomfortable humidity also made it difficult for this waddling walrus.  Despite those obstacles, it was a very enjoyable trip - we got to see the main highlights of the place thanks to the bus tour.  The world's (current) highest tower, the Atlantis, the world's only 7 star hotel, the museum, a creek cruise and much more.  After living in a place which is dull and where customer service doesn't exist, Dxb was a real refreshing experience.  There were crowds everywhere, people looked more vibrant, even security guards offered us directions and the service in the 4-star hotel was superb. Superb to the point where even the cleaners greeted you along corridoors.  Not to mention that the Arabesque theme of the room was very unique.  The infrastructure there is also fantastic, comparable to Sg if not better. At the end of the trip Mr F said that Sg seemed under-developed in comparison to Dxb. He was expecting me to get defensive but seriously, I had to agree. That's how impressive it was!  Ok, so now I'm working on getting him to move there. Yeah the cost of living is higher, but at least I'll have freeeedom!

Baby has been doing fine, albeit some minor thing that should clear up by the time he comes out or soon after, God-willing.  We realised being parents is not easy even though we're officially not parents yet.  The past couple of months have seen us increasingly spending time at the hospital; what with scares like food poisoning till I wasn't retaining any food or water, ultrasounds, gynae appointments, one blood test after another and chiropractice for my poor aching back.  The frequency, as Mr F pointed out, was almost once in every 2 weeks, and in the last week itself, I think I went there everyday except one for one thing or another.  It hasn't stopped there because I still have more chiro to go for (it's working..yay!) and a glucose test to rule out or diagnose (I'm hoping the former) gestational diabetes.  Pregnancy is a long and difficult process!!!

Have bought my tickets to go back to Sg.  I must say I've been having second thoughts about returning.  The main reason is because I don't see my family being very supportive. Yeah, they want to be part of the baby's life but other than that, they seem reluctant to help me out in certain things.  I've also grown dependent on Mr F and the thought of handling the last few weeks of pregnancy myself scares the shit out of me. No one to accompany me to the dr (I'm sure my family will be too busy), no one to hold my hand in case of not so good news (cross fingers there won't be any), no one to get me food at 12am in case I get hunger pangs. Sigh, Mr F has spoilt me...not that I'm complaining. Hehe.

For now I shall just stick to plan A. Am reminding myself that no matter what, family support is important and having (more than one) family member around will always come in handy.