aidilfitri 2013

Selamat hari raya maaf zahir batin.

We didn't feel so lonely this raya because ariff's half of the family were here. And it was wonderful.

I owe myself so many stories about life here in delhi. It's been more than 2 months but i have yet to post even 1 story for posterity. Not sure if i should blame the amount of time and energy that ilhan demands from me or just my own pure laziness :)

Till later.

remembering

I remember:

-          Squatting on a blue linoleum floor, watching an ant parade with Zubair

-          Watching yachts blown about in a lake with Ayah

-          Pushing my toy pram in a field of daffodils

-          Hearing Abbas get a tongue-lashing for making Maryam cry

-          Carrying a sleeping Maryam from my parents room and putting her in a cot in my room

-          Sleeping in my kelambu in my room with Mak after watching Stephen King’s IT

-          Dressing Umar up and taking him to the playground in the afternoons

-          Playing masak-masak under the big durian tree in front of Nenek’s house using REAL fire and ‘cooking’ plastic bag soup with rambutan leaves

-          Mandi kolam, mandi parit kong, climbing the mangosteen tree, kait rambutan, catching tiny fish with my siblings and cousins and uncles and aunties

-          Throwing stones into the canal in front of Embah’s house

-          Getting a tongue-lashing from Embah for throwing stones in the canal

-          Paman Aee ‘s ‘telur geseng’ and firework shows

-          Going to the Saturday morning market and buying 30 sen candy

-          Eating keropok lekor and jambu batu and laksa during recess

-          Playing getah, batu seremban and congkak with friends at school

-          Not having problems beyond unfinished homework

dreaming of home

since ilhan and i have been staying in PB and Penang these past few months, shuttling between them every few weeks, i've been keeping myself busy with little 'projects', including reorganizing my parents' house. i've been cleaning rooms, organizing the accumulated stuff generally associated with little birdies having flown  the coop, and throwing away a looooooooooooooot of throw-away-ables that neither of my parents have had the heart or energy to throw away. its been satisfying to be able to help declutter my parents' lives, and it has also made me feel extremely nostalgic about our little home in putrajaya.

ariff and i started our life together in a teeny-tiny apartment/flat home, government quarters in putrajaya. we didn't have much money then (not as if we have any more now haha), so we couldn't really do up the house in a way we wanted. but as time went by, we built our little home with bits and pieces we loved. soon enough, we established a sort of style or look which i like to call 'kindergarten chic', but which our parents call 'oh please grow up will you' :) since both ariff and i like brightly coloured and adorable things, we ended up buying a red sofa and lots of accent pieces in bright bright colours. we got posters and pictures of our favourite movies and sports and things that we hung together with a select few of our personal photos. we loved that our first home spoke so much of who we were, but on a budget :)

since money was such an issue, we had some rules about the procurement of household items. besides the essentials like electrical appliances, the rules were

• if we don't LOVE it, we don't buy it.
• if we LOVE LOVE LOVE it, but there's no space for it or there's no practical use for it, don't buy it.
• if we can't afford it, we don't buy it. BUT, if we can afford it in the future and its not a necessity, save then buy it in the future.
• if we don't love it, but we need it urgently, shop around, make sure there really is no other affordable choice, and only then we buy it.
• if its necessary and quality's not an issue, just get the cheapest we can find.

these rules were very useful because they helped stop us (okay, me) from buying things that we'd just regret having sometime in the future. this is especially so for knick-knacks or souvenir items; we always made sure the pictures or vases or cushions we bought would fit in the scheme of our house. as much as we didn't really 'decorate' the house, our restraint helped everything coalesce into our kindy haven. in hindsight, i think its important to think, early on, about how you want your house to look like. choose a style that fits your family's needs because it helps you edit your purchases. remember that the furniture you buy, if it doesn't break, will be with you forever. if you pay good money, make sure you get a piece that will not just stand the test of time, but also the test of your changing styles and needs.

but of course, no matter how beautiful and glamorous a house, it's always what you make of it that makes it a home. i miss our little home and the big memories...

The guy that made it home for me :)

Friends always make it better

 Nothing like food and flowers to cheer us up!

And of course, the magical balcony that this blog was named in honour of. No matter how tiny your balcony, it can take you to places you never knew you could be.

but the era is over and we move on. now ariff, ilhan, and i will be building a new home in delhi. it will probably be just a short stay of 3 or 4 years, but that is never an excuse to live in a house you don't love. i'll miss precinct 18, but ooooh, all that dreaming and planning and buying/renting and nesting! i can't wait! 

counting down and tearing up

it's 3 months and 10 days till we'll be reunited in new delhi, india. sounds like a lifetime, but i guess its a teensy bit shorter than the 5 months we were staring at when ariff left in early january. for me, time inches by when i think of ariff.

but with ilhan, my my time flies! she'll be 3 months old on sunday! she's a wonderfully content baby, happy enough as long as she has her milk, sleep, and play. she can now hold 'conversations' with people, responds to sounds, smiles and coos, and is able to raise her head when she's on her tummy. my darling precious baby girl has outgrown some of her baby clothes and that has made me tearful. oh baby... no matter what people say about how i've ended up being a housewife etc, i am glad Allah has bestowed upon me the rezeki of being able to raise my baby myself. i believe my rezeki is best for me for now. 

aren't you a lucky baby?

bliss

i know i've been talking and writing and taking pictures of ilhan too much. pre-pregnancy, i would have wanted to shoot me.

but i can't help it really.

maybe one day i'll write something that is not even remotely linked to ilhan. probably.

but now, i'm content with just staring at her all day and nibbling her tiny fingers and soaking in her smiles and just loving her.

oh baby. you have me wrapped around your little pink mittens.

That 'Special' Feeling

Being a first time father is an experience that is hard to explain to people. The past few weeks before our baby Ilhan was born have been extremely challenging. Juggling between office 

commitments, relocating to a new country, moving house, not to mention having a baby on the 

way, is not a walk in the park. It takes a toll on you both physically and mentally.

However, when you stack all this up to being in a delivery room, 'the problems of the world' that i faced earlier seem to melt away. I will forever remember ever so clearly the longest 14 hours of my life. I will always remember the conversation i had with my wife at the early hours as we entered the hospital; we talked about how the future would be like and we went through the names we had in mind in order to distract ourselves from the inevitable and in-avertable. I will always remember the moment when both my wife and i sought each other’s forgiveness just before we entered the labour room. It was a hard reality pill to swallow as what we were about to face was a real life and death situation. As the tears streamed down our faces, i could recall that it was one of the scariest moments of my life. At that moment of time, i was hit by the reality that i could lose my wife. I thank my parents and my teachers for instilling in me to trust God and his plans even at testing times like this.

It was definitely a test of character as well as teamwork when i had to see my wife go through child labour. I have never seen my wife turn so blue when the delivery team asked her to push through the immense pain. I have never seen such calm and collectiveness in the form of the nurses, midwives, and doctors whom were present. Despite never having gone through such an experience before, i was proud to be there every step of the way.

I remember when Ilhan came out, her eyes were wide open and her hands were moving frantically ,yet she was quiet. In the seconds before she screamed and introduced herself to the world, the situation around us was so quiet that you could actually hear a pin drop and cut the tension with a knife. But when we heard her for the first time, the feeling of relief swept over us like a gush of much needed fresh air.

Cutting the umbilical cord of your child is an amazing experience. It is a rite of passage and stamp of responsibility for the fathers who get the opportunity. It felt like a sense of responsibility naturally taking place on my shoulder and the problems that i had faced in office a few days earlier seemed insignificant all together at that moment of time. Now, when i hold my daughter in my arms, i feel a sense of completeness; a sense that despite all the wrongs that i have done, i actually did something right. However, i do realise that having a child is a huge responsibility. To tell you the truth, i am nervous right now but i am excited for the future, so bring on the responsibility.

Happy Family 

The birth story

This is my personal account of what happened, all told through bits of memories and residual pain. My parents, my in-laws, my siblings, and of course, my husband are the most wonderful people in the world. Thank you Ayah and Mak for the never-ending doa and Yassin as I fought for my life during the delivery, thank you Abah for canceling your trip to KL to be there at the birth, thank you Mak for making everything so comfortable for us and for being the person to welcome Ilhan to the world, thank you to our siblings for their concern, doa, and words of comfort, thank you to everyone who sent encouraging thoughts our way. And most of all, thank you to Ariff for keeping his promise to be by my side through it all. To Ilhan, I love you, baby, forever and ever.

Moving on to the story...

Ilhan was due on the 6^th of Dec, but we were hoping she’d come a little earlier i.e. on the weekend before that so Ariff would be here to help me through the early stages of labour. Alas! She was not ready to leave the warm wet place of her inhabitance just yet. So, during the subsequent week, in an effort to hurry her along, I walked around the house as much as I could and did all the squatting exercises I was told to do. I had never been so diligent with exercise in my life!

View from above (my pregnant tummy)

But Dec 6^th came and went and no baby came crying hello to the world. So I thought, oh well, we’re just going to have to wait till she’s ready and Ariff will just have to race back home when she does. On Saturday Dec 8^th, which was my birthday, we went to see Dr. Voon for another check up. She said that my cervix had dilated about 2cm and it was favourable for birth, and to our surprise, she added ‘Would you like to have her today?’ I had thought that induction was reserved for only emergency cases but we learnt that, apparently, as long as the cervix is favourable, you can induce birth, providing of course everything else is okay. We did think it would be pretty fantastic if the baby and I shared a birth date, but we didn’t know we could arrange for it. LOL. But Ariff said no, we shouldn’t have the baby on my birthday, simply because it was my birthday J. So, instead, we arranged to be admitted on Sunday so that I could have a proper birthday and so that he didn’t have to go back to Putrajaya only to have to rush back to Penang when the labour starts.

Leaving home for the hospital

On Sunday, after a Saturday-ful of birthday happiness, Ariff and I walked into the hospital as pregnant people for the last time (at least I did LOL). As soon as we checked into our room, I noticed that I had some bloody show. It was quite a relief to know that, even if we weren’t inducing that day, labour was going to happen soon anyway. Dr. Voon administered the prostaglandin at about 10am but I did not experience any pains. After that, the nurses had to prep me. I do wish someone would have told me about all the procedures one must go through once admitted though. For example:

• 1.       You are given an enema. And, sometimes, they make you do your business in a bedpan because they don’t want to interfere with the prostaglandin which was inserted just before. Thankfully, I was able to cajole them into letting me use the toilet. But still, a nurse had to be present IN THE TOILET WITH ME just in case something happens. How petrifying.
• 2.       A nurse will shave your crotch.

I just wished I was spared the embarrassment of being embarrassed by their ‘requests’. Oh well. Lesson learnt. As we waited for the magic to happen, Ariff helped give me back rubs and took me to the garden for some fresh air. It was actually all quite nice despite public-viewing of toilette.

Since the process had already been started, it had to be continued even if I had not felt any contractions that should have been induced by the prostaglandin. So at about 5 or 6pm, I was taken to the delivery suite to get my water bag broken. Up to that point, I was still very cheerful and quite excited about the birth, despite the fact that my mother-in-law and mother kept telling me how awfully painful it was. At the time, I just couldn’t fathom what they meant by ‘bloody awful horrible terrible pain’ (rephrased). All I wanted was to have the baby out so I can finally sleep on my tummy again. And of course, to welcome her into this wonderful world.

Once we arrived at the delivery suite, things started to move very quickly. Dr. Voon broke my water bag and put in a drip of something I no longer remember.  And the pain started. Oh the PAIN. All those things people say about birth and how horrible the pain is? They’re all true. It felt like a combination of very sharp knife slicing through my abdomen and someone hitting me like I was a punching bag... and it went on and on and on and on. It was achey and throbbing and slicey all at the same time. I had already decided on a natural birth so I wasn’t given an epidural. I must have been crazy (haha). Before I went in, I told Ariff (quite jovially) that we could watch the 8pm Thailand-Malaysia game on telly while we ‘wait for the baby’. Well, we did watch it, but I had my eyes and mind closed most of the time as I concentrated on not feeling the pain (stupid idea). For the next 7 hours, I was in and out of consciousness as I got lost in a fog of contractions. Thank God for Ariff as he helped to rub my back, coached my breathing and made me sniff the relaxing essential oil mix we brought along. Most of all, he held my hand all through it and didn’t say anything whenever I clenched his arm too hard. 

Apparently, my labour was quite protracted because my cervix was dilating pretty slowly. Around 11pm they asked me if I wanted some laughing gas. Like a thirsty man offered water, I seized the chance! So I guess the birth wasn’t completely natural, but I like to think it helped me through because I was already really really tired. When the labour started, I endured the pain as silently as possible by just humming and zikir, but as they became more intense, I became snappier and irritable. I told poor Ariff to shut up whenever he gave me words of encouragement like ‘it’s okay sayang’ or ‘you can do it’ (oh how I hate you can do it) because I found it so annoying. I think I may have snapped at the nurse/midwife/doctor too… oh well.

Eventually, Dr. Voon asked me if I would like to push. I had been refraining from pushing for a while, so once I was given the green light, I heaved myself and pushed! I don’t think I’ve ever used that much energy in my life! I could hear the clinking of surgical tools and people talking and somehow my legs were in stirrups, but all I could think of was pushing. But after I had pushed a few times, I could hear the doctor saying there may be some complications because the baby was facing down(OP position) and I might have to get a Caesarean. I could hear Ariff and my MIL (who is a pediatrician and was present during the birth) talking about it, but it really didn’t register to me. Dr. Voon gave me 20 more minutes – or else. Miraculously, the next time I pushed, the baby’s head moved in her hand! Yeay, no C-section! However, because I had been pushing for so long, both baby and I were tired so she asked for permission to use vacuum to help the baby out. I remember hearing her ask me this, but I was too tired to say anything… I was reserving whatever energy I had left to push again. Actually, I had been ignoring everyone for a while already and just focused on getting her out J. I heard my MIL telling Dr. Voon to go ahead since she (Dr. Voon) knew what the best course of action would be. And so, at 1.02am, with another mighty push and with the help of a little suction, Ilhan Mohamed Ariff came out slick wet and with eyes wide open into the world. And the pain just stopped. Alhamdulillah. Through my pain-hazed eyes, I saw my MIL hold her by the legs and thump her on the bottom, and then I heard my baby scream for her life. Are there words to describe the feeling of hearing your baby’s voice for the first time? The only thing I could say was ‘Oh my God, she’s real’. I wonder what Ariff felt when the nurses gave Ilhan to him so that he could recite the azan and iqamah to her… To think that the wriggly feeling that lived in my tummy for 9 months was an actual baby… Subhanallah.

Once they cleaned Ilhan, my MIL, a fervent breastfeeding advocate, quickly placed her on my breast. In my comatose consciousness, I felt her skin on mine and her tiny mouth look for milk. ‘Downstairs’, I felt Dr. Voon reach for the last clots of blood and I felt the needle sewing my skin together.Then I fell into the deepest, sweetest sleep. Even with my eyes closed in sleep, I could hear my parents and in-laws asking me how I was and saying how beautiful Ilhan looked, I could feel the nurses putting my clothes on for me, and I felt myself being moved back to my room in a bumpy elevator ride. It all felt like a very vivid dream. So when a nurse brought Ilhan to me at 3am for a feeding, I put her to my breast while in a trance. She was so real and warm and snuggly. When Ariff woke up, he held Ilhan’s hand in one hand, and my hand in the other. In a moment of pure epiphany, I realized we were suddenly a family of three. And I remembered how I used to feel the happiest when I woke up in the morning to see him smile in his sleep and the baby move in my tummy, because I was feeling the same exact feeling. But better.

Hello Baba Hello World