Motherhood: A 24 hour job

As a mother of a 3 month old baby, it finally hit me: this role requires me to be physically and emotionally present 24 hours a day,  7 days a week.  There are no weekends, no holidays.

To say I'm exhausted is not even scratching the surface.

In Singapore, I was working full time as a vice president/deputy head of a department in a bank. It was tough. The hours were long. The people were bitchy and hard to deal with. My boss was completely incompetent and gave me a lot of angst. Simply put,  I wasn't paid a 5 figure sum for nothing. BUT (and that's a big bold highlighted but) I could walk away at 6.30pm. I could walk away on Friday and completely forget about the people/work/issues for 2 full days. I could take a holiday! In fact, I could take several holidays!! Yes, the fact is, I could walk away.

As a SAHM, I can NEVER EVER walk away. My job doesn't stop. It doesn't stop at 6:30pm. It doesn't stop on Friday and even when I do eventually go on a holiday it doesn't stop.

No wonder one of my staff used to tell me that she actually looked forward to going to work and leaving her kids with her mother-in-law! Oh the judgemental thoughts I had of her 😂

So I salute all the SAHMs because it's a tough job and because it's largely a thankless job. It's a job with no monetary rewards, no bonus and no promotions. It's a job that sees no returns until years later and even then you might never be thanked for it. It's a job that has no kpi and therefore has no recognition. It's a job that has no job description so it encompasses anything and everything.

Excuse me while I go clean some poop now.

Migrating from Singapore to Melbourne: I Miss Singapore

It's been 20 months since we moved to Melbourne and after the excitement of moving to a new city wore off, I've begun to miss some of the things I took for granted in Singapore.

1) Food

It's not a surprise that you can't find a decent chicken rice or char kway tiao here. In Singapore,  I just had to walk 15 minutes to the nearest hawker centre and I can have the greatest selection from Indian to Malay to Chinese cuisine. After that I can choose from a variety of desserts and a trip to the hawker centre usually doesn't add up to more than A$10 per person.  And I could do that anytime from 7am to 10pm.

Here in my suburb, the only food that's readily available is fast food. McDonald's has a franchise at every corner. If I want either Malaysian or Singaporean cuisine, I'll have to drive 20 mins to the nearest restaurant and spend A$10 for a bowl or last and A$3 for a drink. This is not the best comparison as they don't have hawker centres here so everytime we eat out its at a restaurant. If I compare restaurant prices in Singapore and Melbourne, then I think it's about the same. That's also largely because there isn't a compulsory 17% added to a bill.

However, because there are migrants from all over the world in Melbourne, the up side is you get a pretty good selection such as Greek, Italian and Vietnamese food.

Anyhow, I really miss the wan ton mee in Singapore. There isn't anything even close to it here.

2) Help

As a new mother, I can't begin to express how desperately I need a live in helper. Because it's illegal to get a live in maid here, I've relied on help from my parents and my in laws for the past few months after I gave birth. But we all know that it's not the same as a helper. As an extra careful first time mum, I wouldn't want someone else to care for my child. But I would love to have someone to cook, clean, do the laundry, iron the clothes etc.

There are cleaners you can hire on an hourly basis here for S$12-20 an hour usually for a minimum of 4 hours but they only do cleaning.

Although I didn't have a maid in Singapore, I also didn't have a baby and was working full time. Now that I'm home most of the time and have a little baby to take care of, my greatest dream is to have a live in maid.

3) Convenience

As mentioned, it takes a good 20 minutes to drive somewhere for a meal. It really doesn't matter where you live (in the suburbs) it will take you an hour of travel time to get somewhere simply because the land is huge. Although that's also why when I go to the mall, it's never really crowded even on weekends. Compare to the nightmare that is every shopping centre in Singapore (I recall going to clementi mall on a weekday and it was just jam packed with people).

So I take the bad with the good...

4) Family & friends

It gets lonely when you move thousands of miles away from your family and friends. It's something that never really goes away. I can't just decide to pop over my parents place for dinner or meet a friend for lunch. I have to meet and make new friends and make the effort to travel back to Singapore.

I've been blessed in that I've made a lot of friends, especially ladies who are also Mum's, in my short time here and so this aspect isn't that bad.

Migration is never easy. There are so many things that you'll have to give up. But then there are so many things you gain as well so it's not for the faint hearted and it's not for those who are not determined. I'll write more about the difficulties of migrating one day.

Letters to my daughter: Wee hours in the morning

My darling, its 5.19am and you are asleep in my arms after a feed and a change of nappy. Before you fell asleep, you stared straight into my eyes for a few minutes and I just loved our bonding.

I love the way you are so intense. You love looking (I should say staring) at daddy for a long time, this concentration is completely unique to a baby your age (you are now a little over 3 months old but you've been doing this since you were a couple of weeks old).

I don't want to put you down in your bassinet although its just next to me. I know its against what all the sleep training fanatics advise but I also know that time flies and you won't be so little for long and I just wanna treasure every moment that I get to carry you in my arms. Because one day you won't fall asleep on my breast anymore, one day you will sleep through the night and I'm gonna miss this.

So just to let you know that sometimes, in the wee hours of the morning (or night), I break all the sleep training rules because I want to.

Love,
Mummy

My Journey into Motherhood: God answers prayers

After a hiatus of more than a year... here I am again.

Except I have a new title to add to my list of wife, daughter, sister. It is a title I will always always treasure and will never ever take for granted. Mummy.

Yes, from the last time I blogged in April 2013, I miraculously got pregnant and welcomed my daughter into the world in March this year.

I've been inspired to start blogging again because I want to remember all the miracles that has happened and is happening to me. I want to remember all these moments when I'm old and be able to share them with my daughter. And I want to share my story if it even inspires and encourages one person who is going through what I went through. To share that there is a God, that He listens to your cries, that He will fulfill your desires because He is a good God.

Now when I say I miraculously got pregnant, I did MIRACULOUSLY got pregnant. At the last update, I was waiting for my private healthcare provider to get back to me on whether I will be covered for the laparoscopy procedure. They replied no as I had to go through a 12 month waiting period. So whilst I was waiting for their reply, I got a job as a Business Manager in a car showroom (more on that in another post) and I started work in May. So for a few months I didn't have the time to really pursue the path of the laparoscopy and since I had to wait until November to start on IVF anyway, I just concentrated on my new job.

Shortly after I started work, sometime in July, I found myself a little confused as to when my last period was. You see, I was so sick and tired of counting the days of ovulation etc, that I just could not be bothered for the month of June/July. I was kinda busy with my new job as well. So I waited a couple of weeks to be sure that my period was indeed late before I told my husband. One fine morning (should be a Saturday as we have a video of us looking at the pregnancy test in bed), I did a pregnancy test using a home kit... and for the first time in my life... there were 2 solid lines!! We did another 3 tests just to be sure!

I wished I had recorded how I felt exactly because now it's all a bit fuzzy... but suffice to say that I was really really really really happy.

It was especially sweet because I was not taking any medication and I did not conceive her through any procedure. My baby was conceived supernaturally... despite the fact that I was 36 years old, despite the fact that I had one ovary and despite the fact that I had a small cervix.

I know without a shadow of a doubt that this is God. It has His fingerprints all over it.

For this child I prayed, and the Lord has granted me my petition which I asked of Him. 

1 Samuel 1:27

Planetshakers Conference 2013

Just some photos from the conference... the Holy Spirit moved in such a powerful way. His presence cannot be duplicated and when you sense it, it's like nothing you've ever experienced. It's not only about coming together for a huge praise and worship session, nor is it about the awesome word of God being preached (which I experienced in abundance during the conference btw). 

It's all about your spirit meeting with the eternal Spirit of God. The worship leaders and Pastors just create that atmosphere for you to meet God so that you will never be the same again. 

I felt so overwhelmed when God started to reveal things to me during the conference about the situations around me and what His will is for those situations. However, the climax was really on the last day, after Pastor Ben Prescott preached a powerful message "Under the influence" and the Holy Spirit fell on the congregation such that there were many people who were crying, laughing and some were slain. I was very curious and trying to observe what was going on (basically being a busybody) and then suddenly, I was just overwhelmed with a sense of His love for me and I just started crying and I couldn't stop (yes, I actually tried)! And He revealed to me that the past few days during the conference, He was revealing things and situations to me but at that moment, He wanted to reveal Himself to me. 

Check out Planetshakers Awakening 2014!

Planetshakers City Church

When we first arrived in Melbourne, we were so excited to hear that Hillsong was starting a church right in the city!! But since it didn't start until November 2012, we thought we should just check out Planetshakers City Church since my brother-in-love who was visiting us at that time highly recommended it. 

To be honest, I wasn't familiar with Planetshakers at all. Up till then, I had only heard some of their worship songs but I did not know the pastors or the denomination of the church (for lack of a better phrase... I really mean what the church believes in and preaches about). 

I was quite skeptical going in and the first time I was literally bombarded by their praise & worship. These guys rocked harder than some real "hard rockers". Haha!! Was totally not used to it since the worship at New Creation Church is a lot tamer by comparison (by that I mean normal). 

We went for a couple of weeks and in one of those Sundays, Pastor Sam Evans came out to preach an amazingly anointed and powerful message called "Get out of my house". I was so blown away that I still remember the message today. Because I've never heard of her or Pastor Russell Evans, I was completely unprepared for the sense of power they are releasing over their church. It was completely and utterly mesmerizing. 

When Hillsong Melbourne started sometime in Nov/Dec 2012, we attended the church for a couple of weeks but felt that it was not what we were looking for. Now, it's very difficult to explain this because it implies one is better than the other. It's not. It's just that different churches play different roles in the body of Christ. Just like every individual play a different role in the church. In any case, the important thing was my husband first spoke about being led to go back and plant ourselves in Planetshakers City Church and I agreed wholeheartedly. 

Now, let me try to explain why we decided to be a part of Planetshakers. We were so well established in the gospel of grace by Pastor Prince, it was easy for us to recognize that the same message was being preached at Planetshakers. However, there is also another dimension which is being revealed to us: the power of living by the Holy Spirit. This is a whole new level which we are very keen to explore. Having been in the church for close to 4 months now, I've learnt to communicate with the Holy Spirit and this just overwhelms me because..... the Holy Spirit..... He speaks to me!! He answers my questions!! He reveals things to me!! So I've started reading this book by Pastor David Yonggi Cho:

If you are looking to be part of a church in Melbourne, I highly encourage you to check out both churches and ask the Holy Spirit to reveal to you which church is most suitable for you.