rawakramblings

My baby's 5 months now and we went for a detailed scan with Dr Delaila last 2 days. She started from the skull, measuring the circumference of the head and then moved on to see the lips, to check if it has crooked lips (sumbing) and then she measured the thickness of the neck to check if it has down syndrome .and then she went on to check on the spine, to see if it has hunchback, and then she calculated the fingers, all 5 on both sides..and she went on and on and on.. and then she reached the legs and said..

"Okay so now you see the legs, is there anything in between?"

"Hmm...no..?"

"So.. it's a girl! Congratulations!"

Mr. wanted a boy so it took him 2 seconds to absorb the news (hihihi) but I smiled instantly :) :) :)

Then suddenly he started talking about 'daddy's little girl' and how cute the baby looked in the screen and then started imagining the first moment he will meet her and read the Azan to her. You should know that Mr likes to imagine the future a lot. He has already planned how he should position the camera in the labour room and how he should pose while I deliver! - although I'm very sure that all that will not happen hehe.

Can you see the eyes & nose & the really buncit tummy?

You should also know that earlier during the scan, the baby's head was on the left and then suddenly it just flipped to the other side. Having fun?

Alhamdulillah - everything about the baby girl is looking good. Should we start naming her baby rawakramblings? or maybe little miss?

We haven't even found a real suitable name for her yet! I'm looking for something short and sweet.

Mr. hates it when I wear those Ariani-like awning tudung (scarf). He says I look like a makcik! "Ishh...apa macam makcik nii???"

But sometimes, its just an quick easy option when in a hurry. You just grab it, and put it straight on, no need inner scarf, no need pins. And it's just breakfast at the mamak, or just a 5 mins stop at 7-Eleven, or occasionally, just malas! Hihi.

People keep on asking me, "Are you sure you're pregnant? There's no bump!" that it made me ask Dr Delaila the other day, "Is it normal that I don't LOOK pregnant?" and she giggled, "Don't worry dear! It's your first pregnancy and the truth is, those gaining weight at this period of the pregnancy are actually gaining their own weight! Not the baby's!" Fuhh...such a relief. She also told me that losing 1-2kgs during the first trimester is normal. Now that I'm entering my second, I should be eating more.

This week, my appetite's been increasing! Last two nights, I went to the kitchen for a bowl of koko krunch and cold milk at midnight because I was too hungry I could not sleep. Yesterday, I was already hungry for lunch at 11am and ate a whole plate of rice - usually I can only eat half portion.  By 4pm, I was hungry again.

So today, I decided to bring some supply of healthy snack to keep myself full in between meals. Other than a box of Sunmaid raisins, oatmeal cookies, breads and a box of milo drink, I also did this yummy fruit salad:

It has been a busy busy week for us in the Zaahara team. We had a corporate order of 200 bottles as Ramadhan gifts. With the limited time and resources, we had to use all the possible way to ensure that we secure this first huge order of ours.

We even hired this cute little niece of mine. Child Labour hehe paid with a box of milo drink. "Aunty Erin..this honey goes around and around and around i can even draw while putting this in the bottle...!"  

Of course, she only did that one bottle and was off to watch Princess Bubble Gum on Astro.

Other than those two days, I've been doing great! I feel nausea and lethargic sometimes, but that's just it. I haven't been vomiting since.

I've learned a few tricks to help my body control the nausea. Different people have different ways and different stages of nausea. For me, these seem to work:

• Drink juice! Orange or apple works for me because of the slight sour taste. 
• Cold Lipton Ice Lemon Tea!
• Always ensure that my tummy is filled up. When I'm hungry, the gas in the tummy can really lead to vomiting. 
• Don't eat too much. 
• Get my mind occupied. When in the office and I'm all focus on work, somehow I don't feel like vomiting that much. 
• Avoid crowded stuffy places. 
• Always remember to rest. 

I'm feeling much much better today. After 2 days of throwing out everything I ate, doctor gave me the rest of the day yesterday to rest and gain back some energy. I came back home, slept for 3 hours straight. Woke up and forced myself to eat.

It was really really hard for me to eat. I had to chew the bread slowly and then forced them through my throat. And it didn't feel nice at all! After one bite, I rest for a few seconds, then I had another bite. After 5 bites, I stopped. Drank 100Plus to restore back all the energy lost, and then had some more rest. I was very very weak. All that time, I said to myself  "Is this how its going to be the coming month? How do I cope with this?" Whatever it is, I had to force myself to eat, for me and the baby!

However, thank God, I gained back my appetite during dinner and so I ate whatever I can take, drank all the fluids that I've lost and today, I woke up feeling much much better. I had the energy to go through the day at work smoothly. Alhamdulillah!

I even had the crave to eat kari daging that the minute we reached home around 6pm today, I went to the kitchen and cooked it rightaway! We had lamb curry for dinner today! Hah amik kauuuu!

Last 2 weeks, I tested positive on the home pregnancy test, however when we visited a nearby family clinic, the doctor could not see any sac (i.e space) in my uterus. I was supposed to be 5 weeks then. The possibility of a false positive test is very low, and we did the urine test twice - both showed positive results. However, there was also a possibility of a miscarriage. So i was quietly worried.

"Come back next 2 weeks, and we'll do another ultrasound scan on your tummy," said the doctor.

So we left the clinic, not too sure if it was good or bad news. However to both our parents, positive urine test is of course good news! So you can imagine all the 'what-to-eat' and 'what-not-to-eat' warnings I get. "Make sure you don't jump around too much, don't go to the gym! Swimming is okay. Don't go up the stairs too many times...yadda yadda yadda." Truth is, the first trimester is the most sensitive period of the pregnancy, where 30% end up in miscarriages.

So, reluctantly, I followed their advices. It seems that everyday, I learn something new that I CANNOT do or eat. But I trust them, as they're more experienced than I am. Petua nenek moyang, ada baiknya kalau diikut! 

I started having constipation and fatigue - but I was eating well alhamdulillah. However, last 2 days, the  nausea and vomiting started. I vomited every thing I ate. So today, I was totally flat out.

This morning, we had our first appointment with the gynecologist at Sime Darby Medical Center (SDMC). I chose Dr Delaila Ahmad as I've heard a lot of good feedbacks about her! I was praying hard that everything was okay, that the doctor could see the embryo in my uterus.

Turns out that I have inverted uterus. Which is why nothing can be seen through the abdominal ultra scan. Dr Delaila conducted a vagina scan and we saw the baby, with a heartbeat! 7 weeks today :) :) :)

That dark area is the sac. And the embryo is in the small white circle area.

Many of my family members and close friends have learned of this good news. Some are telling me that I shouldn't tell everyone else until I pass the first trimester, the most sensitive part of the pregnancy.

I've decided to write about it here. I'd like to keep this as a diary. If you'd like to spread the news, go ahead. I will not be officially announcing it, whoever knows, knows then :)

Please pray both me and my baby will go through the first trimester fine. I put my faith in Him.

Oh my, motherhood coming soon!

This Ramadhan, my parents has decided to leave all of us behind, while they go for their 5Xth honeymoon at the beautiful island in the Phillipines : Palawan. 

It's also my first Ramadhan with Mr as husband and wife. Just before the Ramadhan, I spent some time thinking of the right routine for the Ramadhan, what time should I wake up, should I go to sleep after sahur or just stay up and head straight to work, what time should i leave office to ensure that I have enough time to cook for buka, when should I read the Quran, when should I do the Tahajjud, should I wake up and cook for Sahur (being too ambitious here hihi) and then when the time comes...I didn't even bother to follow any of the routines. I decided to just go with the flow (an excuse for being malas? hmmm..)

For instance, I didn't attend any Terawikhs in the mosque for the past two days. Truth is, it has never been a practice in my family before, thus its something new that I'd like to try.

However, I attended Subuh prayers at the USJ9 Al-Falah surau today, read some Quran, and stayed back to listen to Subuh tazkirah.

Both days, I failed to stay up after Sahur and ended up sleeping back after Subuh prayers. I don't know how this is going to be during working days. I'm just too sleepy after that! Maybe I need like 5-10 mins nap. Or maybe I just need to sleep earlier.

Tahajjud - I guess this will happen when I decide to wake up slightly earlier for Sahur.

Cooking for sahur? - Err...I think I'll put that aside first at the moment...

Cooking for buka - YES this one I'd LOVE too, hopefully I don't get too caught up in work that I leave the office late. I used to look forward on what to cook everyday during the fasting month when I was studying in Sydney.....teringin teringin, google resepi, masak, makan...puas!

I'm lucky to still be staying with my parents where there's a maid to assist with all these cooking, prepare and wake us up for sahur. But someday, when we move to our own house, I will need to do this on my own. With children around, I also need to prepare them for nursery/school, and then I need to head to the office and also later on, prepare dinner for the whole family. There will also be other daily house chores which I need to do. I know Mr will assist me but the responsibility is really on me.

I RESPECT WORKING MOTHERS - and I hope that I will be able to cope with that too as time comes.

I'm slowly fitting in, improving myself, in carrying out my responsibility as a wife..and I will also slowly do that to when being a mother, insyaAllah.

Salam Ramadhan to all Muslims...may we all strive to be better this month, and also keep it going for the coming months too :)

Me and Mr lately have been on a journey exploring and learning more about our religion...and along the way, we were introduced to this:

When I'm low, these are my FAVOURITE nasheed songs:
(click & listen!)

• Zikrullah by Inteam
• Allah Knows by Zain Bikha
• Araftuka by Muhammad Al-Husayn & Raihan

Since me and Mr work at the same office, we go in one car everyday. Today, Mr had to attend an interview for his MBA course that he's applied. So, I had to drive on my own to the office.

I decided to take my dad's old E230 Mercedes.

When safely arrived at the parking space, I smell something burning. Then I realized that the car had overheated and there was smoke coming out of its hood!

Here's something else. Mr has been working here for quite sometime. So he gets the parking space here near the office. But today, I had to park at the parking place, 2km away from the office. Usually, there's a shuttle van that picks the staffs to and fro, but today, the shuttle van decided to break down too! And so I had to walked all the way to the office with my 1 inch heels (1 inch je, i know heh) and my laptop bag that when I arrived the office, I think I've lost weight! (DERAAAAMMMMMA!)

So anyways, mom called AAM, and then it seems that because I'm not more 21 yrs old, I'm not entitled to the supplementary clause. So, mom had to come to the office instead with a tow truck.We had to push the super heavy merce towards the tow truck as it couldn't start. Mom brought another car in exhange, and she and sister rode on the tow truck to the workshop. As for me, I rode on the parking staff's motorcycle back to the office. There's NO way I'm going to walk another 2km back to the office!

It's the wedding season yo! In just this coming two weeks, two of my closest cousins will be getting married! Next week, there'll be three consecutive wedding events in three days!

Another bridal shower was held last weekend, and this time , it's my cousin's Tania. Me and Tania have gone a looooong way back. We went to the same kindergarten, same primary school, same high school, and although we didn't attend the same university, we both studied in Australia. At that time, she was also dating a Sydney friend of mine, so I see her often too. We share the same group of friends. We share our boyfriend stories and now, just after 4 months of my marriage, she's next! (Our moms initially suggested that we both marry on the same date to save their money...errr..???)

The story behind this bridal shower is this:

Last week, I bbm-ed Tania, asking her if there's gonna be any bachelorette party and she replied, "NO! Everyone's too busy and no one wants to do it for me. It's okay, I'll organize one for myself,"

And then a few days after, I received an sms from our friend inviting us to attend Tania's Black & Gold Bachelorette party at Top Hat Restaurant in KL. Turns out that she really did sort-of organize one for herself! She told our friend that she wanted to have some fun with the girls and suggested the place and theme and all, and then waaalaaa! It was on.

Meet gorgeous Tania

Fatin & Yameen

All of us (incl. the bride to be!) showing off our artistic side by writing notes for the bride to be that will be bind into a scrapbook.

All of us in the private function room at Top Hat Restaurant.

Me and Dirah. We too, have known each other like forever!

Meet Inaaz. The owner of all these photos. Hihi.

I believe that the heart is the most important part of a person.

A person with a good heart. You see them around. They don't talk much about others, they always look very calm and peaceful, very honest. They don't have grudge or jealousy towards others.

Religion doesn't determine the heart of a person. Piousness doesn't determine the goodness of the person's heart. People always wrongly perceive that just because a Muslim drinks, he's a bad person..and just because he person prays 5 times a day, he's a good person.

I've attended various different Islamic lectures and sometimes, the speaker advises you to do good by putting others to shame, by talking bad about others, saying that 'these' are examples. And when you leave, you just don't feel the vibe of positiveness, that feeling of doing good. I sometimes see them as hypocrites. But I think its just because they don't have a clean heart.

I believe that the goodness in someone is the reason Allah opens up his/her heart. When you do good to others, people will always pray for you. That is why sometimes you see even the naughtiest person, but with a really good heart, can just one day, decides to be closer to Allah.

But when you heart is full of hatred and jealousy.. that's when you will always find faults in others, you will never be satisfied with what you have, you compare yourself with everyone else, you're self conscious, you tend to be hot-tempered...you're just not contented.

A small spot of blackness in the heart can grow bigger and bigger and just be apart of you, without you even realizing it.

I love being around good-hearted people. Their happiness keeps me happy too. And I know I'm not being judged. I know they're honest in being themselves and in whatever they say. They don't make things up, they don't try to fake their own personality. Their confidence just lifts me up.

We all need to clean our hearts once in a while. But the question is how do we do that?

Last weekend, me and my Sydney friends organized a Bachelorette Lunch at for our darling Jams who'll be getting married in 2 weeks time! It has been quite sometime since we all last hung up together. So many new stories and surprises!

We purposely chose The Red Beanbag @ Publika, just to reminisce our times back in Sydney::: the food, the cafe deco, the coffee! minus the Asians of course.

Pink Stacks Cake bought from Whisk @ Empire Subang.

Jams feeling overly flattered with our 'surprise'.

Macarons - also from Whisk @ Subang Empire

Distributing wedding cards!

These days, we've been busy establishing our business. Meeting people to discuss on the right design and packaging, calling and emailing potential clients, cracking head to understand all these html codings for our website. We're currently looking at supplying Hari Raya hampers, and so far, the response has been pretty encouraging, alhamdulillah.

I've always thought of running my own business. But it was only a thought. I kept on telling myself that "Better focus on my career now and get as much money first, then only think of business,". Never has it crossed my mind that business does not necessarily mean something with huge capital. START SMALL. As always, Mr is the risk taker, so he challenged us. Lets just try to do this!

Mr imagines that in the future, we will live with style and comfort, with money that we've worked really hard for. We bought our first car two months back, the cheapest range of Proton, the manual white colored 1.3 Saga. "Lets start small..and slowly build up..why spend so much money on a car at such an early stage?" he said. "Lets save some of the cash we have, and make money from the money we have..."

That's the truth: You need money to make more money.

We will be having kids one day insyaAllah..so for now, we need to make as much money as we can so that when a baby comes into the picture, we can live comfortably, without worrying too much about money. We can focus on bringing up the kids the best way  - which may include me quitting work and be there with them the first few years of their growth.

Other than that, I also have to agree that we both have a certain modern lifestyle that we've been living these years that requires quite high maintenance. We can choose to leave those behind, but that's what comfort is, so if you want to continue living in that, WORK FOR IT!

So whenever we see an opportunity, we open up the possibilities. Even something as low as making RM100 per week is good enough, that will cover the car monthly repayment!

InsyaAllah. Money doesn't grow on trees. It needs hard work.

So, we've been married 4 months now (wehoooo!) and I STILL suck at being a wife.

My sleeping time hasn't been consistent. Most of the time 7 hrs, sometimes 6 hrs, and sometimes even 9 hrs!
Most of the days, we leave the house in a hurry (thanks to my procrastination habit), and pack our breakfast instead.

I cook once in a while, when I feel like it, or when Mr feels like eating something. But it hasn't been a routine yet.

Our room's in a mess.

Here's the thing.  We've talked about it and we think we need to move out. We need to be independent. We're spoilt! We're sooo indiscipline! Manja sgt...! Leaving in a big house with a maid where food is ready all the time, clothes are washed, folded and ironed.  We don't even have a routine of who's responsible for what. We need to learn to be independent and establish ourselves before a baby comes into the picture. We need to settle down.

We did tell ourselves that we'll start looking for a house 6 months down the road, and it's already 4 months..we need to start looking. Baby, our honeymoon period is OVER!

We need to start looking at life seriously now... while still honeymoon-ing lah hihi.

The last time I've completed reading the whole book of Quran (khatam) was when I was 11 years old. After that, I read the Yasin every week (due to weekly school religious activities) and randomly the Quran (maybe 3 times a year?).

During my recent Umrah trip, I felt some calmness when reading the Quran and ever since that, I've been trying to make it a habit to read it everyday here back home. However, I fail miserably. Up till today, I still haven't completed the first surah.

An aunty of mine told me this: "Try reading the Quran everyday for 2 weeks, and then notice the differences. After that, try stopping for a week...you'll notice the effects of reading the Quran. Ada mukjizatnya..."

I have never given that a try. I should. I really should.

Today, I read somewhere on Tumblr that during this month of Rejab and Syaaban, we should try reading the Quran, at least a page a day, or even half-a-page a day...and take it as a practice towards the Ramadhan month. Come Ramadhan, try reading 1 Juzu' (chapter) per day..and by 30 days, you can then khatam the Quran, insyaAllah..."

Hmmm. Maybe I should try that....JOM? JOM!

via Zamzammee “Allahumma bariklana fi Rajab, wa Syaaban, wa ballighnia Ramadhan.” — “O Allah bless us in Rajab and Sha`bān and enable us to reach Ramadan!”

I may be lucky, as some may say, in which, syukur. But I realized that along the way, because of this lucky charm, I may have never tasted defeat. I have never fallen smack to the ground and gathered all my strength to get up and be stronger.

My period was late but the pregnancy test showed negative. Every morning, I wake up wondering, "Where are you big P??". No matter how busy I am, there will be that 5seconds of worrying about why I'm late. I know there's nothing much to be worried about but I just can't help it. I even went to see a doctor for a check up and he said that there's just nothing wrong. "Urghhhhh then why am I not getting my period?? Why ooooo why...."

"Stop worrying. Stop wondering. All that will only prolong your menstrual coming..." said Mr.

The past two weeks have been crazy for me. I cry every single day for the most ridiculous reasons. I get mad easily. Mr kept on saying..."Ish... you're just weird these days.. oh no! you're crying again!" and then I'll start laughing back. He even warned my parents, "Don't disturb the tiger...melenting nanti.."

It was as though the PMS hormones were being suppressed,  or like they're really really mad that the big P has not come yet. And of course, after some reading on the internet, there's also that thought in my head.."What if I AM pregnant? But it just doesn't show yet? And if I am, what if I'm not eating right? What if all this gym can cause miscarriage..." and the ridiculous what ifs thoughts just goes on and on and on making me more stressed up.

Then I tell myself to relax. I take some deep breaths, watch some TV..and the stupid thoughts come again. Urgh.

Then last night, you can imagine how relieved I was to know that my menstrual finally came..after 17 days late. Yay. I'm N-O-R-M-A-L.