Motherhood: Instinctive vs Learning

I've always thought motherhood is an instinctive thing, yet now I know I was wrong. In fact, there's a lot of things I should learn as a first time mother.

Start from the very first basic thing: breastfeeding. Despite of the sucking reflex that comes naturally since the baby was born, as a mother I have to learn how to position the baby so my nipple won't hurt. I also have to learn to manage the milk supply, whether when it is oversupplied or undersupplied.

Another thing that need learning is how to clean the baby, either it is to clean a dirty diaper or wash the baby in a bath tub. I learned how to put a diaper correctly to minimize dirty clothes, how to hold your baby correctly in a bath tub so he won't drown and how to clean the baby thoroughly only with one hand as the other hand should always hold the baby.

The hardest thing I found in learning as a mother is understanding my baby cries. During the first weeks, the only thing that came in mind when I heard him crying is he must be hungry and instinctively I would offer him the breast. Then when he refused to eat I was confused and didn't know how to calm him down with other way instead of nursing, which stressed the baby even more, because all he wanted was just sleeping but me kept putting my breast in his little mouth. LOL.

There was this one time when my baby cried frantically for long hours during the day and didn't want to settle even though I offered him the breast, sang to him and held him. I was so stressful as I had no idea how to calm him down and I was alone at the house. Then I decided to call the doctor and the doctor told me to come to her place, so I put Raphael down so I could change my clothes as I was still in pyjamas. When I came back to pick him up, he slept so peacefully. Apparently all he was trying to say was: "Put me down! I'm trying to sleep!"

At that time I was wondering how my instinct couldn't understand what my own baby wants. That was the time when I decided, there's a lot that I need to learn if I want to be a good mother. So I started to read parenting books and parenting guidance on the internet. Apparently all the type of baby cries and body language are explained in those books. Even though not all babies are the same, but most of the signs are very similar to what my baby does. When I read it, I really wished I prepared for it long before the labor so I could easily guessed what the cry means.

The parenting books I've read so far are: What to Expect the First Year,  Save our Sleep and Secrets of Baby Whisperer. Quick review for each of them is as follows:

What to Expect the First Year
This book is such a dictionary for babies, since the very first day until your baby turns one year. It  helps me a lot to know whether the development of Raphael is according to his age or not. There are lots of information regarding baby basic care and health issues. However since this book is really thick, I've never read the whole book, I used the index to search for the information needed.

Save our Sleep
I bought this book because it was recommended by one of my friend that follow the baby routine that was mentioned in the book. Since I was so desperate with Raphael's sleeping hours, I decided to read this book, hoping that it will improve Raphael's sleep in quality and quantity. The broad idea suggested by the author is to set a strict schedule for your babies for eating and sleeping and a sleep training for babies where you expect your babies to sleep independently, without any props.
I was totally agree with the idea suggested, however when I implemented it, it wasn't as easy as it said. Firstly because your baby is unique individual, whom has different body clock. Especially because of Raphael is a light sleeper and most of the time he slept only 30-45 minutes during the day. As a result, the strict schedule stressed me out even more instead of helping because I couldn't stick to the schedule if for the first morning sleep Raphael didn't sleep as long as it supposed to according to the schedule.
That is the drawback I found with this book, it just tells you what to do without given any clear explanation what to do when we first implement the schedule as more likely your baby would be off schedule.

Secrets of Baby Whisperer
After frustrated about keeping up with the schedule from the previous book, I started to look for other options in order to improve Raphael's sleep. According to the information I found on the internet, many recommends to read this book, which given gentler approach for sleep training. I borrowed the book from local library and very pleased with the content.
Firstly because the author promotes a brilliant idea on how to appreciate your babies. We tend to treat babies without respect, whereas they are all human too, with unique individualities. Therefore the treatment for every babies are different and we can't generalize them. However the author stressed the importance of having a routine for babies, especially a spirited one like Raphael, so he would know what will come during his day. The general idea is to always have eating, activity and sleeping in the same order, everyday, regardless the clock.

As a conclusion, I found that parenting books are necessary to help us learn as first time mother, since taking care of babies is apparently beyond more than instinctive acts. However, every baby is unique and my baby is not the same with the baby said in the text book. That's why I also need to observe and listen to what his needs. Parenting book should help you in learning stuff that you don't know but don't make it as a bible, in which you neglect what is really important, understanding the one who is in front of you, your lovely baby.

Cheers,
Indispensable Lady

Cookie Monster :)

I thought I won't be able to bake again until couple of months later, fortunately Raphael is getting more settled now that I could try new recipe. I've always been a fan of oatmeal cookies, however my mom's recipe is a crispy oatmeal cookies, while I like the thick, chewy and a big rounded kind of cookies. Thus I searched the internet for the perfect recipe and I found this recipe in Smitten Kitchen's blog, which described the cookie exactly as I wanted. I doubled the recipe because the dough can be stored in a fridge, so I could just bake them in oven for other days :)

So here's the recipe, after slightly modified by me:

Chewy Oatmeal Cookies

Ingredients:
230 gr butter, softened with an electric mixer
250 gr dark brown sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla sugar
190 gr all purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt
240 gr oats
240 gr raisin

Method:

1. In a large bowl, mix the butter, brown sugar, eggs and vanilla sugar until smooth
2. In a separate bowl, whisk the flour, baking soda, cinnamon and salt and stir into the butter / sugar mixture.
3. Stir in the oats and raisin with a spatula
4. Chill in the dough into the fridge
5. When cool, scoop the dough onto a baking tray which already covered by baking paper, and put them about 5cm apart.
6. Preheat the oven to 175 celsius, around 10 minutes before you want to bake the cookies. Then bake the cookies for 12 minutes.

When you chill the dough into the fridge, an hour should be enough to make the cookies thicker. However if you don't want to wait the dough can be baked right away, however the cookies result would be less thick. Since I made the dough at night, I chilled it overnight and apparently the day after the dough is too hard to scoop, so I had to leave it for a while in room temperature before scooping them to the baking tray. I used a soup spoon to scoop the dough as I wanted to make a big rounded cookies, which are about 10 cm of diameter.

So here are my cookies! The taste is perfect, thick and chewy, best served with hot tea during rainy days, yummm!

Cheers,

Indispensable Lady

Another Year Has Gone By

An anniversary means another year has gone by, yet it seemed like yesterday I was walking down the aisle in the white dress. It's been a year, but sometimes I am still amazed how destiny brought me and my husband together. We've known each other for so long and never crossed in my mind that I would end up with him, and so did he :-D

During the past year, I've witnessed that my choice of Mr. Right is not wrong. He's been a really loving and responsible husband. Especially the last week before our anniversary, he was proven to be a super husband and father. I was sick the whole week and could barely get out of bed, so he was taking care of the house, our baby, me, and at the same time he was still working from home. How super was that? :-D

For some people the anniversary celebration must be extraordinary and festive. For us, it was a simple celebration, a quality time ended with a prayer. Thanking God for each other presence for the past year and pray for His blessing for the next many following years.

And my wish for our marriage? I just simply want to grow old with him :-)

Love,
Indispensable Lady

The Labor Story

It's been 8 weeks since the delivery of my little angel, Alexander Raphael Satriadi, I finally have the time to write the journey of his birth process in this blog. I believe every mother would have their own expectation for the labor. For me, I wished to have a natural birth, water birth if possible, but most important is having a normal delivery instead of C-section.

Monday, July 23  
In the evening, I felt the first contraction which is longer and harder than the usual Braxton Hicks contraction. If you haven't been pregnant, a contraction pain is like a menstrual pain in the lower part of stomach and in your lower back, it's like they've been squeezed, but the pain was gone as the contraction stops.

Tuesday, July 24
Struggled to sleep during the night, I woke up early morning at 2 AM and went to the toilet to have a pee, then I found myself bled a little, which is a sign that the dilation was going to started and I entered the early stage of labor. It was called a bloody show, which is one of the sign of labor. I told my husband and we decided to call the midwife to inform that I was going into labor soon. According to the midwife, I should wait until the contraction interval was less than 5 minutes and each contraction lasted about 1 minute before calling them again. She suggested me to try to have a sleep and drink pain killer if the contraction distracted my sleep.
During the day I managed to deal with the contraction pain by practicing the breathing and relaxation techniques that I learned from the hypno-birthing lesson. I also used a warm pillow to be put in my lower back to help ease the pain. My husband helped me to count the contraction period using a stopwatch during that day. I couldn't cook or do anything during that day, thankfully my mom came to visit from Indonesia, so she covered all the domestic things at home, including cooking.
Since the contractions were not every 5 minutes, the midwife was not suggested us to come to the hospital yet on Tuesday night so I went to another sleepless night because the contractions were getting harder that I couldn't sleep.

Wednesday, July 25
In the morning, I decided to call the midwife again since the pain was unbearable and the interval between each contraction was varied from 4 to 7 minutes. The midwife allowed us to come to the hospital so we went there with taxi. After a very painful checking (she put her fingers in my vagina to check how long was the dilation), she told me that it was only 2 cm of dilation, so she sent me home again. Ouch! That was a really bad news, because it wasn't comfortable to sit on a taxi while you're having regular contractions, plus the taxi fare in Copenhagen is extremely expensive. It took us around 500 kroner (equal to Rp750,000) to take a return trip from home to hospital and vice versa with a taxi :(
The midwife gave me pain killer and a sleeping pill in order to help me sleep during the day as I told her that I hadn't slept for two nights because of the contraction pain. After drinking the medicine, I managed to have some sleep and forgot about the pain for a while. However in the evening around 7 PM, the contractions was quite harder that I couldn't bear it anymore. I decided to call the midwife again and she asked me to come to the hospital again. I went to the hospital with taxi again while hoping that she wouldn't send me home again.
The midwife in-charged at that time was nicer, that she informed me that my dilation is about 3 cm long (I've never known what a long hours it took to dilate just another 1 cm). I was so worried that she would send me home again since the rule is they would keep a patient at the hospital when they're about 4 cm dilated. Luckily she told me that I could stay at the hospital right away. Phew!
She transferred me to another midwife, whom gonna helped me with the labor. The midwife is a really kind and supportive midwife and her attitudes really comforted me going through the night. She brought us to the delivery room, which is quite spacey, clean and have complete facilities, such as own shower room, bath tub, and other labor related equipments. She told me to have a hot shower first and changed my clothes and also tried to have a pee and poo. She actually injected something in the anus area which makes me wants to poo.
After that, she told me that she was going to break my amniotic fluid to fasten the dilation. She took a long needle and pop the amniotic fluid when I had contraction. The contractions were getting really hard after the amniotic fluid was broken. The midwife offered me to use Entonox (Gas and Air) as a pain relief. I breathed in it using a mask. The gas made up of oxygen and nitrogen which has calming effect so it took a little bit of the labor pain. However after the dilation is about 5 cm long, I got so tired dealing with the pain, that I'm afraid I wouldn't have the energy to push when the time is come, therefore I asked for epidural for pain relief. The epidural injection wasn't hurt as bad as people said, or perhaps after experienced the labor pain, there's nothing else can compare to such pain :-D
With the epidural, the contraction pain was really minimum that I could sleep and relax for a while. I spent most of the time during Wednesday night sleeping, collecting energy for the last stage of labor. During the night, the baby's heart beat was quite high. Hence, the second shift midwife should call the doctor to take a blood sample from the baby's head. Fortunately, there's nothing wrong with the baby's blood test. However, I had a fever during the night, even after the midwife gave me Paracetamol, my temperature was still increasing. The midwife decided to give me antibiotic to reduce the fever.

Thursday, July 26
Very early morning, I dilated 9 cm but the progress to a complete dilation seemed like forever that the midwife need to inject stimulation to fasten the contraction. After a while, I felt the urge to push and entered the second stage of labor: pushing. My cervix was fully dilated and the midwife instructed me to push whenever I felt the contraction. The pushing technique was actually taking a deep breath and pushing while holding your breath. I tried to push as hard as possible however the baby's head apparently wrongly positioned around my pelvis so each time I pushed, the baby moved 1 step out but then when I took breath the baby moved 1 step backwards. The midwife asked me to try different position, by kneeling over a cushion and hold my body with my elbow. The position was quite hard and after a while, my elbow started to numb and reduce my power to push. Hence, I asked whether I could change to normal position.
After a while trying to push, the midwife told me that she needed to call her supervisor and all of a sudden there are 6 other people rushed into the room. One of them introduced herself as a obgyn and she informed me that she needed to use a vacuum to help the baby out and if the effort was not succeeded they need to do a C-section. My heart broke hearing the news as I have struggled so far and not ready to give up for a C-section. I told my husband to say a pray and we whispered silently to the baby to help the process.
With the combination of pushing and painful vacuum process finally the doctor managed to take the baby out and it was such a magical feeling when I could finally hold him on my chest. He was so little and so fragile. His body was really warm and wet with blood but his innocent eyes starred at me. I gave him kiss and said a pray for him, thanking God for giving us this little angel. My husband then cut the baby's umbilical cord.
The labor stage wasn't over, I still needed to push one more time to deliver the placenta. There was big relief after the placenta was out from my uterus.

And that was surely a very long labor :)

Welcome to the world, little boy :)

My advice to the pregnant mothers out there, everything in labor is so unpredictable and beyond control, so don't put so much stress on yourself in preparing one, it's better to prepare yourself with the parenting stuff. If I could do it all over again, I would prefer to read more parenting books than pregnancy books during pregnancy :-D

xoxo,
Indispensable Lady

Homemade Birthday Gift

It's been a few days since my last post, was busy preparing the coming soon baby and other stuff. Today's post is about a birthday I gave recently to my friend, Sarita, who has a really nice blog about gifting, visit her blog here. Since she has huge thing about gift, I wanted to give her something that really special, so I had thoughts about my gift a week before her birthday and I came up with a homemade birthday gift idea.

As the title said, I wanted the gift to be made by myself, including the packaging, so I decided to make chocolate truffle for the birthday gift and I sticked toothpick with alphabetical flags that says "Happy Birthday Sarita!" Then I made the packaging with a cereal box, covered it with gift paper and I added a handmade origami ribbon for accessories. Well, actually I made them in the reverse order as I made the box first, then the flags and the last thing is the chocolate truffle :-D

Here is the box that I made:

At first I browsed for a gift box template that we can download for free from the internet, unfortunately my printer couldn't afford to print in a larger scale than A4 paper and all the templates are too small if I printed them on A4 paper. Then I found the cereal box and I thought I could make a gift box from it. Thankfully it was a success on the first attempt, because I happened to have only one cereal box :-D The hardest part is the fact that I don't have a ruler at home, so I measured everything by heart or using a small note book.

I learned how to make the origami ribbon from the tutorial in this blog. Believe me it looks complicated at first, but then once you tried it, it's not that hard.

For the flags, I designed them with Adobe Photoshop then printed them on a paper and cut through the shapes. After that I sticked the flags to the toothpicks. Here is the result:

As usual, I used the recipe of Joy of Baking to make the chocolate truffle. You could find the recipe here. To make chocolate truffle is really easy, however I've got to tell you that it's a very messy job when shaping the ball and cover it with cocoa powder. I guarantee that you'll have chocolate all over your hands and clothes :-D Here is my chocolate truffle:

I made two types of topping, the left one is using cocoa powder and the next one is using coco crunch that I've crushed into small parts. I was quite worried that the chocolate truffle would be melted on the way I delivered the gift to her. Apparently, they are quite steady and Sarita said that they were good. Yeay! I could see that she was quite happy receiving my gift, so mission is accomplished :-)

Cheers,
Indispensable Lady

PS: I didn't take picture of the chocolate truffle sticked with the flagged toothpick because I was too worry that leaving the chocolate truffle in a room temperature during photo shoot would melt the chocolate. But well you'll get my idea, right? :)

Express Your True Self

Some researches say that people personality is determined by genetics and couldn't completely change along with ages. In my opinion, the older people are, most tend to be more wiser and secure about themselves, and in consequence they would feel more freedom to express the 'real' personality of themselves once they are older. This 'real' personality might be completely different than the one we 'fake' to others when we were insecure. At least, that's what I feel about myself.

I could recalled back in the days when I was still a teenager, there were lots of pressure to be likable and cool. As seen and witnessed by many, in school, the peer pressure is so huge that kids are trying so hard to blend and afraid to be different from the crowd, unless they want to be called geek or nerd. I remembered being one of those kids. I used to use "Aku-Kamu" instead of "Gua-Elu" in conversation, because I was being told that "Gua-Elu" is kinda rude when I was in elementary school. However when I went to junior high school, everybody used it and I felt like only geek and conservative kids used "Aku-Kamu", so I tried so hard to change it into "Gua-Elu" when I talked to others. It's silly how even the smallest habit such that one should be changed just because I was too afraid to be different, right?

As time goes by, my perspective started to change eventually and I am more confident about expressing my true self. Funnily, as opposed to whom I was, now I'm proud to be unique and stand out from the crowd. I could define and show the world my real personality better and stand up for what I believe in. I guess having the secure feelings of who I really am, creates more freedom to express myself in any aspects, even in style, creativity and even in attitude. 

For style, I love simplicity and pureness and it shows in my wardrobe, accessories and even home decorations. Most of them are in white, light blue or pastel colors. Most people like the style that represents bold statement and boost luxury or elegance, but I prefer something that look modest and pure, because it represents my personality best.

Yes, I love white and blue simple outfit!

The same preference applied to my signature style in creative works in photography. I love to create a high key photos compared to low key photos. For information, high key pictures are tend to be bright, lack of shadows and contrast and it creates happy and cheerful mood, while low key pictures are the ones that more dramatic, mysterious and gothic. However, many people loves the low key pictures because they attract more attention easily compared to the high key pictures for the dramatic reason. Yet, this is my preference and I don't produce pictures just because I want them to be likable by many.

My High Key Photography Signature Portfolio

While in attitude, most of the time, I have this calm and serene personality, which unfortunately makes me sometimes uncomfortable when I am being around loud and noisy people. However I am also open to others and caring, especially to my close friends. Being an aquarius girl, also makes me independent in some way, which means I could enjoy my time alone as much as I enjoy being around with friends. I guess having interests in various kind of things (photography, traveling, writing, crafts, financial planning and stocks trading) makes me have a lot of things to do during my 'me' time. Nonetheless, people who don't know me well might think I'm a quiet, shy and loner person. Well, they could judge me anything, but this is just who I am :)

I'm even calmer during pregnancy :)

Being able to represent your personality in things that you wear or use is quite important to boost self esteem. At least when you're wearing or using something that represent yourself, you'll feel more comfortable and in consequence it will boost your confidence level. I believe it is one source of channel to express your true self to the world. Recently, you don't only have fashion to present your style, but also gadget, since most people are carrying gadgets with them everywhere nowadays. 

So what is smarter than having a gadget that matches your personality? I really think that it is a smart campaign from Sony Vaio to produce a gadget that can help people express their personality. Recently, Sony just launched Sony Vaio E14P Series, which have five type of personalities: The Extreme Power Spirit, Cool Leading Intellectual, The Precious Romantic Sensual, The Pure and Clear and Heritage Treasure Modern Vintage.

Reading the above long intro about myself, I guess you could easily determine which one of the above type that suits me best. Yep, it's The Pure and Clear! Just looking at the color and design I have fallen in love with this laptop. The combination of white and blue color and also the simple and chic design is really ME! I would love to have one for my daily notebook that I could easily carry everywhere, it's not just useful but also look stylish too!

Picture is taken from: Female Daily

So, no more be afraid to express your true self! If anyone judge you for being different, just say this to them with proud: Because it's me! It's who I am :)


Cheers,
Indispensable Lady


Notes:
For more info on Sony Vaio E14P Series, visit:
http://femaledaily.com/becauseitsme/ or http://www.sony.co.id/productcategory/it-personal-computer

Finger Food!

Who doesn't love finger food? I remembered one finger food I love to eat back home was bruschetta from Pizza Hut. In my early trimester pregnancy, I was craving for it however I cannot eat the one that sold in Pizza Hut because it contains pineapple and I don't eat pineapple during pregnancy. That's why I decided to make my own bruschetta.

After searching for the recipe on internet, I couldn't find the perfect recipe, so I modified by my own according to my taste :) Here is the recipe:

Bruschetta
Made about 15 slices of french bread

Ingredients:
French bread, cut into slices, about 1 cm thickness
1 large Sausage, cut into small pieces (or you could use smoke beef / ham)
white onion, cut into small pieces
1 tablespoon of olive oil
1/3 part of tomato, remove the pulp (the wet part), cut into small cubes
3 tablespoon of mayonnaise
1 tablespoon of lemon juice
1 tablespoon of tomato sauce
2 teaspoon of condensed milk
cheddar cheese for topping

Method:

1. Heat the oven to 150 degree Celcius.
2. Heat the olive oil in a sauce pan, add white onion and stir until fragrant
3. Add the sausage to the sauce pan, stir until cooked
4. In a separate bowl, mix the mayonnaise, lemon juice, tomato sauce and condensed milk together. Taste and add the ingredients to get the taste as you like (more sweet or more sour)
5. Add the tomato cubes, sausage and white onion to the mixture and mix them well with a spoon.
6. Put a spoonful of the mixture on top of the bread and spread the cheddar on top of it.
7. Bake for about 15 minutes with 150 degree Celcius, if the edge of the bread is not crispy enough, bake again for another 5 - 10 minutes.

I noticed that the middle part of the bread was not crispy, so perhaps if you like the whole bread to be crispy, you should bake the bread first before putting the topping. The taste is very similar to the one sold in Pizza Hut, except for the missing pineapple, so I'm pretty satisfied with them :)

Cheers,

Indispensable Lady