New Resolution

Raphael and friend's kid are playing on the Seminyak beach at sunset

After having such a long pause for this blog, I come with a new resolution to write again the blog and rebuilding my relationship with my camera. And no, life is not getting less busy recently however this urge suddenly popped out and I couldn't get it out of my head unless I start right away.

I am so inspired lately with Mom*tog blog, which are dedicated for all moms who loves photography. The amazing thing is this was created by a mother who initially just liked to capture her children photos and wanted to share this love of children photography with other mothers, however later on people come and ask her to photograph theirs. How cool is that? I always said I want to be a professional photographer someday, specifically in children photography, however now I nearly never shoot my own son with the professional camera. Sigh.

So after spending hours on her blog, I came up with these resolutions:

1. Take out my camera as often as I could, bring it with me whenever Raphael and I go to the park or just walking around after I pick him up from daycare.
2. Capture his daily life with the big camera: when he is playing with lego by himself, when he is sleeping and holding his comforter, when he helps me with house cores, etc.
3. No longer rely on cell phone for capturing moments of Raphael. Yes, it is easy and more convenient to take photos with cell phone and I am so glad that the quality of pictures from IPhone is really good, yet I know it is not the same result if I shoot using my big camera. 
4. Be creative but don't shoot as a photographer, but shoot as a mom. It might not have the best angle or the best lighting, but they are the moments of my son's life that I can keep for the rest of my life.
5. Last, I am gonna start updating this blog again, publishing more pictures that I take, practicing my writing skills and hopefully giving something useful for you, readers :)

Cheers,

Indispensable Lady

Baby It's Cold Outside

As this is my first winter in Copenhagen, I was quite worried whether we will survive the winter or not. Fortunately, we're lucky enough that we were in Indonesia when there was a real bad snow storm and the weather reached minus 15 degrees. Since we were back to Copenhagen on mid December, the weather is pretty good though, even though there were some days where it's snowy and pretty cold outside.

Apart from the freezing nose, I am surprisingly in love with Copenhagen winter. I found the whitey ground, dried trees and cloudy sky are strangely beautiful. Yet, it's still better to watch the view from much warmer place, though :-D Luckily, our apartment has super wide window so even we could enjoy snowfall with a smiling face.

We managed to take some pictures the other day before the snow is gone. Here are the pictures..

The location is behind our apartment in Ørestads, which is kind of my sanctuary place whenever I need some fresh air and recharge my sanity :-D

Beautiful isn't it? So who's interested in visiting Copenhagen the next winter? I will be pleased to be your tour guide :)

Cheers,

Indispensable Lady

Purpose

Everything has a purpose, clocks tell you the time, trains takes you to places. 

I'd imagine the whole world was one big machine. 

Machines never come with any extra parts, you know. 

They always come with the exact amount they need. 

So I figured if the entire world was one big machine... I couldn't be an extra part. 

I had to be here for some reason. 

And that means you have to be here for some reason, too.

-Hugo Cabret-

As much as I enjoy being a mother, somewhere along the way during the past 5 months I lost myself somehow. Just recently it hit me that I don't even know what completes me as a individual. Perhaps I let myself drown too deep into the role of a mother and suddenly my whole life revolves around parenting stuff, even in my spare time.

Therefore I am in a new mission of finding back my purpose of living. Starting by managing time more carefully so that my day won't be stuck with only taking care of Raphael, cleaning the house nor reading the social media. I just realized that even though I am a planner junkie, my life recently goes without any, which somehow makes me feel like I am wasting time by doing nothing as suddenly the months goes by.

Scheduling day to day activities is my priority at the moment, which I've never had before since I became full time housewife. What I have in mind is scheduling days for doing the laundry, cleaning the house and cooking day, in which I would cook more so I could store the food for days when I don't feel like cooking or when Raphael is having a bad day. By doing so, hopefully I would have more of my 'me' time, then afterwards I would start focusing in figuring out what I really want to achieve in life.

Some advice, readers?

Cheers,
Indispensable Lady

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