Another sleepless night

Sleepless ie without sleep

So because I spent the better part of half a day at home yesterday, just relaxing and watching TV (and not actually napping all that much despite being very tired), I thought I’d have no problem sleeping at night. Wrong.

So we went to bed around 11.30pm, and as I tried to get comfortable (lie flat, then with enough momentum, heave myself to the left, only to then heave myself to the right again, and then end up propped at a 45 degree angle on a pillow), I began to feel like this was gonna be another one of those sleepless nights.

True enough, an hour later, I was still wide awake, and listening to some dubious rhythmic thumping sounds from the apartment above. Then, I think I must have fallen asleep, as I woke up around 2am with a pain in my tummy. It didn’t feel like any pain I’d felt recently, which got me into a bit of a panic.

 Picture from http://www.babypicturesphotos.com/

Contractions? How do they even feel like? What am I feeling?

So, clutching belly, I went to the toilet and sat there for a bit. Turns out, it was (TMI) my tummy being rebellious as I’d been kinda constipated for the last few days. About 20 minutes later, I was still sitting on the throne, to no avail. Took myself back to bed, couldn’t get back to sleep, so padded my way to the lounge where I just sat there staring into space for a bit. Not working, so took myself back to bed, and somehow, I must have fallen asleep because when the phone alarm rang at 7.45am, my sleep-shut eyes just would not open.

Told the Hubs “I’m not going to work today” and fell back to sleep again.

I never had any problems sleeping. In fact, Hubs used to envy me for my amazing sleep abilities. I’d literally get into bed, and before he’d even got comfortable on his pillow, I’d already be sleep-talking to him. These days, it’s the other way around. Hoping that this insomnia business goes away once baby is here? (fingers crossed)

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Here’s something I made earlier. Just to test out the borders.

Food Cravings And Aversions

I must say, I didn’t have much morning sickness so the only way I can describe it is “food aversion”. Most people suffer from morning sickness in the first trimester, but mine was very mild – something the Hubs attributed to my tummy of steel (conditioned by years of street food).

I’ve read up on this, and some sites say that if you have prenatal vitamins, it might lead to less symptoms of morning sickness. How true that is, I don’t know, but as I’ve been hoovering up those GNC prenatal vits since even before getting pregnant, I guess it works for me?

Anyhow, although I didn’t have the full-on run-to-the-loo-gagging thing going on, it’s not to say my appetite was the same as always. For starters (ha ha), for around 3 months, I only felt like having the foods I’d been used to having as a kid:

• Rice porridge – That got me through the first trimester. Everywhere I went, I searched for congee. My favourite turned out to be either Xin Wang Café’s claypot pork ribs porridge, and A1’s claypot fish porridge. #carbfest Now I know why I put on so much weight.
• Toast – The Hubs commented that my appetite turned English during the first trimester. I went for days eating just toast with jam and butter. The ultimate comfort food I used to have when I had a fever as a kid.
• Cereal – Refer to English appetite above. Chinese appetite went on holiday to England.
• Curry laksa – So when I didn’t have my toast, congee or cereal to hand (ie when I was at work), I needed to have curry. Not the real Indian version, but the coconuty, Chinese, soupy version. The only place which did that was the food court at my office, from the Yong Tau Foo stall, so I had that pretty much daily for lunch too.
• Sprite and root beer – Basically, I would’ve cherished some Coke, but as that was another thing off the list, I pretty much drank only those 2 soft drinks in the first trimester. Cue weight gain.

As for the stuff I just couldn’t eat, I remember standing in front of this famous Chinese restaurant on Balestier Road where Hubs was getting his takeaway, and I’m not sure what it was (maybe the smell or something), but at one point I felt like I was having cold sweat and literally about to gag, and he had to run in to buy me an ice-cold root beer. Till now, I can’t go back to that restaurant #pavlov

Good thing was, this food aversion thing went away after the first trimester. I went back to eating the stuff I usually ate (everything), and no longer looked at toast with creepy fondness. I still enjoy it now, but at least I no longer feel like I just needed to have it, you know?

Favourite TV Shows, Rainy Afternoons and Pre-Natal Classes

So I used to love watching shows like Come Dine With Me, and Keeping Up With The Kardashians.

These days, however, I watch show like One Born Every Minute, and am right now watching A Baby Story (Season 9, Ep 10) on Discovery.

I'm supposed to be at work today, and in fact, I did go to work in the morning (heavy rain, everyone was late) but sometime before lunch, I felt all feverish and just not quite there. I have a feeling it's because I spent pretty much all of last night tossing and turning without the duvet, with the air-conditioning on full blast (hormones, hot hot hormones).

So I'm guessing I caught a cold (which makes me feel ... hot?)

Had lunch with my colleagues, after which I took a taxi back to the apartment with the intention of having a nice, long afternoon nap. However, that kinda changed when I switched on the TV and started watching said favourite programmes.

Fingers crossed, I'm supposed to be at work for about exactly one more month. That is approximately four working weeks with the people I've spent the past 1.5 years with. Well, one of my colleagues TFL is about to leave the firm soon, and so with her gone, that pretty much makes it no Charlie's Angels left on the wall.

With Charlie himself being moved to another team, I'm kinda glad I'm gonna be maternity around this time, as I don't think I would like to be in the current team with everyone leaving it. Although, to be honest, perhaps if I was staying, maybe TFL wouldn't have left?

Anyhow, I noticed that the main difference between the 2 TV shows is that the British version (ie One Born Every Minute) is a lot more graphic and less "matt-effect" compared to the American version which has the usual smooth finishing touches to the programme. The British one shows you everything, and by everything, I mean I've learned so much just from watching these shows alone.

We have been going to the pre-natal classes with Mdm Wong Boh Boi from Thomson Medical Centre, and that has taught us alot. That, coupled with the TV shows, have taught us all the stuff that they don't tell you about in books. The main source of my information so far has been Google.

Though, with Google, you have to take everything you read with a bucket full of salt. Forums are probably the worse source of quick information if you do not back it up with plenty of other research. Some of the people who go on forums to "give advice" to people are literally dishing up hearsay and rumours, so for the longest time, I made myself go into a panic each time I went on these forums.

Anyway, another pee break now. And besides, I never really know how to end a blog post anyway, so I won't.

Here we go

Righty then.

It's been a while, hasn't it, ol' keyboard. My last real blog post on www.notanotherbigmenu.com had me saying something ridiculous like "So here we come, Asia! I'll blog about my new culinary experiences blah blah blah ..." (something along those lines).

1.5 years later and I have done absolutely nothing on that blog. Blame it on laziness, but basically, the few things which led to it were:

1. Crazy working hours - When we first got here, I spent pretty much all my hours (waking and otherwise) at work. The times I wasn't at work were spent in the taxi getting to and from work. Basically, this left me with not much time to eat, let alone take pictures of the stuff I didn't eat and didn't blog about. Now, I am 8.5 months pregnant, so obviously the hours have reduced which is why I have some time to do this again.

2. Smartphones - Cameras on these smartphones are amazing. My Samsung Galaxy S3 takes really good pictures, and because I just upload them to Instagram now ("notanotherbigmenu" if you wanna find me there), I am still keeping track of the stuff I eat, but just not from a laptop anymore.

3. Finding my way around - I don't think I have quite found my way around this new city yet. Thus, we end up eating the same things over and over again. Anyhow, hopefully I'll be able to start blogging again soon on this blog and the other one, so keep checking in if you're interested.

OK, no one likes a wordy post, and as I have no pictures to share, I'll just stop right here for now.