Ever since my pregnancy has become a common knowledge at the office, two top issues that people are starting to comment are my coffee drinking and high heels wearing. Many thought it’s not okay to drink coffee while you’re pregnant, and the other one *and most annoying* everyone keep lecturing to my face, is that I shouldn’t wear heels everyday.

Trust me, I know what am doing. Yes, this is my second pregnancy and I do feel more relaxed than my first, but that doesn’t mean I take everything for granted and just being an ignorant ass. In fact, I feel like this time around am being more conscious of what I consume, better than the first. I try not to overeat, but instead I eat moderately but with the right amount of nutrition. It’s a good thing, right?!

About coffee and caffeine in general, it is safe for expecting mother to have coffee in moderate amount. My obgyn told me 2 cups a day is still acceptable. What he didn’t recommend though, is sachet 3in1 coffee. They contain too much sugar on it, it’s dangerous for my weight. But the caffeine itself is not harmful. Thanks to this suggestion, the husband made coffee without sugar every morning for the both of us! Yes, pure black coffee. Something I thought I’d never drink in my entire life. LOL! I think this less to no sugar policy is in line with his recent healthy lifestyle diet :p

Now the second one everyone seems to be lecturing me about, the high heels shoes.

This is too, is safe so long you don’t trip on it. The caution for pregnant women in heels is actually more on the balance issue. As the tummy grows bigger and the weight increases, the center of your gravity changes thus harder to walk steadily.The heels itself has nothing to do with your womb. I know these facts from various respectable pregnancy sites and of course, my obgyn.  I trust his argument, knowledge and experience. I trust the man. I believe he’s one of the best in his field.

So the saying that’s been passed from generation to generation about the prohibition of a preggy wearing heels….. Oh, come on…. It’s 2011, please get a scientific evidence on your theory before giving out an advice/question that sounds more like an accusation. The last thing I wanna hear during my lunch time are lines like these,

“hey, how come you still wear heels? Don’t you know it’s not safe for you baby?”

“yeah, she just doesn’t care about her baby. All she cares about is her self”

Those were hurtful sentiments. Saying I don’t care about the baby was harsh and rather offensive. Never say a word you knew nothing about. I appreciate every comments and suggestions that come my way. But I appreciate them even more, if you choose your words subtly and have facts to support them.

*If anyone is curious on what my everyday working shoes, let me clarify you this. My everyday working shoes is a Rotelli with 5cm heel with rubber on the sole. I must say, this is by far the most comfortable pump I have ever have. The skin is super soft and supple, it can bend if I squat and thanks to the rubber sole, minimum chance of slipping. I still slipped once, twice or more when wearing Crocs, but with this one, never. Rotelli is a genius. *

The place where I work has lost two of its senior partners in just two months. None of there partners I know closely or even work closely, but having been working at the same place and met almost everyday for the last 5 years or more still affected me.

Today is the farewell for another partner. I feel saddened by his departure though I don’t exactly talk to him everyday. But he is still someone I see as a person with the best work ethics I have seen or met.

Well, the world keeps on evolving everyday. People make choices with their lives, resigning from one company and move to another. No big deal. Maybe I’m just used to the people at this place so much for so long, I never expected anyone with position as high as a partner, can leave this firm.

My baby just turned 5 last weekend! Can’t believe how fast time flies… Really it feels like yesterday she’s only a baby and now she’s a toddler! I know it’s what every parents are saying, but it’s true. When your kid is a baby you can’t wait until she walks and talks but the next thing you know she’s wearing her uniform ready for school.

As for her birthday, we didn’t throw a party. Billy only took bebe to the Holland Bakery to order a Cinderella cake. She didn’t care what cake it is, as long as it has Cinderella and her prince picture on top of it. And since we can’t afford to splurge on a cake, we thought a mocha cake from Holland Bakery would do just fine. And we were right! She was very happy the next day she saw the cake We stopped by at PIM on our way home to get her presents. I used my MAP voucher given for my birthday from the office. With that, we managed to get her 2 pair of shoes, and one of em was a barbie shoes on sale! *happy me!*

After we’re done with buying gifts, still not wrapped yet, we rushed to Holland Bakery on Ciputat Raya. What made the husband decided to order the cake there, I was lost too. There’s an outlet in Cinere which only took like 10 mins from our home, but well…… :p When we got home, Bebe was playing in her grandma’s room so I went upstairs to wrap her gifts. She didn’t realize I was home with billy, so when I came down with all her gifts, her face was puzzled and asked me, “Bubu udah pulang ya?” Hahahahahaa….. It was very funny! I thought she knew, but turned out billy didn’t say a word to her

Billy had done preparing the candles on the cake and we’re singing happy birthday song to her. There were only me, billy, grandma, billy’s older bro and his friend. I tried to ask Veto to come, but both my sis and her husband were out so no one could get him to our house. But its okay though. Bebe seemed very happy. After done with blowing candles, she sliced the cake and gave her grandma. Next was of course, unwrapping the gifts! I wasn’t feel too sad for my lacking ability in the gift wrapping department, because she basically just torn apart the wrapping in seconds No one would have time to examine whether I wrapped them nicely or not :p

It was a very simple and modest birthday celebration. Funny to remember that 2 years ago, we celebrated her birthday in Bali. While last year she celebrated it with her classmates at school. This year however, it was very quiet. But rather than feeling low for not being able to give her the best, I tried to look at it from a different angle. When the better days come, they will feel even sweeter

Happy birthday, Viabel! Bubu loves you more than words can say, and even though you’re a toddler, but you’re forever a baby to me! :*

*ps. I dont post any pictures becaus e I can’t find a decent one. What do you expect when taking pics with blackberry

I had a bleeding yesterday. I couldn’t believe what I saw on the tissue paper. I just had a pee and when I wiped with a tissue there was this fresh, red blood that kept coming even after I wiped the 3rd and 4th times. I went panicked. Thank goodness it was 4.50 so I decided to just go home with a cab. I called billy, asking where he was and later on we met at Dharmawangsa area.

On my way to meet Billy, I called my obgyn. He instructed me to take pain killer pill such as ponstan or panadol to prevent my tummy from contraction. And he told me to go see him this morning.

Alhamdulillah, everything was fine when we went through an ultrasound this morning Bebe came along with us, so she also heard the baby’s heartbeat! Yaaayyyy…! My baby already has a heartbeat! Though he/she is not in full shape yet, but he/she already has a heart and live in my womb

As I got home, my maid came to me with a not so nice news. She wanted to quit the full time job and instead preferred to just come in the morning, do the laundry and cleaning, then home. Turned out that my mother in law snapped at her several times she just couldn’t take it anymore.

Damn her!

I mean, aren’t people suppose to be nicer when they got older because they’re wiser? This one, she keeps on angry at new people coming to her house. Sigh….. I can’t be without a maid. Who will take care of bebe? Who will take her to TPA? Who will clean the house? Do the ironing? I’m lost here. I don’t understand her and really feel she’s making people’s, my life, even more difficult than it already is.

Since day 1 I learned about my pregnancy, reducing the caffeine intake has never been an option. On my first pregnancy, I had read enough that it’s safe for a pregger to have her cup of coffee in moderate amount. The most important things I want to reduce, though, are my carbs, salt and sugar intake. I was a bit traumatized with how big I was and my feet were during my last trimester. I swear I’d try my hardest this time not to be that big again. And so, with that in mind, I try to have my coffee without sugar every morning. Turns out it doesnt taste that bad!

But these past few days, I’ve been having only few sips to none of coffee each day. Not because of the sugar level, but more because of my blood pressure level. When I first went to the doctor, my blood pressure was 130/100. The nurse ran another two tests before she was confirmed. And on the day my dear aunt passed away, I made a visit to the nurse center and it was 140/100. Horrifying.

Last time my blood pressure that high was when I was very, very angry.

It sets my alarm. I needed to reduce my coffee. Am afraid it might trigger the high blood pressure. If in this early stage of pregnancy my blood pressure is already that high, I can only imagine what will happen on the last months. Cross fingers I will be okay.

Just a few blog post before this one, I wrote about how annoyed I felt whenever people met me and asked whether I’m pregnant or not. Because the state of my body. I wasn’t. Until now

Around mid-September after Idul Fitri, I talked to the husband and basically said, we need to lay off the contraception. I wanted to have another baby. Not because bebe is almost five, but more because he’s in his early forties. By the time Billy’s sixty, our second child will only be 20 years old. And so we began trying for our second.

Alhamdulillah hirabbil alamin, with the God Almighty gave His blessing for us, I got pregnant immediately. People may say ‘tokcer abis’, which probably true, but for me it’s God’s giving His way.

Since I wasn’t on a program of having another baby, I never took note when my period came in. I didn’t know how long exactly I had been late in my period on October. What made me decided to take a pregnancy test was a serious nausea I had every afternoon. At first I thought it was just the usual masuk angin, but then it happened almost every afternoon. On Friday afternoon, the night before we took off to Lembang, the nausea was at its worst. I felt like I was about to throw up in the bus. I remembered, this is exactly how I felt when I was having Bebe. Right there and then, I decided to buy HCG. If I were pregnant, alhamdulillah. If I weren’t, I needed to take gastric medicine.

The fist test showed a + sign. Although the | looked very thin, but it showed. Not wanting to jumping on my feet, I asked billy to bought me another tester. It was a Sensitive this time. The next morning, I tried it out. This time around, it came back with a solid two stripes

Based on these results, we went to the gynecologist the next Saturday. Result from the ultrasound, pictured above, shows that the diameter of that little circle *I don’t know what its called* is around 1cm. Meaning that I’m on my 4-6 weeks. The umbilical cord is there, and so is the amniotic fluid. Due date prediction is around late may or early june. So if it’s a boy, it’s going to be a Gemini Baby!

*oh my God, the image of my three Gemini male cousins came to mind! Hahahahha.. *

My feeling thus far had been confirmed. Bebe’s going to have a lil brother/sister She prefers a sister, anyway. She said she already has a brother, Veto. While Billy though said that a boy or girl doesn’t matter, but kept saying he wants a boy. He wants to have a son whom he can play soccer with, accompany him when his boy gets bigger And as for me, I want to know how it feels like to have a boy. But no matter what, it’s a win-win for all of us

PS. to anyone who read this entry, please don’t say anything on twitter/facebook just yet. I don’t want to make an announcement or let anyone know before I pass my first trimester Thank you!

I woke up this morning to my alarm sound. The alarm that was set on my phone. As I crawled on my bed to put the alarm off, i remembered that i left my phone at tizzy’s house last night. So someone must had been delivered it to my house. I didn’t think about it too much. After shower, I went downstairs to find my coffee was  served. With no sugar, of course. Billy had made me a cup of black coffee and passed me his still-full-bowl of indomie rebus complete with beef corned.

When we chatted on the table, I asked him who came last night and brought my phone. No one, he said. Little did I know, that after I slept *of perhaps black out is more appropriate, since I didn’t hear anything* he and bebe went back to my cousin’s house to get my phone! FYI, we arrived around 10pm that night after tahlilan. So what time did he go there?! All the effort just for my cellphone? Even I didn’t think it’s that important. I’ve told my cousin that I’d pick it up on Thursday. I thought I could do fine without smartphone for 2 days. No big deal. But not for him. He came back there all the way just to get my phone.

Between picking up my cellphone late at night and making me a cup of coffee the next morning *and breakfast, and lunch, etc etc*  are exactly the kind of things remind me why I love him from the first place. Not many men would do such little things to their wives. Most of them sit around and wait to be served. But not him. And for that, I thank You for being my husband

Yellowcard, Panic! at the Disco and Bad Religon all in one stage?!?  AWESOMENESS! Really, it was a punk-rock/rocker wet dream.

Which unfortunately, I am not. Hahhahahahaha, LOL! )

Rule #1: Never forget to take picture

I have heard of Panic! at the Disco name before, but not their song. As for Bad Religion, all I know is that they are some hardcore band famous during my husband’s teenage time. Yellowcard? Err…. sorry, never heard of ‘em before The reason why I went there was simply because I got the ticket for free! Tee-hee! Ci Pia, an office friend of mine, came to my desk in the afternoon asking if I was interested to watch the Big Wave concert. When she told me her friend who works at Big Daddy promoter gave her 6 free tickets, I gave her a yes instantly! LOL! I couldn’t care for the fact that I’ve never heard the songs from any of these bands. All I could think of at the moment was, this is going to be an awesome way to refresh my mind. We took off at 5pm from work. When I got there, I looked around realized perhaps the two of us were the only ones in office attire

We got inside the venue quite easily, with only one ticket for the two of us. I won’t tell how we could get in, am gonna let it be my little fun secret. The first to come up on stage was Yellowcard. When this band were playing, I was…err…… what’s song is it now? Though I haven’t heard any of panic! songs before, but I expected their songs would be more acceptable to my taste. And I was right! Not only the songs, but the *ahem*, members of the band. I enjoyed their songs so much and didn’t mind trying hard to focus to the lead singer :p Me and Pia were screaming our hearts out, yelling nothing to the band like we were sixteen. Man, what can I say… Brandon Urie was sexy! Not smoking sexy like british men, but pretty boy sexy. Not only he sang, but played drum, keyboard, danced his ass off too. Have I said they all good-looking too?

Hello, Brandon!

It was a blast. And coming to a concert now knowing any of the songs played was definitely a new experience to me.  Granted, I went because the ticket was given to me free, but it’s something I’ve never done before. After panic! was done, I guess the boys in the audience were relieved. Most of the concert goers were waiting for Bed Religion. It was their turn to call out the band. I had a bad feeling things were gonna be chaos when Bed Religion started, which not entirely true. But still, the boys were head bangin and smashing. I stepped back, trying to find the safest place and kept my distance from them best I could. After about 4 or 5 songs, we went home. We didn’t bother to wait until the concert’s done.

On our way home, we stopped by Seven Eleven, initially to get a cup of coffee. But after screaming frantically, I thought a lychee pudding would be better to soothe the throat How was I the next day at work? Oh, boy. My arms muscle felt stiff, and so were my waist, back and neck. I felt old. Watching a 3 hours concert and felt extremely tired the next day? It must be the age factor.

Smile!

I was blogwalking this morning and read hanzky’s blog. There’s a post about body weight and well…. let’s just say I know am not alone

I don’t notice since when my body gained more weight and has become more….ahem… rounder. As far as I could remember, I never ate dinner excessively. Then it’s lunch to blame. Even the husband once told me that I perhaps eat more than I should on lunch time, because he knows how much I eat on dinner.

The most tiring question is of course, “kamu hamil lagi ya?” Errr… most of the time I was just giggling and shook my head. But being asked the same question over and over again  is kinda frustrating, no? I mean, what is it with bloating body *and tummy* that people would quickly assume one is pregnant? Can’t we women just eat too much lunch? Or are we expected to be slim and slender all the time?

I know how to loose weight if I really want to. I spent around 3 years in college not eating carbs then another 3 years afterwards eating very little food. But that’s not what I want my body to experience anymore. I would go on a diet, if I feel like I really need to. I would go to that measure if I don’t feel comfortable in my own body, which at the moment, is not the case. There is no way I would wanna make my body suffer.

this is me, two weeks ago

Thanks to those years of dieting, people think am a naturally ‘skinny’ girl. Well here’s the truth. Am not and never have been.

The staff of MDC are going to Lembang! Yayyyy!! We have successfully went to several one day trip before, like Bandung, Bogor, Puncak, and now we want to step up the game by staying over night at a villa in Lembang. Aren’t we cool or what?! :p

View from balcony

Last Saturday, me, Santi, Mba  Wilma and Mas Indra, the self-proclaimed advance team went first to survey the villa and our other destinations for the trip. We took off at around 8am from office, the meeting point, straight to Bandung with a rental car. The driver drove a little too fast to my liking. We arrived few minutes past 10, heading straight to Lembang but stopped for a breakfast/lunch before at Setiabudi area. Oh, before I forgot, Bebe came along with me

the advance team feat. bebe

Our first stop was Villa Osmond. A villa owned by an old couple, where the husband seemed to love gardening. As for the wife, I owed her an apology. When I sat and talked to her, I couldn’t figure out her ethnicity. She didn’t look like a Bataknese or Manadonese. I just thought she had so much money and went through bad cosmetic surgery. Later on I found out she was a Phillipine. Well, that explained why i couldn’t guess her ethnicity. Duh! Sorry, ma’am.

The Villa itself was nice, newly built and I must say the main villa we’re going to stay is huuuuuuuge. It only has 3 bedrooms, but the common area, the dining area are really really spacious. Since the bedrooms are not enough to accommodate all of us, we will just add extra beds. Trust me, this main house is big. There was a halal bihalal of a big family when we got there, but they were just about to check out, and were kind enough to let us peeked through their rooms.  The main villa is connected to a small house with 7 bedrooms available for single rent. They are connected with a function room that can also be transformed to a karaoke room. Ha! Looks like we’re going to sing a long on saturday night while having barbecue Nice!

Other than a swimming pool that didn’t look clean when we were there, Villa Osmond also have badminton court. I wonder was there anyone who actually played badminton at a villa on a hill where the wind is strong. Near the swimming pool there’s a small door leading to another garden with saung bambu, a fishing pond and pool table. That back area was nice, but I doubted if people  would take the effort to get out of the main complex that is comfortable and hanging out back there. But we’ll see if the pool table inviting enough or not.

the pool

After Villa Osmond, next destination is hot water spring Sari Ater. So the plan for the outing is we go straight to Sari Ater from Jakarta, stay there until about 3 pm, then checking in at Lembang. Bebe was asleep when we got there, so I stayed in the car. It was a good choice, because not long after we got there rain fell hard. Sari Ater was the last stop on our survey, then we had a very late lunch at a Sundanese restaurant on our way down to Bandung. The restaurant was on the same street to The Ranch, and it was decided the group will have lunch here with a nasi timbel package. The food was good, tasty and quite cheap.

Last stop before we went home to Jakarta was Surabi Bandung Honestly, my stomach was bloating already. Not because of too much food, but because of masuk angin. The weather was very cold in Ciater plus the car’s AC. What I actually needed was tolak angin cair :p Though I’ve gone to Bandung in countless times, I never stopped at this surabi joint before. I just knew the atmosphere inside was comfortable and suitable to hang out. There’s  a little stage on the corner for band performance. Too bad we had to leave soon, two young men were setting their acoustic guitars and only played one song before stopping for another guitar setting. I suspected they were college students. Hahahahhaha! This place sent me the vibe of college students relaxing, chatting, laughing simply having fun on saturday night. I kinda wished I was still on my college days….. Those were the best days of my life.

I felt really good when I was there. Knowing inside that it’s saturday night, and I got to spend it in a city I love with people I feel comfortable with. Most importantly, I have bebe with me. It was good really. I could care less if the husband was out with his friends too. Even that didn’t bother me too much.

The day came to an end when we exited Bandung at 7. I was home at about 9.30. Tired, but feeling peaceful inside.