Isabelle Is One-Month Old

On 24th July, we held a customary full month 'celebration' for Isabelle with the immediate family.  Well, not exactly a celebration, but rather going through the rituals of praying to ancestors and distributing cakes among the family. 

Early in the morning, Hubby, my mom, and Ian went to collect the cakes.  After that, Hubby dropped off Mom at the temple where she wanted to pray for Isabelle, and in the meanwhile, Hubby drove back to fetch us before going back to the temple to fetch my mom.

Back at my mom's place, we offered prayers to the ancestors, had our lunch, before going to Hubby's parents' place for another round of ancestors praying.  After that, we delivered a box of cake to Hubby's godparents before heading home. 

On 29th July, one day before Isabelle turned one month old, I was down with a fever and was not sure whether Isabelle was sick too.  I informed Hubby about my fever, and he returned home during lunch to bring us to see the GP.  My fever had subsided by the time we reached the clinic, and since Isabelle was there, we asked the doc about her as well.  To our shock, she was running a high fever and the doc suggested us to bring her to the hospital immediately, as she could not accept a patient under 6 weeks old. 

We dashed down to TMC for the pediatric clinic since our usual PD was closed under the evening.  We had to wait a while for 2pm when the doctor would return from lunch.  In the meanwhile, the nurse took her measurements and put an urine bag on Isabelle to collect the urine sample for tests.  While waiting, we took a quick lunch with Delifrance sandwich.

I was in a shock, when the doctor said that she had to be hospitalised for at least 3 days, as they treat infants under a month old very seriously.  Moreover, the bacteria test result would only be out in about 3 days.  We proceeded to do the admission and then waited in the ward for the doctor to visit again.  We decided that Hubby would stay in the hospital while I return home to take care of Ian.  The nurse offered to bathe for Isabelle, and when they returned, she said that her weight was only 3.2kg.  We were totally stunned as we had always felt that she had been gaining weight!

For the next 2 days, I had to shuttle to and fro the hospital with Ian.  On Saturday, it was the first time I drove out alone with Ian to a shopping mall to shop and settle our lunch.  We went to Causeway Point and the ongoing renovation made the place a big mess.  We could not find our favourite sushi chains on the top floor and in the basement. Hence, I brought him to his fave haunt - MacDonalds.  I ordered a kids meal for him, and it was a torture to watch him eat.  I had finished my burger and all he had were fries and my coke.  I had to trick him to finish 2 nuggets, while I ate the other 2.  It was fortunate that he loved to eat corn, so there was no difficulty in making him eat that on his own.  We brought some fruits and bread before going home to let Ian have his beauty sleep.  In the evening, Hubby brought Ian out to buy dinner while I took over the duty at the hospital for the time being.  We had udon and sushi for dinner, and Hubby also got the Koi bubble tea that I had been yearning for since I had abstained from it during my pregnancy.  We sat around for a while before I brought Ian home. 

On Sunday, the doctor brought us good news that the bacteria tests were negative and Isabelle could be discharged on Monday.  So on Monday, after putting Ian into his school, I headed for the hospital straightaway.  The nurse took her weight again - almost 4kg.  Daddy had done a good job in feeding her every 2 hourly in the hospital.