My First Born

1. WAS YOUR FIRST CHILD'S PREGNANCY PLANNED?
Well....sort of.... I wanted to wait. He wanted to have one right away. I let fate decide and it decided that the time had come.

2. WERE YOU MARRIED AT THE TIME?
Yaiyalah masa iya dong...

3. WHAT WERE YOUR REACTIONS?
I thought: This is cool, a new adventure.

4. WAS ABORTION AN OPTION FOR YOU?
Nope.

5. HOW OLD WERE YOU?
How old was I when I was pregnant? 29 th sekian bulan (3-4 months...can't remember exactly)
The baby came 3 weeks before my 30th birthday, the best birthday present EVER!

6. HOW DID YOU FIND OUT YOU WERE PREGNANT?
Feeling ajah hehe... Then I bought the test pack to confirm.

7. WHO DID YOU TELL FIRST?
He who was still sleeping that morning. It was a nice wake up call he said..

8. DID YOU WANT TO FIND OUT THE SEX?
Yes, but I wasn't really sure what I wanted. A boy would be great but a girl might be more emotionally equipped to handle (what I thought) my parenting style (would be). In the end it was a girl, perfect.

9. DUE DATE?
Mid April would've been the 40th week but she arrived in the 38th week of pregnancy. Also perfect.

10. DID YOU HAVE MORNING SICKNESS?
Not really...slightly nauseated but I had a great book to give me strategies to deal with it.

11. WHAT DID YOU CRAVE?
One week it was steak. Steak. Steak. Cheap steak. Expensive steak. Steak.

12. WHO/WHAT IRRITATED YOU THE MOST?
Hubby's calm and relaxed personality.
I thought he should be worrying to death about me and my pregnancy and whether I was gonna be alive after giving birth.

13. WHAT WAS YOUR FIRST CHILD'S SEX?
A girl. And don't let everybody else tell you otherwise!

14. DID YOU WISH YOU HAD THE OPPOSITE SEX OF WHAT YOU WERE GETTING?
Nope.

15. HOW MANY POUNDS DID YOU GAIN THROUGHOUT THE PREGNANCY?
9 kg. In the 8th month I had to have TWO ice cream everyday, doctor's order. Yummy!

16. DID YOU HAVE A BABY SHOWER?
Indonesian one, yes. My bule friend came bearing gifts though hehe..

17. WAS IT A SURPRISE OR DID YOU KNOW?
No surprise sadly.

18. DID YOU HAVE ANY COMPLICATIONS DURING YOUR PREGNANCY?
No, thank God. Looking back I can't believe it was "easy".

19. WHERE DID YOU GIVE BIRTH?
RSB Andhika.

20. HOW MANY HOURS WERE YOU IN LABOR?
4 hours. I came to the clinic at 5pm. My baby came at 8.42pm.

21. WHO DROVE YOU TO THE HOSPITAL?
A (miraculous) taxi driver. Never easy to find taxi in my area but that afternoon, a guy with tattoos all over his body and dreadlock hair (an artist named Rio) found us a taxi in less than 10 minutes. I'll never forget him for that.

22. WHO WATCHED YOU GIVE BIRTH?
Hubby, mother in law, Tagor the doc, 2 nurses.

One of the nurses said: "Ibu sengaja diet ya, biar bayinya kecil?"
Kalo gw tidak sedang dalam posisi tak senonoh, udah gw "beri" dia! Ngomong sembarangan! Gw nggak sebodoh itu lah ya: membahayakan kesehatan bayi demi supaya langsing. Huh!

23. WAS IT NATURAL OR C-SECTION?
All natural.

24. DID YOU TAKE MEDICINE TO EASE THE PAIN?
I asked for it (though I didn't really need/want one).
A minute later the pill came out again (in an embarrassing way).
So NO i didn't have any pain medicine.

27. HOW MUCH DID YOUR CHILD WEIGH?
2.6 kg. Enough for easy delivery heheh...

28. WHEN WAS YOUR CHILD ACTUALLY BORN ?
2 April 2007, 8.42pm.

30. WHAT DID YOU NAME HIM/HER?
Rheina (a cool modern first name)
Rinjani (a word related to nature, also the place where her parents first met)
Kurtubi (a word related to Islam, also her dad's last name so it will be like a surname. Perfect!)

For the second name, I was gonna use the word Mahameru if it was a boy, also the place where hubby proposed for the third time and I finally accepted.

31. HOW OLD IS YOUR FIRST BORN TODAY?
22 months old.

My pride and joy.