37th Birthday

As usual I am updating my post on my birthday. 37 this year! I have submitted my preliminary thesis, and now preparing for my preliminary defense and paper submission. I have been quite busy for the past months. My baby is well, and I am happy to care for him amidst the crazy schedule. Happy birthday me!

6th Year

Today is Tanabata and also my transplant day. 6 years had passed and here I am healthy with a son and doing my PhD. My mom referred to this day as my second birthday. It is true in a way. We are so occupied with our lifestyles, we often stop to ponder about the little details. The little details that make you realize what a miracle life you are living. Little reminders like this are so refreshing, they let you re-look your life at a different angle; help you to be courageous and remind you of what you are capable of. It is much needed at this stressful time to finish up my PhD work. I wonder what I will be doing next year on this day. Here's hoping to more beautiful Tanabata(s) with my more important family.

New daycare, new beginning

As I mentioned in my previous post, sending him to daycare has only caused us sadness. Seeing how detrimental it is for his health, mental and social development, we quit sending him to daycare. We took care of him and slowly helped him to gain back his confidence, healthy weight and of course his cheerfulness!

Previously we had found a daycare that we liked, but the minimal age acceptance of the child is one year old. So at the end of May, we started sending our  boy to the new daycare which is much nearer to my lab. On the first two days, we insist on staying with him to encourage him to get acquainted with the teachers confidently. This Montessori based daycare/play school is for toddlers and being the the youngest in the group, he gets to socialize with elder toddlers. In the mornings, the have playtime, songs, dancing and reading. Then, they tend to their modest fruits and vegetable farm, followed by playing in the mud and sandpit. After lunch and nap time they have playtime and some fun activities.

Gunden took some time adapting but he was not unhappy. He adapted to this new place quite quickly and tend to like the school. On weekdays, after ensuring that he is well fed and rested, I carry him on baby sling, walk to the train station, take a train, get down at the next stop, walk uphill to the daycare and drop him off, walk to the lab and work. After work, I walk back to the daycare, pick him up and we happily go back home. As soon as we arrive, I feed him milk and let him take a short nap, while I do some chores (dinner, cleaning, laundry, etc). I feed him dinner, once he is awaken, wash him up, play for a while and put him to bed.

In Japanese daycare, every child is assigned a notebook which is to be filled by the parents and teachers. I will note down his activities, mealtime, potty time and also my concerns about him. Similarly, the teacher will update on his activities, progress and so on. They will also upload pictures of the kids at the daycare to the parents. So, it is quite comfortable and trustworthy place. The teachers are especially very kind and accommodating. As much as I want gunden to be taken care solely by me, I am glad that he is exposed to such healthy environment and friendly people.

With this new assuring daycare, I hope to finish up my research work during my work hours and complete my PhD successfully and look forward to our next venture with my precious gundu paiya.

Resilience

You know a person all your life
that person means the world to you
joyous, happy, caring and you become happy just being with that person.
Suddenly you see that person's happiness shattered,
changing them to becoming dull, unhappy, withered :(

...........
...........
...........

As time goes, slowly the determined inner personality sprung back.
Although wounded, the person strives to move on.
Improved her lifestyle.
Learned music.
Her hard work recognized by her employer, and
modestly awarded.
Applied to graduate school, and
got accepted :)

Here is to more accomplishments, and
of course... her resilience

My life revolves around you

Research work for PhD needs to be completed and that revolves, writing up thesis, submission of a paper, complete some major experiments, preliminary defense and final defense. All these need to be accomplished by the end of the year, while taking care of gunden, Satya, household, food and so much more.

Sometimes, I wonder how mothers/parents adapt to parenthood responsibilities so swiftly. During these events, you are reminded of your parents' sacrifices and often make you wonder how did they manage their parenthood responsibilities with limited resources and more kids.

But there is an indescribable joy in providing to our kids, the love of our lives. You observe the positive changes in them, get to see them growing up by experimenting, intrigued and wanting to know what is happening while grooming and developing their unique personalities. It is astounding how gunden can radiate such positive energy to us, which subsequently, enables us to work through crazy schedules and deadlines (positive feedback).  

I am always happy to provide for my baby (even during crazy schedule). He is my everything and my whole life revolves around him.

House-elf

Well, gunden's wake up schedule has changed a little bit. He moves a lot before waking up, rolling to every possible corner of the bed, stretch his limbs, speak or practice saying some words, roll over to my side to be cuddled momentarily (if he is still sleepy), or wake up immediately to play. He wakes up, notices that all his toys are in place, easily accessible for him to grab, taste, knock and throw them. But his favorite act is to read or look at the hard cover books of his. He recognizes a few words, thus when we ask him to show us a picture, he will identify the specific book, flip the pages and show us the picture.

So, to ensure that his schedule does not change, or to ease him, I will place his toys, at his appropriate places (i.e the sliding toys at the top counter, the stacking rings, his toy keyboard, his books, everything in place. Of course I do all this naturally and also I am a very organized person. But suddenly I just want to associate to what I am doing to house-elves (Harry Potter). In the Harry Potter series, the students luggage, bed, belongings, food are all prepared and arranged comfortably. But these are done by the house-elves unapparent to the students. I am the house-elf of the house. I arrange everything accordingly for Satya and gunden, easing their access to their belongings. Well, this blog is just for fun, to update a little about gunden's schedule (which changed drastically comparing to previous posts), and also to brag a little about my house-elf service. Well, I am not sure if my elvish service is being noticed or appreciated but I just wanted to add a little fun to what I am doing, thus the Harry Potter reference.

Dedicated to Dobby, the free elf.

One year old!

My baby boy turns one today!
But the days leading to this day were very challenging for the three of us.
He first contracted cold and diarrhea from his peers at daycare center. It took him weeks to get over the cold. It became worse and he had viral infection with fever at 40 degree Celsius for days. We had to bring him to emergency clinic several times. He was on drips once and they took his blood sample twice. When he did not get better, the doctor prescribed him antibiotics, fearing that he contracted bacteria infection due to poor immune system because of his prolonged viral fever. He did get better after that, but very slowly. He lost so much weight and the frequent hospital visits terrified him. He does not like to be around strangers. It was heartbreaking to see my confident boy being terrified, sad and feeble :(

But, he got better. I wanted his first birthday to be special, so I took leave on this day and baked a cake for him. The cake was OK, but my attempt to glaze the cake did not turn out well, but hey, I baked a cake for my son, a natural homemade cake with tender loving care. I pampered him as always and made him happy. We invited our friend, Menglu to share our happiness, but he was a little uneasy around her (as he was still in recovery period). But, the celebration went OK. We had some fun and we were happy. Family and friends called and wished. We felt loved. He slept very early on his birthday because he awake all afternoon playing with me.

How time flies. It seems like only yesterday I conceived him.
Happy Birthday my baby. You are the air that I breathe and the reason my heart beats. Here is to many more birthdays to come!
I love you.

After all this time? Always...

Well, this post is dedicated to Severus Snape (Alan Rickman, to be precise). The moment I started watching Harry Potter, I liked Alan Rickman immediately. Somehow I knew that he wasn’t the antagonist after all (but not to the extent of knowing that he loves Lily till the end of time and actually cared for Harry potter. Nobody is sane enough to have predicted that). There is something about his charisma that I like. It saddened me to have learned of his demise recently. I was secretly hoping that he could be continuously portrayed as Snape in future Harry Potter movies. 

But, now that he is gone, it can never happen. Just like this day, today will never happen again.

11 months old

Today marks the 11th month since the birth of my gunden. All these time I could say that my son XX months old. But after next month he will be 1 year old.

Well, just saying…

It seems like only yesterday he kicked me in my belly, looked at me in the eyes, and smiled at me for the first time. He is growing and moving towards independence. Sooner, he may not cling on me to sleep, he may not bite my chin, he may not want to be carried. But he may want to still hold my hand when walking, he may want to hug me tightly every morning. He may kiss me in the forehead every now and then. He may realize how much his mother loves him and how we would do anything for him. How time flies…

Every transplant mother's fear

Every successful organ transplantation is a miracle. Being able to return to normal life after transplantation is a miracle. Even so having a child after a transplantation is phenomenal. I maybe the lucky few to have encountered that miraculous experience. My son is my miracle, and I bore him with a grafted kidney. Last week, I had a terrible knee pain. It got worse, when I carried gunden and brought him outdoors to make him feel better after his bitter daycare experience. The pain was so intense that I was unable to move and the throbbing pain did not stop regardless how I rest my leg. During these challenging period, it occurred to me if my original disease had returned with a vengeance.  Thus, provoking every transplant mother’s fear; that I may not live long to see my son growing into adulthood.

What has knee pain got to do with my lifespan? My original disease has yet to be diagnosed, but it was related to autoimmune disease which led to the detrimental of my kidneys. One of the signs and symptoms of the varied autoimmune diseases is joint pain and I have experienced several excruciating joint pains prior to the damaged kidneys. The current pain did not occur after a fall or injury to the knee. It just happened, maybe after a strenuous day. So fearing for the worst, I had an appointment with my nephrologist to check the condition of my kidney. The blood test returned normal but with high inflammation (high CRP and white blood count). Doctor assured me not to worry yet and to further diagnose the condition. I also met an orthopedic whom also checked my blood for signs for arthritis/rheumatoid arthritis (autoimmune related). The blood test result indicated that the rheumatoid factor was within normal range but one of the proteins for arthritis factor was high. The physician suspected that this could be acute arthritis and asked me not to exert the knee and they will check again after 1 month.

Well, the fear for my original disease may have subsided for now. But the knee pain was a reminder that I am a transplant patient and I may not indeed live long to see my son grow up. I am not being pessimistic, I never am. I have been and doing all I can to maintain a good health and the health of my kidney. Also I live my life to the fullest especially after the arrival of my gunden and I cherish every moment I have with him. Having him in my life is one of my happiest encounters.

Having said that, the saddest moment was not when I learned that my kidneys failed and it is irreversible. The saddest moment was indeed when I first realized that my baby didn’t have a heartbeat… And in contrast, the happiest day was when I knew that I was pregnant despite being a kidney transplant patient.

Daycare drawbacks

Well, you want a child more than anything. You work really hard for it. Once you have delivered your child, you love him, pamper him and shower him with lots of affections and he means the world to you. You devote your life for him. You tend to him with utmost care and you keep him mostly to yourself. But then, you have to work…

Getting admissions into daycare in Japan had been very difficult for us as the applications goes through the city administration that we reside in. We have been trying to enroll him into a decent daycare since he was 3 months old, but was of no avail. So we dedicated our time by working half time and the rest of the time, we took turns to care for him. But the system did not work much as I missed lots of research work and stayed longer at home to tend to him (to ensure that eats, sleeps and drinks well). But then, on the bright side, he had gained good healthy weight, was healthy, cheerful, confident, rarely gets sick and most importantly happy to be with us. But the downside was, he developed stranger anxiety and prefers to be only with us. He is most comfortable at our home and even when my parents visited, he took a long time to adapt to them (even with us around).

Now, I have only one semester left to complete my PhD. I have been procrastinating my research work for some time. I have already have one paper published, but my main project work is yet to be published and they are a lot more work to be done. Therefore, I need to write a thesis, a paper, get it published in a reputable journal, defend my thesis and graduate all in 5 months! Since, I could not procrastinate any longer, we finally got an admission into the university daycare (the admission to the public daycare through the city hall failed L).

There were lots of procedure and protocols and when the day came to actually leave him, he cried. He cried so much. That was the first time I separated from him. He has always been with me, always….

There was my confident boy, confused and looked at me with teary eye. How would a 10 month old understand that amma is leaving him to be cared by a professional caretaker so that she could work? How would I explain or even console him that it is OK to be left with a complete stranger (a person who does not speak his language and whom he has never met before). It was heartbreaking to see him wail and it breaks my heart as we were not allowed to stay longer to console him. On the first day that we left him (we left him for only 1 hour on April 1st), the teacher told us that he cried all hour. When we returned home, he crawled and slept right next to me all evening L

After 1 week, he got sick, a disastrous viral infection that made him weak. He vomited after every meal, declined to drink milk due to his stuffy nose and ended up losing so much weight. This is the boy that I cared attentively and made him healthy with selective super foods with tender, love and care. I am not saying that I am perfect nor criticizing the daycare system. I am just pouring my heart out about how helpless I am being unable to make my son feel better.

Today as I brought him to the daycare, I noticed him getting upset. He was clinging onto me and when I finally passed him to his caretaker, he wailed. It broke me…

If only I could stop whatever I am doing now and care for him. If only I could make him happy again? Will this traumatic experience scar him? Will this separation change his fearless, confident character to become timid and apprehensive? There are so many unanswered questions in this post to which I can only hope to get positive answers and happy endings.

Bitey boy

What is new with our little boy. He is funny, and now that he is teething (yeap! almost 11 months and not a single tooth visible), he likes to bite everything, especially our fingers, arm, shirt, hair, chin and so on. One of our favorite games is hide and seek. We will hide at certain places and he will come looking for us. But recently, he hid behind wall and poked his head every now and then, mimicking exactly what I did. So it s exciting to see him applying whatever we thought him. It was absurdly funny to see him exposing half of his body and face and pretending to hide behind the wall and poking his head every few seconds!
Also now he is able to point our noses when asked and whenever we applaud him for his effort with the chant that goes like this, 'good boy, good boy, goody goody good boy!', he gets super excited and happy and says yay with his arms up in the air (our self-praising boy). He certainly brightens our life! I hope he will be as happy and confident and grow up to be a happy and healthy boy!

Baby jokes

It was an exciting morning. Our gunden wakes up and started to caress my forehead (that is our current routine wake up act). So, I carried him slightly after kissing him and placed him in between me and Satya. Just then we noticed that one of his socks was missing and acknowledged him about it. I quickly found the missing sock and placed it on his hand. He examined the sock attentively and after careful considerations, he placed the sock on Satya’s left ear. Amused by his act, I started laughing. Seeing that he has entertained his mom, and something was funny, he mimicked my laughter and continue to put the sock on Satya’s ear and tested if I laughed again. It was a hilarious moment as we continued to laugh everytime he puts the sock on Satya's ear. As the joke started to wear off, Satya and I started to converse about something else. Just then, he held the sock, looked at me and mimicked the most artificial laughter as if wanting me to laugh. Of course, I naturally laughed to his gimmick and cuddled him. Well, that’s our 10 month old gunden. Progressing each day with something either unique or funny. His presence certainly changed our life and we are constantly laughing, happy, and merry because of him. Of course, our lives are still full of troubles and hardships but looking at him eases our mind and keeps us going J

He walks

My baby is 9 months old now and he had started walking. It started with fast crawling around 6-7 months, standing up with support around 7 months, cruising and now walking. He started clumsily and now the steps are getting steadier. He enjoys being chased, also loves to chase us, and most importantly he loves to play hide and seek. He likes to find us at our hidden spots based on our voices calling for him. My parents are visiting now and he enjoys their company too with Satya and I around. When I’m sitting down and my back faces him, he loves to lunge and bite my back (he's still toothless at this point) while hugging me. He loves to kiss my cheeks and bite my chin. He loves to pull and bite our hair as well. Satya enjoys when he cries when he leaves to work. It’s nice to see so much happiness in Satya’s face these days. Having a child, changes so many things and our life revolves around our son at the time being. We love him too much and look forward every day to spend time with him. We are also proud to have raised and learn to raise him mostly by ourselves. We hope to raise a healthy, happy, caring and confident kid. We have registered to enroll him in daycare at the university that I belong too. He is currently so much attached to me, and I dread the day that I have to leave him at a daycare to work. It will be difficult for me as well as I have not left him to be cared by anyone else but us, his parents. But, my doctorate work is long pending and I have to finish my thesis and submit a paper for publication by the end of September 2016. Also, he is almost always alone and fearing that playtime may get routine and also to let him socialize and explore the world around him, it is best for him to interact with other kids. Daycare at Osaka University seems to be the best choice as they have excellent care takers. I just hope that my son learns that amma has to finish her studies and that the separation is just temporary. I hope he learns very fast that I will always return for him and that I live for him....