If you could name just ONE pregnancy pain, what would it be? For me, my painful wrist wins hands down.

It all started around week 30. That was when I noticed my fingers and hands feeling numb and tight after a night’s sleep. I ignored it and put it down to water retention. When the swelling got worse a week or two l later, I started googling for possible causes. I landed on a page that told me I could have carpal tunnel syndrome.

Carpal tunnel syndrome is a build-up of fluid in your wrist tissues, affecting a median nerve which in turn affects your hands and fingers, causing numbness and a tingling feeling. The condition is usually worse in your dominant hand, as is in my case. My left hand didn’t feel as bad as my right, and overall, although it was annoying, the pain was still tolerable.

My fingers looked like this guy’s but I’m not smiling.

Fast forward another two weeks. That was when I woke up with EXCRUCIATING pain in my right wrist. It wasn’t just the Michelin fingers anymore. The pain in my thumb and wrist was out of control. Every move I made with my right hand was incredible torture. I couldn’t even use my toothbrush or unscrew a bottle cap and it hurt to type cos my hands would be at an angle. And when I abruptly angled my wrist by accident, or when I’m hooking my bra (tmi), the pain was like I was being run over by a truck. I assumed this, of course.

I told myself to tahan cos according to online articles, carpal tunnel should go away after delivery. Just a few weeks more! But no, although I could stand the ache in my fingers and hands, the pain in my thumbs and wrists (yes, my left wrist was starting to act up) was just too extreme to ignore. I bought a soft wrist guard from Guardian which helped for a bit, but the relief didn’t last long.

The pain was so bad that I knew I had to seek help. Thankfully, someone cancelled an appointment at NUH’s hand and reconstructive centre and there was a slot in two days. I saw Emeritus Professor Robert Pho, who is the most assuring, gentle and kindest doctor I’ve ever met. He diagnosed my primary complaint as De Quervain’s Tenosynovitis, since my pain points were really my thumbs and wrists.

Carpal tunnel syndrome was a secondary diagnosis. Here’s some info about De Quervain’s Tenosynovitis (click to read):

The medical officer who was next to the Prof suggested a steroid injection which got rubbished promptly. “Non-invasive procedures. Unless absolute.” OMG SO MAN! My then-gynae said it was ok though. Dr Pho ordered a custom splint which basically forces me to keep my wrist straight. The soft, heated plastic is moulded to my hand and becomes hard plastic when cooled:

When wearing the splint, I couldn’t feel pain since I can’t move. I was supposed to wear this for five weeks BUT of course, when conditions improved, I stopped wearing it. LOL. That’s why I’ll never recover fully fml. At least now it doesn’t hurt that bad. Pain scale of 2/10 as compared to 9.5/10 before wearing the hard splint! The cost of the splint was about $90 and consultation was $130 thereabouts as a private patient. If you get a referral and wish to know subsidised rates (and don’t mind the waiting time), refer to this page.

I thought the pain will go away with delivery. My hopes were dashed when the Dr Pho said it could worsen on the contrary, since I would be carrying Chua Bee Bee. If it gets worse, I’ll be making an appointment to see a TCM specialist.. many mummy readers said TCM worked for them so fingers crossed, literally!

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Other pregnancy posts:

Pregnancy: The big reveal!
Pregnancy: The first trimester scans… I saw an empty womb on my first scan
Pregnancy: The second trimester – harmony test and gender reveal!
Pregnancy: The second trimester – 20-week anomaly scan + gestational diabetes scare
Pregnancy: The third trimester 4D scan – I saw Chua Bee Bee’s cute little face!
Pregnancy: Mount Alvernia Hospital – Maternity Tour & Estimated Bill Size 2016
Pregnancy: Bellybuds! Playing music for your baby in the womb
FY2016 Budget: Is the government giving us an extra $3K into the Child Development Account?
Pregnancy: Why I’m choosing GAIA Natural Baby Organic Skincare for #ChuaBeeBee
Pregnancy: Tips for changing your gynae at Week 35
How to bake your own chunky chocolate lactation cookies
Pregnancy: Week 39 – Low amniotic fluid and an eviction notice!

The post Pregnancy: When you wrist hurts like nobody’s business (All about De Quervain’s Tenosynovitis) appeared first on Budgetpantry | Singapore Mummy Blog on Food, Recipe & Baby.

At close to 30 weeks now, I’m into my final trimester! At my week 27 appointment, Chua Bee Bee measured 1.1kg and is growing well. But the scans at my gynae’s clinic were getting a tad boring cos he can only scan Chua Bee Bee’s head since she’s getting so big. So all I was seeing at every scan was a round shape on the screen. Like a typical first-time parent willing to spend on unnecessary things, I decided to look around for somewhere to do a 4D scan!

Where to do a 4D scan in Singapore

I checked out Raffles Hospital and Thomson Medical Centre, but both places require a doctor’s referral and cost around $390. Too troublesome for me to go back to my gynae for a referral and the available appointment slots are ages away. By then, Chua Bee Bee would be too big to ‘qualify’ for the scan! I googled and found Radlink Diagnostics which didn’t need a doctor’s referral and cost $364 nett. Still expensive, but I really wanted to see what she is up to inside my tummy!

Oh, a word about itchiness

I went for my dermatologist appointment at KK Hospital in the morning to check out my super itchy legs. I was getting paranoid because three weeks ago I started itching crazily without a rash on my soles and palms. The itch was so bad, I was even woken up by the itch. Too much google landed me on the ICP Care website (previously known as ‘Itchymoms.com’) which provides detailed info on Intraheptic Cholestasis of Pregnancy, a rare liver condition specific to pregnancy which interferes with the flow of bile. Left untreated, your baby could be at risk if not delivered by 37 weeks. I had to insist that my gynea give me a blood test to rule out the condition. I can’t believe that he laughed in my face like it was nothing and told me to stay off the internet! He also didn’t know what cholestasis is and kept asking if I’m referring to fatty liver. I’m not. I swear I’m not going back to him if we decide to have a second baby. The liver function tests came back normal (and he didn’t test my bile acids!) but I was still itching like mad. Turned out that the itching is eczema-related. After the KKH appointment, I went to Orchard to eat Yong Tau Foo at Lucky Plaza before going for a random hair cut (too much time to kill and I was missing my bangs!) before going to Radlink at Paragon for Chua Bee Bee’s scan at 4pm.

Love my haircut. And love the sun!

Err at Hilton Hotel’s toilet. Can’t really see the bump cos of the slim cutting of the dress ($17 from Qoo10), but my tummy is now quite big!

The 4D scan at Radlink Diagnostics

4pm finally arrived! I met Jason at Paragon and off to see Chua Bee Bee we went! Radlink Diagnostics is located at Paragon Medical Centre. Just go through Paragon’s main entrance, walk till the end and take the lift at Lobby E. It’s on the 8th floor.

The sonographer emphasised that the success of the scan depended on Chua Bee Bee’s position. To capture a 3D image, there can’t be any blockage on top of the her face, meaning the coast must be clear. She can’t be too close to the top or sides of the womb and can’t be facing inwards. This was the first image we saw:

Apa la, Chua Bee Bee! Both her feet were extended over and above her head, directly on top of her face, and her hand was right in front of her mouth! Couldn’t really see anything clear but we could make out her chubby cheeks, part of her nose and a bit of her lips. She’s so cute even like this!

In the next minute, she moved her hands and we could see her chubby cheeks clearly! Her hand is now just below her chin. My first thought was Chua Bee Bee your nose need to be so big or not LOLOLOL! Mummy still love you ok your have 福气 nose is the cutest! The thing/shadow you see by the left side of her face is her foot.. either she’s too tall or she has incredibly flexible joints. The sonographer said that at this time, the baby’s joints are not fully developed yet, so they’re able to do crazy yoga poses in their water balloons (amniotic sac).

We had no luck for almost half and hour. It took A LOT of coaxing, walking, emptying the bladder, talking and turning to get her to change positions. Even so, we weren’t so lucky. 4pm is her nap time! We switched to 2D view and captured this:

Chua Bee Bee yawning and pouting! This is seriously the sweetest video I’ve ever seen of my baby girl! Because her feet were blocking her face, we couldn’t see the yawning in 3D view, but we were able to see it in 2D. We also saw her sucking the back of her hand and sticking out her tongue but that video wasn’t recorded.

The sonographer had me lie on my right side in the hope of getting Chua Bee Bee to move her feet and hand out of the way, but she wouldn’t budge! In the rare occasion that she did, yeah la, she turned too. But she turned to face my placenta so there was no way we could see her face. I tried walking around in the room to try and wake her up, and finally we managed to get some shots:

This pic looks like she’s smiling with her mouth open but it’s actually her so close to the roof of my womb that her lips are pressed flat against it, so we can’t see any shape or structure. But I think her chin looks quite sharp!

This is one of the clearer pictures :) Both her hands are framing her face and she’s still sound asleep. I’m so in loveeeeee……

And this! You can see her lips so clearly here.. I think they look full and sexy and so shiny! Her feet are still by the left side of her face…..

There are lots more other pictures and videos (all given to us in a cd) but these are really the best ones. The whole session lasted about an hour. Your baby needs to be between 26-28 weeks in order to do the scan. Chua Bee Bee was 29 weeks 3 days so I guess a little ‘overage’ doesn’t matter. Other places might have different requirements. We left Radlink $364 poorer but incredibly happy! We could now put a face to all the jelly dances and flying kicks. Can’t wait to see you, our baby girl!

Next:
Pregnancy: Mount Alvernia Hospital – Maternity Tour & Estimate Bill Size 2016
Pregnancy: Bellybuds! Playing music for your baby in the womb
FY2016 Budget: Is the government giving us an extra $3K into the Child Development Account?
Pregnancy: Why I’m choosing GAIA Natural Baby Organic Skincare for #ChuaBeeBee
The third trimester: Tips for changing your gynae at Week 35
Pregnancy: When you wrist hurts like nobody’s business (De Quervain’s Tenosynovitis)
How to bake your own chunky chocolate lactation cookies
Pregnancy: Week 39 – Low amniotic fluid and an eviction notice!

Previous posts:
Pregnancy: The big reveal!
Pregnancy: The first trimester scans… I saw an empty womb on my first scan
Pregnancy: The second trimester – harmony test and gender reveal!
Pregnancy: The second trimester – 20-week anomaly scan + gestational diabetes scare

The post Pregnancy: The third trimester 4D scan – I saw Chua Bee Bee’s cute little face! appeared first on Budgetpantry | Singapore Mummy Blog on Food, Recipe & Baby.

I guess now is the time for the big reveal: I am pregnant! After more than 24 weeks in my tummy, “Chua Bee Bee” is now 30cm long and weighs 700g. Yes I am 6 MONTHS pregnant! I am amazed that I managed to keep quiet all this time. Here’s what our cutie pie looks like during the detailed scan one month ago:

Some background on the nickname “Chua Bee Bee” … when Aegon and Cara were born, I told my brothers and sisters-in-law that Singaporean babies MUST HAVE dialect names. So they all “forced” me to name my baby Chua Bee Bee! They say must have Chua Bee Bee in the baby’s birth cert regardless of whether it’s a boy or girl because “you ownself say one, must preserve our heritage”! I actually think this name is super cute! Cara even sang a song about Chua Bee Bee many moons before I was pregnant (I hope this video loads on your phone! It definitely works on laptop/desktop):

How adorable is my niece? And so, the nickname has stuck. This post is the first of my pregnancy series. If you’re interested in baby stories and ultrasound scans, welcome to my baby world!

Testing postive
We started trying for a baby after coming back from Japan. A few days leading up to the date of my last period, I experienced the usual cramps. And even as my period was late for three days, I told Jason it was highly likely that we didn’t make it because the cramps were exactly the same as period cramps. But I was still dying to know. I tested the next morning with Guardian house-brand test kits and saw nothing on the “pregnant or not” window. I was already two days late – there was no reason for the kit not to pick up even the tiniest amount of human chorionic gonadotropin (HCG), a hormone produced after implantation, IF I was pregnant. So I left it as that.

The period still didn’t start. I went through another two test sticks and it still showed nothing. Negative. Zilch. Finally, on 4 September, I tested with Clearblue digital which dated me as 1-2 weeks based on HCG levels.

Instead of feeling happy, I felt fear. Clearblue digital works by measuring HCG levels that should increase as your pregnancy progresses, and then “slots” you into the range of 1-2 weeks, 2-3 weeks or 3 weeks+. For Clearblue digital to show me as 1-2 weeks when I should have been 2-3 only meant that my HCG levels were low. This meant two things: 1) I ovulated late and I was indeed 1-2 weeks from conception; and 2) My levels hasn’t been increasing significantly since last week.

To be continued……

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p/s – remember this photo when I said we were on the way to Emporium Shokuhin? We were actually only going there AFTER going to the gynae clinic to see Chua Bee Bee’s for the second time! :) We heard the heartbeat two weeks ago when the baby was merely 1mm big! Can’t believe the little cutie pie is more than 30cm now!

Although I am wayyyy less stressed than I was before week 20, the reality has sunk in that I HAVE NO CLUE about this whole mom business… which means it’s an ENTIRELY different form of stress from here on out.

If you have first-time mom tips or recommendations of baby products, please let me know! There’s so many different brands of diapers, baby detergent, cleansing liquid, sterilizers, milk bottles, pacifiers OF VARYING prices and styles that I don’t even know where to start. And it’s just three more months to go!

In the mean time, I will be posting ultrasound pictures and more updates very soon. Follow me on my Facebook page to get notified!

Next:
Pregnancy: The first trimester scans… I saw an empty womb on my first scan
Pregnancy: The second trimester – harmony test and gender reveal!
Pregnancy: The second trimester – 20-week anomaly scan + gestational diabetes scare
Pregnancy: The third trimester 4D scan – I saw Chua Bee Bee’s cute little face!
Pregnancy: Mount Alvernia Hospital – Maternity Tour & Estimate Bill Size 2016
Pregnancy: Bellybuds! Playing music for your baby in the womb
Pregnancy: Bellybuds! Playing music for your baby in the womb
Pregnancy: Why I’m choosing GAIA Natural Baby Organic Skincare for #ChuaBeeBee
The third trimester: Tips for changing your gynae at Week 35
Pregnancy: When you wrist hurts like nobody’s business (De Quervain’s Tenosynovitis)
How to bake your own chunky chocolate lactation cookies
Pregnancy: Week 39 – Low amniotic fluid and an eviction notice!

The post Pregnancy: The big reveal! appeared first on Budgetpantry | Singapore Mummy Blog on Food, Recipe & Baby.