Thanks for your prayers!

Dear All,

First, I need to give thanks to everyone, anyone who took some time to pray for us during that challenging year and a half, anyone who took the time to give us a call, leave us an encouraging word, stayed with us as we went through this year. I also want to thank all of Living Love Fellowship for their support for having prayed for us weekly during our pre-study worship. I want to also thank doctors (Dr S. Leung in partcular), bioresonance therapists for their care.
I want to also thank my family, during this year, I haven't been the best husband, I haven't been the best son, I haven't been the best dad, I asked for your forgiveness and thank you for your support.

To all of you THANK YOU.

This year, we settled on continuing Lémuel's bioresonance therapy, we moved home and since then, Lémuel has been constantly showing progress, now he walks, he talks, he sings, he says "Aiyyaaa" like a true Cantonese speaking kid. He still has some development delays, we hope that he will be able to get into a kindergarten, next year K1's resources are pretty limited. We leave it to God, we'll pray and see.

Here are some pictures summing up what we went through:

April 2013, his body was completely trashed, red everywhere, swollen, injured, he started to lose weight dramatically, feeling very itchy, suffering from his multiple wounds.

At that time, he was all covered by wounds as you can see:

May 2013, start of his steroid topical treatment. That's what I call bleach for the skin, his body went from reddish to snow as white, but he was swollen ALL over his body, he looked fat, but his body mass went from 50 percentile to under the curve.

As we continue using steroids, we could not get rid of certain rash attacks, he would have  the eyes all swollen up.

Lémuel prepared to sleep in his wet wrap, a real little mummy. That's every night, from May to November 2013.

Up until May this year, he remained tied up when he was sleeping. That's when he was also having wounds on the cheeks.

If he could get his hands off of his wrapping and reach his face, it would end up like this. In order not to shock my readers, I decided against publishing pictures of his face. Believe me, having to clean up massive amount of blood in the middle of the night is the last thing I wish to anybody.

April 2014, we were at the beach and you can still see his skin not completely restored, his cheeks took a VERY long time to heal, arms and legs rashes would come and go.

After a year of treatment:

So again, THANK YOU VERY MUCH for your prayers and support.

Now, he still has allergies, he still has a very long list of forbidden foods that is veerryyy slowly reducing, he still has sensitive skin. I'll keep you up to date. I'll also try to find time to write down treatment we did in details for people looking to help their kids if they are suffering from the same thing.

This would not be complete if I don't also give thanks to our Heavenly Father who placed Lémuel amongst Myrtille, Yukyin and I. We learnt a lot, we shared a lot, we grew a lot. Thanks to You. I need to admit that a few months ago, we could not envision the fact that Lémuel could live a normal life but Thanks to your healing hands, I see him a living testimony of your Love.

Rashes, 2nd run

Dear Reader,

Today, I need to pour out my sorrow into this blog... Lémuel is suffering from rashes that covers approximately 95% of his body. It started maybe in January, at first, we did not care as we thought it would slowly disappear, but as time flies, rashes started to spread, more and more. Around Chinese New Year, his skin was rough, like sandpaper, completely opposite from what we should expect from a baby skin. When he took bath, he was scratching his knees, scratching his tummy, and as he has some pretty sharp nails, it bleed. We thought that we would never have to go through this again after our first experience with Myrtille and her dust mite allergy... we were wrong. Lémuel has a wider spread rash and he is developing that a lot more early than Myrtille.

As his condition did not improve, we went to see a doctor, he gave us some steroids and bath oil. After a week, we did not see any improvement, so we tried to treat him the same way as Myrtille, wet wrap method with a low let down ratio of corticoid cream. It cleaned his body, but we forgot about the small injuries he inflicted himself and they started to get infected. So we went back to the doctor again and I got yelled at because I should not have treat him the same way as Myrtille... having the same symptoms does not lead to the same treatment, so I clench my teeth and took it all. Lémuel developed an infection and we got a cream for that, we stopped the corticoid and continue the wet wrap, but after two days, rashes were back again. We were lost. The rashes even spread wider in area. :( Things were getting out of control, so I contacted the fellowship, and Yukyin contacted Myrtille's classmates mom and have them prayed for us.

One of the mom called Yukyin back, she shared a similar experience and advised a dermatologist. We went to consult him on Monday, he told us that we made a lot of things wrong, we should not have used the corticoid, we should stop using paraffin based cream, etc... he gave us a bunch of bath oil, moisturizing cream and we started a new treatment. He noted that Lémuel had a bunch of microbes on his head so gave us plenty of disinfectant soap. He stated that baby should be healed by 1 year old, but that's still sooo far away!

4 days through the treatment, Lémuel is peeling around the exposed area (neck, face, head) and the non exposed area are still reddish with little bumps around. For the last two days, Lémuel started to cry in pain every time we would apply his cream, like something is stinging his whole body, he moves his body so as to avoid our touch. His whole body feels like burning hot.

We feel helpless. In top of that, Yukyin has a blocked milk duct following a yeast infection.

God I know that you read that blog... because You know everything, anything that I write, think, You know them even before it reaches my mind, some of these thoughts, some of my acts, You are the one who suggests them to me, plant them in my mind as we plant a seed on the ground. To let you know, I would rather live with Lémuel's skin issue than look at him everyday going through that pain, living with an ever itching skin, living with the stinging reaction of moisturizing cream applied on his skin. I know that he is meant to be one of your child, I know that it breaks Your heart every time You hear him cry, I know that You are with us when we hold down his four limbs as we apply his creams. I know that You are there bearing his suffering with us. Give us patience O Lord, so that we can go through this, strengthen our faith in you. 
In Your Holy name, Amen.

Brother and Sister.

If you have 2 minutes in your busy schedule, please pray for us. Thanks for reading.

God listens... and gives.

Dear Reader,

God listened to our prayers. After Myrtille's delivery experience here, Yukyin was so marked that she did not want to have another baby, but after several years of thinking, she tried to put her fear aside, but no matter how you try, you can't definitively put it aside. So we prayed, we prayed with friends around us, we prayed with brothers and sisters in our cell group, we prayed with Pastors, we prayed and prayed with Myrtille... we kept praying. Yukyin wanted to experience a natural delivery, not a c-section again, but she had her moral sapped by several private obstetricians, telling her that it's no use, the best is to go with a c-section and coming with millions of different reasons about why she failed the first time. She wanted to try to have a VBAC (vaginal birth after c-section) but modern medicine prefers to stick to c-section surgery if the mother has went through a previous c-section as the risks are somewhat safer and much more under control. But Yukyin read a lot on the topic (she might tell you more one day) and still wanted a vaginal birth in order to have a quicker recovery for the mother (c-section does hurt your body, it's a surgery after all). So, knowing that she might have a slight chance to succeed (50/50 in the best case from the most optimistic obstetrician) and against  nearly all the obstetricians advice, we still decided to tell the hospital that we would opt for a natural delivery instead of a c-section on appointment.

Thus, from the end of August, Yukyin spent her days and night playing on her fitness ball, going to the swimming pool... doing exercises, walking, swimming, walking, squating... and most of all, praying and keep asking people to pray for her.

Seeing that baby was still not in the mood to come out, we kinda lost hope but we still prayed.

So after 9 months of prayers, on the due date, Yukyin's body started to have contractions around 11AM. She stayed home as she did not want to be under hospital environment stress and pressure. She started to keep track of her contractions, 1 mn every 3-4 mn. It was starting weak. At around 11:30, she asked me to come back home for lunch, so I took half day off. My boss is really good with us, so I could leave without issue. She stayed on her fitness ball, she thought that by going to the hospital, she won't have it anymore.

At 3PM, frequency started to increase, we were at 1 mn every 2 and a half minutes and she could not hold it anymore. We packed our things, I told her to keep the ball and try if she can use it there... we tried to call for a discounted taxi (thanks Grace for the number, Yukyin did not want me to spend 2 minutes not by her side googling for one), but this one told me that it's too short a trip to come pick us up... :( so we went for the legal way, call up a taxi at the Shatin Taxi station, went to the hospital. Registered her up. They did a quick check-up, she was 2cm dilated.

At 3:40, we noticed some nurses talking about fitness ball... And we simply asked if she could use hers as they did not provide any. They said yes! "you should fight for your privileges" (actually, the nurse was from another department and talking to her pregnant friend who was midwife". So Yukyin was happy as she could make herself comfortable again.

At 4:40, I started to hear her crying out her pain and suddenly, the nurses cried out "Ayaaa". Her water broke and they asked her to move back on her bed. She was fighting with the nurses... she could not move at all. They checked her up, the nurses said: "4-5 cm, let's write 4", they move her to the labor room.
Once in the labor room, another nurse checked her up and told her: "You can start to push"... Yukyin was "o_0" ??? what?
She got two incisions and they asked her to push as baby is ready for delivery, she could not believe it!! After 2-3 pushes... baby was there, 4:52PM! She spent less than 15 min at the labor room and baby was born! It's a guy, 3.4kg, we will present him later on.

To sum up, we are SO THANKFUL to the Lord first and to our cell group, pastors and all people who supported and prayed for us, who also prayed that she could manage a VBAC.. We still can't believe how blessed we are! God really gave us a perfect delivery, he listened to our prayers, Yukyin spilled it all, she prayed because she did not want to wait 48 hours as with Myrtille and end up with a c-section, she prayed because she was afraid of the hospital first stage room AKA the room where you endlessly wait and hear other women cry out loud in pain while waiting for your turn... She prayed because she was afraid she would not know how to breathe correctly, she prayed because she knew VBAC would involve some risk (the scar might burst in some rare case). She prayed because she wanted me to assist the birth, it ended up that I could not this time either because of malfunction in the public hospital systems (related to gas leak and all)... She prayed because PW hospital is not the best hospital of the world and that we got a lot of bad stories about it, especially trainees from Chinese University of Hong Kong.... She prayed, prayed, prayed... and she got what she wanted most, an ultra smooth delivery.

Thank you Lord!

6 years and counting.

Rear reader,

Today we celebrated our marriage anniversary. 6 long years, during which, we have been growing our love to each other. I learnt more about my wife, she learnt more about me, and this year has been marked by our will to be parents again. So after a big amount of prayers, of trying, Yukyin has a huge belly ready to give birth somewhere around next month.

A new challenge.

From the time we had Myrtille we learnt that we are not so patient anymore, we are less careful, we have less free time, we are older, I really enjoy sleeping some time. So sometimes, I am just wondering why we decided to get a new kid? But I do think it will help gather ours ties closer, Myrtille will learn what it is to share things at home, to share mum and dad's time. To live with a sibling. I always had my big brother, but I never knew how it was before I arrive in his life. Now, I can imagine through Myrtille's life and I think it won't be easy. At last, we want to build a family of 4 inside God's hands.

Yukyin's condition is fine, she is nearly at the end of her pregnancy and started to have all those different little things happening in her body that indicate the nearing of the end. I just want to ask you to pray for a smooth delivery. We are not so worried about the life with baby, we are more worried about how the delivery will actually happen. She had a c-section the first time and we would like to try giving her naturally.

Anyway, thanks for those beautiful 6 years, thanks for tonight's cake. I love you.

I pray that whoever you are, you live a happy tale with your half one. (If not, you can always drop me a comment, we'll pray for ya.)

See you soon.

Half way to First Term!

It's been a while! Actually, every time I look at my browser's bookmarks, I always have something in my mind to write but never had the time to work on it.

As of today, we are mid October and Myrtille has joined K1 since last month. Her life brutally change from being a no-worries laid back / play all day life to a meticulously arranged day. Morning, she wakes up at 7h35, have a wash, eat breakfast, go to kindergarten for 3 long hours, learn 3 languages, plenty songs and  Bible verses, she then come back at 12 for a lunch, followed by a nap. She would have some simple homework (drawing lines / coloring stuff) to do and playtime downstairs if time allowed. Diner at 7pm and off to bed at 9pm.

To me, that was just the end of her worry free life. She will have to learn the hard way... The Hong Kong way! With Yukyin, we are already feeling pressure from the school system, the pressure put on kids is tremendous and I just don't see the value for that. It just leads to more social and economic problems with difficult integration of young in the current society. Anyway they are meant to be the leaders of tomorrow, so I'll just entrust them the future of my old ages.

At the end, I still strongly believe that if God allows her to succeed, she'll succeed if she put herself up to work.

Back on Myrtille, she is now three. She talks a lot, still energetic in running around, she already has a big sister attitude and she will be indeed big sister by the end of next month. Hehehe
We'll see how she tackle the newcomer at home.

On that, I hope I'll write more in the future, I just got a pro Flickr account, I think I just can't do without, since I reach the limit of the free account I just dropped blogging which is bad.

So in the wait for more of our news, please pray for Yukyin's pregnancy and for a smooth delivery.
Thanks!

On the way to Kindergarten

Dear reader,

One full year has passed and I did not write a single thing so I decided to get back to my keyboard and post some news. Time has flown this last year, I have been busy taking care of both Yukyin and Myrtille, learning about myself, about being a husband and about being a dad.. It's not easy at all. This year, Myrtille will be three and she will start going to Kindergarten! A totally new experience for her hehehe.. Hope that she will get herself accustomed to that.

So just a quick note about our school selection. Choosing a kindergarten was something really troublesome. In Hong Kong, education is a big topic with parents easily getting hysterical about their kids schooling. So when it came to us, we thought hard about what school should we get Myrtille to?
Firstly, French or local?

It's a difficult one, but after talking to several people, and talking about our own experience, we still believe the French system would provide a better growing experience to the kids in terms of workload stress, and they better prepare kids to face the real world. So we did consider the French schooling but in the end we found it not so practical, fees are not cheap, it is far from home (HK island side) and we wanted something closer to our beliefs (there is a Roman Catholic group in the school but it remains completely different from our beliefs). We would also encounter issue of social discrimination as we got word of several cases. The school is mainly for expatriates and they usually have a high living standard, way beyond ours.

So what remains from the local system?

To my eyes, the local system is not right (I don't say it's wrong), actually, it's not the local system that is wrong but the whole Hong Kong students/parents/school thing that is sad to contemplate. Their core values are just twisted and some people just take profit from the system. People think that without a University Degree, there is no hope.. Society is totally based on money and life is a race to gather more and more of it, who can get the best pay, the best benefit, manage to get the highest profit from their transactions. Thus, we, parents, are pushing kids in order to get the best diplomas/certificates package they can ever dream, cram school, private lessons are commercialize, education level is heading down, just think about it: if you were a successful student, would you go to education university? Or would you build your business in hope of high gains? The second question would be: if you are a successful teacher, would you continue to work a basic salary in a common school? Or would you give it up and take high fees in one of those cram school? I don't think it's totally wrong, but it's just sad to see that. But what is really wrong now, is that kids get to higher levels of stress than their parents, kids get to higher levels of exhaustion than their parents. They have longer working hours. Some of them are just study machines. Kids bear all the consequences of a whole bunch of cascading effect on their shoulders.

So what did we do? or what can we still do? What can God possibly prepare for us in this mess?
For Myrtille's kindergarten, we decided to keep close to our faith. Wisdom and intelligence is something that comes from God, we need to do our homework and prepare a path for her, but God is there to help her reach what He planned for her. Our first requirement was to stick to a Christian kindergarten, we were happy to see that Hong Kong offers this option (you don't have that chance in France as school is nondenominational). We had one in mind, the PEC kindergarten in Shatin. Yukyin had that idea since before our marriage, we had a presentation from the dean once and since then,she kept thinking that if we were to have kids one day, that's the kindergarten we would be getting them into. So we browse for other different Christian School around home in case she would not get into it and found a few but when we went there for their open day, we did not feel so much of the Christian background. Fortunately, another school still caught our attention. Visiting PEC kindergarten open day confirmed that we were aiming to the right direction, the school provides a good growing environment and a solid Christian background. So we end up with two top choices among other not so good choice but good enough if we did not manage the first picks.

How does it work? Kids pass an interview and based on their performance, they get in or not.. I still disagree this practice but there is really nothing we can do. That's the result of many years of competitive system.

Keep praying.. And God will provide.

Myrtille went to her interviews, 3 of them, her worst performance was at our top choice, hence we needed to keep praying even more. Fortunately, this school had a questionnaire where we could explain why we wanted our child there, so we had our chance to explain our values and vision for Myrtille.

After several weeks of praying and wondering if she would make it or not, we had a letter telling us she got in! God has answered us!

So we are very glad that for her three first ears of schooling, she'll enjoy one of the best Christian education.

Thanks You Lord for opening doors to your sweetie.
On this last note, I pray that I can keep writing this blog again.

Father, help me be a better father

Dear All,

It's been a while as usual, time flies and now that we have a little toddler at home, she is healthy, smiling, crying, creating her own way of communication... She is growing and in the same time, so is our role as parents. We started as care givers as she was a baby and slowly evolve to a mix of teacher/parent/friend as she became a toddler.

Now she is 21 month old, she is starting to discover life, learning to like and dislike. She is trying to get Mama for herself, casting me aside with some wide swings of her hand. That is quite hurting, but, in the same time, I understand her and when she is playing with me, her smile brings me to heaven.

Lately, questions about parenting have raised up. She is starting to be really alert of the environment she is living in, she knows when we boil water, she knows when we go to a dessert place, she knows when we buy bread... etc...
So limits or boundaries are a necessity: in approach of a forbidden fruit, she would slowly look at us with a smile, then she would just reach for her object of desire and grab it with her tiny hands, the next thing you would hear is a kakakakakaka and the sound of her bare feet running on the floor... You can imagine.

Being a father is far from being easy. I have a busy work, a busy home life and too often, I am short tempered. I would quickly raise the tone of my voice, hopefully, Yukyin is there to remind me that I need to love her, in the other hand, it also means that I have let those waves of anger strike my relationship with both of them.

So when I am totally lost, in the outer space, I am just wondering how You, My Lord, are doing, how do You live with so much people not listening to You, How do You manage to continuously love them, even if they don't know You, even if they don't recognize You.
But when I see her smile, when I hear the sound of her voice, when I see her looking around with her curiosity, I understand how much it please You to see Your children grow. It is so pleasing to look at your own child growing. It feels so good to be by her side as she discover the world. It gives me strength and perseverance to be a better father, to be more than what I am.

Thank You Lord, for sharing that feeling of being a father, thanks for the miracle You gave us. Thanks for Your creation and the Love you put into it.

Thanks

I know that amongst my reader, there are people who are trying really hard to have a baby, I know people who managed after several years, I know some who are still trying, I might not understand exactly what you are going through and today's post my not be your cup of tea. I deeply pray that God bless you beyond your sweetest expectations.

I'll try to post some more soon.

Trying To Get Some Sleep!

Dear Reader,

It seems that I can't really hold a 1 message per week rhythm, so, at least, I'll try to get 1 message per month and give some extra when I can.

This month has been very exhausting for both of us. We start to lack of sleeping again. Actually, we are trying to get Myrtille to sleep by herself, better now than when she'll start to crawl everywhere... but still, I don't think it prevents us for having her crawl and jump everywhere at bedtime when she'll be that age...

So, we started to put her to bed awake and wait for the time she would decide to sleep, during the process, we did learn a few things, first, it's not that hard but it's not that easy, but also, prayers were a great help for us. We figure out that we don't pray enough with her and preparation to bedtime is quite a good time to start in getting used to that. Usually, if we pray before putting her to bed, it works. I don't say that prayers is the key for putting her to sleep, but it helped us greatly and Thanks to God, we did manage to succeed quite a few times without too much issues.

But still, when there are unsolved issues, she would cry for us during hours, hence our lack of sleep. Usually, she will cry between 15 min to 2h at the beginning of her bed, then, we would decide to feed her again and she would sleep after 10 minutes. But it really gets us tired easily and right now, our patience is like a very thin layer of glass, ready to shatter at all time.

Just a quick clarification, we don't just drop her in her bed, we go to see her every 15 minutes to see if everything is ok, and we lengthen the waiting period each time.

Besides that, Church service, our pastor asked Yukyin to help out at the choir as a pianist, it's very very good, but we won't be able to make it. Yukyin has a bit of concerns when she leave the baby to me... I get quite angry easily at my little piece of cake, so even I would really enjoy giving a helping hand to the Lord, we need to wait a time when the whole family is prepared for it.

At work, this year will be full of new things for me, I have been promoted and will be responsible of few people (at least 2 for the meantime), it's not a huge deal, but my performance will be related to people under my watch and that's something that concerns me a bit more. Anyway, it's all new to me and I'll just pray for help. :)

Ah ah, last thing that got through our mind... the need to have someone at home taking care of our chores, households and a bit of the baby, in two words, getting a maid. I don't really like the idea of having someone at home, but if I am paying somebody hourly paid to do such things, I could also paid a helper full time to do even more. In Hong Kong, it's something quite affordable, but that's not that easy, so we need the Lord's guidance on this one, at the end, if we hire somebody, she will also be part of Myrtille's education. So, let's wait, see and pray. :)

Some few pictures of our squid.

Myrtille and her Strawberries' bits


Mum and me


Hmmm... Phone + Octopus Card = Big Girl


Sunset Time


And some pictures of friends, that I would like to share:

Sweet Smile from Kathy:


Our friends preparing to take off:


And Kendrick Driving His Truck


That's all folks for this ... month. Hope I can get a video uploaded soon.

Starting to see Daylight

Dear Reader,

Last week, Myrtille was one month old! yeepeee, actually, she started to get unmanageable during the night, so we ended up buying her a pacifier... :) A very very useful piece of accessories... to give you an idea of how effective it is... during that week end, we considered that we were at war with our little squid... and we were out of ammo while she was throwing everything she could, from small shriek bullets, to chemical homemade weapons... But after we got the pacifier... haha! we had our newly made nuclear bomb. :) Once we put it in her mouth, she started to get calm. hehehe. It does not work all the time, but when it does, it does a great job.

I also had another aggressive frenzy starting to bad behave with her... when you start to be mean, having her cry and practice her vocal cords in front of you is not the most effective thing to make you calm. So, as she was already crying and I could not figure out what she was doing, a little voice in my mind just told me: "if I don't know why you are crying, then, I'll make you cry, at least I will know why".

Got a major crack down. Yukyin was scared that I would harm her even more. Hopefully, Yukyin is there to fill my love account and teach me how to behave with her. So, after a few moment praying for Lord's help and calmly training, I figured out that I must bow to her needs... meaning that I need to give her what she wants instead of trying to make her live the way I want. So things have changed thanks to Yukyin. However... it does not solve our lack of sleep problems... she is still crying a lot... but we managed to make her sleep a bit more often.

This week end we also had the confirmation of one funny behavior she has. Each time I use our vacuum cleaner, she fall asleep like a rock (I can say that it's my new ultimate weapon... though I cannot use it by night.
Here is the picture 10 minutes I started to clean our home:

You can notice a bit of rash under her neck, we went to see the doctor, she has a cream for it, so no big worries.

That's all folks :)

Being Patient

Dear reader,

How have you been lately? Fine I hope, been a long time I did not write anything. I have been very tired these last days although I think my exhaustion is not comparable to Yukyin's.

Myrtille is growing but she has a few issues appearing now. First, she has a diaper rash. We tried different solutions but none seems to give any results, right now, the only thing we can do is pray that it gets better and change her more oftenly, at least, changing her at the single sound of poop has made things a bit better. She also started to have some acne on the face along with some white spots. Everybody says that it is normal, so we are monitoring it and will seek medical advice at her coming MCH's visit.

Actually, we are getting more and more tired day after day. The lack of sleep I think, that's the worst thing. We still need to wake up at least twice a night, we are longing for a complete night of rest but we know that it won't come anytime soon. Hopefully, by next month or the month after next month, she'll at least let us sleep more than 5 hours in a row.

The problem is that with such a lack of sleep we are getting short tempered and we get easily depress. I started to have a peak of rage last week when I got in a uncontrolled thirst of hitting her and making her feeling pain. I am far from being proud of it, but for those who know me, they should understand how I am exhausted.

But I managed to overcome it, God is with us and I know that he is there to helps us get some sanity in our mind. It gave me an outlook of God's relation with humans. We only know how to cry but God is the one who is taking care of us. Myrtille is the same, she only cries for things and we provide her. God knows what is best for us and I hope I am giving the best to her too.

We always think that God is not listening to us but in fact He is surely preparing us to receive his infinite blessings. That's what in my mind when Myrtille is crying for food, she want it so much that our neighbor at the 1st floor should be able to hear her, but in our side, we need to get ready and get her ready, she need to get changed, Yukyin needs to prepare herself to get confortable so as to breastfeed her correctly, and once she got what she wants, she stays calm until something get her mind busy again. Patience. It's what it takes us to grow correctly. She wasn't born with and thus, we need to teach her to be patient.

Actually, so do us, we need to be patient with her.

I really thank you for your prayers and already owe you a lot, I hope we'll manage to be parents that she can be proud of, for the time being, I take this opportunity to tell my wife how much I love her and once again how much I am proud of her. She suffered and still suffers for our sake, giving her best everyday. Giving her her care, her love, her attention. I owe her a lot, she is doing more than twice the efforts I am doing everyday and my panda eye mask testifies how much I am giving out everyday.

I may sound a bit down, but I know that that's the long and hard path in raising a kid.

Please keep us in our prayers, we still need tons of them.

Week 37: No Bad News Means Thanks to The Lord

Dear Reader

We are week 37, so, we'll be welcoming a new family member very soon. This morning, Yukyin went to the MCH for her weekly check-up. She got an appointment with a doctor directly, no need to go through two nurses this time.

The doctor said that everything is fine, so no need to worry. I like the sounds of this sentence hehehe.

Anyway, everything seems in His Godly hands, so I'll just give Him praises and let us live in His blessings for the moment. Need to remind myself that God is with us in time of turmoil as well as in time of peace.

Glory to Him.

Week 36: in His time.

Dear Reader,

As I mentioned earlier, Yukyin went to the hospital today for a check-up. We spent the whole week thinking about decisions to make, flipping the baby upside down in her belly? c-section? etc.... Anyway, I told Yukyin not to worry about and until this morning, she asked me what to decide if the doctor asked us about this topic. I laid my family to the Lord and pray that He gave us wisdom in taking the right decision after hearing medical advice.

With that in mind, she went to the hospital. She waited... waited... read some ads, waited.. again... Looked at the ceiling... texted me on my phone... waited again...

Finally, a nurse came out to look for her and she saw the doctor. At first, they examined her and said that her belly is downsized and started to worry about the baby being too small. Then, they started the ultrasound scan and were "amazed", Yukyin was a bit nervous because she could not see the screen, but apparently, they were surprised by something... after few minutes checking and checking around Yukyin's navel, they finished the scan, wrote the report in the computer and said that: "Everything's fine"... They were afraid that baby was undersized but apparently, it's spot on the middle of baby's size range for this week.

Yukyin asked if baby has the possibility to turn back up... the doctor said that the head is perfectly sitting comfortably in the middle of her pelvic bone (not sure about the translation here). So, there is no reason for it to come back up. But still, we will pray that Yukyin has a smooth delivery.

Thanks for your prayers, now I can go change a bit our prayers' topic. We really thank Him for His blessings and one thing for sure, we are living her pregnancy in the middle of His care. "No need to worry, I'll be doing My job in My time, just trust Me", that's basically what He is telling us.

Next Hospital check up is programmed in three weeks (week 39 by then). In the meantime, she will return to the Health Care Center for the two coming weeks. We will also cancel this week Private OB appointment... (just save couple of hundreds of dollars :))...

Some Thoughts At Week 35

Dear reader,

Tonight, Yukyin wants to post something here so here we go!


"Dear All,
Tomorrow, I'll be week 35 and everything seems to go smoothly. A lot of excepting mums tell me that from week 32, they start to feel uneasy about their heavy tummy, not being able to sleep correctly, they frequently need to go to the lavatory during the night, her feet start to swell, they start to have frequent cramps, while I don't face any of these problems. Thus, I am quite happy with how things turn out, I can still take time to appreciate the fact that there is a little life inside me which fully depends on me 24h round the clock. I appreciate it so much that I still don't manage to realize that I will deliver in the next few weeks. Maybe, because everything is going so well, I did not realize it yet.

Also, from the beginning, I was told that from week 37, a baby is considered full-term, which means that from this week, the eventual birth of the baby is not considered premature. So I was even more persuaded in my mind that birth was still a distant future event. I completely forgot the possibility of premature birth.

Until lately, a friend of mine gave birth to a 5.2 lbs baby, another friend gave birth at week 30. Given my baby is already more than 5 lbs and that I am already week 35, I realized that.... it can come anytime! But the problem... is that it's still oriented the wrong way, I thought we had time, but due date is approaching and suddenly, I realized that in fact, due date is just a date... I can give birth anytime, even tonight! I started to get worried and nervous. But God and my husband were there and they both helped me found peace in my heart.

I really want to thank my husband because he takes time to think thoroughly about ways to support and comfort me at 3 AM in the night. I also really want to thank God, because I know that He is in control of everything and I am really grateful that He is granting me a very comfortable end of pregnancy.

Actually, I don't know if baby will turn upside down before delivery, but I deeply feel in myself that God helps me understand that He is the One taking care of me, right now, He is telling me that natural delivery or c-section... His way is the best for me.

Yukyin"

I'm Sick, nothing serious... feeling so frustrated

Dear reader,
I think that this will be a short post. Yesterday evening, when I came home from work, I felt that something was wrong behind my nose. At first, I did not give too much thoughts about it, but then, later in the evening, things got worse and worse.. started to have a headache and runny nose.

I went to see the doctor this morning and he diagnosed a simple cold. Apparently, office's air conditioner has been repaired and the tiredness I went through all these weeks finally got me.

So, I took a day off, feeling a bit better but the medication just nailed me down. It's kind of funny how my nose got better, but I am feeling SOOOO exhausted... Need a nap.

Today, I felt very angry, when I went out for the groceries with Heidi, we went to look for some plastic tub, for baby's bath... but in the shop everything was stacked one in front of the other, was a total mess to access the one we were interested in. So, I don't know what happened, but I got angry... so angry... I wanted to throw everything on the ground (which I did) and yell at anything (which I kept myself of doing)... I felt slow and limited in my mind... my reaction time has nearly triple, I am so angry about that state... I really thank God for the patience He entrusted Yukyin for accepting those hard moments of pains.

Now I know how she feels when she is complaining about her pregnancy... the feeling of frustration that she has when her baby prevent her from doing what she wants to do. Sometimes, it's hard to live with. But now, I got to taste the same experience, in a shorter time frame. Thanks God for reminding me this.

Chérie, if you read this message and I know you do, I want to tell you that you are my most precious and that you are doing great as a future mother. I wanted to add that, I am so sorry that you went through my behavior today. Pray that you accept those apologies.

So dear reader, if you have 2 secs, can you please pray for my recovery? That would be much appreciated. This way, I can stand back up and fully take care of Yukyin as she deserves to be.

Thanks

By the way, for an update about her, she is still feeling itchy around some small part on her breast, but far far faaaaarrr away from what she was feeling before. So, we consider this problem to have come to an end. But, baby really got bigger, and it takes more and more room, preventing her to eat too much. If she eats too much, she gets full very quickly and feels pain on the lower ribs.

So, if you have 2 additional seconds, please pray for her

Feeling Down Lately

Dear Reader,

I have been feeling really down lately, sort of depression. First, it does not really work well at work, my project is reaching its "go live" date, and my machine has still several tweaks to go in order to work correctly (I build automated machine for the plastic packaging industry).

Secondly, and it is a bit more serious, Yukyin's itchiness is not going... man, she feels itchy all day long, around the clock. She can't sleep, and we really start getting tired of that situation. We fetched over the internet, and she might have some ICP symptoms (Intrahepatic Cholestasis of Pregnancy), more on that here. It's a kind of illness that happens when the liver is overwhelmed and the reaction is simply itching...

Anyway, she still scratches herself a lot and can't seem to control it, even when she is sleeping... snoring and scratching at the same time. So it's pretty harsh time for us. She wakes up several time through night and consequently wakes me up, cause she can't bear it anymore.

These two things kept ticking in my mind and made me go through a mild depression. My mind was teared off between a feeling of incompetence (can't solve problems at work or at home), being tired (lack of sleep), trying to avoid putting any extra pressure on Heidi (that's the biggest problem in my personality in fact). So I started to lock myself in my mind and start to depress.

We keep praying for these matters, but it seems that a miracle won't happen... and that's not really what we should looking for either... If a miracle was to happen each time I intensively pray for that... God would only be a wish box. I was starting to loose mind and faith. Sometimes, it's so crazy how we fall easily in the Devil's plans...

But in this despair, we could find out God's Love, not through miraculous healing or intelligence (:))... but, we felt a very good support from our sisters and brothers at Church. They kept praying for us, calling us, advising us, recommending us to other friends that went through the same experience. They kept caring for us and that's something we are very grateful, and something we want to give thanks to the Lord, for He has shown us His Love through His children.

Again, let me do a call for prayers, if you have two secs, please pray for us, we need your prayers. Please pray for my ability to do what God appointed me to do and for Yukyin's pregnancy.

Thank You

Happy Easter Holidays! ... and some pictures of Yukyin

Thanks to the Easter Holidays in Hong Kong, we have 4 days off!! :)

Okay, I won't say much today except to remind that Easter is to commemorate the last days of Christ. The last night, He dine with his disciples before being betrayed by Juda, then, He was arrested, condemned and crucified. Three days later, He was resurrect .

If you want to learn more, just go to biblegateway and read one of the four fist books of the New Testament.

As we are in holidays... I went out for a stroll and take some quick portrait of Yukyin, it will give you a face to remember when you pray for her, if you do so:


Close portrait. Sweet smile.


See, she still have a little bump. Her tummy does not grow that much.



For the photography part, the set-up was simple, sun light only, no reflectors, she was sitting on some stairs concrete. She walked a little bit too much, she was exhausted so, we took the time to take a bit of pictures. Simple as that..

Camera used is my trusty Fuji S5 Pro with a Nikkor 35 f2 open widely to have swallow depth of field (more on my gear later when I'll tell you about).

Pray that you enjoyed it.

Christ showed us how to Love

Dear All,

Yukyin just hanged up a call with her mum.

I don't know how to describe the situation, but her mum is a very sad person. She does not receive a lot of support from her husband or should I say that she does not receive any at all. She is lacking love, appreciation, kindness, attention... anyway, what should be standard care from any marriage.

We don't really know what to do, how to help her, the only thing we can try to do is to show her our love between us, and pour some in her life. I don't think that we have the perfect concept of love. But with Christ as our model, I don't think we can grow wrong.

It is written:

"22Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. 23For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. 24Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.

25Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her 26to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, 27and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. 28In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29After all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it, just as Christ does the church— 30for we are members of his body. 31"For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh." 32This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church. 33However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband."

Ephesians 5:22-33

Before my marriage, these words have been complete mystery... :D I really thank Yukyin and the Holy Spirit for showing such patience with me. Explaining this short extract would request too much time that I don't have... and besides, I don't know if I am the right one to do so. But, I can share with you the way I love Yukyin.

As stated, Love is something husband is responsible of giving to his wife, it's not the other way around. I love Yukyin from the bottom of my heart, I am willing to give my life for her as Christ gave His life for me. I am willing to make her holy as Christ made us holy by sacrificing for us. I love her as I love myself. That's pretty much the way I see it, it's pretty funny that God give this commandment to man, as we are quite clumsy when it comes to speak about feelings and emotions. But I assure you that it's not too late, there are ways to learn how to please and love your partner, and for the one that already live a great love, I pray that it continues to be that way and that God bless your marriage.

Wive is to submit herself to the husband. To be honest, at first, I was quite chocked by these words as I was only thinking about submission as a master and slave relation. Man and Woman have been created equals in the eyes of God, how can He use such a word then? In fact, if He can't be wrong, I am the one to be wrong. Submission as stated here is a induced submission (not sure if I sounds English). Yukyin answers to my love by submitting herself to me. I don't get it by force or by any form of wicked manner, I receive and appreciate the joys of her love because at first, I love her. If your husband does not love as you would like him to do, then, maybe that's your requirements that are too high. Learn how to appreciate him.

There is too much things to be said about this topic, too much to be written here, if you are still single, Love is far from easy, so don't spend too much time dreaming about it... :) if you have a partner, I pray that God gives you wings to love each other.

To get back to my mother in law, I want to profit of this post as a call to prayer, I know that there is a lot of people suffering everywhere in this world, but if you have the time, just 20 seconds, I want to ask you to pray for her, God will certainly bless you as you do so.

About our Postnatal helper hunt

Dear All,

Last week, some of you might have seen that we found one, but after an intense thinking, we decided to go and find another one.

In fact, the first sounds to be professional, but she did not look so, long nails etc... for somebody who take care after babies, that was not a good impression. Also, we had a lengthy conversation (at least she did talked a lot), and after some deeper analysis, we were led by her, we were kind of trap into the "can't say no". She is a very nice person, although she seems to brag a lot about herself, about how she loves her job, how she would do anything with perfection, how she cares about her customers, etc..etc...

Anyway, we accepted at first, but we were not given any peace in our hearts. So, we decided to move on and continue our hunt.

Peace of mind is very important and we were recalled by a sister. We called her and that was the first question she asked: "Do you have peace in your heart?" and we knew that we were just lying to ourselves, somehow convincing our minds not to look for other alternative as we run up of patience to find one. But we were all wrong, if we really let this matter down to God, the one that will took care of His baby will present herself/himself, somehow like the nanny found us.

So, Yukyin already met another one (candidate B) on last Tuesday and we'll meet another one (candidate C) coming Tuesday, hope we found someone suitable for the job.

If you have 2 minutes of your time, please pray for us.

Some pieces of news

Dear All,

Just want to share a useful tip, if you are looking for baby stuff... go to Jusco (local Japanese oriented stuff store), they are doing 20% off on baby stuff and you can get 5% off afterward with the Jcard. We save a lot of money this way.

Our baby is dancing disco in Yukyin's tummy! So we finally start to have some sort of communication with him/her. Please pray for his/her health. :)

Nanny Found!

Dear All,

God could not answer our prayers better, the nanny we found lives next door, she is mother of two and have some free time looking over our baby when he/she will born.

Actually, we just started to pray actively for this matter. One day, I met the Mr. Neighbor when I left for work and asked him if he knows anybody that would babysit living around. He answered that somebody living in the 11th floor kept his girl when she was young, but he does not know if it’s still the case.

Few days later (today), her wife push the doorbell and asked Yukyin if she would trust her and presented herself as a plausible nanny! Yukyin was more than happy. In fact, on the first day she met her when we moved in, the idea of having her keeping our future child went through her mind and now, it’s what actually will take place! :)

God really prepared us this place, he prepared my work to be close, he prepared the nanny, he prepared everything in our lives, we are very thankful for all he has done to us.

Dear reader, I pray that God bless more than what you could hope.

Praises to the Lord for His continuous work.