Two things :

1. I have moved this blog to :

 www.MamaLim.WordPress.com

and to subscribe to email alerts when the latest posts are up, please click on this link :

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2. While I have not moved Building Up Moms, it's URL has changed to :

www.BuildingUpMoms.WordPress.com

and to subscribe to email alerts for this blog, please click on this link :

Subscribe to Building Up Moms by Email

 

Sorry for all the inconvenience!

As promised  I have moved Building An Ark in Singapore over to WordPress. The new url is :

http://www.mamalim.wordpress.com.

I had decided to switch over to WordPress as it had more features than HomeschoolBlogger especially for someone computer illiterate like me! HomeschoolBlogger is great for someone who knows all those HTML codes and then they are able to tweak things around and personalise their own blogs. Now I ain't computer savvy and yet want a blog that looks like MINE and mine only!  Besides, Building Up Moms (www.BuildingUpMoms.WordPress.com) is also hosted there so it makes things a little bit easier for me.

Do not that I am only transferring some posts over. So if you are looking for past postings, you'l l have to continue to check it out at www.HomeSchoolBlogger.com/MamaLim.

And remember to Subscribe to Building An Ark in Singapore by Email if you want to be kept updated of new postings!

PS : For those of you who have kindly put me under your blogroll and/or links, could you please help me amend the url? Thanks sooooo much!

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Articles for the Christian SAHM can be found at :

www.BuildingUpMoms.WordPress.com

The year draws to a close tonight and we'll see 2009 in the morning.

What will it bring I wonder? When it was drawing to a close, I thought it would never come fast enough, especially since I really wanted it to be March 2009 to be able to birth the baby!  But then as the year edged closer and closer to its end, I started feeling a sense of dread.

I guess knowing the work ahead of me is making me feel a little less than enthusiastic about 2009.  Even apprehensive even, if I may add.

Dealing with a newborn, being even more sleep deprived than I already am, homeschooling 5 children, 11, 9, 7, 6 and 4 with ds #1 going officially into P5 (one more year and then we hit PSLE!), more household chores to be done/supervised with one more addition to the family, small as she may be, etc, etc, etc... Just thinking about it is making my stomach churn!

And this is with me being more prepared than I have ever been at the end of any year since we started homeschooling (having set up my DIY Planner, Homeschooling Planner, et al). I am still feeling a little low. I guess being tired out from the bout of food poisoning is not helping. Physical exhaustion is not fun  Everything seems overwhelming when one is tired.

I know I need to go back to the Lord and start putting Him first rather than focusing on all the stuff I need to do in 2009. But easier said than done I must say!!!

But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble. Matt 6:33-34

 Have a Blessed New Year ahead and may you be less stressed than I am! Lol!

PS : I will most likely be shifting this blog to WordPress.com for easier monitoring since Building Up Moms is also hosted there. Keep a lookout for the announcement when I finally muster up enough eneergy to set it all up.

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Articles for the Christian SAHM can be found at :

www.BuildingUpMoms.com

Man, oh man. Was it baaad! On Saturday, 27th December, I had te worst bout of food poisoning ever in my life! The thing is I don't even know what I ate that caused it since I was the only one (thank God!) that had the attack. Everyone else was fine and we (the whole family and friends) ate the same spread of food at both lunch and dinner parties!

I was throwing up and purging from about 10pm (after dinner) and cramping up real bad. I threw up til I had nothing to throw up anymore. (Moms with bad morning sickness in pregnancy - I salute you! I certainly can't/don't want to imagine how it is like to throw up in the 1st trimester, or worse still, the whole 9 months!).

This went on till past midnight. I thought I could sleep it off since I was extremely sleepy and fell aslpee inbetween tht ebouts of vomitting/purging. But no, it didn't let up at all. I was actually in a fix. I knew then I had to get myself to a dr for the jab to stop the vomitting but how??? I can't possibly drive there on my own. And I can't get all the children up just so I can go to the dr.

And then as I was praying and praying, the Lord impressed upon me to call my dad. So I did. And I prayed that his phone was turned on! Thank God for him. Immediately he agreed to drive over. I got him to drive me to the nearest 24 hour clinic at Mount Alvernia Hospital while dh stayed on to watch over the children just in case any of them should wake up in the middle of the night.

Thank God I was the only patient there and was seen by the dr almost immediately. I asked for the jab as I knew from past experience that it provides the most immediate relief to vomitting. There was no point giving me medication orally as I would throw it up in the next 5 to 10 minutes!

Then we headed home and I slept for the next 3 hours straight through! But I had to wake up to drink something as I was feeling extremely dehydrated. But drinking the much needed water caused me to have to get up and visit the toilet

The next day (Sunday) dh and ds had to forgo serving as dh had to watch over the children while I crashed out the whole morning. Thankfully, my parents could come over in the afternoon while dh had to go speak at a Youth Church Camp in Sentosa!

Today (Monday) I am feeling much better but still weak overall and aching all over. Dh's off again to speak at the Camp this morning and then again tonight.

I pray I have anough energy to last! What an adventure.

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Articles for the Christian SAHM can be found at :

www.BuildingUpMoms.com

 

 

I have been trawling the net for unplanned, unassisted birth stories (I'll tell you why in a moment). And I have been struck by the amount of stories and videos I have found. They are awesome. The ladies are very brave to put up their birthing videos on the net! I learnt a lot from just watching but yikes! I certainly wouldn't want to post me birthing my babies for the whole world to see. Kudos to these moms!

BUT

Why, oh why are they all the stories tinged with new age elements? Stuff like hypnobirthing, calling the placenta "mother placenta" (?!), and even orgasmic birthing?!?!?!?! Oh me, oh my!

I find it so sad that a strictly Christian perspective is so lacking. The only one I have found is Christian UC but even then..............

In the stories I have read, the ladies have experienced birth the way our God has intended but instead of giving glory to Him, they are acknowledging another god, another force. It shouldn't be this way. It is God who created our bodies to bear and to birth and to nurse the babies He has blessed us with. If we work with His design and not in fear, we should all be able to experience a natural, if not a supernatural and painfree birth.

But sadly most women, even Christian women, do not experience birth that way. Instead labour and birth are viewed with dread and terror, something to be gotten over and done with so that we can get to hold the baby.

It need not be that way. Really. Do read my birth stories and I pray you'll be blessed by them. I cannot go through this detailed teaching in a single posting (that's why we hold Experiencing God In Pregnancy talks) but there are 2 main things :

a) In the spiritual, believe that you have been redeemed from the curse and 

b) In the practical, read and prepare yourself to know what and how natural labour and delivery should be. A good book to start you off is Supernatural Childbirth.

Why search for unplanned, unassisted birth stories?

And if you are wondering WHY I am looking for unplanned, unassisted birth stories...well, if you read my last Birth Story, you'd know that the baby came real fast once labour was established. I just want to be prepared should we be unable to make it in time for the hospital thsi time round. I know 2 ladies who had their babies at home due to the speed at which the babies decided to make their appearances. I do not have a doula so I need to be prepared myself. And also to prepare dh should he be required to catch the baby .

My sil (dh's sister) who had planned a homebirth for her 3rd baby (in the UK) had to summon her dh to catch the baby coz the baby just decided to come out real fast. The midwives came only about 10 minutes after everything was completed. So, one never knows. And I'd rather be prepared than to be an ostrich and say it'd never happen to me.

And no, I would not want to check myself into the hospital early at all! It is just not comfortable. Period. I like labouring at home with absolutely no pressure and I prefer being away from the other children as little as possible.

How about just have a homebirth? Well, my dr is not for it. I asked him twice before  And I am not about to fight him about it. So my grand plan is to have the baby at the hospital but to be prepared just in case. Although it would really be nice to have the baby in the calmness of our home, Hmm............

Pray with me "not my will but His be done"!

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Articles for the Christian SAHM can be found at :

www.BuildingUpMoms.com