I'm a full-time mummy

Sigh, ever since we found out we are expecting our third child in October this year, we have cut down a lot of family trips to our current health club. We used to go there few times a month, to swim with our kiddos and just let them enjoy the children pool and let our kiddos float and practise their swimming in the adult pool with hubby guiding them. Me? Mostly I just stepped into the pool to enjoy the cool water as I do not know how to swim, but that does not stop me at all from entering the water despite my fear and not knowing how to swim.

But I can't squeeze into my swimwear anymore. So the few times that we do go to a swimming pool, I ended up sitting, resting with a book or my iPad mini and look after our belongings at the table and just let my hubby enjoy with our kiddos in the pool. But there are times I wished I could join my family in the swimming pool. Enjoy the cool water and just float around.

I have been searching for a comfortable and flexible swimwear that caters for maternity purposes but not able to find the right ones. Most of the retail shops here sell normal swimwear which caters for non-pregnant woman. Sigh, sigh, sigh... I wished the retail shops here could stock up more choices of maternity swimwear! Something that looks like this:

I am pretty conservative hence bikinis are a no-no for me at this pregnant stage, so a swimsuit with design like the above suits me well! I like the V-neck design as that allows me to still comfort nurse our 22 months old girl (yes, I am pregnant and yes, I still breastfeed our child). I like the ruched sides pattern on this swimwear as well and it also grows as your belly grows! Love this design!

What about you? What do you look for in a maternity swimwear?

** Disclosure: This is a sponsored post. All thoughts, opinions and words are 100 % my own.

Just sharing some snapshots of a brochure on taking medicines while fasting I got from the hospital during my recent pregnancy check-up. Well, I'm a Christian and I have never fasted so am not able to comment anything on this other than just sharing for information and knowledge purposes since July is a fasting month.

Please note that the brochures are in Malay language, so I will try my best to translate it to my best understanding... hope I got it right and did not leave out any vital information...

Below snapshot showing the type of medicines which will not void your fasting: Medicines such as eye drops, nose or ear drops (provided not extending to ear drums), tablets to be placed under tongue and as long as you don't swallow them, all forms on injections, ointments and plaster, gargle medicine, nasal sprays, and local or half body anesthesia forms of medicines.

Below snapshot showing the type of medicines which will void your fasting: Pills (as you need to swallow them), liquid medicines that you will need to drink/swallow, inhaler, medicines which you will need to insert vaginally, suppositories, enema, whole body anesthesia form of medicines.

Hope the above helps! Happy fasting to my fellow Muslim followers!

I mentioned in my previous post on my third pregnancy at month 6 post that I had a bit high glucose reading (8.5mol when normal range should be 6-7mol) and after texting my gynae, he adviced me to do a self-blood sugar test and to report back the results to him before he determines the next step of actions for me. Hence, this post is to share with you how to do self-monitoring of blood glucose.

Firstly, you will need to get the following items from your local pharmacy:

- Sterile lancets (needle to prick your finger to extract small amount of blood for the testing)

- Alcohol swabs

- Glucometer

- Test strips (where you drip your blood onto the strip to get reading from the glucometer)

Picture below showing you all the items required to perform your self-monitoring of blood glucose:

Now here's the steps to perform your self-monitoring of blood glucose:

Step 1: Get ready to insert the test strip into the glucometer. Glucometer will automatically turned on when test strip inserted completely. At this moment, I did not slide in the test strip completely as I take some time to gather courage to prick my finger do the blood test.

Step 2: Ensure test strip is adjusted into the glucometer properly so that you can straight away push it in when you are ready to smear your blood onto the test strip.

Step 3: Open up the cover of the lancing device. Insert a sterile lancet into the lancing device. Just twist clockwise/anticlockwise to separate out the needle from the protective head of the lancet.

Step 4: You can adjust your level of how deep you want your finger to be prick. Mine is 6 as anything below doesn't even poke through my skin. Do note that the higher the number, the deeper the needle will poke into your skin. Close back the cover of the lancing device.

Step 5: Get ready an alcohol swab and rub the finger you want to prick. Let the alcohol on your finger dry first as it may affect the glucose values shown by the meter. Adjust the lancing device on top of the finger to prick and press the trigger for the needle to prick your finger.

Step 6: Push in the test strip, wait for the sign on the glucometer to indicate it is ready to read your blood test. Draw enough blood so that you can smear some onto the test strip. Wait for 5 seconds for your results to be shown on the glucometer screen. Do remember to use back the alcohol swab to stop the bleeding. You're done!

Some tips I got from the Internet:

- Don’t prick the same finger in the same area- keep on changing the places for pricks- this prevents the pain or infection which may happen if the same finger is needled all the time.

- If you use alcohol swabs to wipe the skin before pricks let it dry completely as alcohol itself is a reducing agent and may affect the values shown by the strip.

- When the oozing droplet is not sufficient increase the number on the dial of the lancing pen – or if you are pricking the finger manually, prick deeper - alternately change the place of pricks.

- Do not recycle the lancets, alcohol swabs or test strip. Use once and discard after use!

So there you go, hope I didn't miss out any information and thank you for reading!