indi + rani = noe | kei

The picture above is the toilet of my new office. I took the picture because I think the signage is unique. Where else in the world could you get a signage forbidding you to put your feet into the washbasin (which is quite a normal practice here, since people need to wash their feet for praying)

"Career doesn't define me. What I do in my life defines me. I am a mother first. A career is one of the many things I do in my life" Michelle Obama

Finally after about 6 months, Kei's birth video is done into a 5 minutes short clip. See here:

As a staunch proponent of breastfeeding, I should be happy when the Makassar Province in Indonesia decided to draft a breastfeeding bill, right?

WRONG! I was ambiguous about it, because from the title of the legislation, it sounds that the bill is aimed towards mothers instead of the public facilities and health workers. The title of the legislation itself sounds vague: "Peraturan Daerah Air Susu Ibu". At a first glance, the title seems to "encourage" (force) mothers to breastfeed their babies... but does it imply that mothers are to be punished for not breastfeeding? It's unclear, but many interprets the law that it puts mothers in a disadvantaged position.

Vague Title, Absent Content

Sorry Mr. Ong, for responding so-very-late to your 123 meme, Indrani have been occupied with things, sick kids, and flying back and forth Singapore-Jakarta. With easter holiday in the horizon, we just found the time to write again.

Indi hasn't been reading books lately, too busy with work, so that leaves me responding to the meme. The meme rules are:

• look up page 123 in the book that is nearest to you at this very minute
• look for the fifth sentence
• then post the three sentences that follow that fifth sentence on page 123.

Here goes:

Following my quick note on Pro Family World, this entry intends to compile blog entries / articles and other references on Pro Family World. This entry will be constantly updated as new references come in. I'm still contemplating on this "pro-family world" issue. But again, agree with Ari-Thalia child rearing is not just a woman's issue, it's a family issue for both men and women (so why do i tag it under "woman" then?).

• The end of work as we know it
• Council On (and Conference Of) Contemporary Families

This writing is to compare two breastfeeding experiences: Noe's first two weeks and Kei's.

Noe: I decided to fully breastfeed my baby because of what international health organization and experts recommends for baby's first six months. But I thought that breastfeeding should be natural and should not be learned. So I made no effort in looking for any information about breastfeeding at all. Despite that, I was really confident that I wouldn't face any difficulty breastfeeding. Later, it turned out that I was too cocky.

I'm back into the real world after two days being confined and pampered in the hospital ;> Now Kei is one week old. Anyway my handsome and caring husband has written the summary of the birth process in the previous entry, and I'll try to write down more details of the birthing experience before I forgot, so here goes. This story will come in several parts: the preparation, the birth story itself, and some afterthoughts. These stories are personal story of mine, and I share it here for my family and friends. And it's gonna be long because I want to dump as much details as possible that I can remember.

Technical (Medical) Preparation