Gracie's first birthday

Hi! I'm Gracie! Deareast princess of my Dade and Mame. I celebrated my first birthday here in Singapore. We were supposed to have a Mcdo party with my twin sister Haelle and Ate Minmin last Sept26 at Market Market but because of Ondoy, Mame had to cancel it. Then I came to Singapore for the first time on Sept 27. Because of family emergency, my Lolo and Lola had to go back home in the Philippines so I am alone with Mame everyday for almost 2 weeks. She was so busy with me that she couldn't plan my birthday but with the great help of my fairy godtitas: Tita Abby, Tita Marix and Tita Nelvie, they were able to pull it through. Also Lola and Lolo came back two days before the party so my Mame was able to concentrate on my birthday. You may be asking about my Dade Lew, of course he helped! He made sure I don't mess up the decorations/preparations. And he paid for all the expenses, Thanks Dade!

See my invitations below, all are unique. Tita Nelvie, Tita Marix, Tita Abby, Tita Nelvie and my Mame worked thru the night and day one weekend to finish all of them. They were sent only 5days before the party but I am so thankful that almost everybody came.

Tita Vanj helped book the function room at Melville Condo. Some of my Titas/Titos: Tita Rain, Tita Weng, Tita Les, Tita Bache, Tito Mau, Tita Anne, Tito Sep, Tita Gladys and Tito Jeff together with my godtitas helped in the preparations and decorated the place. Below are some pix...

There were lots of games in my birthday. There was a candy shower pinata bought by my Tita Rowee with pictures of Tinkerbell and friends. My mame filled it with lots of candy it was half filled! Since my Tito Rommel is the tallest, he held the pinata way up high so everyone can be showered with the candies. My new friends were so thrilled and got all the candies!

There was also a pabitin with lots of treats. It was more exciting! It took only a few minutes before it was finished up.

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Tito Indy greatly helped in entertaining my Titos/Titas and new friends.

My Tita Abby made this beautiful chocolate cake for me.. Yummy!

Here are the pictures of the guests. I really hope they enjoyed the food and the party.

My mame made this beautiful guestbook...

I also enjoyed giving away the tokens...

Here are my closeups...

My mame printed my picture in magnets and gave it as a thank you token..

Here is when I opened my gifts...

I want to thank everyone who came and my titos/titas/lolo and lola who helped. It was really a fun day.

just a quick share

Pre, Abby, Marix and I scrapped this weekend. I'm happy to be scrapping with friends again, although I dd the least among us since I was not in a scrappy mood. And I didn't get to take pix of what I did because I was sleeping the whole day today hehe. I promise to post them soon, for the meantime I just want to share some new pics of my twin nieces. Aren't they adorable?

Happy bday Bache!

Made this for my good friend Bache.

All about cute#1

Our dear friend Beth aka Cute#1 is leaving soon and we threw a surprise despedida party for her alongside our Scrappersatsg anniversary celebration.

The party was all about Beth. Her housemates helped with the food. Abby made these yummy treats.


Sookie prepared all these fun games such as 'Pin the prima on cute#1', 'Pass the packages and do a treat/dare' and scrapbook charade. We had a photo shoot with Beth and scrapped it. Here are what I made for her.



I also made this ATC for her.

This happy gal is so talented that we will surely miss the decorations/invitations/giveaways she makes. Bye Beth, stay happy!

Agatha's 2nd bday party

Here is another gift for a cute kid. The party was held at Jollibbee in the Philippines.

Gelai's 7th bday

Gelai's 7th bday was a blast. Although it has been raining the whole afternoon, many people still came. Everything from the decorations, cakes, food and games were all perfect. Abby baked these yummy goodies, 7 butterfly cakes and 4 tier muffins. They tasted good!

Jessica's Christening

We attended Jessica's Christening last Saturday at St Theresa's church. I gave her a cute bathing suit and matching towels and this guestbook.

Seeing double

Do these 2 babies look alike? Yes, they do! That's because they are twins! They are my new nieces, 6 months old. Their names, Mari Haelle and Gracie Mari, are based on the prayer 'Hail Mary, full of Grace'. I haven't seen them yet but oddly I seem to miss them.

Mama left

My mom went home to the Philippines last Saturday after taking care of us for 3 months. She still doesn't want to go but she truly misses her precious granddaughter Gracie Mari. Who wouldn't miss this cutie?


She celebrated her 60th birthday here. We surprised her with a birthday cake made by Abby. I made this for her and she really liked it.




Also, here is an acrylic for Aying's kids.

Just a quick share of a layout I did for an officemate. I know I had been AWOL for a while, did some projects but were not able to take some pix.

Finally settled in

It seems everyone is flocking to Sengkang area. Even sister Marix is also making the big move this coming weekend. Yeheey! She will be closer to us, Pre and Abby, which means more time to scrap on weekends.

As for us, after 2 weeks of gruesome packing and unpacking, cleaning and more cleaning, throwing away and acquiring new furnitures, deciding where to put things and having everything in place, we are finally settled in the new house. The internet connection and phones were only activated today but we still don't have cable tv(i miss my Disney channel and TFC hehe)

My scraproom became a scrapcorner in the living room with most of my things tucked in other cabinets inside our bedroom so it won't look so cluttered. Here are some pix of the place...

Ethan's digital book

I finally made these for my inaanak Ethan, his 1st bday celeb. Btw, he's 3 1/2 yrs old now haha.

BFN

These past 4 months have been a roller coaster ride for us. Starting from the diagnosis of my uterus/ovarian problems, followed by surgery. Then Dr told us that my tubes are no longer usable so we decided to go for IVF. Then we found out that IVF involves lots of self injection so there goes my fear of needles. Almost every other day I had to go for consultation, tests, ultrasound or injections. I was pumping too much meds into my system which causes so many side effects. With Lew's sperm test, we were classified as an ICSI case. After 2 weeks of stimulation, we were able to collect only 4 eggs. At least we had 4! From those 4, only 2 were fertilized. At least we had 2! Then we waited for them to implant. It was the longest 2weeks of my life. And today, our IVF journey ends, with a BFN = Big Fat NEGATIVE. I cried a lot, and a lot, and a lot more.

We were really hoping and praying for this to work. But I guess God has other plans for us.

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference.

My best friend, Aying, sent me these flowers to cheer me up. I was so surprised when they came, thanks beh, labyu!

And a big Thank you, for my family and friends, for your SMS, prayers and support. We have not yet decided if we will go thru another cycle, but right now, I still need to wallow.

3 days to go

It's holiday here in Singapore, till tomorrow, for the Lunar New Year celebrations. Malls and supermarkets are all closed. Mama, Pre, Abby and Tales went on a whole day cruise. As for me and Lew, it's our do-nothing-day.

We are very excited as the days are getting near for our blood pregnancy test. Thursday is the big day! I wanted to buy a pregnancy test kit so I could check ahead but the nurse advised us not to. She said it will definitely test as positive since the meds I've been pumping to my system contains dosages of HCG. Some friends are asking me if I'm pregnant already, I told them I don't know. How do you feel pregnant anyway? I've read so many books but I don't feel anything mentioned on the books that I read. But that doesn't let me down. Even the mad rash that has developed on my face maybe caused by the hormones I have been taking. It is very veeerrrryyy itchy. I hope it's nothing serious though.

I finally finished the HOPE entry for Scrappersatsg. Here it is..



For all of you, may you have a more productive day than mine.

I forgot to post these

Some more gifts for friends and inaanak.

About addictions and awards

Thanks to Marix for below awards:



Mention 5 addictions and pass on the award to 5 other fab blogs!

1. Disney Channel
2. Cooking and cookbooks and cooking channels
3. Japanese food
4. Hoarding scrapbook suplies
5. Photoshop Elements 7

my past addictions were
1. coffee- not anymore as it contributes to my insomnia
2. sylvanian families houses- i have collected 5 houses fully furnished, all now in the store room
3. minihouses figurines- now at my mom's house in the philippines
4. dog stuffed toys and figurines
5. photography

And now I pass on the awards to:
Sookie
Pre
Ate Rowee
Jen
Abby

Day 4

It's been 4days since the embryo transfer. I was on bed rest for most of these days but couldn't fight the urge to work yesterday. Don't get me wrong, I am not a workaholic, I just know that work has already piled up and my boss needs a lot of help. So I did work, in the comfort of our living room but NO PAY.

Anyway, I had another Pregnyl jab this morning. Lew is getting used to this. The Pregnyl is more complicated because you have to mix 2 separate vials of liquid and powder meds. Two set of needles. Previously, I faint at the mere sight of syringe ( I did twice before in a clinic), but I'm used to it now. And the bloatedness makes me very uncomfortable. Well, I can handle anything for my babies. Naks!

I want to share to you their first picture...

not sure if i already posted this

IVF/ICSI

What Is IVF?

In-Vitro Fertilisation (IVF) involves putting the eggs and sperms together. By natural selection, the egg will usually allow only one sperm to enter and this usually leads to the fertilisation process in the laboratory. After fertilisation, the embryos are allowed to grow for a short period of time before being placed into the uterus. A successful pregnancy can be confirmed about 2 weeks later.

What Is ICSI?

Intra-Cytoplasmic Sperm Injection (ICSI) involves injecting a single sperm into each egg to allow fertilisation to occur in the laboratory.



- Controlled Ovarian Hyperstimulation and Monitoring
Every morning, Lew has been injecting me with Gonadotrophin just below my belly button for a week to stimulate the growth of the follicles in the ovaries. After 7days, an ultrasound scan is performed to determine the number and size of the growing follicles. They only found 6 small follicles so they asked me to continue with Gonadotrophin for 2 more days. After another ultrasound, no additional follicles but existing ones grew a bit. After another day of Gonadotrophin, two new grew and the 6ones reached the desired size. Finally the doctor said that we're ready so an injection of HCG is given and gonadotrophin was discontinued. The HCG is required for the final maturation of eggs before the egg collection. The egg collection is scheduled about 36 hours after the HCG injection.

- Egg Collection (Oocyte Pick Up)
This morning, I went for egg collection. The eggs are collected through a special needle attached to an ultrasound probe. I was under sedative during the procedure. Dr Loh was able to extract 3 eggs. During recovery, I was hooked to a blood pressure monitor and every 15 minutes, the nurse checks on me. We went home after a while, with some pain at my lower abdomen.

- ICSI
ICSI is performed on the day of oocyte pick-up. During the procedure, a single sperm will be injected into each egg via a microneedle. So from now til tomorrow, we are praying that fertilisation will occur so we will have embryo transfer on Monday.

- Embryo Transfer
Jan12: We came back at KKIVF for the embryo transfer today. Dr Loh informed us that only 2 eggs have developed into embryos from the 4eggs that were retrieved last Saturday. The procedure was quite fast, with Lew watching. We got to see the embryos n the screen before it was transfered. We even had a picture, one is already divided into 4 and the other one was faster as you cannot count the divisions anymore. Both were re-placed back to my uterus guided by ultrasound. The nurse was kind and she let us stay for a while. I was so afraid to walk or move around. Then Lew purchased some more medicines and injections(again!). I got to take more injections so the embryos will have a higher chance of implanting. They also gave us the form for the insurance plan that we were required to take. They said it is mandatory to get insurance for each embryo transfer since some babies born under IVF had complications. If ever the pregnancy didn't go through, your money is already lost. And the more embryo transfered, the higher the insurance. We went home, and Lew instructed me to just stay in bed for at least 6hours so I obliged.



- Next stop, pregnancy test.. on January 29!

***Pictures and some text were taken from KK Hospital website.