About Aariz

In the NICU,the rooms are categorised according to severity of the diagnosis, new cases are first sent to Room 1 0r 2 then when patient is stable, they are sent to room 3 or 4 and finally to Room 5 where the main objective is for the babies to gain weight.

Aariz was first sent to room1 then less than a week to room 3 and a few days in Room 4 because room 3 was too packed. Most days of his stay in NICU were spent in Room 5. After being discharged from room 5, patients are sent to SCN i.e. Special Care Nursery before completely being released from the hospital.

Thus when Aariz was proceed to Room 5, we were so eager for SCN and thought it was a matter of a very few days but we were all wrong. Aariz weight was up and down and that was a bit frustrating , reason is unknown, but the nurses did mention he used extra energy in crying which his is more frequent than others, and from sucking the soother. Since he is exclusively fed with breastmilk, i think that contributes for the slow progress in weight gain as well. If i count it correctly Aariz was in Room 5 for more than a month, on Feb 5th- a saturday , during our morning visit the nurse told us that Aariz would be released to SCN....it actually happened when we least expected it--life is like that sometimes, right? another blessing!

Abah helped to push the cot from NICU to SCN...in the plastic bag were Aariz's stock of breastmilk..yummyyyy.

On Sunday Feb6th, mummy was allowed to stay with Aariz. I was overwhelmed, knowing that next destination would be home, this is something ive been looking forward!

My first picture of Aariz....that very nite i busied myself by sending mms to family and close friends....God, I love this boy to bits and pieces

During his first few days in the incubator (during his stay in NICU), Aariz was not clothed except for the diapers. Once he was shifted to the cot, he was dressed in pink hospital gown. The gown is such a sore to the eyes...it was not ironed and bright pink - boys in pink gown ? who would have agreed?

Aariz was all prepared for his first nite with mummy!

On Feb9th he was put on the scale again and having fed him on demand since the day we stayed together, the weight has increased from 1.722kg to 1.832kg, an increase of 110grams and that was a record on its own!

He hits the 1.8kg requirement and that was the ticket for home....

Finally, the very next day Feb 10th Aariz was discharged from Hospital Tengku Ampuan Afzan Kuantan for good. Words cant describe my appreciation to all the doctors, the specialist: Dr Chan, Dr Chin, Dr Farah and Dr Sumitra, other doctors-to name a few -Dr Huda, Dr Nurul, Dr Murni and of course all the nurses, who fed my son, who changed his diapers , who hold him closed when he cried just for a simple hug....Thank you so much!

First few photos at home:

Abang Adib with his younger brother.............

The 3 older boys have shown great affection towards our precious one and their gestures have really touched my heart...

My boys and not to be forgotten their dearest Abah are really my love and joy in this life i have.

Aariz is home!

After 60 days of the longest waiting ever, we were allowed to take Aariz home. The whole thing was such an experience , from the pregnancy, the labour and the 60 days after delivery. Aariz was hospitalised in NICU (neo natal intensive care unit) from day of birth for being a premie and unfortunately at 31 weeks with 1.1kg weight, our precious one is grouped as a low weight baby. Not that I know that there are various complications which may come along with having pre mature baby until we have this experience with Aariz. Aariz suffered a few complications himself but thank Allah, he's a strong baby and to date has managed to come out clean - no wonder people referred premie as "survivors" - i totally agree with that!

For the past 60 days, we never known what to expect every single day, when we entered the NICU. We even reached to a point when we decided that we just have to stop asking questions about the complications and leave them to Allah who knows best. There were mixed feelings really, as much as we wanted to bring him home , we also wanted him to undergo best treatment for him to be healthier and bigger! Every little progress is a huge blessing. It is just amazing how a simple ability to normal human like oral feeding can be such a great development!!

There's a lot of tears streaming during this whole period..for mummy especially but I know Abah have just the same amount if we can see what goes inside him....on that note we are so blessed to have each other.

That devastating period is over when Aariz was discharged yesterday (Feb10th) i.e.3 days before his second month birthday and 2 days before his actual due date (feb12th). Of course a close monitoring is essential but i believe that applies to all new borns and children as a whole....after all, they are entrusted to us.

After almost 2 months , the older brothers finally met Aariz for the first time and our family completes again under one roof~

To our dearest precious miracle baby Ahmad Aariz , welcome home and we've been missing u so much!

Kenduri Tok Ibu

We were in Pekan last weekend to celebrate Abang Long's marriage. It was a three days affair...the akad on day 1,

*************The sleepy Mat Dib***************

next day the bride's kenduri,

************Along with his favourite Tok Mimah*******************

and ended with Tok Ibu's kenduri on the third day.

It was drizzling all the way through out the 3 days...and the malays believe it's a good sign as it reflects the future of the bride and groom which will be "cool", "cooling" or "sejuk" not "cold" of course!!

To Abang Long and wife....congratulations, do commit to the binding and till death do you part.

Iana Sofea, Uncle Boy's fifth child

Iana Sofea is the latest addition to the boys' increasing list of cousins. She arrived on "schedule" but with a different fate...she supposed to be an older sister to Aariz but now Aariz is 1 month older than her...he..he..he..

We are yet to visit this little princess but we sure want to welcome her into the family.

Isnt she a cutie?.....with the adorable Iris or Miss Dora!

Adib is now in Standard One

Adib has been waiting since forever to enrol himself into SKIM. He even initially told me that we dont have to send him to school as he can just find his way to his class by asking any one of the teachers. Therefore, we have no problem at all sending him to primary school, not that we face any difficulties with the other older brothers.

These pictures were taken before all of us accompanied Adib for his orientation. See how excited he was.

During recess, I requested bibik to check on him...just to look from a distance if he able to buy what he wanted. He has been doing very well for the past 3 days.

Today, he actually asked me to come instead of Bibik...and the conversation were as below:

Adib: Mummy nanti datang masa rehat ya

Mummy: Mummy pakai kain batik leceh lah nak salin

***I was actually wearing my jeans as I just came back from the hospital**

Adib: tu mummy pakai jeans kan

Mummy: Ni sebab nak gi hospital, terpaksa lah pakai jeans

Adib: Pergi sekolah pun boleh jugak terpaksa pakai jeans. Kat sekolah ada ramai mak mak datang masa rehat dan ada SORANG BIBIK.

Mummy: Bibik sapa?

Adib: Bibik kite lahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

There you go.. our Mat Dib--

To Abang Chik, we wish you success......and BUAT HOMEWORK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The arrival of my youngest son, Ahmad Aariz

Finally our most awaited youngest son-Ahmad Aariz was safely delivered on Monday Dec13, 2010 at 2.52pm /6 muharam 1432. He is a premie, early by 9 weeks. All the boys' deliveries have their own special story/elements...like Along was delivered by caesarian for slow progress, Angah was induced for being 2 weeks late, then Abang Chik with umblical cords twirled around his body and our precious little Aariz was borned prematurely via emergency caesarian at week 31 of pregnancy.

It all started on Sunday Dec12th when i experienced regular contractions for every hour from as early as 5am---however, only at 7pm, i called my gynae and he asked me to go to the hospital.
After dinner, we went to the hospital, i was immediately strapped on CTG to check on the contractions and the baby's heartbeat. CTG showed that the contractions are really "hard contractions" , however the graph on the baby's heartbeats was not showing a good pattern, they were rather low and it went downwards when there was a contraction. That was when the doctor decided that he may need to prepare me for early delivery, so that nite i was admitted-- they gave me pills to stop the contractions and a jab for baby's lungs .

That nite, I still felt the hourly contractions, and in the morning CTG still showed a failing heartbeat. It was about noon when Doctor Khaled examined me and found out that my cervix was 2.5cm dilated-that was the moment of truth---it was then decided that i need to be sent to the General Hospital for emergency premature delivery (subjected to the GH specialist's opinion of course) - KSH do not do premature delivery less than 36 weeks.

Upon arrival at HTAA I was given a thorough check from the cervix, blood check, CTG, scan etc and finaly the specialist made her decision that i have to undergo an emergency caesarian....
i was scared ...really really scared -- i was scared thinking about Aariz and of course the operations. Felt like a blink, i was then wheeled to the operations theatre and unlike in the UK's GH, here in Malaysia husband is not allowed in the operation theatre :(

I was put on local anaesthetic, thus widely awake during the whole process but my whole body was trembling for some reason. At 2.52pm, i could feel something was detached from me, and the anaes told me that Aariz was out..safely delivered and like Abang Cik, there was no cries and that put me in another traumatic situation...I repeatedly asked the Anaes if my baby was ok and why there was no cries---and after a few seconds, i heard Aariz's first cry and god knows, that was the most soothing and calming sound i ever heard in my whole life.

Aariz only weighted 1.12kg at birth. He is very very very small. At this very moment , he is still in the hospital...progressing well and insyallah in a stable situation. We visit him daily and Abang Chik has been asking endlessly " bila Aariz nak balik rumah".....

All of us are patiently waiting for the day to bring home our precious one....We pray to Allah hoping for the day to come very soon and of course for his well being...Amin.

The Boys with Misha

These pictures were taken during our last month trip down to KL.

The friendship is basically an extension of our - the parents' -long relationship from A level to Uni until this very moment and insyallah to akhir hayat...

For some reasons , they are able to click well eventhough we dont really meet up that often...

Just ignore this little boy....