Bodacious Blog

Definition of Bodacious is OUTSTANDING!

I am so surprised to received this BODACIOUS award from Ling.

Thanks for the award, ling! I know my blog is not "that" outstanding compared to others and sad to say, it is getting boring due to the lack of updating. :p Thanks again for keeping me in your thoughts!

I would like to pass this award to

Chronicles of a mother (LILY ANN)
De' Moment (CHINNEEQ)
Fatty Poh's Koptiam (FIREHORSE)
Growing Up Together (LING)
Grandmother Stories (JUDY)
Happy Family (SYLVIA)
Health Freak Mommy
Mom.Dad.Chat (TOT'S MOM)
Musing of a Stay At Home Mum
My All (HELEN)
My Longkang (BENGBENG)
Shower Your Children With Love (J0-N)
Void Sky (ADRIAN)
Wrong Side of Thrity

Some of them might have received the award but I want you guys to know, your blogs are Bodacious to me!!!

TTC#2- 2 Slowing Down

Just received a call from J. He called the biologist and was told that 2 out of 8 embryos were slowing down but still developing. According to the biologist,6 embryos are developing well and have high chance to go into Blastocyst stage. However, they reminded us again that we might also have none of the embryos left to transfer if we choose to wait.

All we can do is to pray and hope that most of them will be cultured to blastocyst Stage now!

Fingercrossed!

TTC#2 - 8 Out of 9

We called back the biologist yesterday and were told that 8 out of 9 eggs were fertilised. We told them that we wanted to transfer only ONE egg and hope that it will be cultured at Blastocyst stage. .

Blastocyst Development
By definition, a blastocyst is an embryo that has divided into hundreds of cells and is composed of two parts. The outer sphere of the blastocyst is called the trophoblast. The inner portion of the blastocyst is filled with fluid. Inside the trophoblast, there is a clump of cells called the inner cell mass. The inner cell mass is the portion of the blastocyst that actually becomes the baby.

Blastocyst Transfer
Only a small percentage of embryos will reach the blastocyst stage. This self selection of the embryos allows the embryologist to pick the embryos that are most likely to produce a pregnancy. When transferrring blastocysts, it is not necessary to transfer as many embryos to maintain a high pregnancy rate. This reduces the risk of multiple pregnancy and therefore increases the chances for a couple to have a live born healthy baby.Many experts believe there is another reason for the higher pregnancy rates seen with blastocyst transfer. In a normal "in-vivo" (in the body) conception, the embryo does not reach the uterus until the blastocyst stage. If we were to place an embryo into the uterus at the 8-cell stage (after only three days of embryo culture, it is deviating from the normal body processes. That is, the 8 cell embryo does not belong in the uterus at that time. Transferring the embryos at the blastocyst stage is more "physiologic".


By choosing to have embryo culture to Blastocyst Stage, we risk to have none of the embryos survive as well. I do not want to transfer a 3 days embryos and get a negative nor I want to have 2 embyros transfer to get a twins. If none survive, I just need to go thru everything again but if kenna twins, its for life. It's not easy to raise a child in this world now with the higher living standard and competition. After weighing the pros and cons, we decided to take the risk!

TTC#2 - Retrieval Day

We reached the hospital at about 7am on Monday. J went to do the pre-admission for me and provided his semen specimen while I waited in the car with our sleeping baby. When everything was done, I went in to wait for my turn to do the Egg Retrieval.

Finally, I was called in about 15 minutes later and was asked to change into their provided clothes. Then the General Anesthesia started to knock me out. While I was still thinking why I was still awake, I was knocked out. hehehe

After awhile, I was woke up by few ppl and was pushed into the recovery room to rest. After some monitoring, I was pushed to the ward to rest. Then J and Shannon came in and we stayed till about 1130am and was allowed to go home. Ohya, we were told that 9 eggs were retrieved!

The cramping was kind of bad but still bearable. I felt that my tummy was really heavy to carry around. I think lots of air were created during the retrieval. I took some pain relieve medicine and rested the whole day.

TTC#2- HCG Injection

Had my last Gonal F injection on Friday and HCG injection last night. We did the HCG injection in a car as we are having dinner with our friends. Crazy right? hehehehe

The hCG trigger injection is one of the most critical parts of the IVF medication protocol. After the eggs have been stimulated to grow and develop, the hCG trigger is the final medication given before the egg retrieval. The hCG trigger has several functions:

-Induce final maturation of the eggs
-Cause the resumption of meiosis
-Loosen the egg's attachment from the follicle wall
-Allow for the timing of the egg retrieval

Now my eggs are "boiling" and will be "cooked" to be retrieve tomorrow morning. I hope that the Anesthesia had been booked by the secretary of Dr. Emperaire. ;p

As of last Friday, I have got 13 eggs on both of my ovaries, hopefully every eggs will be able to retrieve successfully. At the same time, J will be providing his semen specimen fresh and hot from "OVEN" to prepare for the next step.



More about Egg Retrieval


This method by which the eggs are retrieved at PFC is an ultrasound directed Needle Aspiration. The ultrasound probe with a needle guide is placed in the vagina, which allows an aspiration needle to be INSERTED through the upper portion of the vagina directly into the ovary. The ultrasound image allows the physician to accurately guide the needle into each follicle for aspiration or "suction". As the fluid is aspirated, the egg is released and collected in the laboratory. The retrieval process takes approximately 15-30 minutes."

After the eggs were retrieved, they will start the process of fertilization (the union of the sperm and egg). We are doing IVF-ICSI (Intra-cytoplasmic sperm injection ). The procedure involves injecting a single sperm into the cytoplasm of each egg using a fine glass needle because it achieves much higher fertilization rates.

Hopefully, everything will go smoothly tomorrow..

Mood Swing and J

Recently, I am easily irritated and angry, sometimes unreasonable and get really impatience. I know my mood swing had been terrible BAD this few weeks but I just couldn't help it.

But Hey!! I am taking hormones drugs recently! It's like women having going thru menopause and I couldn't control myself at all..

Thus, I remind J to

GIVE IN to ME regardless of anything

LOVE ME more than other days

TAKE CARE of Shannon more as my anger tolerance level is really low

DO NOT irritate me more when my mood is "swinging"

BLAME IT on the hormone drugs I am taking

Kueh Bangkit & Pineapple Tarts

Chinese New Year is coming. Over here in France, we will be celebrating our CNY with the J's company on the First Day of CNY. There will be no CNY lighting unless we are in Paris Chinatown. As for our home, we will do some spring cleaning and decorate it to enhance the CNY atmosphere. There are no CNY cookies selling years, thus we have to make it ourselves.

These are the Kueh Bangkit and Pineapple Tarts I made it with Mai last weekend.








Kueh Bangkit was very successful with Sago Powder J had bought over from Singapore. As for the pineapple tarts, we find the the pineapple filling was a bit sticky and the pastry was not buttery enough. We will be trying again soon. ;p

Growing Eggs

As you guys know, our making 2nd bb Project started about one month ago. I am now at the process of "growing multiple eggs" in my ovaries by having daily Gonal F injection with half a dose of synarel which started last Monday.

I went for a review last Saturday and everything goes well at the moment. There are total of 12-15 follicles @ 10mm in both my ovaries. I will need to do another few days of injection for the follicles to grow bigger (17-20mm) before the Eggs Retrieval Process.

I will be having another review tomorrow to check on the follicles sizes and at the same time, J will contribute his "specimens" for necessary actions. We had an appt with the Anesthesia as well to prepare for the Egg Retrieval and hopefully he will appear on the day of my retrieval! We had confirmed that my gynea forgot to book the Anesthesia for my last retrieval and that experience really freaks me out. I know J had been trying to make sure that I get my Anesthesia on my retrieval and I think I can trust him. ;p

Dancing Class

Clapotis, her creche had organised a dancing class once a month. We will be having the class again this coming Thursday and the following was the first lesson 2 weeks ago.



If you had watched the video above, you will find the dance was kind of special weird. We might have this feeling due to the language barrier. ;p The instructor started by telling a story (in French of course) and we were trying very hard to catch some of the keywords. All I could interpret was a tree growing, leaves moving and tree sleeping... Then the instructor tried to lead the kids to follow her moves. Maybe Shannon find the "dancing" boring, she started to invent her move and the instructor turned around and followed her moves instead. Overall, I supposed the kids enjoy with lots of running and moves.. ;p

Dora Playhouse

We bought a Dora Playhouse @ 50 euro (50% Discount)2 weeks ago. Shannnon was so excited when she reached home and pestering her Daddy to set it up. Well, my living room became smaller after this playhouse was setup. :(

Sometimes, I am really reluctant to clean the house as there are just too many thing to shift. Do we need a bigger house? We had ever thought of moving to a bigger unit with 3 rooms. However, when we look at the items we need to move, we dropped the idea. ;p

Buzy Buzy

Recently, I have been addicted to one of the games in facebook for the past weeks and lost my momentum in blogging. I hope I will get sick of that game real soon... Frankly, it gets me nowhere... :p

To make it worse, the Winter Sales started last Wednesday. I was busy grabbing cheap toys and clothing for Shannon. Together with a group of kakis, we combed all the neighbourhood supermarkets and shops for cheap clothing and toys.

These are some of the toys I got for her...

Below are the clothes I bought for her




All clothing was at 50% - 70% off!!! We will be going down to Bordeaux City next week and the following to grab more cheap clothing. I heard one of the kakis said that it will be even cheaper.

The price of the clothing and toys in France are quite steep during normal days. To save money, we have to buy clothes and toys ONLY during sales period. She will only get to wear most of the clothes end of this year as her clothes for now are more than sufficient.

Happy Birthday, Jeslyn!

Time flies, my youngest sister is 19 years old today! I would like to wish her a very Happy Birthday.

Dear Ah Bee

I wish you a wonderful life
filled with lots of lots of love & happiness
You are the cleverest among us,
so dream big dreams and
work hard to make them come true.
I know you can do it cos I have faith in you!

I love you !!

Luv, Dajie

New Year Eve Celebration

We were invited to Meizhen & Derrick 's house for New Year Eve Celebration. It was another potluck celebration with a groups of friends. What else? We only have friends over here ;p





Oh! And a BIG thank you to Meizhen for persuading insisting everyone to play TABOO!! We wouldn't have so much fun without playing this game!


As for the kids, they were "enjoying" themselves either in messing up the playroom, fighting or playing ;p

Shannon, Avril, Damian and Brayden are born in the year of 2005. All of them were born in the month of April except Shannon who is born in March. And we will be having 4 birthday parties in March and April. But before celebration theirs, we will be celebrating Cloris's Birthday on 27 January. She is the youngest among them and is turning TWO this year!

Snow Mountain - Gourette

We went to Gourette last Sunday. It was a last minute trip organised on Saturday night.



Gourette was about 3-4 hours drive from where we are staying. We had 4 families going in 2 cars. We started off at 7am and reached there about 11am + after one or two wrong turns. :P


Took our early lunch at the first restaurant we saw and began our FUN DAY!!


Shannon happily walking on the "snow mountain" ^_^

Now, we have to walk up the slope



When we finally reached the top, we have to rest awhile to catch some breath puff and pant LOL... sometime cannot blame us lousy lah, Shannon wanted us to carry her up the slope leh... "chuan" ~_~`



And we started to slide down using the sleigh... This is the BEST part!!


Weeeeee.......



However, sometimes Shannon will end up crying because....



Well it's not my fault.. My backside oso pain siah... ^o^

Although it's really fun but also tiring as we need to walk up the slope again. After some ups and downs, J tried to make a snowman for the kids to play. It was a small snowman but it was enough for the kids to fight over it. ;p



Overall, the trip was fun fun fun for the kids as well as ourselves!!! The only disappointment was we din get to see the "snowing "which forcasted on Saturday.