A Positive Sign... or not?

Last Sunday, Jerome and I went to my friend's baby shower for her first born. The first baby shower we attended in many years. I hated attending baby showers because of the inevitable question "When's your turn?" Anyway, I decided to attend the one last Sunday and managed to drag Jerome along.

I haven't been in constant contact with my Secondary School friend. The last time we met was over a year ago when she visited my home with her husband.  I did not know she was even pregnant until I received her SMS invitation to attend her first baby's 1st month celebration. She has got married a few months after Jerome and I. I guessed she must have taken quite a long time to conceive her baby.

Anyway, she asked me THE question "When's your turn?" I told her honestly that we're working on it, been working on it for a long time." She asked me whether I've considered IVF so I told her that we're looking into it. It turned out that her baby was conceived through IVF. She also shared other positive stories from other couples she know who also conceived their babies through IVF. And about her daily injections  for over 50 days with the needles growing in size and dosages. Her husband was the one doing the injections for her as she was afraid of needles. Well done, my friend! Anyway, the bottom line was it was all worth it. Her precious princess made everything that she's gone through worth it.

Later, I shared with Jerome whatever my friend had shared with me. I remarked that this is a positive sign since my friend shared with me so many success stories. Jerome couldn't get pass the idea of the 50+ injections. He reminded me about his 'phobia' of injections. I told him I'm the one being injected, not him! He admitted that needle is his weakness. He said we should reconsider the whole IVF business and whether we really want to go through all these just for a child or another round of disappointment.  He talked about an ex-colleague who had a child with special needs. Her advice to him was that sometimes it's better off to have no children. Just take things natural. The most important thing is that we're happy and contented with what we already have.

So think again...

But 1 thing's for certain, Jerome says "If we do not have children, we're going on holiday every CNY so we don't have people asking us "When's your turn?" or 'happily' telling us "So and so got married last year and now wife's giving birth soon. So we better 'buck up'. "

I couldn't agree more... In fact I'm looking forward to travelling somewhere now!

Meeting with the Ms Tans

Met up with 3 'old' friends from NIE (National Institute of Education) last Friday for afternoon tea. We have known each other for about 10 years now since we went to NIE for our trainings to be teachers. We are the '4 Musketeers' or the '4 Ms Tans', always hanging out with one another back in NIE. We were all very passionate about teaching.

Ever since we started teaching, we have not been able to meet up very often. Hence, when J arranged for a meet up, I was very excited. I actually can't remember when was the last time the 4 of us had met up together. Maybe it was during my housewarming some 4 years ago?

Anyway, the irony is that none of us is currently teaching in school. 2 of them have coincidentally resigned in the beginning of the year. The other 2 of us are currently on No Pay Leave (NPL). See how much we have in common?

Together, we have more than 30 years of teaching experience and well trained...
1 is an experienced GEP-Math teacher for over 5 yrs
1 is experienced LSC who's also Brain Gym trained and got a 2 yr diploma from Britain to help children with dyslexia.
1 is an experienced LSM, who went HQ, got a MOE scholarship, & currently doing her masters in applied psychology.
Hence, it's a pity if we're not going to teach anymore.

Other than catching up with one other's lives, there were also proposals for businesses, something for us to collaborate together again :) One wanted to open a tuition centre, another wanted to open a student care centre. If you're working so hard, you might as well work hard for yourself & be rewarded... They're really thinking about starting their own businesses related to education.

Me? I was only thinking about my trip to Phuket the following day.

Anyway, went home and told Jerome about all these talks about businesses and making $ (Work less & Earn More :P) Jerome said I can forget about starting a business, I'm a lousy business person. For now, I can just worry about cooking delicious meals at home, pick up some life skills (eg. driving), bake and sell some cookies, just relax and enjoy and have a baby. And I can leave the $-making business to him...

Meeting an 'old' friend

I must admit that I'm a lousy & lazy friend. I'm really not good at keeping in contact with people. I seldom take up the initiative to arrange to meet up with friends. At first, friends tried to arrange for meet ups but I would always be too busy with work or tired after work to meet up. Then once I'm with Jerome, free-time is naturally spent with him. After rejecting invitations often enough, friends eventually don't ask.

Today during lunch break, I was walking aimlessly around the shopping mall with my free Ben & Jerry's ice-cream. As I took the escalator down, I saw the backview of a woman with a hairstyle I found familiar. (I'm not usually a very observant person who would always go around looking for people I know. Jerome says I'm quite a blur person. You'll probably have to stand in front of me and wave before I recognise you.) Anyway, she was on the phone and as I walked closer to her, I realised that it was Bi Fang, a JC cum Uni friend. I have not seen her for years and have lost contact with her. I waved my hand in front of her and she instantly recognized me and told the person over the phone that she saw me. She was on the phone with her sister. I'm relieved that she could still remember my name.

She was actually with her 3 yr-old son and her husband, Yong Fa. He used to tease me about my weight back in Uni :P She has not changed much after all these years. We tried to catch up with each other and I tried to get some updates about other common friends. Found out that another friend has already give birth to a second child, already 8 months old. Hmm... See how out of touch I am...

Seem like everyone's been pretty 'productive'. Another reason why I dislike meeting up with friends... They're probably talking about pregnancies, babies, first months celebrations, 1st birthdays, etc... then asking me the same...
Nevertheless, I'm happy to meet an old friend today. I must put in more effort to keep in touch.