Where Have I Been!?

Yes, I know :) I have made a promise to myself that I would routinely write in this blog. However, something came up at the end of last year which really affected my productivity.

I'm expecting a baby, inshaaAllah!

How did I found out?

We were planning for an August 2016 baby. So when I was already 1 week late into next my period (around early December 2015), I purchased test packs to find out. As expected, I'm pregnant! 

During the first week of the late period, I experienced severe skin hives all over my body. My body was itching whenever I started to feel hot and sweaty. I couldn't sleep at all. I almost cried everyday having my sleep disturbed and having to scratch my body constantly. I purchased almost all itch medication that I could find in the chemist, but nothing really works. Fortunately, it went away by itself after a week. I did look it up online and found that it's common in pregnancy. Perhaps bub was trying to tell me, "Hey mum, I'm here!" :)

How has it been?

This is my first pregnancy and it has been overwhelming (who says it's not?). I didn't have severe nausea but it was obvious that the energy level I had dramatically decreased. I was just feeling extremely tired everyday (I'm quite an active woman, so I can really tell the difference) and hungry every 1-2 hours. I did, however, whinge a lot to my mum about how no one told me how hard it would be at first (especially the change in the energy level). 

And as other pregnancies, I have had my fair share of weird pregnant lady behaviours:

I can't keep plain water down my throat and I hated the smell of our new fridge. Thankfully I don't have any specific cravings, like when my mum had me and my siblings. When she was carrying me, she made my dad run after the ice cream man because she was craving for es dong dong. Bub loves cold and sweet fruits and beverages - just like me. That's pretty much the only thing that will settle him/her down in my tummy.

How about work?

It's been quite a struggle to stay focus at work, especially when I had to endure the fatigue. I was constantly 'telling' bub to cooperate. I was very fortunate that almost everyone in my team are women and most of them are mothers, so they were very understanding. I did ask my manager if I'm allowed to work from home once a week, because I couldn't really cope with the fatigue at the office almost everyday. But so far during my 15 weeks of pregnancy, I've only been working from home once. Alhamdulillah Allah gave me the strength and made my nausea not as bad, and bub was especially cooperative.

I had to change my lunch bag to a bigger one as well as I had to bring a picnic-load of food to the office. Like I said, I'm constantly hungry every 1-2 hours and I couldn't keep plain water down my throat (even until now), so what I usually pack in my lunch bag are 2 portions of meal (lunch/early lunch and afternoon), a couple serves of fruits, snacks, and flavoured drink (juice, fruit tea, or cordial).

Credits to my husband

This pregnancy has proved tough not only for me, but also my husband. I wanted to thank my husband for all the support he has given me. Because since I lost most of my energy, my husband had to do all the house chores. He took over my gardening, mopping, vacuuming, and ironing duty. I'm very thankful for a really helpful husband. Otherwise, I don't know how I would go through this pregnancy, office work, and housework at the same time.

Why I Wear Hijab

I often hear people say that muslim women are oppressed because the religion forced them to cover their heads and wear modest clothing. Guess what, no one forced me. It was truly my own choice.

Never liked showing my own skin
Since I was little, I have always been shy to show my own skin. I disliked when my mother changed my clothes in front of other people when I was in early primary, I hated wearing sleeveless tops and short dresses, and there is this one very embarrassing moment for which I got really angry with my mum - sorry, I can't tell the details, it's also wardrobe related malfunction when I was in high school. It looked like my mum would never understand the issues I had about her forcing me to wear these embarrassing pieces of clothing. So, modest clothing was always the way of life for me even before I know the concept of "hijab".

How I ended up wearing the hijab
I was almost an adult after all so I can make decision for myself, as long as it is good and positive. One day, I was reading the Quran and came about with the following verse:

And tell the believing women to reduce [some] of their vision and guard their private parts and not expose their adornment except that which [necessarily] appears thereof and to wrap [a portion of] their headcovers over their chests and not expose their adornment except to their husbands, their fathers, their husbands' fathers, their sons, their husbands' sons, their brothers, their brothers' sons, their sisters' sons, their women, that which their right hands possess, or those male attendants having no physical desire, or children who are not yet aware of the private aspects of women. And let them not stamp their feet to make known what they conceal of their adornment. And turn to Allah in repentance, all of you, O believers, that you might succeed. [Surah An Nuur: 31]

After reading that verse, it didn't take long for me to digest it. "Allah Himself prescribed this. So it's compulsory," I thought. Immediately without further questioning, I started to wear headscarf the next day.

Perhaps one important thing to note here that, although I came from a Muslim family, my family was not very religious, so there is no way anyone would forced me to wear it. I never wore hijab until I was in high school. I was the first in the family to wear hijab and even at that time my mother despised me and said, "I'm sure you'll take that off soon." Alhamdulillah it's been 10 years, and I can't imagine myself without it. Now, both my mother and sister wear them too.

Freedom of what to wear
Freedom is a big word nowadays. People advocating "freedom of speech", and other kinds of "freedom", but I think in some cases people has taken the word "freedom" too far by disrespecting other people. Sometimes I thought to myself, "Why does other people have to go through all the trouble telling us (Muslims) of what to wear? I never tell them what they can or can't wear. So why can't they just leave us (Muslims) alone?" I mean, where is "our freedom" if I can't wear what I wanted to wear?

Other people need to understand as well that not all Muslims feel oppressed by their hijab. They made the decision consciously to wear it. It's their choice, they're comfortable in it. If people can talk big about freedom, then why not give us our freedom to choose what we would like to wear, which includes our hijab.

Taking Friends for Granted

Yesterday it was one of my best friend's wedding and I've lost count on how many times I hated myself on missing out on these events. And soon I will also miss out on my cousin's wedding. Some people may say, "it's just a wedding, why bother?" For me, it is important being physically there to share my family and best friends' special moments.

Having real friends where you can have fun with and be yourself is actually something that I truly take for granted. I was one of the first in my circle of friends to get married. There's absolutely nothing wrong with that, but what makes it hard is that then I had to move to a faraway country (7 hours flight, and airlines ticket never got cheaper although oil price had free-fall).

When I think back about how me and my girlfriends eventually got so close, even after graduation, is because we spent so much time together - literally almost everyday, in classes and doing group assignments! And after graduation, I still love having catch up over lunch with them on Fridays or just hang out on the weekends, and I would never ever miss them! We once had an 'arisan' group for all the girls in my 2006 class. I attend their meet ups religiously, but perhaps I'm the only one who didn't participate in the 'arisan' itself, haha.

At first I thought, "don't worry, I'll make friends eventually." Unfortunately, now I'm in my third year in Australia, and I still can't replace my best friends. I can go as far as "friends", but not to the extent that I'm comfortable to talk about personal things. FYI, if any of you have met me before and think I'm a quite boring person to have convo with, I maybe am because I tend to avoid any personal questions or anything that I think may offend someone. And perhaps because I don't know much about Australian TV shows or what's happening in the news either, which really doesn't help :D.

I have a little bit of issue developing that genuine and fun 'friendship' at the office as well since the first time I arrived. Everyone in my team is really nice, but one thing I immediately noticed - which I'm not really a fan of - is that they just (almost) never have lunch together, with the exception of team lunch. I don't know whether it's the custom here, or what. I even have to ask a colleague to understand this, "why does everyone in the team never have lunch together??". I mean, I would like to know more about my colleagues' life outside of work, but since they're so busy (maybe), they love to have lunch at their desk! And I think the most appropriate time to have a casual chat about things outside of work is during lunch time, not in between work. To be honest, I sometimes envy the neighbouring team who often had lunch together and just chat about random stuff. Hhh... how I missed it so much. Eventually, after realising that our team never ever had a team lunch during the course of 1 year, I had to ask my manager to have one as a 'end of year party' sort-of-thing. Thankfully she approved :).

Now I am so looking forward to my next trip to Indonesia and catch up with my girlfriends! ... it's still 10 months away though * facepalm *.

*sorry for the really bad picture quality, I took them from Whatsapp :D*