My Pregnancies (A flashback)

When we first got married 19+ years ago, my hubby was working in KL. We discussed whether I should be moving to KL or he wanted to get a transfer to Penang. So in the end we decided for him to come back to Penang, since his family is here. His father had already passed away and his mother was staying with his younger brother.

We discussed about having a baby but he said that he was not ready to be a father. I did say that I was not that young anymore and would like to have a baby before I was 30. Those days technology was not as advance like now, I had been hearing about the risk of a late pregnancies (like after the mother's age is 30 years old). We did wait for almost 2 years before we had our first baby. My mother in law was a bit worried to see me not yet pregnant while my hubby's cousin had who had married later had already been blessed with a child. She was jokingly said that my hubby was "stupid" "hang tu bodoh", she joked with my hubby.

When I was pregnant for the first time my hubby was transferred to Ipoh from KL. So I had to go through the whole term on my own. I remember being sad when one day as I was shopping for baby's clothes, the shop assisstant asked why I was shopping alone and not with my hubby. I told her that he was not around.
My pregnancies had been easy so to speak. I had almost no morning sickness or any cravings for anything. No cravings for weird stuff like some people. I work the whole full term of my pregnancies until the last day before deliveries. So much so a colleague at work joked,

Richard : N, hang ni beranak macam pi berak je lah
Me : Ya lah tu, berak sembelit!!!

I was not a veggie person before I got pregnant. Like most teenages and young ladies, I did not like veggie at all. I would not even eat onions, will pick them out of any food or simply did not eat them. But when I was pregnant I stuffed myself with veggies of different kind and tofu was like a must have every week. The tofu (as in tau foo fah) was supposedly good for giving fair skin to the baby. (This was my hubby's "prescription"). I didn't really believe that tofu will have the effect of making the one skin tone fairer. I argued with hubby that if he believed that would be so, then an a****can with very dark skin will be fair if the mom drinks tofu during pregnancies. But I like tofu so I eat them a lot too. I don't think that my daughters' fair skins were contributed by the tofu alone though. But the vegies proved to be good as I have healthy children until now. I am counting my blessings, Syukur Alhamdulillah for since their birth I had little problems with them. That makes it easier for me to build up my career.

So, my four daughters were born naturally in 1987, 1989, 1992 and 1994. They are beautiful girls (at least to me they are). Walau pun pipi tak bak pauh di layang, hidung tak bagai seludang, they are still my beautiful daughters. You may ask whether I have regrets for not having any son, my answer would be, ini kurnian Allah, I did try to have another baby (even see a doctor for tips on getting the gender of the baby, but Allah knows best) I have no regrets whatsoever.

My daughters are growing up, they are teenages now, I have got to be in the same wavelength with them. To me communication is very important. I want my daughters to be able to talk to me on anything, I do not want them to feel that there is a generation gap between us. Alhamdulillah, so far I have been able to do that. I have also seen that they have respects for the elders since my mother is now living with us and how they treat her and their paternal grandmother with love and respect.

I do know that oneday some men will take them away from me but, still they will be my daughters. I pray though that whoever those men would be that they would love them just as much as I do them.