Baby cakes January 26, 2010

There were no words.

The first thing I ate after giving birth to Kate on January 15 was a bar of Snickers. It tasted so indescribably good, so toe-curlingly divine that I seriously would’ve bitten off my husband Z’s head if he dared utter a word to interrupt.

I had been a gestational diabetic for three months and was making up for lost time. After the Snickers, I scoffed down Polar sugar rolls, curry puffs, sardine puffs, beancurd with syrup and kueh pie tee in quick succession. Every time the menu card came around, I made sure every beverage choice was either apple juice or sweetened soy milk, things I couldn’t even have a sip of pre-birth.

For three long months, I was a grumpy, embittered old hag because I couldn’t eat what I wanted. It wasn’t until Kate was born that I realised it held a greater purpose. After just three hours of labour and 15 minutes of pushing, she emerged so cute with chubby cheeks and a full head of hair — but with a deadly umbilical cord wrapped around her neck.

Because of my gestational diabetes, Kate had to be induced one week early before she grows too big to be delivered naturally. I shudder to think what could’ve happened if I wasn’t diabetic and had waited for another week to full term. And no wonder I had such a fast labour, compared to the epic 10 hours it took for my first child, E, to arrive.

Every mother thinks her child is special. But there is something about Kate that makes her exceptionally so. She was born on the same date as my mother on the Western calendar, and the same date as Z’s mother on the Chinese calendar. Perhaps a tribute to the women who came before her? And perhaps as a sign of her great appetite for life, she drinks twice the amount of milk prescribed as average by the doctor. This mama is gonna be chained to the breastpump for quite a long time to come 🙂

I find myself lapsing into fear when I think about what could’ve been. But Z has a far more positive take on things: God is in control, often turning what is bad into something miraculously good. For that I am in awe. Thank God. Praise You. 

Sugar Underload January 7, 2010

This is what I made for Christmas:

Trifle with strawberries, peaches and an avalanche of mascarpone cream…

Creamy cheesecake topped with chocolate ganache and chopped Snickers…

Rice crispies bars with gooey peanut butter and chocolate ganache…

And finally, petite cheesecakes made with condensed milk on a crust of digestive biscuits.

Don’t ask me what was going through my head. But there I was, 9 months pregnant, and the night before Christmas, I was whipping up a tornado in my kitchen making all these things that I cannot eat.

I was definitely (over)compensating for the fact that I had gestational diabetes. Or I was trying to make my friends, whom the cakes were intended for on Christmas Day, really fat so I won’t be the only Michelin Man post-delivery.

Either way, I cannot say enough how much I’m looking forward to popping next weekend, when I can go back to eating like a normal pig again. I have already decided. The first thing I’m gonna plunge my teeth into, right there in the delivery suite when the doc is sewing me back up, is a bar of Snickers.