When prayers are answered

A couple of weeks ago in the post My sister's an alien! I described how Bilaal had been praying every night for a baby brother. Well just as with Sumayah, Bilaal's prayers have once again been answered! I don't know yet if the 'boy' part was granted, but I am very much pregnant. But the surprise and excitement doesn't end there, oh no, in true mumdrum style there is a little twist in this story of mine. So a few days after the post mentioned above, I started to feel that maybe I was pregnant. I hadn't yet missed a period or experienced any nausea, but I was visiting the toilet very regularly during the night and seemed to be hungry all the time. So I took a home pregnancy test. I even bought one of those fancy digital ones that give you an estimate of how long ago you conceived. Eighty bucks is quite a lot of money to spend just to pee on a stick! But there I was nonetheless staring at the flashing screen while Yaasier patiently waits outside the toilet for the result. And there it was...'pregnant-3+'...which meant pregnant 5 weeks along or more. As surprising and completely unplanned and unexpected as this was, we were undoubtedly ecstatic.

For various reasons that I won't go into detail about here, we couldn't use the classic method of working out how far along we were, so we assumed that it couldn't have been more than 5 or 6 weeks. this is what I told the receptionist when I made an appointment with the gynae, so I had to wait a whole week before I my appointment. So Tuesday 20 September I anxiously waited in the doctor's waiting room, nervous that I would have a scan and there would be no heartbeat. I was hoping and praying that this wouldn't be the case, that I would see the tiny little bean with a tiny little blinking area indicating a healthy hearbeat.

Finally lying on the examination table, the doctor palpates my uterus and has this really serious expression on his face and my heart begins to sink. I think he's going to tell me that there isn't anything there. Instead he says in his heavy Paraguayan accent, 'well! there's definately something there!' And then the moment arrives, I look at the ultrasound screen and nearly fall off the table with shock... because there on the screen is not a bean, nor an alien-like figure with a beating heart, but a clearly defined baby with fingers and toes and limbs moving all over the place! Turns out I was pregnant far longer than I realised... 13 weeks and 6 days to be exact! Yes I know what you are thinking, that after 2 kids one would think that I would know when I am pregnant, but I honestly had no suspicion till that week.

So that explained why my clothes were steadily getting too tight and why I was constantly hungry, and why I was so tired during the Ramadaan. I even fasted for the whole month of August without knowing and I just assumed that this was the reason I was so sleepy in the afternoons! Well the nice thing about finding out so late is that I don't have to wait too long before finding out the sex of the baby. At my next visit I will be 18 weeks already and I am definately showing already. I still keep looking at the scan image now and again to prove to myself that I didn't just dream this all up, but it's still strange to think that in only 6 months time we will be welcoming a new member to our family, Inshaallah.

Wordless Wednesday 55

In Loving Memory

Today's post is dedicated to an amazing woman who I have been priviledged to know. Yesterday my cousin Adela lost her long battle with cancer and leaves behind an incredible husband and 3 beautiful daughters. I feel really sad not to be able to be in Cape Town to offer my support and condolensces to the family, but at the same time I am comforted that I can offer the most valuable thing of all... prayers to the Almighty.

As sad as her passing is I feel I want to celebrate the beauty of her life. When my sister and I were still very young, Adela often used to babysit us. I remember her always having such a joy and love for life and love. She used to love singing Michael Bolton songs at the top of her lungs while sweeping the house and always made the most amazing teeny little clothes for my Cindy doll. Adela and her sisters used to put on little plays for all the younger cousins with props and costumes and everything. And I remember for my 6th birthday I had a huge bash and of all the cool gifts I got the one I always remember the fondest was the 2 little sock puppets she and her sisters made and gave me in decorated shoe box.

Adela also had incredible poise and style. I was one of her bridesmaids when she got married and as a teenager then, always admired her keen sense of style and class. I also always admired her tenacity and confidence in her abilities. She was the kind of person that could walk into any job interview and get the job.

But they always say that true character is only revealed in times of hardship, and if that's the case then Adela was a true beacon of hope and strength and inspiration. I can't even begin to imagine how tough these past years must have been for her and her family, and unless you have been through it yourself, nobody can. But through every obstacle, through every challenge Adela kept looking forward.

Living far away I didn't get to spend much of her last years with her, but I am so grateful that I was able to visit her recently even if it was just for a very brief time.

So I would like to honour Adela's memory by also rememberring all the other loved ones lost to cancer and all those still fighting on. And a special prayer to all those families who do the incredibly difficult task of being there with such unwaivering support. These are the people who are a true testament to the Almighty and His creation of the human spirit. All praise be to Allah and may He grant her Janaatul-Firdous (the highest heaven) Insha-allah.   

The Night-time Escapades of Sumayah

Yesterday we were out all day for a picnic so Sumayah didn't sleep and then of course fell asleep in the car on the way home. I tried waking her a few times when we got home but she was too tired so I knew she wouldn't be able to fall asleep at her usual bedtime. So she and I were lying in bed watching one of my favourate movies, 'The Wedding Planner', me hoping that she will grow sleepy. Skip forward a few hours to midnight, the whole house was dark and quiet, everyone fast asleep...or so I thought. When I turned off my night light to sleep Sumayahs room was quiet so I assumed she was sound asleep in her bed. But I was rudely awoken from my deep sleep when I heard her walking into the room just past midnight with no top on looking like casper the ghost! At first I thought she had gotten her hands on the powder again, but as she approached me I realised that she was in fact smothered in cream, all over her torso! I was partly too sleepy, partly too amused, partly too flabagasted to have any sort of angry reaction to this. When I took her back to her room to clean her up I discovered that what was left in the the 400g tub of aqueous cream was not only all over Sumayahs torso and face, but also on her pillow, her sheets and her duvet! What amused me the most was that this was all done in sneaky silence in a dark room. And this is not the first time either. You see I have been battling with Sumayahs sleep habit for all of her little life. For quite some time we managed to cut the night wakings to just one per night, quickly resolved with a measly 75ml sip of milk. This I could accept, the real problem was getting her to fall asleep in the first place. I would find myself lying in her room for sometimes 2 hours before she slept usually only at about 10. This caused havoc with my nightime marking. But finally this week I tried to implement the sleep training again and within one night she was allowing me to leave her room and she would stay in her bed till she fell asleep. It was like she was just ready, so there were no tantrums only a lot of back and forth putting her back into bed the first night. I guess because she understands alot more now so I could actually use reasoning rather than behaviour modification. But of course in between we had out 'incidences' one of them much like the one I described from last night. She was in her room with the light off talking to herself as usual and then finally it was quiet. We were in bed with the rugby on very softly and I can see her room door from my bed. So I thought it was safe to assume that she was asleep...again, I was mistaken. When we finally turned off the tv and lights to go to sleep I heard a faint sound coming from her room at about 11.30. I decided to investigate only to discover Sumayah sitting on the floor of her dark room with all the toys unpacked from the toy chest, her clothes unpacked from her chest of drawers and scattered all over her bed, and Sumayah with one of her pants halfway up her one leg. When she saw me she casually said, 'Mommy, I'm dressing' as though it was the most natural thing in the world for her to be doing at this hour! Yes, this is Sumayah, our little alien ;)

Wordless wednesday 54

Someone found the lipstick!

My sister's an alien!

Bilaal is convinced that his sister is an alien! Before we found out we were pregnant with her, Bilaal had been earnestly asking for a baby sister every night in his prayers. But one night he said to his dad, 'when I asked Allah for a sister I didn't think she was gna be like THIS!'. He has since concocted this very creative conspiracy theory that Sumayah is in fact not the real baby. Down the road from where we live is the hospital where she was born. And on the opposite side of the road is one of those old, huge concrete water tanks with the dome roof. According to Bilaal this is in fact a space ship that crashed on that piece of land and is now stuck in the ground. Apparently an alien from the spaceship then took the place of our real baby (I don't know what supposedly happened to our real baby). This, in Bilaal's mind is the only explaination for her being the way she is!

So the other day Bilaal comes to me and asks me if I would mind a boy baby. 'Uh, huh? What do you mean?' was my initial response. So he says to me, 'I mean do you mind having a boy baby, can I ask Allah for a baby boy, 'cos Sumayah is just too strange...'. I was very amused and simply replied, 'my boy what you ask Allah is between you and Allah. It is up to Allah to decide to grant you your duahs (prayers)'.

About three days later and I find him sulking and sighing. When I asked him what the problem was he asks me, 'why's it taking so long? I've been asking Allah every night and every day and still nothing!'. Now how does one respond to that? So I say to him, 'well what do you expect... A baby to suddenly appear at our door in a basket?'. To which he replies, 'well maybe if one night you feel like a cramp in your stomach then it means there's a baby 'cos I think it will be painful when you get the baby'.

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