A third surprise

When I last updated my blog in 2008, I was still gushing over the recent addition of Elizabeth in our family. God knows that He had another bundle in store for me! In Feb 2010, our dear Benjamin was born into our household but there were times when his arrival had been threatened.

Theo and I had gotten into a relatively good routine with Joel and Elizabeth after she settled into infantcare and I returned to work under my boss who came from Luxembourg for a two-year stint. We even made a trip to France and Italy with Joel in April 2009. It was like a dream come true.

I remembered when I was pondering whether to keep Joel many years ago, Theo told me that there was no way I would be able to fulfill my dream to go to Italy if we kept the child. But fast forward four years later, not only did we keep the child (and added another to the equation), I fulfilled my 7 year dream of going to Italy!

It was a very meaningful trip for three of us whether Joel understood the significance of it or not. God is amazing in His ways and we can be so easily blinded by obstacles before us to truly appreciate His majesty.

Then in June 2009, I received probably the second worst news of my life as yet. I was pregnant again! I had taken the pregnancy test in the confines of my office toilet and when I saw the positive sign, my whole dreamy world came crashing down before me.

I had only wanted two children – no more pregnancies, no more starting all over again, no more jeers from family and friends about how productive we are. Mother of three before age 30! I would be quite the rare sight in Singapore. This time I really did deliberate hard about keeping the child. With Joel, guilt overwhelmed my decision. With this third baby, there was really nothing for me to hang on to. I wanted to go out and live my life already! In fact Theo and I kept quiet about the whole thing till I was 5 months pregnant – yes I was pretty serious about the A-word.

Theo and I were at cold war for a period of time. Neither one of us wanted to talk about it. Then one morning as I was lying in bed, Theo came over and held my hand. He said, this child will be called Benjamin. Was this his way of accepting the baby? Benjamin, last child of Jacob, will he also be our last child? And what made him so sure that this baby is male? Two months later, it was confirmed and I knew at that point that the baby was for keeps.

Benjamin is nearing his fifth month of life and on hindsight, I am very thankful to have made the right decision to have brought him into this rather imperfect world. He is probably the most adorable baby I have ever set my eyes on! Ok so says every mother of her own child.

But objectively speaking, he is an amazingly beautiful baby with his big round eyes, perky nose, pouty lips and lovely dimples. Every morning when I lay my eyes on him and see that ever-ready smile of his, I fall in love with him over and over again. Benjamin is even easier to look after than Elizabeth and he is always so cheerful. Thank you God for this wonderful gift!

So with his addition, we finally decided to employ a maid to help out with household duties, cooking and care of Benjamin. I guess God must have planned this because He made Benjamin so beautiful, it was almost impossible for anyone to hurt him. That is his best survival tool.

Turned out that my department had been shipped off to Kuala Lumpur office while I was on maternity leave and I found another job in the public sector even before I received the severance package! Another one of God’s amazing timing.

What is probably the most intriguing part of this job offer is that I had gotten it based on some website design and marketing knowledge I had picked up during my pregnancy. With Elizabeth, I had gone nuts over my nesting instincts. With Benjamin, I had this unusual drive to fulfill another of my dreams – owning a personal website about all my travels.

So within a span of four months before Benjamin’s arrival, I went crazy reading about all things related to websites and travel and tourism. I started my site Bring Me There.net on 16th Oct 2009. Turned out that it was this very drive and enthusiasm that landed me my new job.

I have started work almost two weeks already and as I looked at my Flower (based on What Color is Your Parachute), I realised that I have found myself in probably one of the best fits of my career thus far. Which then again leads me to say PRAISE THE LORD!

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