October 20, 2009

Hello from Montreal

A quick hello from Hilton Montreal Bonaventure. I'm in Montreal to attend a conference, with several guests whom my company is hosting. We arrived on Sunday evening local time (that's Monday morning Malaysian time – Montreal is exactly 12 hours behind Malaysia) after travelling for 30 hours, inclusive of a 9-hour transit in Amsterdam. And I survived the first day of the conference without major jetlag :-)

I surprised myself by not crying buckets when I left. I had to send Yan Yan to the babysitter on the night I was scheduled to depart as hubby is worried that he couldn't handle both girls alone. Our babysitter was kind enough to agree to help out so Yan Yan will be spending her days and nights at babysitter's house till I return. I thought I would cry on the drive home but surprisingly, I didn't. As for Yiu Yiu, I had been preparing her for several days before I left – telling her that I'd need to away from home for a couple of days, that she'll stay home with papa while mei-mei stays with Aunty YL. She was fine with it, and even went around telling the babysitter's sister that I'd be "going to Canada to work." When we returned home after dropping Yan Yan off and I carried my luggage to the front door while waiting for the taxi, she asked me to carry her, saying, "Mummy, carry me for a while, because you will not be at home for so long." I cradled her in my arms and that's when she started sobbing. She was crying all the way until the taxi arrived when I passed her to my sister. When I was about to get into the taxi, she cried out louder and wanted a hug. And again, I was surprised that I didn't shed any tears, unlike the emotional parting during my trip to Hong Kong earlier this year. I don't know, maybe it's because my mind is too preoccupied with so many things, in particular planning and preparing everything that I need to bring home expressed breastmilk for Yan Yan.

Before I left, I added another 83oz to the stash of 260oz of frozen breastmilk, and about 45oz of chilled breastmilk for Yan Yan. At the rate she's consuming the milk, there should be more than enough to last her for the entire duration of my trip. I continued expressing while flying and due to the restrictions on liquid onboard aircrafts, I discarded 43oz of milk on the way to Montreal. I am planning to freeze all those expressed while in Montreal, and cart them home in frozen form. I've got my dry ice supply sorted out, and I'm really hoping that everything will fall into place and I'll succeed in carting them home. When I was breastfeeding Yiu Yiu, I've only carted home breastmilk from within Asia, so this will be my first time trying to bring home breastmilk from half-way round the world. I really hope everything will go smoothly, as I've spent countless hours thinking, calculating, strategizing, and communicating with hotels, airlines and airport authorities.

In the meantime, I'll have some scheduled posts coming up – on pregnancy and birth :-)

6 comments:

Liew said...

Yeah she did cry buckets but as soon as you left and she went back to the house to play with her cousins, she was her bossy self again ;).......kids will be kids.

Good luck in carting home all the milk :)

jazzmint said...

wow...u must have planned for so long to ensure all the milk will be transported back safely. all the best. post some montral pics for us to see ya ;)

BoeyJoey said...

You are such a tough cookie... I don't think I can do as well as you...

Good luck in bringing back all the milk. Will be looking forward to your scheduled posts... you're so organised! :-)

2ma said...

wow, u r really hardworking!! i mean expressing the milk for yan yan! u r such a great mum!!

have a good trip in montreal!

Kit said...

All the best! What a waste that you had to discard so much milk onboard. I've always had just enough milk when I pump so every drop is precious!

Have fun :)

A Mom's Diary said...

WK - good that she didn't cry for long.

Jazz - yup, wrote to so many people, spent so much time calculating to see whether my cooler would fit all the EBM + dry ice, and working out an expressing schedule across three time zones :-)

BoeyJoey - maybe you should say I'm CRAZY :-)

2ma - haha! I'm just doggedly stubborn that Yan Yan is exclusively breastfed for as long as I can.

Kittycat - I know. That's why I want to try to cart back those expressed in Montreal. Otherwise I'd be throwing away hundreds of ounces.