Xia Xue Guide to Life Videos - my solace

After the last visit to Dr Loh Seong Feei, I was put on bed rest. I moved back to stay with my mother because I needed help with lunch because my husband had to work. I took medical leave and my boss encouraged me to listen to gospel music.

It was agonizing. I stayed in bed whole day while doing my work. My sister came into my room, carrying her laptop. She told me to watch Xia Xue Guide to Life. At that time, I only heard about Xia Xue but never really read her blogs. I only knew her as someone who had plastic surgery done on her nose. In between breaks, it was Xia Xue Guide to Life video that gave me a brief respite from my worries. Her straightforward view towards Life and her brand of humour lifted my spirits. I watched 137 episodes over a few days. Strangely, I felt that Xia Xue was there for me through her blogs and videos, cheering me up. I was grateful to whatever she was doing online. 

My sister is a fan of Xia Xue and she shows my mum updates about Xia Xue on her Dayre and Instag. Goodness, you know what my outdated mum thought who Xia Xue was? One day, when we were having a conversation on the phone, my mum suddenly told me, "Hey your sister's good friend has given birth!" I asked, "Huh? Who? How can it be? (My sister is way younger than me)" Mum said, "Xia Xue lor!" I tried in vain to make her understand that Xia Xue is not my sister's close friend. She is a blogger but till now, she still thinks they are friends cos my mum will still refer to Xia Xue as my sister's friend because she could not understand the concept of blogger. During the episode whereby Dash was born, I cried and cried because I was so happy. Crazy right?

During my bed rest, other than watching Guide to Life, since Dr Xia Ai Wei refused to do anything, I went back to physician Tan Kian Sing whom I was previously seeing, for help. He was super duper nice and prescribed me some medicine. The Chinese physicians are always hopeful as compared to the western doctors who always give the worst scenarios (except for Dr Xia Ai Wei). He prescribed some medicine and I went home. The receptionist told me to have faith. Her exact words were “要有信心”。I also did some paper work on my bed.

I would lay hands on the yucky drink and drank the powdered medication and prayed that everything would be find. My baby would grow and the heartbeat would be strong. Throughout the period, I still could not remove the periodic heartache. I knew it was not heart attack because based on previous experiences, the ache would disappear once I knew the truth and started my period. I shared this with my close friend and she mentioned that she knew what ache that was. She experienced it during her preterm threat when she thought she might lose her baby.

Finally, it was the day of the scan. The sac had to grow to a certain size for the pregnancy to be viable. At the waiting room, I was so anxious that I had to open my bible app. The first chapter that I read randomly happened to be John's mother-Elizabeth. The baby lept in her womb. I showed my husband the verse and told him that it might be a sign of God that our baby would be fine.

After more than an hour of waiting, it was our dreaded visit. I entered the room with trepidation. I told Dr Loh that I was afraid that the thick stick used for transvaginal scan might worsen the spotting. He kindly assured me that it would not. When he pulled out the stick, he commented that the bleeding was not heavy at all but he delivered the much dreaded news. His equipment was quite advanced. The mother would be able to view the monitor in front of her while the doctor scanned the baby. This was only found in his clinic. Usually, the monitor would be beside the mother. Dr Loh told that I could close my eyes if I was gnat afraid,

When I opened my eyes, I was glad to see something round. The happiness was shortlived because Dr Loh said that the sac was only 4.8 mm as compared to 3mm previously. He explained that I would be miscarrying as this pregnancy was once again not viable. The sac was supposed to be much bigger. I couldn't help but felt hot tears filling up my eyes. I tried my best to blink but my year ducts were rebelling. Tears were streaming down my face and I had to stifle my sobs. There was no room for anger, frustration, disappointment or anxiety. There was only sadness when I heard him deliver yet another bad news. He even asked me whether I would want to take medicine to purge the sac out.

"No don't kill my baby!" My head was screaming.

I asked him what the other alternative was. He said I could wait for nature to take its course which meant that I would have to wait for my period to come. He did not recommend DnC procedure.

I had mentioned before that he had excellent bedside manners. He spent a long time (when I said long time, it means around 5 to 8 minutes only; this is a long time for gynaes okay) just sharing with us his son. How he had taken things in his own hands to train his son for medicine at NUS medicine interview but flunked. So he had to send his son overseas to study medicine. He said he should have let nature take its course and trust his son more. He even went on to share that he had a friend who kept miscarrying and even had an ectopic pregnancy. Now, she had four kids. Her suay luck (bad luck) had finally run out. He told us that one day, our suay luck would run out. He had a long long line of patients waiting outside, yet he chose to comfort us. What a stark difference from LC Cheng. At that time, I thought he was sharing his household affairs just to pull me back to reality. On hindsight, he was trying to deliver the message - Let nature takes its course.

Medically, he mentioned that we could try Metformin as he said that patients with PCO benefited from this drug which would help prevent miscarriage. He also mentioned that we could go for a chromosomes test which was a simple blood test but it would be expensive.

Excellent bedside manners. Although there was nothing he could do, at least I felt better. 

I tried to dry my tears when I opened the door. I didn't want people to pity us. I also did not want to affect the blissful atmosphere in the waiting room. The mothers with rounded tummies looked especially radiant and glowing with pride and joy. I wanted to walk through this with my head held high, hanging onto whatever dignity I had left. I was such a failure. Once or twice, we could still attribute that to bad luck but three times? I was convinced in my bones that there was something wrong with me. I must have killed my babies. What a lousy mother!

I went downstairs to look for Dr Xia Ai Wei because she had wanted me to update her. Again, she did NOTHING except to say that if that was what Dr Loh said, there was nothing she could do. She also added that my natural miscarriage could take a long time since I had taken so much progesterone. 

I refused to give up hope. I returned to the ever hopeful Dr Tan Kian Sing. He said that at least the sac grew. He said for TCM, as long as we could hear heartbeat by 8 weeks, it would not matter what growth the sac was initially. He even said that the sac could catch up. I felt a bit better. Internet sources also seemed to confirm his theory. I was also crazily testing for pregnancy every now and then and the line was still very dark when I went for the scan. So I continued my bed rest and progesterone.