Wan Dahlia on the milk bottle with EBM

Wan Dahlia used to take about 30 mins to get through 40ml on the bottle of EBM (expressed breast milk).

She has grown and this is her photo at around 1 month of age. She is active and her eyes are always looking around her, when she is awake.

Beijing Holiday

Here are some photos from Beijing.

From left:

Temple of Heaven (where the emperor used to pray for a good harvest, etc)

Emperor's Throne (in theFobidden City)

The South Gate of the Forbidden City

The Great Wall of China (at the Badaling section of the wall, about 1 1/2 hours out of Beijing)

Wan Dahlia 14 to 16 Nov 06

Dahlia's feeding tube has now been removed from her nose and she is able to feed via her mouth.

Her feed has gone up to 40ml every 3 hours of EBM (expressed b reast milk).

Wan Dahlia 11 Nov

Dahlia is doing well and out of the ïsolet"or incubator. Her weight is now 1.850 kg (or abour 4.1 pounds) and is now 1 month old (although her original due date was dec 11th).

Here she is with her grandparents.

Friends in Malaysia

Left pic:

Friends in Malaysia, at the KLCC for dinner.

From left: Sharifah Sinora, Shu Chien, Suriani, Sufian, Ganes, DC, Monique

Right pic:

Malaysian friends, from HK, visiting Singapore: Chew HC, Xiao Yu, Sze Yeen (front).

Friends in Singapore

Friends in Singapore:

Left picture: Gerard Lee at a dinner before Su and I returned to Australia.

Right picture: New Year dinner: (from left) DC, Elly, Sylvester, Suriani, Christina, Marcos and David Ye.

Family and friends in Singapore

Left: Alan, Joh Young and DC at the Hyatt on Scotts Rd, Singapore

Middle: cousins together in Singapore: (from right) Janet, Jennifer, DC, Suriani, Michelle, Elsen, and Janet's hubby, Eddy and kids at the "No Signboard" Seafood Restaurant in Geylang, Singapore - a fantastic place for Chilli Crab, Pepper Crab and various other seafood dishes.

Right: (from left) Sam, Kee Hoe, Suriani, Joshua and DC at the Hyatt on Scotts Rd, Singapore.

Dahlia 6 Nov

Dahlia is growing and is now 1.6kg, up from 1.2kg at birth, just over 3.5 weeks ago.

She is 35 weeks old and can suck and grip strongly with her hands. Her eyes are alert and she loves to wriggle and move her hands and legs.

We bought a pink cotton top for her and put it on after her first bath - her first "baju" (shirt).

The Dahlia Flower

Wan Dahlia Amira Chan. What does the name mean? Where did we get the inspiration?

Dahlia is a special flower (with many, many varieties and colours - I've attached pictures of 3 types).

Amira means "Princess" in Arabic.

Dahlia is a genus of bushy, summer- and autumn-flowering, tuberous perennials that are originally from Mexico, where they are the national flower. The Spanish discovered dahlias in the mountains of Mexico.

In 1872 a box of Dahlia roots were sent from Mexico to the Netherlands. Only one plant survived the trip, but produced spectacular red flowers with pointed petals. Nurserymen bred from this plant, which was named Dahlia juarezii with parents of Dahlias discovered earlier and these are the progenitors of all modern Dahlia hybrids.

Ever since, plant breeders have been actively breeding Dahlias to produce thousands of cultivars, usually chosen for their stunning and brightly coloured flowers. The great variety results from Dahlias being octoploids (they have eight sets of homologous chromosomes, whereas most plants have only two).

The dahlia is named after Swedish 18th-century botanist Anders Dahl.
The dahlia is the official flower of the city of Seattle in the USA.


Source: "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dahlia"
Copyright (c) D.Chan
Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document
under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2
or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation;
with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts.
A copy of the license is included in the section entitled "GNU Free Documentation License".

Wan Dahlia at Jessie MacPherson Private Hospital in Monash Medical Centre

The special care neonatal servies at Monash Public Hospital are divided into 8 "bays" (approx the size of a large room 20m x 10m) where they fit between 6 - 8 babies per bay.

Bay 7 and 8 are the Neonatal intensive Care Unit (NICU) bays and are for the really premature babies requiring extra special care. Bay 1 and 2 are the bays for those babies who are doing well and are getting ready to go home, putting on weight and growing well.

Wan Dahlia started in Bay 5 on her day of birth and was moved to Bay 3 the same day. She was there for few days and was doing well. However, when she was just s few days old she had an infection for which the doctors were unable to diagnose the cause (viral or bacterial). In fact, her blood platelets were low and had to have some transfusions. The doctors also gave her antibiotics and some antivirals. She recovered by her second week. She's a strong fighter!

The photo above is of the special care nursery at the Jessie MacPherson Private Hospital, located at the Monash Hospital (just doen the corridor from the public side). It is the equivalent of Bay 2. The first photo is of Suriani talking to one of the nurses, Mary who looks after Wan Dahlia every weekday. The third one is of Wan Dahlia after her first "shampoo" and just before her bath.

Wan Dahlia Amira Chan arrives

Made in Singapore and born in Melbourne, Wan Dahlia Amira Chan was born on Oct 11th, 2006.

She was born premature at 31 weeks, but has come along strongly and is growing steadily and is very healthy. She is now close to 35 weeks.

She is placed in an "isolet" or ïncubator" to regulate her temperature and keep her warm. Being premature, she did not have a lot of body fat yet.

Wan Dahlia was initially fed via an intraveneous drip of glucose and other vitamin/nutrient solutions until she was ready to take on EBM (expressed breast mlk). She started with just 2ml every 2 hours. Today (neing 5th Nov, 2006), she is on 33 ml every 3 hours. She's come a long way in a short amount of time.

Return to Melbourne

We said goodbye to Singapore and hello again to Melbourne in July 06. The last photo is the lounge room of our apartment in Singapore.

We are renting a new house while our own home is being rented out to tenants (while we were in Singapore). The house we are renting is only minutes way from our own home -in the same suburb. We had a great time in Singapore and thoroughly enjoyed the experience (great food, shopping, sightseeing, catching up with family and old friends and meeting new friends). Still, it was good to be back in Melbourne - going from the heat and humidity of Singapore to the crisp cool air of Melbourne.

Views from Singapore

View of the Singapore Merlion taken from the water's edge. At the back of the Merlion is the Singapore city centre.

The other photo is a view of the vity centre taken from a hot air balloon. At the bottom of the photo is the Bugis area and also Shaw Tower. At the left is the War memorial.

Singapore

Singapore was a blast. We enjoyed the time we were there from Nov 2004 to July 2006. This is a view of the financial district/city centre from the river/bay.