Introducing baby Isaac (and our delivery story)

The past few weeks have been crazy to say the least – adjusting to life with a newborn, sleeping in intervals and managing a new business is definitely no stroll in the park. Hats off to all mums who manage so many things at one go!

Finally at 4am, I’ve found some time (and sanity) to sit down to ‘formally’ introduce baby Isaac to you! Despite a difficult pregnancy and labor, he’s been a precious gift to us and we couldn’t be happier. :)

baby isaac with a pom hat | micheleng.com

Even though my husband and I hadn’t been married for too long before we conceived, the past few weeks in the hospital and caring for Isaac have drawn us closer than ever. In fact, the two weeks since Isaac was born was probably the longest I’ve ever gotten to spend with Dan 24/7 and he’s been an amazing support both physically and emotionally.

For my dear readers, I may be doing less DIY tutorials as I transition to this new stage of life but I hope to get back into the groove once things settle down. There’ll potentially be more posts on baby-related items but holler if you want to see more of other things too!

For friends, family and curious ones who have been asking for more details, I’ve penned a full post on our labor and delivery story here. While our pregnancy and labor have been more challenging than many of our friends we know, we are still very grateful that Isaac came out a healthy baby and that everything is fine.

I also apologise for not announcing his birth immediately as we needed time to recover and didn’t want to have to turn away visitors or not respond to any messages while we focused on adjusting.

In short, we went through two days of labour, a failed induction leading to an emergency c-section with some bleeding after the op that required us to stay longer in the hospital. The six days we spent in the hospital felt like some surreal, crazy boot-camp but thanks to the patient and kind nurses and doctors, we managed to get through it.

The days ahead will be full of steep learning curves but we’re treasuring every moment of it!

 

Sharing my journey

Recently I was invited to speak at an event on entrepreneurship. When I first received the email, I was stunned – the other speakers were established industry stars whom I respected and admired. Surely they got the wrong person when they contacted me?

I had to be frank and told them I could only share as a struggling entrepreneur of sorts. One who hasn’t launched yet, and is still in the midst of learning the ropes. (Till this day I still don’t really see myself as an entrepreneur yet for some reason).

And it turns out that was the type of story they wanted to add into the mix. So I said yes, because I felt that if at least one person benefited from my story, it would be worth it.

When working on the slides, I realized there were a ton of stories that I had to tell. Although the initial 15-20 min allocated seemed long at the start, turns out it only allowed me to share the tip of the iceberg when it came to lessons on this journey!

Although I had danced in front of thousands of people before, spoken about my company to potential hires in front of hundreds, this was the first time I was speaking to such a large live audience about… me.

entrepreneurship talk at shell livewire

In this quick talk, I shared how I decided to leave my job in marketing after close to three years, and bits of the many struggles I’ve faced since then – trying to source for reliable suppliers in China, learning how to guard my free time, coming out of a failed partnership, and the list goes on.

Only after working on my slides did I realize – that the single most important lesson that I’ve gained through this whole experience is the building of my character.

… 

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The proposal

Hello everyone!

Tiny disclaimer: this post is more to do with my personal life and not a fashion/ beauty/ craft post (although I can assure you there will be plenty to come in preparation for the wedding!)… In short, we’re engaged!

As we won’t be setting up a completely separate wedding site, we’ve decided to share it here for our friends and family who have been asking for more details.

So if you are interested, click here for the full story of how my best friend, a very amazing man, asked me to spend the rest of my life with him :)

the proposal 1

candle hearts

For everyone else, hang on tight – I’m quite excited to do more DIY wedding tutorials to share with you!