Jamie's 2nd Year Old Birthday

柔柔滿兩歲囉!

Finally, Jamie has turned 2 years old ! Luckily that Jamie is Chinese, so she does not have to worry about getting just one gift ( since we do not buy Christmas gift anyway!). This little doggie cake was again bought by Auntie Michelle, so lovely!

Grandma's Birthday

This year, we celebrated mom's birthday at a Tepanyaki resturant in Brother's Hotel. On the night of mom's birthday, together with the anties, we had a big cake!

Merry Christmas!

It is Chrismas Time!

It's Great To Have A Sister!

Not sure if Justine and Jamie can appreciate it quite just yet, but certainly it softens my heart whenever I see the closeness and interactions of them, particularly when Justine is taking good care of Jamie....

Visit to The British Consulate at Takao (打狗英國領事館)

After the recent event, both Hsiao-Wei and I felt that a little get-away would really do me good, so I took that opportunity that Hsaio-Wei needed to go down to Kao-Hsiung for business to go along with him and spent his birthday there.

It's been a long time since I last visited Kao-Hsiung, and frankly speaking, it did change a lot, and in a positive way. The city now looks modern and clean, and obviously more spacious (at least in perception) compared to Taipei.

We did not plan for a busy itinery but just kind of wonder around. We had lunch at a place recommended by Hsiao-Wei's colleaque called "古波洋樓", the food was nice and the place itself was rather unique and kind of exotic. The deco seemed to have both a taste of the Southeast Asian (mostly Thai), and ancient Chinese, and the building the facing a small peir.


After lunch, we went to visit the famous British Consulate at Takao to have afteroon tea, and waited long enough to see the sunset. It was indeed a very nice place, situated at a hilltop on the right side of 西子灣, it is the first western building in Taiwan and built in 1865.

After visiting Takao, we took a walk along the ocean-side and eventually reached National Chung-Shan University, but it was quite dark then and frankly cound not see much other than some very energetic college students playing volleyball and basketball in the dark.

Finally, we took taxi to arrive at another famous resturant recommended by Hsaio-Wei's friend, called "Smoky Joe" (冒煙的喬"), supposely a Mexican resturant but in effect selling lots of Chinese food as well. We had dinner there to celebrated Hsiao-Wei's 39th birthday with a tiny cake, compliment from the resturant ( actually per our request :) .

Since we only had one day, surely the day could not end just like that. We then took the taxi to visit another famous tourist spot called "City Light", it was nothing but a park, yet nicely managed and decorated with light and open cafe and live music. Though the weather was nice and we could have sit down and enjoy a cup of coffee, but we decided to have a boat-ride on the "Love River", and lastly, stopped by the "六合夜市" and finally called it a day.

It was funny that we always think Taiwan is a small island and Kao-Hsiung is only a 45 minute plane ride away, but simply by leaving Taipei could indeed gave us a refreshed and relaxed feeling, think we ought to do more of that in the future.

Justine's First Halloween

Alright, so despite Hsaio-Wei wasn't exactly thrilled about this "strange western holiday", at the end, we decided to 從善如流 and turned Justine into one of her favorite character "Minnie".
Mommy was in business in Singapore so did not get to see the event personally, but according to A-Yi, Justine was very low profile and hated to be the center of attention, when at the end, she was called on stage to receive the "best custume award", she was crying so hard that all the teachers had to comfort her.. oh well...

知福惜福

On Oct. 4th at 11:38PM, our baby boy had grown wings and become a beautiful angel. The delivery process was painful, though seemed long at the time, but compared to the pain in the heart that both mommy and poppy are still experiencing, it is nothing...I understand that it takes time before we can fully accept this sad event and find peace within ourselves, so we will just leave it to time to help us through.

Justine and Jamie have been great. They are too young to understand all this, but they could sense the sorrow from the parents. Seeing them around, their laughters, reminded me that I should not let this sorrow takes away my attention and love towards these two lovely girls that I am already having. I have had my share of happiness and I should be grateful. I should not focus on what I am losing rather than what I am already having. See their lovely faces and how could I still complain that God has been unfair to us?

Here are series of photos of Justine and Jamie, mom has been so distracted during the past month or so to post them....

It's time to say good-bye

After all, God has other plan....the Monday ultra sound had brought the bad news....the baby's situation is turning the wrong direction, to a point that we are faced with no choice but to send him away..

I will be admitted to the hospital at 8AM tomorrow, and this is it....
It is simply too hurt and too painful to think too much about this, but I guess, God does have his plan and I will accept it....

Good-bye, my baby boy... though we never have the chance to meet, and despite this being a short stay, you will always be kept in my heart.

We love you...

Thank You - My Guardian Angel

After a torturing 3 weeks of waiting period, today I just got confirmation from Dr. Lo that the result of our baby's amnio test is "NORMAL"!!!!! Other positive news include - the 4D high resulotion scan of the baby by Dr. Su from NTHU also found no other problem except still the thick NT. Compared to the Ultra sound performed by Dr. Lo two weeks ago, first the fluid around the body seemed to have disappeared; 2nd, the thickness of the NT had been reduced from 1.3cm to around 0.7cm/1cm...which are positive signs that things are moving towards the right direction. As next steps, we will have two more rounds of 4D ultra sound follow-up in the coming two weeks to track the changes... the decision has to be made by week 24 (baby is 20 week-old now).. so if nothing changes, we are left to make the decision just based on the information we have right now, which is not alot and will be the TOUGHEST choice we will ever have to make. Based on everything we know so far, I think chances of us wanting to keep this baby is now very high.

I've been losing sleep both of these nights. On Sunday night (the night before the 4D ultra sound), I kept waking up, and imagining what would happen at the ultra sound. I had images about seeing my baby completed blown up and wrapped by fluid... all kinds of bad thoughts went through my mind..in time like this, when people felt so helpless and needed support, pray seemed to be the only way to bring comfort and peace. The only difference was, since I don't have any religion, I was basically talking to all of our deceased relatives, hoping that they would guard us through this difficult time. I guess having more grandparents above may have helped...

Can't quite describe the feeling yet. Happy, definitely. Reliefed?? Not 100%... despite that these further check-up had not found any new evidence of problem, we still had not been able to locate and isolate the root cause of the thick NT...and according to the doctor, this could mean many different things...range from completely normal, to other problems which they have no idea and cannot say today....

Still don't know what will happen, but for me, I know that I need to stop worrying, so to give our baby boy the best enviroment to grow. Whatever is in place for him, I am sure will be great arrangement. God has been so kind to me and let me have 3 kids, 2 girls and one boy, exactly the combination I would have wanted it....and I cannot thank HIM more for it... so again, I will leave his job to him, and do my job, which is to be a good pregnant mother.

I want to thank all my families and friends who have provided their emotional support during this period. I also want to thank Hsaio-Wei, for being such a wonderful partner and father, to always be with me during this difficult time!

The Toughest Time

Last Friday, Hsaio-Wei and I happily went to the doctor ready to have the amino test for our third baby, only to be shocked by the news that based on the ultra sound, the NT (Nachal Translucency) of our baby was abnormally thick, and the whole body seemed to be covered by a thin layer (胎兒水腫). Dr. Lo advised us that given the situation, there is a extremely high chnace that this baby is abnormal, and immediately, our mood turned from the high excitement of trying to learn the sex of the baby, to the unacceptable and most difficult decision as what to do next.

It's been an extremely difficult weekend, and I've been crying so much. Thinking about this little thing which has just now turned 18 weeks, a baby that we are all anxiously waiting, may eventually never have the chance to come to our family gives me heartache. And only till this time I realised that despite this is our third baby, our knowledge about abnormalities during pregnancy is still unlimited and poor. I guess none of us would probably bother and trying to learn (or maybe even avoid considering the possibilities, and always thinking, it will never happen to me). I've done much homework over the weekend, search the sites both internationaly and also domestically. The more I learned, the more worried I am, given based on everyting I had read, chances are - this baby of ours ( today being hinted by Dr. Lo as a boy, who if were identified normal, would bring us so much escatcy) has an EXTREMELY HIGH CHANCE of being abnormal, either chromosome-related, or born with some birth defact most likely in the are of some heart disease. And the implication is - a scary term "termination of pregancy".

This morning, I have proceeded with the amino test, the object was to first eliminate or confirm any abnormalities related to chromosome. Result will be avaible in two weeks, and if bad news, we may even learn it earlier. Assume if the result turned out to be okay, next step is to proceed with the high-resolution ( or the 4-D scan) scan, which can help examine all body organs, particularly the heart, to confirm if any abnormalities. Doctor said there is a chance that sometimes, this thin layer or the fluid accumulated at the neck goes away, but that is rare, and he has advised me to prepare for the worst, and based on experiences, chances are, situation will only get worse, and we will end up having to face the most difficult decision - which is to terminate.

At this point in time, there is nothing we can do other than pray. And only God will decide if we will be able to keep this little baby - of course, a healthy one.

I want to write this down because I want to capture this 充滿慌亂, 傷心, 期望而又可能面對最壞情況的心情. I am already feeling much better today as I am preparing myself for the worst, though difficult but am trying to manage.. this is so hard, and I guess it is a feeling and emotion that only a mother who had gone through the same can understand.

I now leave this to God's hand........

均均的第一次

Justine's school has a tradition of having the junior class performing at the graduation event as a way to send off the seniors, at the same time, showing the parents that the kids have been learning something in school. However, prior to the event, every now and then Justine would say that she does not want to go on stage. So, until the night of the event, we were holding our breath waiting to see if Justine will eventually go on stage, and when we finally saw our little one coming out in this adorable Arabian dress, we were so thrilled and laughed our tears out... comparing to Eunice (the little girl next to her, who is one year senior to Justine), Justine is definely "well-grown", and now I finally understand why she complained about the dress being too "tight"... but, it was defintely an exciting eventing for us ! (Not sure what Justine felt thought... :)

衷家老三來啦!

Alright, alright, for all of you who are going to make fun of us, YES, I am pregnant with the third, and both JunJun and ZhoZho will have another baby brother or sister right before the next Chinese New Year! In today's Taiwan when birth rate has fallen to close to zero, we are the rare parents who have been very productive to "introduce" 3 babies within 5 years... On the other hand, I have to say that I am thankful and we are blessed to be able to have so many lovely and healthy children. Raising kids is no easy tasks, but the reward is also priceless. For those of you who are still thinking, TAKE ACTION!

自來水博物館玩水樂

Despite both JunJun and ZhoZho wasn't exactly feeling "genki", after seeing the beautiful swimming pool in 天 籟, JunJun insisted to go swimming, so Papa and Mama took the two girls to 自來水博物館. ZhoZho seemed to be not afraid of water, JunJun on the other hand, would immediately start crying if she drank some water, or if other kids splash some water on her.

柔柔最愛盪鞦韆

Thanks to Aunt Michelle who gave us lots of free admission ticket to 信誼基金會, Papa and Mama took JunJun and Zho Zho to visit the playground two weekends in a roll. ZhoZho loves this littel swing and is very good at it!

2006 北京西安行

This summer, another big event is that Papa and Mama took Jun-Jun to visit Beijing and Xian. Obviously this decision eventually turned out to be not a very wise one, as JunJun is yet to appreciate the beauty of palace and the history and culture of ancient China at age of only 3. So this whole trip ended up being Hsiao-Wei Papa's training trip, holding JunJun visiting the Forbiden City, and all the other tourist spots!

大安森林公園玩沙樂

It's summer time! And finally, both Papa and Mama were free so they took me and Zho Zho to visit Da-An Forest Park.

See what your older sister did to you

This is evidence for Jamie to get back to her sister once she grows up!

Our Poo Poo Song

This is a most "smelly" song, watch it and you will see why...

金瓜寮溪一遊

I don't like water la....

After two weeks of rainy days, last weekend the weather finally turned nice. PaPa and MaMa took Justine and Jamie to join Unlce Tom and Antie Joann, of course with brother Sean to a beautiful place called 金瓜寮溪. Justine loved to play in the water and throwed stones, but little Jamie was too chicken and only stayed on the riverbank. Here is photo of the family all wearing the same T-shirt which we bought last year in Boston. Look at the face of the 3 Chung's, no one can dispute that they are genetically related!

衷家的一對小姐妹花

People say that the two sisters are looking more and more like twins... they are tiwns alright... except for the fact that Jun-Jun is a twin sister that is 20cm taller! Zho-Zho, 要加油啊, 快點趕上姐姐才行喔!

Justine's First Day to School

Finally, after 3 years, Jun-Jun (and now in school everyone calls her by her English name Justine) is attending pre-school! Despite wanting to find a place where there is outdoor area so that kids can use up their energy, at the end, we're sending Justine to a Motessori school "Maple Leaf" instead of regular kindergarden for its friendly environment, and lovely teachers! Of course Justine had been crying and did not want mom to leave in the beginning, but after close to 2 weeks, she is adjusting just fine now!

Zho-Zho's First Airplane Ride

Well, both mommy and daddy are not big fans of anything that turns... but when kids like it, what are the choices? GET ON IT!

均均的第一次 Roller Coaster Ride

During mom's "vacation", daddy and mommy took Jun-Jun and Zho-Zho and A-Yi to visit 小人國. Jun-Jun got on the Roller Coaster Ride for the very first time -- how did she like it?? She cried so hard even people outside the park could hear her. Was she scared? No, she cried simply because "褲褲濕了 啦" !!!

Dear Corinna - You Will Be Missed

My dearest cousin, and also my best friend Corinna, left us on May 18th, 2006 at age of only 38. Though we so much would want her to stay on and continue to fight, but seeing her suffering was simply ubearable. Now that she's gone, I deeply pray that she will rest in peace and no longer suffer any more pain. Corinna, I love you!

柔柔的沙龍照

這張"少女的祈禱", 是把拔和馬麻的 favorite.....