It goes on...

When we first knew baby is on the way, we faced our first dilemma of choosing ob-gyn & hospital. Pantai hospital is near where we live and we like Dr Low, the hospital facilities however were 'okay' which is better than basic - however the maternity wards are near the delivery rooms so labor 'sounds' can be heard :P Adventist hospital has excellent facilities, promotes breastfeeding and we liked Dr Ng as well, but it is further away and a little more expensive. After much deliberation, labor room/maternity ward tours, we decided to continue with Dr Ng at Adventist.

Next came the search for confinement lady. I was in my 4th month and 70% of the confinement ladies I called up were booked. So after talking to a few available ones, we met up with one 'recommended' lady and decided to hire her, so we paid up some deposit. My colleague coincidentally hired the same lady for his wife's confinement in Nov-Dec.

After confinement lady search was the babysitter search. After looking around a month or so, we visited 2 available babysitters and decided to hire the one that seemed less calculative and more likely to love the baby.

Then, my colleague came back with many unfavourable reports of our confinement lady, including attitude, quality of work, etc that made us uncomfortable. My other concern was the availability of the confinement lady as my EDD is now 1 week earlier and I knew it would overlap with her other job. So I started looking out for other confinement ladies but only those recommended directly by friends, not 'friend's friend's friend's sister'... Well, I couldn't find any available that were also within budget (<3k). Now the plan is for our moms to come for 2 weeks each and help with the cooking while we hire a temporary maid probably 3 times a week for the cleaning. I think it will work out, probably for the best :)

Finally, the latest episode in the saga... my ob-gyn Dr Ng left Adventist without any notice given! We saw him on Friday for checkup and by Monday he had left!! Apparently he left on very short notice (24 hours). So, we are back to our original dilemma of doctor + hospital.... whether to stay with Adventist, change gynae; go to Dr Ng at another hospital; or back to Dr Low at Pantai... decisions, decisions....

Interesting journey so far :)