An interesting week at Mount Elizabeth Hospital

In the Shovel Household it’s been an amazing couple of weeks. Pregnancy and all its accoutrements have finally become Parenthood and all its highs and lows.


Last weekend on the night of the glitzy Singapore F1 Grand Prix, my Lady gave birth to our first son, Junior. While the world was watching cars whizzing around Singapore’s cute and sassy city-circuit and Singapore was either enjoying the thrills and spills or moaning about road closures, our lives were changing.


The maternity ward at Mount Elizabeth hospital behind Paragon Mall on Orchard Road (aka Mount E) took care of us. Our parents are many hours away and have their lives to get on with. Our siblings are similarly wide-spread and we’re newly arrived to the island. We’re pretty much looking for as much knowledge and guidance as we can get as new parents so that we can figure this out on our own.


On the second night, as Junior was screaming his lungs out for no apparent reason, we asked the helpful night-crew what might be going on and if there were any cues we might have missed. The delightful nurse simply picked up Junior, cradled him a little and shrugged her shoulders.
“It could be anything, it’s so hard to tell” she said,
in a matter of fact way that could only be offered by someone who is asked the same question by desperate parents every single day, yet who has the professionalism and patience to avoid emotional responses at these difficult times.


The next move was unexpected, but on reflection we suspect it is the usual course of action at Mount E, known to be the birth-place of choice for Singapore’s TV stars.
“Would you like me to take your baby to the nursery for you?”


We were somewhat taken aback at the ease at which people are offered the option to pass their newborn over to the nurses, but we persisted. We don’t want someone we don’t know (however professional) to remove our child and relinquish us of responsibilities at such a vulnerable moment. We want to know what’s normal, what’s not and what we should be expecting.


It was too much of an easy exit, too much of the “someone else do this hard work for me”. This is not normal behaviour for Singapore, the nation where the individual is not just empowered, but expected to act for themselves. We pushed the nurse on what we could do and after two attempts we finally got a response that made sense. Some helpful advice was that he might be thirsty and without Lady’s milk coming in yet, Junior might just want a little more liquid.


Sure enough, as eggs is eggs, after 3ml of water, Junior was a happy sleeping bunny again. An hour of pacing the ward with him, in my PJs, attracting unusual looks from late-night workers that suggested I could be stealing the baby didn’t do the trick, but 3ml of water and 5 careful minutes of the right questions got us an answer. Armed with this tiny nugget of information, we move on to the next day.
Shovel

Getting older and not being quite so precious about it all...

I’ve been pretty quiet the last couple of weeks. Work has been busy and Lady and I have been dialing it back in anticipation of our new child joining us.


One of the things that I’ve been realising is that the older you become, the less worried you are about some things but the more worried you are about others. Your pressure points and concerns change.


It’s the little things I think I’ve noticed first. I don’t know whether it is me trying to blend in but I find myself belching just that little more openly at dinner. Not raucous, gut-wobbling belching, but a pleasing small bubble of post-dining contentment. I’d like to think that I can keep up with the Grannies and Aunties who you’ll hear let rip after a plate of fried bee hoon at the hawker centre, but I think my English sensibilities will hold me back for a good few years yet.


I’m not into hocking and spitting into the open sewers (or even public litter bins) like most guys here, but, yes, I’ll probably be more inclined to pass a small bottom-burp in public now if I think I’m not going to stink up the joint. I’m just not that precious about it now.


Similarly, I think the aging populous in Singapore are finally getting over the sense of reverence about the grand-daddy of Singapore, the great Minister Mentor, Lee Kuan Yew. As brilliant as his legacy is, some of the things that are being put up for discussion are not getting the enthusiastic, rousing approval from all and sundry that they used to. Maybe as Singapore and the population also ages they don’t feel so tied to the one-party line either or conforming to the socially respectable ways of old.


In a taxi a couple weeks ago the driver and I were discussing the current proposal of not retiring from work at the age of 65. As wonderful a policy as that may sound to an older generation that is still able, willing to contribute and, more importantly, valued (and to be honest might be in desperate need of an income in this expensive city that has ramped up living costs in the last 20 years), to many voters it’s not sounding like a winning idea. This particular taxi driver effectively thought that LKY was losing his touch with the common people, that the vast wealth and longevity of his ‘reign’ had finally set him out of context with what the people really needed or wanted.


I was quite surprised to hear such open and honest discourse. Refreshing and interesting discussion points for the controlling party to consider how they remain relevant for the majority. Maybe it’s not just the young radicals that make changes. Maybe as we get older we still have a sense that things need to change and there is sometimes no value in maintaining the status quo.

Shovel