After much anticipation on the day of 16th September 2006, it came and went just like that and with four persons, signing on the dotted lines on the marriage certificate, had just pronounced my other half and myself as husband and wife...

It was a memorable day as we have been planning for this occasion since a month ago and we were worried about so many things, fortunately it passed with no complications and in fact has brought two souls together and made two families bigger.... with myself getting an additional mommy, and my wife getting another daddy... ironically, both my wife and me had lost one of our parent, me losing my mom, and my wife losing her dad... so this came as a blessing....

I was proud and touched that I am able to "get" a mommy from this auspicious occassion, and likewise my wife....

And also the presence of my long lost cousin, Grace, whom i've not met for about 7-8 years has in fact made this day more memorable... together with my wife's brother, sister-in-law, and the two apple of their eyes, Alex and Darren (aka rascalians), coupled with my wife's good friends and family members, and not forgetting Erik, my more articulate cousin bro, has in fact made the day an eventful one....

Watching both my dad and my mother-in-law's facial expression, I was very happy that both of them were there to grace the marriage and give us their blessings... I had wished that my mom was around to witness this occasion as she would have been the happiest mother in the whole world to see her son get married...

But no matter what, she was in my heart during the whole ceremony and i know that she's watching over us from wherever she is.... giving us her blessings... The same goes for my wife who had told me that she wished that her dad was still around to witness and to "give" her daughter away.... I told her the same thing, her dad is watching us from wherever he is, giving us his blessings too....

While the stork is sending the baby over, the nervousness began to sink in... like titanic sinking to the bottom of the ocean... from the moment we found out that my wife-to-be was pregnant, the anxiety and worried feeling of breaking the news to our parents was nerve wrecking.....

In this eastern parts of the world, the local tradition and culture plays a very important role in our daily lifes.... and when it comes to getting pregnant before marriage, it was deemed a sin and immoral during the times of our ancestors... I would believe most, in fact all parents would PREFER to have their children get married first then only pregnant, and here we went, rebelious some would say, to do it otherwise....

But i kept reassuring my wife-to-be that we will get married upon hearing the news, as a matter of fact, we had discussed and planned to get married somewhere next year, even before we got the news.... how ironic....

It was on a mon evening (14th August 2006) when we found out that my wife-to-be was pregnant, and we were discussing the ways to break the news to my father and her mom.... being on the guys side, i thought it was easy to break the news to my dad... hold that thought man.... it ain't easy... thus, i was intending to break the news on the coming sat when i go back to my hometown, face to face... somehow ironically, my dad called up on tues and said that he is coming to KL on wed for some business, and wanted to meet for dinner.... i said to myself, WOW great, can break the news to him earlier....

came the fateful wed night.... my dad, a friend of his, my wife-to-be and myself were having dinner and yup, i wanted to break the news to my dad.... and you know what, i was chasing butterflies in my stomach the entire time i wanted to open my mouth to speak... but then again, i told myself, sooner or later i would have to break the news to him, so i decide to be more subtle and started like, "Dad, elaine and i are planning to tie the knot...." and he replied, "what knot....?" i then said, aiyor, stop pulling my leg lar... then he asked when... and i told him somewhere in oct this year.... he practically loked at me and asked, that's fast... and before he was given any opportunity to continue to asked further, i interrupted by telling him... "yup, that's the first part of the "getting married" news, and supposedly if I were to tell you that you are going to be promoted to become a grandparent... what do you have to say to that...? he immediately stopped eating, looked shocked and stared straight into my eyes.... and he went, "no wonder the whole time during dinner, i noticed both elaine and you were behaving suspiciously and weird..." (both my wife and I were giggling and smiling during the entire dinner....) ultimately, he said that's good, double happiness.... GOSH... what a relief.... the relieve was so tremendous when i managed to catch all the butterflies flying around in my stomach.... we continued to eat dinner and talked about the pregnancy and the marriage arrangements... but actually prior to the above happenings, I have spoken to my sis in US and informed her about her going to be an aunt... she was estatic.... and she told me not to worry, in any case, she will help me out with my dad....that's my sis...

then after that, I told my wife, one down, one to go.... the harder of the two hills to climb was to break the news to her mom.... my wife was practically suffering from sleepless in KL (if you know what i mean) and loss of appetite prior to breaking the news to her mom, then came the fateful thurs night when we decided to call singapore in which her mom was staying with her son... my future brother in-law... but prior to that, on thurs morning, i advised my wife to informed both her brother and sis-in-law first, because i believed that the younger generation would be able to cope with the news better and would be able to cope with whatever circumstances arising from her mom receiving the news.... In fact when my wife told her brother and sis-in-law in the morning, they were both laughing uncontrollably... how weird...

so we called, and my wife informed her mom using the same script i told my dad... her mom was silent upon hearing the news, and my wife then asked her mom to call back from singapore as the rates from there back to malaysia was cheaper.... okie, we practically waited 15 minutes... and yes,it was an agonising 15 minutes before the phone rang.... and even though shocked and surprised, we were very relieved that after all the anxiety, her mom gave us her blessings to go ahead with the marriage...

In life, once in a while there are surprises that will shake you off the rocking chair, while some surprises puts one in a fix, others may come in the form of "pleasantness"... As for me, it came as a pleasant surprise when my wife-to-be passed me a strip of pregnancy test after a normal visit to the clinic and asked me to decipher... I went, "So what does this strip tell...?

I really haven't had any pregnancy experiences before, and definitely dun know how to read the stripes on the strip...." Well, my wife then told me, one stripe means negative...... I looked again, and there were two stripes... I went " You sure or not....?" and we were looking at each other in disbelief... after some thorough discussion, we went to a pharmacy and got a home pregnancy test kit.... went home and tested it.... after five minutes, the were two stripes... WOW... I'm gonna be a daddy....

The excitement was unbelieveable because about 3 months of months ago, while my wife was admitted to a private hospital, she was "diagnosed" with possible endometriosis, while the doctor explained that the chances of conceiving a baby is very minimal, and may cause infertility...

Thus, this surprise came as a blessing in disguise...

Now, after two weeks later, we have gone to see the gynae for the second time, as was amazed that a life form is developing in my wife's body....

The first visit to the gynae, the doctor advised to do a ultrasound scan, the image was so vague, all that we can see was a round little white sac, with a black inner core, that's about it....

On Mon (4th September 2006) after two weeks since the last visit to the gynae, the doctor did a follow-up check and a subsequent ultrasound scan was performed, while in the scan room, we were so amazed at the massive development of the fetus, from the above round little sac to a view of a formation of actual baby.... It was only a two weeks time frame and 8 weeks old, I was amazed at the stages of development of a new life being....

The below ultrasound scan picture was done on the 4th September 2006, at 8 weeks old: