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fmylife

pregnancy

The somewhat kinky Pregnancy&Me webinar

August 27, 2009

The state of our public health education has taken a giant leap forward, as I have been told at the launch of Pregnancy&me’s new live webinar at the swanky Grand Hyatt yesterday. It has certainly come a long way from the days of having propaganda shoved down our throats like “SAY NO TO DRUGS” or “CASUAL SEX IS BAD” or “SMOKING WILL GIVE YOU TESTICULAR CANCER“. Ok, the details might be a little fuzzy to me right now, but I do remember seeing large posters along that vein adorning the walkways downtown.

But all hail the revolutionary new development called a webinar (web seminar, geddit?) where audiences can now interact with doctors and trained professionals live from the comfort of their own cozy little armchairs. It sounds like a dream, especially for mothers like me who, for all intents and purposes, are under house arrest. Venturing 10 meters from my front door sets off multiple alarms that will wake the neighborhood and cause dogs to howl. So I welcome the idea of webinars with milk-stained open arms.

The initiative smacks of ingenuity as it harnesses all the magic of the Internet. Video conferencing – check, live interaction – check, interconnectivity – check. The point is that a panel of doctors will conduct a web seminar on a preassigned time and date on the portal and members of the public can then log in to participate. The panel seems impressive enough, boasting names like AP Tan Kok Hian, Chairman of O&G at KK Hospital. (Seeing how they managed to deliver my baby after a grueling 27 hours via natural birth has filled me with all sorts of good feelings towards their O&G department) Also, they have a whole list of topics planned out for an entire year, covering a gamut of pregnancy-related issues.

I also liked the concept of a medical butler. Makes me feel all aristocrat, if you know what I mean. “Why, Jeeves, could you bring me a cup of tea, please?” Except my medical butler isn’t going to shine my shoes or serve me tea. Her job is to moderate the questions so that the doctors won’t have to be stumped by something like “my dog has three nipples, is that a sign of infertility?”

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iMedical Butler: 'Hi mam would you like some placenta to go with your cord blood?'

All a step in the right direction.

But I’d be interested to see how this pans out in the coming year. I foresee teething problems aplenty.

1. Webinar Structure

Out of an hour-long session, 25 minutes are dedicated to a lecture-style presentation and only 15 minutes for questions and answers – which is really the highlight of the webinar. Now, if I wanted to listen to a lecture, I’d much sooner watch archives over youtube at my own convenience (like 3am where I’ve got an hour to burn while feeding the kid). If I have to have to log in at a specified time in the middle of the afternoon, I’d want to make it count.

2. Audience Participation

Singaporeans are notoriously passive. While most of us are happy to sit back and observe, few would want to venture out to bare the details of our personal lives over the net, especially those relating to STDs and former/current indiscretions. Which means we end up with questions like “Doctor, doctor, how do I get rid of the swelling in my ankles?” See, that’s why Google was invented. Every one of the top ten links related to swollen ankles will tell you to raise your feet at night. You don’t need a doctor to tell you that over a live chat. I want to know the fun stuff, like what are the top 10 sex positions to improve fertility.

3. Topical Treatment

There’s an inherent problem with assigning different topics every week. Say I develop a nasty case of gonorrhea sometime in the 25th week of my pregnancy. And say I have to wait 5 weeks for the topic of STDs and Pregnancy to come up on the webinar, only to have the doctor tell me something like “you should have consulted medical advice three weeks ago. Now it’s too late and irreparable damage has been done to your baby.” I knew I should have gone with Google. FML.

But I’m sure the good people over at Pregnancy&me will have all these minor kinks sorted out in no time.

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blogging about blogging

The accidental blogger

August 25, 2009

I was in one of my contemplative moods earlier today and one of the things I contemplate about most is how my life turned out so different from what I expected it to. I’m not the kind of girl that has the next 30 years all planned out, but I do have a general idea of what it will be like. It used to change all the time, like one day I’d be going on a book tour LA (after releasing my NYT bestseller) then another I’d be some fancypants advertising hot shot screaming at lowlife executives (you don’t get to be a hot shot without the screaming). In none of those scenarios, I’d be sitting at home with curlers in my hair blogging on the laptop.

First of all, I never had a thing for blogging, which is why I’m only jumping on the bandwagon an entire decade late. When it comes to the Internet, I’m one of those suspicious old farts. It’s evil, I tell you. It’ll mysteriously syphon off all my money and spy on my every little move. Plus, I’m a fiercely private person and the thought of having random folks well-acquainted with the intimate details of my personal life gives me the creeps. What if I get stalked by a psycho and get chopped up into a thousand tiny pieces and fed to dogs? Bet you didn’t think about that, did you?

Also, how weird would it be to have complete strangers giving you knowing winks and nudges or coming up to you and say “Had a nice weekend there, aye? Hard at work making #3, I see” (which by they way is NOT happening). Then there’s the likelihood that in my fit of shock, I reach for my pepper spray right after I paralyze them with my karate moves… only to find out that they’re totally harmless die-hard fans of Mother, Inc.

That’s also why I never kept diaries or journals – so they don’t fall into the hands of preying eyes. Ok, I did keep a diary once, back when I was like nine, and it had entries like “Dear Diary, I fell down the stairs at school today while trying to jump 4 steps in a row, but I missed and took a tumble and landed flat on my face with my skirt ridden up to my waist in front of a bunch of boys who actually died laughing. Please let me die.” There were also a few other incriminating entries, none of which I want to recollect. A few years later, I decided it was too painful to read so I burnt it and scattered its miserable ashes into the sea.

That’s the fate of my one and only diary, so it is hardly surprising that I’m not a fan of this whole idea of blogging.

But having kids, it turns you into obsessive compulsive freaks who MUST keep a record of every little fragment of their lives. The first roll, the first step, the first crap on my thigh that gave me rashes for a week. So since it hasn’t stolen any of my money yet, the Internet is now my new best friend. I spend hours everyday surfing blogs of other mothers (and I am also addicted to FML – it makes me feel so much better about my life) to find solace in the fact that plenty of other moms have gone on ahead and survived to tell the tale.

More than that, the beauty of blogging is the community. It opens up a world of possibilities and connects you to people you otherwise would never have a chance of knowing. Motherhood is one of the loneliest jobs and by far the most difficult. Now that I’ve taken the plunge into the blogosphere, it’s turned out to be the best decision I’ve made in a long time and I ain’t turning back.

So once in a while I get the occasional troll, but they can eat my dust because I KNOW KUNG FU. And believe me, if you can find me, I can find you too. That’s the beauty of the Internet.

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