The Extreme Comper in Me

For the next three months while I'm on parental leave, there will be an increase in competition posts on my FaceBook wall on top of the usual kids' photo posts especially dedicated for the grandparents and families in the Philippines. I am   hoping for my friends' tolerance or if it annoys you, please remove my posts from your wall.  On some occasions, I will be tagging you (especially if you're in NZ and if the competition prize will be shared with friends).  I've always been a comper and with the advent of FaceBook, the usual email comps are now ported into FB to increase chances of winnings.  So far, in terms of prizes, Aqui still has the most wins (her last one she won herself at ToyWorld and before that, Barbie Lego from The Warehouse) but Ia has the highest prize value (I won an Ipad while pregnant with her but she also won a Duplo Lego when she turned 2). The General is gaining momentum though with his recent Thermomix win and Oh Baby Win.

So how did I get to be a comper and what do I get out of it? (aside from the fabulous prizes of course!)

Aside from effort, there’s a lot of luck that goes with this “endeavor”.   My dad is the ultimate comper, with his overflowing luck accompanied by effort. I remember when I was a child, he’d bring home lots of appliances which he got as raffle prizes.  He won so much that there were lots of double ups so when Ronnel and I got married, we gave them away to our guests as a competition too and threw in some stuff we bought as well to give away in a hidden sticker game during the wedding dinner.   It was a wonderful surprise for our guests especially the winners who brought home a slow cooker, rice cooker and such.

And so even when I got married, I made sure I joined competitions when I had the opportunity.   I had some winnings in Malaysia too while I was with Standard Chartered Bank but it was when we moved to NZ that my comper-self was culminated.

My first win in NZ was with Griffin’s back in 2006, when I joined a raffle draw via The Warehouse.  It was our first month in NZ and to get drawn from out of hundreds (or maybe even thousands) of entries meant a lot to me as a comper.  We haven’t had our paychecks then so having not just one box but two boxes of Griffin cookies and other goodies was a really great win for us.  I had two boxes because Griffin mistakenly sent the prize for another winner to me and when I contacted them to advise them of their mistake, they said I can just have the box and they’ll send a different one to the other winner.  And so Ronnel and I enjoyed the first box and the second one was shared amongst my colleagues in BNZ. 

And I guess the rest is history.  I am always for the lookout for competitions when I have time and there is usually a surge in winnings every time I am on parental leave.  That’s because while bubba is sleeping, or breastfeeding, I go into ultimate multi-tasking comper mode.  I have drafts of emails with my details ready to send to a competition email.   I troll NZ Women’s Weekly, Mindfood, NZ Girl and other sites with regular competitions.   Of course not all prizes are really worth the effort, but what effort, really --- two minutes of filling out a competition form?  With the advent of Facebook, the art of comping has changed too.  Competitions now require you to like, share and comment, or even tag a friend.   I still have one rule that I try not to break – I don’t join competitions requiring votes to determine if I win.  I feel (I know) I won’t win those – especially with the limited number of friends I have on FB (quality vs quantity!).   So I just join competitions that rely on a bit of effort (such as this or this)  and a lot of luck – and that has been working well so far!

To be honest, this post was inspired by “Extreme Couponing”.  Ronnel and I were watching the series on Netflix and he told me that if we were in the US, I'd be one of those extreme couponers.  Ha, I was one step ahead of him.  I already googled if we had a similar coupon industry in NZ. Unfortunately, we don’t and here’s why -- http://frugalkiwi.co.nz/2011/07/beyond-extreme-couponing/ or http://www.enz.org/forum/showthread.php?t=31232.  And I totally agree with what’s posted in these sites.  The Extreme Couponing shows are inspiring especially when you see their grocery bill reduced from USD2K to a mere 40 cents!  I probably won’t go to that extent as it requires full dedication and couponing time equivalent to a full time job.  Plus I feel it's a bit unfair to hoard stuff you don't really need.  I won’t give up being a business analyst yet for the high of grocery savings.  Maybe when I win the lotto – if I ever buy a ticket. 

You might ask then --- so with this luck, why don’t I buy lotto tickets?   Same with my dad, the family luck doesn’t extend to gambling or when exchange of money is involved (i.e. buying a ticket to win).  I don’t think I’ve ever won in a raffle draw where I had to buy a ticket so I won’t go there.  As of now, I’m very happy with these winnings and even happier when I get to share it with my friends. So bear with me if you see a post in my wall of me joining yet another competition. Who knows, you might be a friend with whom I share my winnings!  Now, if only I can convince Ronnel to join on my behalf when it’s his turn to go on parental leave…

The General Chronicles - Part 2

We finally meet our little general!

Unlike his elder sisters, his delivery was drama-free. He stuck to the scheduled c-section plan and there were no complications.  Everyone was surprised at the hospital that I didn't have to take insulin this time around for the gestational diabetes. Usually, it would be the other way around, later pregnancies were likely to rely on insulin.  But hey, this is the General we are talking about. He is quite special.

So why "General", you might ask. It was Aqui who started calling him the general while he was still in my tummy. Out of the blue, she said "I think we should call him "General".  I asked why and she said she just wants to. So it got stuck.  Even Ia started calling him "baby general".  And so we thought of great generals for his real name, and ofcourse, there's no one greater than General Alexander the Great. And because Alex reminds me of the lion in the Madagascar movie (whom I am not fond of), I prefer to call him Axle.

The birthing experience

I had to go through emergency c-section for Aqui and Ia and so there was much drama and tension there. With Axle, it was calm and quiet. Sure, I still had some fears that things might go wrong - the anaesthesia might not work or something like that- but all of these we raised to God in our prayers.  Ronnel was with me in the operating theatre, armed with his DLSR so he can capture every second of that goo dripping from baby's skin.  I heard the surgeons talking about a cord around his neck so they had to act quickly and extract him and then there was a big cry resonating the theatre. He made his presence known.   They immediately cleaned him up, gave him to Ronnel for a quick cuddle and put him on my chest for the skin to skin experience. He stayed there for 25 minutes while the surgeons were sewing up.  According to the midwife, this skin to skin session helped a lot in calming him down. True enough, baby Axle is a really chilled out baby.  He latched on for breastfeeding quickly and while the other newborns in the neighbouring rooms cried all night, he just slept, ate and pooed. No dramas.

First Night

Aqui and Ia both had to spend their first night in NICU because of the gestational diabetes complications.  With Axle free from that, he spent his first night in the room with me.  Ronnel had to leave at around 8pm to pick up the girls as it was a school night and Aqui had to go to school the next day.  We are truly lucky to have our carer Racheal so helpful - the girls were all bathed and in their pyjamas when Ronnel picked them up.  Meanwhile, Axle and I are in the room and he was really cooperative.  The epidural was still working so I couldn't move my legs nor get up to cuddle him. I had to rely on the midwives to pick him up from his bassinet and give him to me for a feed.  Eventually, I just had him beside me the whole night so that it would be easier to feed him -- which meant I wasn't able to sleep at all.  But it's ok, sleep is overrated anyway.

Middle child blues

We did FaceTime with the girls to show them baby Axle and we noticed that while Aqui was enthusiastic and excited to see baby, Ia didn't share the same enthusiasm.  She wasn't saying anything and was frowning at baby during the whole FaceTime conversation.  When they eventually met, Aqui wanted to cuddle and hold him while Ia kept her distance.  It took an hour or so for Ia to warm up to him and eventually, she was stroking his hair and kissing him as well.

Extra bonus

On baby Axle's birthday, I got word from work that I was selected for an achievement award (Chief Executive Award) and that was a really happy news for me.  I was quite anxious at work because it hasn't been even a year since I left BNZ and joined the Ministry of Justice before I fell pregnant.  And so it came as a surprise that I was able to deliver even beyond the target.

Road to recovery

It's day 3 in the hospital  and hopefully, we will be discharged tomorrow. We've had visits from friends and it was great to see them enamoured by our little general.  We're also very grateful to our friends for being part of the child-minding roster, to take turns in looking after Aqui and Ia while I'm recovering and focusing on baby Axle.  That's life overseas,  our extended family is our friends and we have to rely on each other more and more.

And so we live day by day and look forward to our adventures as we are now complete and able to volt in, Voltes 5! 

The General Chronicles - Part 1

1 July 2014 D-Day minus 2

I have high tolerance for pain, physical pain, that is – probably because I come from a generation used to corporal punishment or maybe from the CAT physical training /pseudo hazing I had to go through in high school.  Either way, it takes a different level of pain to get the waterworks in my eyes.  And so the tears I'm shedding in the wee hours for the past nights for this little General describes how much physical pain I am experiencing with this third pregnancy.

With Aqui, I was induced at 38 weeks and although there was pain, it was only for a day and I had drugs as my crutch.  With Ia, my waters broke at 36 weeks and the labour also lasted for a day. Both were delivered via c-section, and for both, tears only came out of my eyes when I held them for the first time. 

I’m now into my 39^th week with the General, nearly full term and the pre-labour pains are creeping in day by day and worse at nights.  For those who don’t have an idea of this type of pain, imagine stubbing your toe on a sharp corner, multiply that by ten with a build up speed of 30 seconds, height of pain at 10 seconds and a slow down of another 30 seconds. Move that pain to your belly across the back.  To make it more fun, imagine a big boney lump inside you swimming leisurely at the expense of your internal organs.

The frustrating thing is that they're intermittent so I know it’s not labour yet. Even further frustrating is that I cannot take anything for it because I have to experience the pain to know if it was labour or not – and all of this started a few days/nights ago.  The only consolation I have is  that I only have 2D/2N to go before it’s all done… and then it’s a different kind of pain.

So how I do cope? I distract myself. I write. I pray. I stare at my sleeping girls beside me. I online window shop. I’m on Facebook. My TradeMe watchlist is full of nice things to look at. I feel bad for Ronnel because he is also losing sleep, asking me every now and then if I need to go to the hospital yet. I also feel his helplessness because really, there is nothing he can do. He is probably annoyed because all I talk about are the distractions that I use – FB posts, the viral videos, my TradeMe watch list etc.

But I hang in there, because I know that the General is healthy. He is oblivious to the pain he is inflicting and is swimming and just counting the days before his grand appearance… and maybe one day, when he is in his troubled teenage years and decides to inflict a different kind of pain to his parents – I will use this post as a guilt-extracting tool. Maybe.