Confinement plans

I’ve made confinement plans since months ago and with the help of some church members, we contacted one confinement lady by the name of Mei who lives in Semenyih. At the time we contacted her, she agreed to take up the job at RM1800 for a half way work, including cooking for lunch and dinner only. Well, wanting to cut costs, we didn’t think it was necessary to get a 24 hour nanny. Mei wanted us to call her again when we’re one month to the EDD to arrange for her to come to our house to check things out and start buying the things we need. So, sometime last month, we started calling her. We made appointments with her and drove to Semenyih to pick her up. However, once we got there, she was uncontactable and her phone was off. The next day, called her again, and she said she forgot her phone, then said she was busy for another two days. So two days later we called again, and she said she is travelling on holiday in Genting, and asked us to call later. Later we called, and then she said she was busy as she had to accompany her friend to make her license or something. At this point, I was already frustrated. All we asked from her is just to meet up and let us know the confinement list of things to buy. So we directly asked her if she’s serious about the job, for which she replied and asked if we have another confinement lady contact. Plus she also talked like she cannot make a firm decision when to meet up. It made me feel like she’s really not serious, and might have some hidden agenda. She said to call her back again, but we never did.

We called a couple of other confinement ladies, but most talked a lot about money, as my due date is 6 Feb, and it’s considered Chinese New Year time. Chap Goh Mei falls on 9 Feb. Most confinement ladies have a “pantang” of not working during this period, either that or they’ll charge exorbitant fees up to 4.5k.

So, being only one month to go, I know I needed to book one before it’s too late. So, I googled and found one mum’s site, and I contact Karen about SN-Nanny Confinement Ladies Service. So, having talked to Alice, the boss of this agency, I decided to book one, hoping that she can get one from Sarawak too. The deposit is RM700 non-refundable, so looks like there’s no turning back. I booked for Feb 6 at RM2.9k, if baby decides to come out earlier, I will need to find someone else to help out before the confinement lady comes. Thankfully, there’s a church member from Indonesia who was actually interested to help, but she does not have experience, her only experience being taking care of her own child now at 3 years old. Well, she’s going to be the back up plan should my EDD be earlier.

I’m going to blog about this confinement experience in every detail since no one has made a review about SN-Nanny. From what I gather so far, Alice is pretty ok, can speak English, but does not answer SMS. She doesn’t really email either, even though there is an email on the website. The most prompt way to get anything done is to call her handphone directly. However, she is quite fast for anything that you ask her, I asked her for a confinement list of things to buy and she immediately faxed it to me, the list is certainly helpful for someone like me who doesn’t know what is ‘Dong sum’, and stuffs like that. The list is in Chinese and English, so it’s great.