Donating my (Liquid) Gold

“Welcome to the Milk Mama Diaries Carnival (September). For this month, we will tackle milk sharing and how it can nurture the community, and how this spirit of giving can be sustained. Participants will share their thoughts, experiences, hopes and suggestions on the topic. Please scroll down to the end of the post to see the list of carnival entries.”

One of my online resources on breastfeeding is the blog: Chronicles of a Nursing Mom, who incidentally is also the organizer of this carnival. I learned a lot of things about breastfeeding on Jenny’s site, one of which is donating breastmilk. When I gave birth to Miya and went back to work, I had more than enough milk supply for her. Since we only had a one-door ref, I can not store my breastmilk for a long period of time. So after 10 or more days, we clean up my frozen milk at the freezer for fresh new ones. Note that I followed Kellymom’s breastmilk storage guidelines. It’s heart breaking to throw away those precious liquid gold, so I knew I had to donate them. The first one I donated my milk to is a friend of a friend. She just gave birth to a preemie and needed breastmilk while their baby was still in the NICU. I communicated with the hubby and he picked up the milk from our place. I think I donated twice to them. After that, I contacted Jenny and asked for details on where I can donate milk. She told me I can donate milk through UP-PGH or the Facebook page of Human Milk forHuman Babies – Philippines. But I think after a day, I received two texts from two different women needing milk. I offered to donate my breastmilk to the first one who messaged me. But I also donated milk to the other mommy the next time I was able to store breastmilk. This went on for a couple of months, I donated milk to these two mommies. After the first round, I was the one who messaged them and told them I have extra milk for them that are ready for pick-up.

Believe it or not, I was more pressured to build up my milk supply to be donated than to build up my daily supply for Miya hehehe. This is so because I didn’t want the mommies to travel to our house and pick-up the milk and end up getting just a few ounces. So my personal goal is to pump an extra 30oz of breastmilk for two weeks that I can donate to these mommies.  I was also inspired to stick to my pumping schedule at work and even on weekends because aside from nourishing my own daughter, I was also nourishing other babies. I felt an elation knowing that my breastmilk is enough to sustain more than my own baby. One of the mommies I donated milk to was referred to me by her friend. Her friend was the one who texted me and asked if I had still breastmilk. It turned out her husband just died and her baby is 5 months old just about the same age as Miya then. Due to the death of her husband, her milk supply dropped and she needed breastmilk donations to nourish her baby.

Sadly, when my milk supply dropped and the milk I pump was just enough for Miya I stopped donating milk. I was so sad I wasn’t able to donate when Sendong hit the country and people were asking for breastmilk donations. I wished I could have donated my breastmilk to those babies affected by the typhoon.

Donating breastmilk was an enriching experience for me. I will gladly do it again in the future.

*******

In commemoration of World Milk Sharing Week 2012, share your own experiences as a milk donor or recipient. Don't forget to visit the other participants of the blog carnival:

Brenda has notes on breast milk givers and takers
Mafeth wrote about being a milk donee
Cris donated her liquid gold
Pat had a happy problem donating solved
Jenny wrote about wet nursing from a relative's experience
Rachel discussed how she felt about receiving donated milk and nursing an adoptee's baby
Mec insists it takes two to Milk Share Tango
Cai received milk from her sister
Nats has a Milk Sharing Story too

Weekend: Downs and Ups

After blogging about my sick daughter last Friday, it turned worse. Around 4pm, our yaya texted me that Miya's temp was at 38.6 so she gave her Calpol. After a few minutes, Miya was vomitting. I immediately went home. I arrived past 5pm and she was still weak from all the vomitting. I carried her and asked, "What's owie?" She pointed to her head and her mouth. She was still feverish then because she threw up the meds she took earlier. For about an hour, she would throw up once in a while sometimes just saliva and nothing else. She was so kawawa. I was broken hearted. I smelled like vomit but I didn't care. I took care of her. I gave her a sponge bath and then after an hour we gave her meds again. She was feeling a bit better afterwards. She asked if we can go upstairs na, so we went even if it's not yet sleeping time. I thank God, she was better almost immediately after. When Joema got home, she's almost her usual self. After a few more hours, she was okay already. I also called her pedia just to make sure. He told us to give her round-the-clock meds and bring her the next day for check-up. Since Joema was in a hurry to go home, he wasn't able to passby the pedia's clinic to list Miya down for the next day's check-up. On Saturday, we had to wait for almost two hours before she was checked by the pedia. Thank God, she was not ill anymore. There was a toddler in the clinic who was sick, she was so matamlay, I feel for her.

Playing at the pedia's clinic while waiting for her turn

That Friday night, we had to forego a dinner with some friends because Miya was sick. We had to cancel our plans for the weekend because we weren't sure if she'll be okay during the entire weekend. Good thing, the doctor said it was viral respiratory tract infection and she wouldn't be sick any more. True enough, she was well enough after (well, even before the check-up).

So for dinner on Saturday, we asked our friends if they could dropby our condo to have dinner with us. One of Miya's ninongs is home from Singapore during the weekend. He hasn't seen Miya since she was born. At first, Miya didn't want to come near him. But later on with some bribery, she softened up to him hehe. You know what he used to briber her? Pizza! The moment she saw the pizza delivered to our unit, she was calling out to him "Ninong! Ninong! Kiss!" even volunteering to kiss him hahaha!

with Ninong Bud

Sunday was my mom's birthday. We ordered from Amber's (their crispy pata is the best) and bought cake for her. Miya, of couse, sang "Happy Birthday" to her Yaya - that's how she says Lola or sometimes it's Yoya. My mother was more than happy.

Happy birthday, Lola!

All in all, the good trumped the bad. Even Vettel had a good weekend (he finally won another race this season and in Singapore no less!). How was your weekend?

Sick Kid

How’s your week going? Well, mine’s not really good coz the baby has fever. She first had it on Wednesday afternoon. Good thing, hubby was able to leave work early so we were at home at a fairly early hour. Then I had to skip work yesterday since she had low-grade fever when we woke up yesterday. Her fever is around 38.2 or 38.1, that’s the highest temp she had. Nothing to fear, I guess. She’s not matamly and she still eats and drinks her milk but I can’t help but worry. Yesterday, while I was with her she was okay the whole day after drinking her med. Her temp went up at around 37.5 during the evening so I let her drink Calpol (only 1.2ml) again so that she can sleep soundly and not be bothered by her fever – I was advised by her pedia to only give her medicine when fever reaches 38. This morning when we left she also had temp of 37.2 so the yaya gave her medicine. But I instructed her afterwards not to give medicine anymore if her temp is below 38. I don’t want to overdose my kid. We haven’t really went to the pedia for check-up since I’m sure we’ll only be advised to observe her and go back if her fever is more than 3 days already. The instructions from her pedia on medication was told to me the last time she had fever. So that’s what we’re doing, observing her. I’m hoping she’ll be okay by tomorrow. Joema and I had plans for tomorrow. I’m not sure what we’ll do if she’s still stick by then. Oh well, let’s roll with the punches.

I hope you have a good weekend!

Traveling Mother

I’ve mentioned in passing that I have an upcoming trip in the next few months. Well, the plan has been finalized, we have flights and hotel reservations. We also have our necessary security clearance. See, without divulging too much about where I work, I work for a multilateral organization, a development bank (So please, don’t come to our gate and ask if there’s an opening for a teller!). When I first came here, I was part of the administration side of the bank, mainly we're handling benefits of the staff. So even if I work here, I’m not too familiar with how we are “working” with the rest of the region. But after a few years of working behind the scene, I transferred to operations. That’s when I learned a lot about how the bank worked. How our projects are able to help our developing member countries. 

This is my first “mission”, as we call it here, so I have a few concerns. I have not really sat down and figured out what my concerns are in terms of work related ones but my main concern is leaving my daughter at home, for a minimum of 3 nights. Good thing I was the one who arranged our itinerary, I was able to shorten our trip to 3 whole days (including travel days!). Unfortunately, our schedule will be hectic. After an almost 24 hour flight, we’ll have a 2 hour land trip to the site and hit the ground running with a meeting. That goes on for the next two days of our trip. My flying hours will be longer than my meeting hours. Whew! But as I’ve said, I’m okay with it as long as I can be back to my daughter as soon as possible. 

In our office intranet site, one of the articles posted for mother’s day is about working mothers in our field. I would like to share this article with you here. It’s a long read but worth the read. It gives us insight on how mothers are able to juggle working, travelling and managing the household. This article is written by Shana Montesol Johnson who is a career coach. A profile of her is included after the article.

The article after the cut...

Math and F1

Saw this tweet from Red Bull Racing a few minutes ago:

I wish I knew F1 when I was a fresh college grad. I think I would have applied for this position. Even though it's in far away Milton Keynes. I will still try. Oh my, just imagining it I'm feeling so giddy hahaha. Look at the tasks involved for this position:

The successful candidate will develop skills in problem solving, creativity, teamwork, planning, innovation and communication whilst performing the following tasks:

• Provide real-time support to the trackside engineering team from the factory, during race and test events.
• Assist with post-event strategy and competitor analysis.
• Develop analysis methods and techniques.
• Develop software applications to assist data analysis.
• Assist with ad-hoc competitor and business analysis tasks, liaising with numerous departments around the company.

Oh my gosh!I will be able to work side by side with Vettel! Imagine combining the two things I love! I will probably not tire of going to work every singe day. Seriously, over the weekend while watching the race I even commented to Joema that I wish Miya would study engineering and be fascinated with F1 and then she can apply in one of the teams. Hay, if only this happened twelve years ago, I would have tried my luck. But 12 years ago, Vettel was not racing yet. Oh well, I would have been rooting for another driver so I'll stalk his team's twitter account website as well hahaha. 

House Talk (Again)

I've been obsessing again about having our own home! We went to a viewing over the weekend. We really liked the place! It's not a house actually, but it's a condo but it's inside a small gated community. So we get a compromise - it' still within a "subdivision" where Miya can learn to bike and play outdoors but we have the security of a condo and we won't get flooded. Looking at my checklist before:

• a backyard/patio - no patio since this is a condo, although they have a small area outside the lobby
• lots of windows / bay windows R
• lot area has to be atleast 200 sqm - no lot but the unit is 135sqm
• breakfast nook - no space for this
• walk-in closet - just ordinary closet in the master's bedroom
• atleast 3 bedrooms R
• one bedroom/extra room on the ground floor   R - technically a yes since it's one floor only haha 
• two storey house just in case another Ondoy hits   R - it's a condo so we won't get flooded
• no to cramped kitchen R  - kitchen is just the right size

That's only 5 out of 9. I say this place gets a passing mark. After contemplating last night, I figured we're in no hurry really. We're waiting for cash to come in actually ahahaha! If this property gets bought before we get our budget, then I guess it's not for us. I keep on praying that the Lord grant us with the right house. Not so big, not so small and not so far please. I guess that's one of the things that prompted me to look at listings again. One morning last week, I woke up rather late around 7am and thought to myself, I don't think I can ever wake up earlier than 6am again. When I lived with my parents, I have to always be up and out of the house by 6am. If I leave a few minutes after 6am, traffic will be horrible already. Then I thought I have to wake up early when Miya starts big school since most schools start at 7am. I don't want to wake up at 4am just to help her prepare for school, I don't want her either to wake up too early to just to go to school. I want us to live relatively near the office and near schools. That's one of the big plus on this property we looked at over the weekend. It's near our offices and near good schools. But wait, if I add location on my checklist then the property will only be 5 out of 10 - that's pasang awa! Oh no hahaha! 

The Tale of a Loving Wife

After giving birth to our first-born, I sometimes struggle being a loving wife to my husband. Don’t get me wrong I love my husband but there are times I find it hard to be lovey dovey to him simply because I tend to prioritize Miya first before him. We’ve been married for more than a year and a half when we found out we’re pregnant. We actually really waited after a year before trying to have a baby. We wanted to enjoy the honeymoon stage for a long time. We enjoyed those 18 months just us two. When we found out we were pregnant, we were overjoyed. I was ready to become a mother. And a mother I became when our first child was born. I doted on her, I took care of her. There were times when I neglected my duties to my husband. I get irritated when I have to take care of him when I need to take of our baby. I always have to remind myself that I’m a wife first, a mother second.

I was reminded of my wifely duties by Joy’s blog – Teach with Joy. Read about her first. I don't know her personally. I've commented on her blog only once. But when I discovered her blog, I've immediately included it on my blogroll. Not only does she blog about homeschooling her kids, she also shares marriage advises. In her post entitled “The Canned Good of Disobedience” I thought she wrote that post specifically for me, she wrote:

“He created men to be spiritual leaders and he called them to love, protect, and provide for their families. Yet so many men fall short of this standard because they don’t know God and what his Word has to say about their role, or they do know but they are selfish (like we are, too!). Our reflex response as women is to look out for ourselves or take charge when we feel like our sense of security is threatened. When we feel like the men are not stepping up, or they can’t be trusted, we go into self-preservation mode. We reverse the roles and “wear the pants” if necessary just to make sure that our men make the right decisions or that we don’t end up at the losing end of a relationship or situation.

I know this because I was like this at the beginning of my marriage. Every time I distrusted Edric’s decision making capacity, I contradicted, challenged, and manipulated him to do things my way. Well, Edric has a pretty strong personality so we would butt heads instead. And this led to a lot of conflict. What changed?”

And then she wrote:

"I surrendered my marriage to the Lord and my rights (of course, I’m still a work in progress!). The verse on submission says this, “Wives, submit to your husbands AS UNTO THE LORD.” (Ephesians 5:22) Ultimately, I wasn’t disobeying my husband when I was unsubmissive, I was disobeying God. And if I was submissive, I was submitting as unto the Lord – for the Lord, because of the Lord, trusting in the Lord to look out for me.

Submission is a heart issue. God knows our hearts. I can be submissive on the outside but negative and begrudging on the inside. That doesn’t count. At the end of the day, the desire to submit reveals whether I trust God completely or not. If I focus on my husband, I may not always feel like submitting to him. I can be tempted to think, he is not doing his God-given role so why should I fulfill my God-given role? I will submit when he is deserving of my submission! But if look to God and do it for Him, then it liberates me. My heart is at peace because I am right with God. God will deal with my husband.

The solution has been to do my part and then pray for Edric. By God’s grace, Edric is a wise man and he loves God. But still, there are instances when we don’t agree on issues. So this is when I pray, “Lord, please speak to Edric. If he is wrong, then please change his heart, but if I am wrong then please change my heart.”"

You see I’m like that, I sometimes manipulate my husband to do what I want when I think he’s not making the right decision. After reading this post, I started really praying for my husband, every time we have a disagreement. I pray for the grace to be respectful towards my husbands decisions. I pray that he will make the right decision for us, his family. And like Joy, I started praying, "Lord, please speak to Joema. If he is wrong, then please change his hear, but if I am wrong then please change my heart.

In her post entitled, "Stone Throwing: The Ugly Sport of Married People" she wrote:

“My prayer is that I will be a grace-filled wife, a true helpmate to my husband who desires to meet his needs with joy. Marriage should be a happy place without room for the hurtfulness of judgmentalism. I’ve got to put my stones away. My mom always says, “lower expectation, and raise appreciation” toward your spouse. I have to keep remembering that and applying it because I am prone to think negatively of my husband when I hold him to a set of expectations. Appreciation of him, on the other hand, compels and motivates me to be a better wife. And that’s what I want to be.” 

When I became a mother during the first few months, it was always Miya Miya Miya. When my husband needed something from me, I always thought, "Why don’t you get it yourself, don’t you see I’m taking care of our child?” I hated it that I had to do both my mother and wife duties – I was getting exhausted. Our usual fight is when I don’t get to go home early because he has to finish some work. You see, we go home together (he drives the car). So when he goes off work late, I had to wait for him. And during the first few months after I returned to work, I always fought with him because I wanted to be home early to be with our daughter. This is a major fight between us, I’ll spend days not talking to him because of this especially when he doesn't even say he's sorry. I blame him for us not coming home early. I blame him all the time. Of course, that was me being petty. Obviously, I was wrong. When I married my husband, I vowed to be his partner, to take care of him and our children, to love him and to submit to him. These days when he has to get off work late, I don't nag him anymore why we can't go home yet. Instead, I pray for patience to wait for him. I just call our daughter over the phone to while away the time that I have to wait for him. You know what it works,   we don't end up arguing on the ride home and he's even says he's sorry he had to finish off some work and come home late. The more I pray for him and for myself, the more I see him transform. Of course, I still sometimes have lapses but I remind myself not to get angry so easily and just pray. It's hard but who says everything is easy?

Truth be told, this is a hard thing for me to blog about our married life. But I wanted to share with you how Joy’s blog helped me in being reminded how it is to be a loving wife. In case some you are going through the same thing, why don’t you go on to her blog and read her posts?

Another Toddler Program

We tried another toddler program for Miya. I don't want to say the name of the place because I was disappointed with the classes. I bought the voucher for 8 classes from DealGrocer. Since I also bought my Gymboree sampler classes from Deal Gocer, I figured this must be a good place. Unfortunately, my expectations were not met. We only went for three classes and did not come back for the other remaining classes that we're supposed to go to.

The first time we went, there were I think more than 10 kids with more than 1 companion each. Some kids even had 3 companions inside the room. And since we were new to the program we didn't know what to do. First we were asked to line up and my thought was "Line up and do what?" It turned out we were supposed to line up and do the activities on the floor much like the play area at Gymboree. Sorry if I will keep on comparing it to Gymboree since this is the only toddler program we've attended for Miya. So Gymboree will be my standard in comparing all the other toddler programs we encounter. When the program didn't start, I was happy Miya was doing all the activities on the floor. But the moment the program started, it was chaos. There was a kid and adult in every corner. I had a headache after a few minutes the program started. I can't follow what's happening. After the kids did the floor activities like going inside the tunnel, climbing the steps, going down the slide, balls were given to the kids to play with. They were asked for different colors which they can shoot. After the balls, the kids were given musical instruments. There was a song being played and the children were asked to play with the instruments while the music is playing and then to stop when the music stops. After the musical instruments, they were given different colored blocks/shapes. Again, the teachers ask for a specific color and the kids should be able to hand it to them. For these three activities, after every activity the children were asked to pack away - much like in Gymboree, they also have almost the same song "This is the way we pack away, pack away, pack away. This is the way we pack away here at Gymboree" only there they use "here in our school".  The teacher has one teacher aide but honestly I don't know who is who. I guess the younger one is the teacher but the teacher aide is the livelier one when giving instructions. Plus since there were a lot of kids, they didn't really see if all the kids follow the instructions or whatever. That's when I realized how important is teacher:student ratio when we pick a school for Miya. I thought my kid will either be super smart or super slow for the teacher to notice her if I put her in a school with lots of kids in a class.

There was also an activity where the kids were asked to divide into two groups and then they play with this small log which they push towards the direction of the other group. Another activity is jumping on a trampoline. And then I think they proceed to singing songs. The teachers sang the song without even teaching the kids the lines to the song first. They just went on singing and doing the actions to the song. The older kids and I guess old-timers to the program are able to sing along. After the songs, i think it was story telling time. Afterwards, it was bubbles and parachute time (both activities are part of Gymboree's play class). These last two activities are Miya's favorite. So by the time the last activities rolled in, I was starting to be happier with the program. I thought well maybe the program is for a small number of kids only, they didn't anticipate the number of voucher holders from Deal Grocer.  Which is true enough, what happened because after the class they gave out letters saying that they're extending the use of the voucher until October because they were overwhelmed with the number of buyers of the vouchers. Well, I think the one who handles their registration was inefficient, that's why they had this problem. The voucher said to email them immediately after buying to register. So I did, I even emailed our preferred schedule for the 8 classes since I want to get a slot as early as possible. I did not get a reply so I called their office. When I called I told the one who handles the registration that I already emailed the voucher and I was checking if she received it. She said yes over the phone. And then I asked if I can change the schedule I emailed, she took my preferred schedule (I thought) because I dictated it to her. Since the original deadline for using the voucher was Sept 2 and we only had a few Saturdays left, we scheduled a few weekdays for the classes. This is of course dependent on when Joema and I can take a leave from work. There were another few changes in our sched, so I emailed the new sched again and asked for an email reply to confirm the changes. The person in charge replied and confirmed the new sched. When we got there on our first class, I was asked to sign a registration form. So I did, and then she asked me what schedule I wanted. So I told her that I already emailed it to her and showed her a printout of our email conversation. She then asked me if she can have the printout for her file. Sus! And there I thought when we arrive, they'll have a list of all the participants for this Saturday and just check it against their list. But no they don't have that. They just give you a small card which they will stamp on every time you attend a class. On the one hand if they were only more conscious about this, they wouldn't have a problem with the schedules. On the other, their system also worked since everyone was accommodated. But the problem was the class was always full packed. The three times we were there, there were always 10 kids or more. I'm not sure what their policy is with the number of students but their venue was not fit for a group that big. The play area always felt chaotic.

Happy trying out the tunnel

More photos after the jump..

Back in Each Other’s Arms

Oh yes! Us and our yaya are finally back in each other’s arms. Yihiii!!! LOL! But you know what jokes aside, I really felt so at peace when our yaya came back. Remember my horrible yaya stories? When we finally had a yaya, I was still not 100% happy about her. I don’t want to blog about it here anymore because I really want to forget about those things. Suffice it to say, I texted our first yaya, Yaya J to come back to us because of what’s been happening. I was so happy when she texted me back and told me she can go back to us by August. I was even happier when she finally texted the date she’s coming back. I gave her a salary increase and paid for her transportation going back to Manila. Now, I’m happier than ever. On the day she returned, she did three things that convinced me that I made the right decision in getting her again and the salary increase I’m giving her is so much worth it. First, she  discovered that Miya had headlice. Yes, my 18-month older (then) already had kuto! Imagine that! I felt awful because I didn’t even knew it, I thought she kept on scratching her scalp because she had flare-ups from her skin asthma on her scalp. It turned out it was headlice. And I know where she got it – from the previous yaya no less! Confession, I had headlice too after checking myself! I think, Miya got it from the yaya and in turn I got it from Miya because we co-sleep with her. Well she got it from the yaya because they’re together most of the time. Haay! I had to consult our derma on what shampoo to use on Miya. He suggested using Kwell. We used it two times on Miya – one week apart. And Yaya J also manually took out the headlice after Miya’s bath daily during those times. After more than a week, all of them were gone. Hurrah!

Also on Yaya J’s first day, she managed to start Miya on potty training. I’ve asked her not to put diaper on Miya the whole day because we’re not using our trusted brand (stocks ran out!). Since Miya’s skin is very sensitive, we can’t switch to different brands of diapers as much as my wallet wants to! So Yaya J asked Miya to say “Wiwi” when she wants to pee, they were successful a few times on her first day. Miya sometimes says “poopoo” now even if she’s only going to pee. I even brought that contraption that we can put on our toilet seat so that she won’t fall off on the bowl. It’s basically a smaller version of the toilet seat that we can put on our own toilet. We’re not 100% potty training Miya, meaning no her and on us to potty train her. One time that she’s not wearing her nappies, I asked her to tell me if she’s going to wiwi/poopoo. She kept on saying poopoo which I knew she meant she wants to pee. When I took her to the toilet, she just won’t go. When I put on her panties again, she said “poopoo” again. Since I didn’t bother checking if she wants to pee again, she peed with her panties on in our living room hahaha!

The third thing Yaya J did on her first day, she bought a gas tank for us on her own initiative – of course, I paid for it when I got home. See, our gas tank is provided to us by my parents, we only tell them to replace the tank itself. I don’t even pay them back. (Yes, I’m still living off of parents haha!) Yaya J texted me that we didn’t have gas anymore and we don’t have an extra tank. Again I blamed the yaya before her that we got into this situation. Good thing she was still able to cook lunch for her and Miya. In the afternoon, I texted her that I already bought ulam and rice for our dinner. She texted back that she already  cooked rice. I was surprised how she was able to cook rice and when I asked her, she said that she called for delivery of the gas tank. I didn’t even tell her to call, I just texted her to ask our neighbors if they knew a delivery store near us. She didn’t text me the number so I figured she didn’t get a number for delivery of the gas tank. If it was our former yaya who had to dealt with that situation, I’m pretty sure she and Miya wouldn’t have anything to eat until we got home.

To borrow some local celebrities’ words, I am now more panatag with Yaya J back with us. I never knew how much I relied on her until she left us. I never knew how fortunate we were with her until she left us. I know now how much important she is to us, and I hope she stays longer with us this time. She actually already was my mother’s househelp for 3 years when we got her. She came to our house when Miya was barely a month old. She left last May making that 14 months with us. I hope she stays with us until Miya gets married hahaha! 

After The Break

After finishing the self-imposed 30 day blogging challengein June, I only blogged 3 times for the month of August. Ay sus!

I’m now breaking my blogging silence to blog about F1! They went on a month-long break (almost as long as my blogging break) after the Hungarian GP in July. It was an exciting race yesterday although we weren’t able to watch the first half of it (more on that in a separate blog – I hope!). I wasn’t able to watch the qualifying session on Saturday too but I was updated and knew that Vettel will be starting 11^th place during race day after not qualifying for Q3.  Anyways, I was so happy to come home to a 5^th place Vettel running after Hulkenberg at 3^rd and his teammate Webber in 4^th place. And when the two drivers pitted, Vettel was up in 2^nd (Raikkonen who was previously 2^nd also pitted). Yahoo! When we saw from the lineup that Grosjean, Alonso and Hamilton already retired, I told hubby there might be some accident on the first corner with these 3 drivers. But I never imagined it was a major accident, here are the photos:

I’m a fan of Vettel but I never really wish for any harm to other drivers, especially a life-threatening as this one. I actually felt sad when I saw the footage when they showed it on Checkered Flag (after Race Day in Star Sports). Nakakapanghina looking at the video, imagine what could have happened if Grosjean’s car flew directly on top of Alonso’s head. Good thing though is that safety is always the number one priority in F1. Even though the crash looked aweful and in any ordinary circumstances the drivers might not come out alive, last night the three drivers were all alright after the crash, no injuries, everyone was okay. Here are some photos:

Grosjean's car flying over Alonso's Ferrari. Source.

Alonso's Ferrari after the crash. Source.

Alonso's perspective. Photo from his twitter account - @alo_official 

Here's a video of what happened.

Grosjean was handed a 50,000 Euro penalty and a one-race ban. I think he won’t be driving in Monza next week. Hopefully, next week there won't be any major accidents. And hopefully, Vettel will get to win a race again!