Bath Time!

ahhh.... water.. oooh cold

ok slowly damnit, super wet, easy lah..

Awwwww.. shiok

I could do this all day..

Eh daddy, you stink, go shower

Bryan 2 weeks

Bryan moments

These are some super huge pajama granny pants that daddy bought. So huge that it is pulled up to the chest, and that kept us laughing non stop when we saw him wearing it.

Bryan after shower looking like he's strapped on daddy's hairstyle.

Now this is priceless. After a nice wipe down and change of clothes and diapers, i put Bryan on my lap and started snapping pictures of him. This expression was during the exact moment when he managed to pee on my pants without wetting his diapers at all, as though trying to say "Daddy go shower you stink", now how did he manage that feat, so early demonstrating the agility of his gifts!

Homecoming pics

1 week old Bryan

Couldn't bear to leave him at the nursery another day so
we rented the PEP BED to treat his jaundice. It proved
effective after he was cleared by our paed today.

Birth Account (Chronological)

6.30am Checked into the labour ward observation room. Change into the hosp gown, took urine sample and CTG reading plus cleared my bowels.

7.00am Moved into Delivery Suite and started the induction via IV. The insertion of the IV needle was so blardy painful.

8.00am Contraction readings starts to climb above 100 but I don’t feel any pain at all

8.30am Gynae came to do the 1st cervix check and I was still 0.5cm dilated. So she allowed me to have my breakfast (some miserable sandwich)

10.30am Gynae came to do the 2nd cervix check and I was now 1cm dilated. Good thing was that she did not tell me that she was going to break my water bag and I was surprised when she told me she did. No pain experienced. Instead, hubby noted pained expression when fish porridge was announced for lunch.

11.00am Contractions started to get heavier after the breaking of the water bag.

1.30pm Gynae came to do the 3rd cervix check and I was at 3cm dilation. At this time my contraction was still bearable but the backache was getting intense. Checked with gynae to get an estimate of how many hours to go before i can reach full dilation. The answer was 8-9 hours

2.00pm The backache was reaching an excrutiating level while my contraction pain was still bearable. At this point HB’s wrist was getting really tired from the heavy massage on my back so I decided to opt for Epidural as I don’t think I’ll have the energy to push if full dilation can only occur after 8-9hours

2.30pm The anesthetist came in to administer the epidural. At this point, the contraction had gotton really intense and my backache was at a point of no return.

3.00pm Epidural started taking effect and my legs were getting numb. The right leg was more numb than the left and that is a normal symptom.

4.00pm Gynae came in to have the 4th cervix check and disappointingly I was only achieving 4cm dilation.

5.25pm Gynae came in to have the 5th cervicx check. At this point I was thinking to myself how far i could go, expecting most probably 5cm. However the look on the gynae’s face told a different story. So in my heart I thought ok, maybe i got further into the 6-7cm range. She then gave me the best piece of news, I was fully dilated and ready to push!

At this stage the midwife started the preps to get me pushing and at every contraction, I will have 4 attempts to push my baby out.

6.05pm I was getting really breathless from all the pushing and baby has yet to move. At this point I asked the midwife to check if my gynae can assist with vacuum. Gynae arrived within a minute, administered the vacuum and I started pushing again. Each push took ounces of energy from me and i’m sure i burned hell lots of calories too!

6.30pm Bryan finally made his entrance. Gynae took about 1 hour to stitch me up due to the massive tear I sustained despite having an episiotomy.
The reasons for such extensive tearing were:
• that my vaginal was already swollen from all the pushing way before the vacuum was administerd.
• Baby’s head was facing up towards the ceiling instead of facing the anus.
• I have very delicate skin

Birth Account

While it is still fresh in my head, i better put all these thoughts down.

9-Nov-08 (Birth eve)

The day just before delivery is a day all couples should cherish, because as obvious as it may seem, being together as a couple alone would change forever, in many good ways of course.

Both Ade and myself had a pretty good day like many other Sundays we had before, going to IKEA to buy some last minute baby stuff, hanging out at the cafe, looking at kids running about, we even chanced upon Maureen and her husband and ended up having lunch together. That night, i was nervous as hell. Ade was calm as the wavelets in the koi pond downstairs. She said "its like packing the travel bags and going for a holiday".

10-Nov-08 to 14-Nov-08 (Hospital leg)

I probably will not describe in chronology the birth story, because Ade has probably done that, and it will be included in a separate post. So i will zoom straight to the birth of the child.

At the end of a really difficult 12 hours, it felt very strange to be hearing the sound of our baby coming from 4 meters away as he was getting cleaned up. We have always communicated with him through the tummy walls without ever getting much of a response. This time round, you hear cries being projected from his lungs, probably one of the most striking reminder that life is kicking, and a completely independent human being has been created from you and your loved one.

The contrast of feelings on this day was extremely overwhelming. Being in the birthing room from the first second to the last put me through the lowest and the highest of moments. Seeing Ade in such pain, desperation and vulnerability gritting her teeth in such prolonged periods of agony made me feel like crying, and almost a second later, seeing the baby out safely hit me with a tsunami of emotions at the other end of the scale. That extreme emotional polarity was impossible to describe. I came out of it feeling the goodness of a hundred feel-good movies, with the body in total exhaustion. Dads-to-be, if you wanna try this, bring muscle rub, if your child delivers at thomson medical center, the petrol kiosk next door sells 'counterpain analgesic balm' which really works. Having said this, I do really recommend going through the entire experience with your wife. If you are afraid that this experience might put you off sex for good, believe me, the only thing it does is that it will only make you love her more.

That night, the baby was wheeled into the single bedded room the first time. It was amazing, we were going cuckoo about him, getting real whacked about how we fumbled while calling him "our son". It was so strange to suddenly have an offspring, calling someone your child really takes getting used to. After numerous attempts saying things like "move IT there, change ITs diapers", we finally gave up "IT" and got used to "Our Son". Quite funny really.

I think it was great having a single bedded room. The first 100 hours of your time with your baby is a 100 hours you'll never have again once missed, because he changes almost every 5 hours between the time of birth and end of the hospital stay. Everytime the nurse brings him in, he looks different i.e. his head starts remoulding back to shape, theres a new smell, his hair fluffs up a bit more, he gets less crinkled, his eyes expand, the puffiness decreases, he looks around for the first time, he starts making wierd expressions. These things i feel, should never ever be missed, and though we got one of the older single-bedded rooms, there was nothing like going through these first moments in complete privacy with your wife. That slight difference in price between the single/double bedded wards does not measure up to this at all, if you should be able to afford it.

21-Nov-08 to 23-Nov-08 (Home leg)

As im writing this now, things have settled in quite a bit. We have gotten used to the confinement nanny's ways. Also, after a whole day of nervously orienting ourselves, we have started allowing normality to seep in. If i had to draw a chart of chaos/calm, before birth it was a mid range chaos, when you first hit home, there will be surge in the graph towards high chaos (emotionally, logistically), then it will slope down gently to a calm which is lower than that during pregnancy, because finally, the headcount of 3 in the family has become a concrete notion. I would encourage most dads to be as empathizing as possible, because that does help in arriving at the 'nomality state', that we ourselves are still trying really hard adjusting ourselves to. Its not easy, we fumble a bit, but childbirth is certainly the most rewarding experience i've ever had.

Bryan 3 days old

4am breast feed attempt

Daddy's first swaddle after his 3rd diaper change
no longer bed-ridden after 2 full days!

After feed.

Bryan

5 min after birth

4 hours after

morning after

Ready for Bryan's home trip

This is the day, before 2 becomes 3, before couple hug becomes group hug, before sound sleep becomes sleep walk. But hey, truth is, we both cannot wait to see this room filled with our son's lively sounds. We are both ready, in less than 24 hours, Ade will be in the delivery room, hoping for a quick induced delivery. Tomorrow is the day of delivery, all this because the amniotic fluids have dropped to low levels, low enough not to risk waiting any longer for natural signs of labour. However this is ok, because Ade will be 1 day away from 38weeks, comfortably into full term, and we no longer have worries about Bryan's growth maturity, because our gynae has ascertained that he has sufficiently matured to live in our world and breathe our air. Ok, will follow with more live updates.

Tummy update at 36 weeks

We are a few hours away from full term. The last picture at the bottom of the series was taken last week.

Progress at 35/36 weeks

Last week, we did a scan and this time Bryan showed his head sideways, and hes also grown to a size too big for the ultrasound range that we cant see his whole body. So this is his skull from the side profile. At the time of ultrasound, he was 2.65kg.

Just yesterday, we went for another checkup and hes grown to 2.8kg, we also discovered that the amniotic fluids are getting quite low. Funnily enough, just when our gynae mentioned that, he peed and kinda upped the level of amniotic fluids!! its almost a direct response to the water situation. This is sustainability guys, you drink and process your own intakes. Errgh. Well, so now we have a slightly delicate situation. Adeline is getting increasingly achy and immobile, and shes trying her best to hydrate herself as much as possible.

After having not done so for quite some time, this morning i decided to press my ear against Ade's tummy, and amidst a chaotic symphony of fluid sounds, i heard a regular rhythm, a heart beat that i later verified was not Adeline's! Super duper happy. And then shortly after, he started having hiccups and i heard that too. Its like a mini percussion concert happening inside. ahahahaha