scrubs
we waited for him to come before we said goodbye to our stay at the hospital.
i feel strangely attached to my doc.
we’ll be seeing him again on monday for a follow up checkup.
and it will also be snip-snip time for aniq!
ps: happy birthday to another baby A today! congratulations herda, what gorgeous cheeks your lil one has!! i shall cherish our yahoo msger days together, sharing info and stories, and especially scaring and comforting each other throughout our nine months being preggers. well done, mommy. :D
got milk?
i had prepared myself mentally up to the point of delivery. but beyond this room, i had no idea what was to take place…
everything had happened so quickly…
i’m glad i delivered in the wee hours of the morning. the corridors were quiet, i had the full attention of the nurses…
i’d underestimated the sheer amount of blood i’d lost during delivery. i’d woken up from my second brief nap and was assisted by a hefty nurse out of my bed for a nice warm shower. my waist down had become heavy, and i’d barely taken a few steps before the room spun around me and everything… blacked out.
it was a few seconds before i came back to earth. i had to sit on the toilet bowl for a while to get blood flowing back to my head. HO BOY.
peeing right after delivery – it isn’t so bad. i just… leaned forward a bit and not think about it. coz, well, if you gotta go, you gotta go, right?
the hardest part for me in all this whole postnatal experience was: breastfeeding.
i’d already steeled my will to breastfeed no matter what, and nothing was gonna stop me.
the first day, the nurse got the baby to latch on me, and i knew nothing was coming out of me, but the baby suckled, so i prayed something will come out soon.
the feeling at first was very strange. it was like… being in labour again! when he sucked, i felt contractions. and it was tingly down there. very strange indeed.
he sucked and sucked and sucked, and i was soon convinced i’ll never have any milk come out of me.
the first day wasn’t too bad, because he slept a lot. by night time, he’d grown hungry and was sucking even more voraciously. by night time, i’d lost my adrenaline rush from the baby, visitors, etc. but he kept on sucking and crying and getting windy from sucking air instead of liquid. needless to say, in the wee hours of our second day together, baby and i were exhausted and frustrated.
the nurse offered to give the baby either glucose water or formulae. i was torn. i gave in to glucose water.
the next morning we tried again, and still the baby was crying. it MUST be tiring, all that sucking and not being sufficiently rewarded for his hard work. i gave in to formula.
and i cried.
the doctor came to visit, and had a look at my stitch. “good, no hematoma,” he declared. he also said i could give birth ten times. GAH!!
he asked how i was feeling, and i replied a meek “overwhelmed”. so he tempted me to stay one more night at the hospital. i hesitated at the sweet thought of all those nice nurses at my beck and call, all their help with the baby, and all that nice food which kept appearing at my bed…
the thought of going home in my state did not appeal one bit. so i said ok.
i’m so so glad of my choice to stay another night. it made all the difference in the world. not only did i recover by leaps and bounds with that one extra day in the hospital, it gave me a LOT of confidence in handling my newborn. i gathered tips from observing the nurses, and asking questions in the nursery. little things like swaddling the baby, cleaning him up, burping him, and most importantly, discovering that – I HAD MILK.
one of the nurses checked to see if i was lactating by squeeeezing my areola… and LO AND BEHOLD! clear liquid secreted out of me, followed by a drop of dilute white stuff.
amazing, i tell ya!
see, how happy i was going home after that?
even the baby was contented.
so i perservered in my breastfeeding endeavours. of course, the discomforts of engorgement and sore nipples made me cringe when it was time to feed. but never once did i think of giving up.
my masseuse came on the afternoon of my first day at home, and from her, i gathered more tips on breastfeeding, things i didn’t read up on prior to delivery. like spending only 10-15 mins on each breast; alternating the breast for each feed, unless baby feeds on both breasts in one sitting in which case to start on the last breast the next round; expressing the milk with a warm towel when engorged; squeezing out a bit of milk and spreading it around the nipple to prevent it from getting sore.
SO MUCH TO DO!
by my fourth day as a mother, i am happy to announce that i am the owner of two FULLY functional boobs. i have been breastfeeding totally since i got home. it’s such a wonderful experience, masyaallah. you cannot imagine how overwhelmed i feel at the thought of providing food for my child from my own body. simply… miraculous.
and my aniq loves his happy hours. :)
arrival of… Kid A
hello!
we’re back!
all THREE of us. :)
first of all, thank you to EVERYONE for your words of encouragement, well wishes and do’as. they mean a LOT to us, coz… we survived!
shall i slowly recap what happened since my last ten-minutes-apart contraction entry?
***
so around 8.40pm, i was pret-ty sure my contractions had shrunk to exactly 5 minutes apart, in a very constant pattern. called the doctor, who said we could proceed to the hospital. hokay! time for some action, finally! :D
we took our time finishing up our KFC meal (yes baby, you last had chicken) and had a quick bath.
grabbed our bag and took a final picture before leaving the house. haha.
all freshed up!
very bedek, right, 5mins contraction can still smile. tsk.
got to the hospital at almost 10pm, the nurse knew whose patient i was, and we were promptly led to the delivery suite, where i got changed, peed (a FULL cup when i’d just gone at home), and got myself strapped to a strange contraption.
and the baby’s heartbeat came out of this machine like a thundering racehorse, in surround sound no less!
it went “GEDUB! GEDUB! GEDUB!” but in a watery way. (till the next day, i could still hear this sound reverberating in my head, since it was strapped on me till labour.)
baby’s heartbeat was good. and hey the machine also could tell when i was having contractions, and i was right, they were 5 mins apart.
let me tell you about this doppler monitor. it’s not exactly the most comfortable thing in the world when you’re lying on your back with a huge tummy which is squirming around and hardens every now and then. gah.
so then it was enema time.
a bit of a squirt up my rear, and ten minutes later, phew! great stuff if you’re having constipation, i tell ya.
from there, it was mostly just… waiting.
and waiting…
oh i forgot to mention about my Fingering Session which finally happened. unfortunately, it was done by one of the midwives, lol! when i came into the delivery suite, she wiggled about her fingers inside me and announced that i was already 5 – 6cm dilated, which was halfway through the process. i was 9cm within the next few hours. (and i suppose fully dilated by the time my water broke.)
i guess all that waiting out at home and walking around helped.
back to the contractions, did i mention they keep getting more intense?
unfortunately, izad didn’t take any pics of my face in various states of grimace. (because he was sleeping and i was grimacing. in silence. heh.)
at around 2+am, after i’d given up reading and watching crappy tv, the nurse asked if felt like passing motion. i wasn’t sure how to answer her, coz i thought i HAD passed motion. BUT, it was not soon after when i DID feel like i had to pass motion, and nodded when she asked.
she made me put on the gas mask during one of my contractions, and ok heck, let’s try it. but WHOAAA NELLY! that thing is EVIL STUFF! coz it made my head berserk and giddy and full of oxygen and made my breathing out of whack, so i said nooo, don’t want it, please.
and i *think* it was during one of my delirious states that we heard a sudden loud POP and water splashed out of me onto my socks and probably the walls and the midwives.
my waterbag had burst. ahh, so THAT’s how it’s like. hehe.
so from then onwards, the URGE to push got reaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaally strong, but the damned midwives (they were really very nice, really) kept saying, “don’t push ahhh… don’t push ahh… hana pandai…. very good….” because – the doctor had not arrived yet. gah!
of course, in my delirious state (by now i’d put on the gas mask as a means of distraction from the pain from the contractions, as well as deviced my own very effective breathing technique – breathe IN DEEEEP…. wail OUT LOUUUUUDDD) i was thinking “kepala hotak berdengung lah, macam mana tak push siak, peduli apa, PUSHHHHHHHHHH AJER LAHHH!!!”
the labour contractions. ahh. *chuckle*
they are very very intense when they come, but once the wave is over, you temporarily forget it coz it’s such a relief… until the next one comes. kinda like a Very Bad Constipation.
soooo, when the doctor finally made his VIP appearance, the baby was already crowning (according to izad who witnessed everything from the other side). he took one look, told me to open up my legs wide, snipped my perineum just as i was having one of that WAIL OUT LOUD AND PUSHHHHHH moment, and the next thing i knew, i felt a huge solid thing tumbling out of me. in malay, i would describe it as “terburai keluar”.
can i say that was one HUGE relief? :D
everything happened so fast, my legs weren’t even strapped up (coz i was told to keep the baby in, remember hehe), and the doc cut off the umbilical cord before izad could. i think he forgot lah. even his hair had the dishevelled look of one who’d just woken up from sleep. ceh.
so the baby cried and izad was laughing, more in amusement than joy i think, because the baby had peed right there where he’d just come out. so THAT’s why he wanted to come out so quickly, he had to go to the loo! talk about the call of nature!
i bit my nail, watching in amazement as the nurses fiddled about with him at the weighing machine, at that little person that had just come out of me. i also looked down in amazement at the tummy that used to be full to the brim, now floppy and flabby.
then i got to meet him.
hello!
meanwhile, the doc was fiddling about with me too. down there. he was waiting for the placenta to come out, and it fell out promptly with a plop.
the nurse had jabbed my left leg with painkiller that made it wobbly, the doc jabbed my nether region twice before stitching me up.
it was only much later that i discovered he’d snipped a straight line and given me ONE stitch. no wonder i could pee right after.
baby was given an apgar score of 10, and given to me to feed. a VERY short suckle, coz i still had nothing coming out of me.
izad said he came out clean, no sticky white stuff on his body, just a bit of blood on his hair. and MY OH MY, we were all shocked at that shock of hair. this was no VBB (Very Bald Baby)! it was a VHB (Very Hairy Baby)!
he was wheeled out to the nursery, and i had a short nap before i was wheeled out to our room.where i was given a menu.
food already??
at this point, it was 6.30am, and my adrenaline was still pumping. could barely sleep before it was time for brekkie.
and i shall continue with our second day later.
coz now…
I GOTTA BREASTFEED! GAH! :D
