A child is born

He is finally out. After weeks of anxious waiting, Christopher Lai Yong Chang finally arrived into this world in style on the 22nd of May 2008. He made mummy go completely au naturale, without epidural. Anybody who knows me knew that I was not going to deliver without epidural. Little did I know that my baby had a different plan for me. This is how it all happened:

1.00am : My water broke. I was sleeping soundly when suddenly I felt liquid trickling out. As more liquid continued to flow out, I knew this was it.

2.00am: Keat and I checked in to the specialist clinic, 2 minutes away from my MIL’s house. The midwife examined my cervix and said that it’s already dilated by 2cm. Great! All that hard work done without any contraction.

2:30 am: I proceeded to change, clear my bowel, do all the deeds. After all that, the midwife checked my cervix again and said that it’s already dilated by 4-5cm. This was again, without any contraction. Yippee, things couldn’t be going any better.

At that point, I asked the midwife if I could take the epidural now. Her reply was, ”What epidural! You’re too late for that! At 4cm, you can’t take epidural anymore.” "What! That's not what I've planned!" Protest all I want but there was just no turning back. Fear started creeping in. All I could do was wait anxiously for the contraction to kick in. I really didn’t know how bad it would be.

3.00am: still no sign of contraction. The dilation had also slowed down. No improvement since the last check. I was beginning to think that Chris had pulled a fast one on mummy - get her to dilate fast in the beginning so she couldn't use epidural and then let's take it easy.

3:30am: some mild contraction, nothing I could not handle. I continued to chat with the nurse and midwife to ignore the discomfort. Despite the contraction, not much improvement in the dilation

4.00am: The gynae arrived. Dilation was about 6-7cm now.

4.45am: the contraction suddenly escalated and became unbearable. I started to squeal in pain.

Things became hazy after that… I lost track of time. At about 5+, the gynae checked my cervix for the last time and announced that it was time to push. I had this urge to push badly too to get the baby out and end the suffering. The pushing started. I don’t remember how long it took but it felt like forever, having to battle with the pain and exhaustion. Boy, I thought the pain from contraction was bad, but the worst was actually when the baby’s coming out.

As baby Chris came out and his crying pierced through the peace of the dawn, all the pain just disappeared. Keat had the honour of cutting the umbilical cord. He said it felt just like cutting calamari. I was just soooo exhausted but exhilarated to see my new baby. Welcome to the world baby Chris.

Barely 1 week old, doesn't he look like such a big boy in this pic?

36th week

Went for my 36th week checkup on Monday. The 36th week scan is the final scan and luckily, I managed to catch a glimpse of Junior 2's face again. He's grown quite chubby on the cheek! Doc said baby already weighs about 2.6kg so he's ready to be born anytime now.

Lately I've been experiencing more Braxton Hicks (for the uninitiated, Braxton Hicks is fake contraction) which means my uterus is practising hard for the real thing. I experienced it yesterday evening, in the middle of the night and this morning. It got me a bit panicky because sometimes it's hard to tell the fake one from the real one. It can also be easily mistaken for a bad tummy ache.

The pain at the groin area has also become increasingly unbearable. It hurts even when I walk. Somehow, I don't remember going through this when I was carrying Dennis, maybe because he's smaller.

With all that discomfort, I really can't wait for the baby to be out soon!

Sing along

Dennis loves to sing even though he can't verbalise the words yet. His vocabs are still very limited and haven't developed much from the past months. But that doesn't stop him from singing!! He sings along when he watches his favourite videos and listens to his songs.

Here are 2 videos of him singing. The first one shows him singing along with mummy in the last bit of the ABC song - note the dramatic finale. =)

In the second video, he is mummy's back-up singer, barking along as I sang the Mandarin song about a dog. But we didn't finish the song because as usual, he got distracted after a while.

Engaged!

Not me (again) but my baby is! Went for my 34th week checkup last Saturday and doc said that the baby has turned. That explains why I've been feeling a lot of pain...ahem....down there lately. I could hardly walk and sit decently like a prim and proper lady now...if you know what I mean. On top of this dreadful soreness, baby has been jabbing at my ribcage and will twist and turn when he feels squashed, especially when I'm lying down. Not very comfortable at all.

Doc said baby weighs about 2kg now. So all he needs is a grand total of 200grams to beat his big bro's record-breaking birth weight of 2.2kg. According to doc, baby will weigh about 2.7kg if he's born on the 38th week and about 3kg if stays on till the 40th week. Looks like he's not going to be a very big baby either but it's all good. I don't want to suffer too much during delivery.

As for the mummy, I've put on in total about 9kg thus far. I should be able to keep within the 12kg range if I maintain this pace. Keeping fingers crossed.

Doc said that the second delivery is usually easier and shorter. I sure hope he's right and not lying. For Dennis' delivery, my final phase of labour (i.e. the unbearable phase) lasted about 2.5 -3 hours. So, if he's right, I can look forward to one that's shorter than that. Yippee!


Here's how my baby looks like at 34th week (baby's got his palm resting on his face):

Thanks to An Sin ee-ee, who helped me to convert the scanned file to JPEG.

Dancing prince

Have I ever mentioned that Dennis loves dancing??? Maybe just a thousand times. Yes, my son loves to dance and he will dance at any given opportunity and to any music. He would dance to the music played in a commercial and even to those short intro music in news programme. Amazing isn't it?

For now, it is really cute that he loves dancing. But I secretly hope that the passion will be short-lived and he won't grow up to be another Billy Elliot. Otherwise, Keat and I will have some pretty tough decisions to make.

Here's a video of Dennis indulging in his favourite pasttime. His definition of dancing is just turning round and round and round and round..... doesn't it remind you of ballet??? Scary.

Frustration!

So the big shot finally got back to us yesterday and guess what! He agreed to attend the event! YAY!!! Despite the stress, everyone was excited and started scrambling to get things done. Finally, it's HAPPENING!!!

And then today, exactly 24 hours after the consent was given, he changed his xxxx mind again! He wants the event postponed!!! Postponed to God knows when because no new date was given!!

This is a PG13 blog, about my son and my blissful life and I intend to keep it that way. So I shall keep my mouth shut and .......Hmmm......I think it's best that I stop writing now....

Excuse me while I explode!!!

Stress! Stress! Stress!

I'm stressed at work. My work is being delayed by some big shot who doesn't have time to let us know whether he can attend an event. My deadline is looming large but nothing can be done until he's given his consent. My worst fear is he agrees to it at the last minute and then I have to start scrambling like a mad woman.

Working with the Government pisses me off. I'm definitely going back to the private sector after this. Note to self: No more Government, semi-Government agencies! Go for a job which has minimal contact with the Government or civil servants in the future!

Sorry... just need to vent my frustration.