Meet Sebastian

Alittle backlog here but we've finally come to some sort of routine that I can now take alittle breather to update. Looking rather tired above, it was taken on the 15th July, the day after Seb was born. (Think I'll be calling him Seb from now on and NOT Little Sparrow.. hahah.. at 4085gms *ya ya , can go buy 4D*, I think Little is the LAST thing on my mind now.)

DISCLAIMER: This is just to share the experience I had for this birth. Guess all of you know that births differ from peeps to peeps so I hope the below does NOT discourage nor 'scare'those of you who are reading about labour.

12 July (Sat)
Can see from previous post that the mucous plug came out, usually means that labour/birth is nearing

13 July (Sun)
Spent most part of the day with slight contractions. We were waiting till it became about 5 min apart and with a duration of 1 min as that is usually the time that one should go to the hospital. In the meantime, the pain started in the morning and was progressing till about 5-6pm. It was getting more pain towards the later part and so I just stayed home and watched... something exciting to take my mind off the pain... 2 words, Scolfield and SONA ;)
At 6pm the pains were getting stronger and it was time to go to NUH. Checked in and was sent to the labour ward 22 cos I was already in labour. Checked that I was 1.5cm dilated and was given that jab painkiller. *i dun really know the scientific names for the painkillers, cos actually, i was intending on a natural birth*. That jab thinggy lasted for 3 hours and I was sent back to normal ward. After 3 hours, the pain was getting worse and I asked for another jab. Gynae decided that I should just be given an early epidural since I was already in pain.

14 July (Mon)
1am- Got the epidural and was soooo relieved from the pain. Was really quite glad and now it's just waiting for dilation. After about 3 hours, I felt a sharp pain on my right back. After a few checks, we realised 2 things. 1. I was only 3 cm dilated and 2. the epidural does not seem to work on my right side after about 3 hours. Tried to tahan the pain for a few more hours but it was getting worse. Gynae also decided to increase the contractions via the drip so that I could dilate faster. Dilation needs to be 10cm before birth. Pain was getting quite unbearable and I tried that gas thinggy which is like being drugged, you still feel the pain but you''re too much in narcosis to feel like doing anything but sleep! :P We did higher dosages of the epidural but it did not help my right side of the body at all. Gynae decided to redo the epidural, so I was prepared for epidural no. 2! Redid it and I had another 3 hours of peace and sleep... but alas, 3 hours later the SAME pain was coming back. We tried increasing the epidural dosage but it didn't work AGAIN. Also, they kept checking me and i was STILL 3cm dilated. This was getting really too frustrating and I was already in a wreck with all the pain. Around 5 something, they all decided that I should go for an emergency Caesarian because it was already 24hours and there was seriously no point in torturing myself. Frankly, I was so exasperated that I just broke down. It wasn't that I was afraid of the Csect, more so the frustration of going through 24hours of pain and hearing '3cm only' throughout. It was just a mixture of feelings then. Everyone kept telling me not to cry and that a Csect isn't that scary but I was too distraught to tell them that it was not the Csect that I was crying about but more so the disappointment and perhaps, I dunno, maybe relieve that the pain will be over.
Then there was the decision about going on GA whereby none of us would be able to see the birth or going on epidural. Thing was, epidural was not foolproof for me since i could still feel the pain on the right side. After much discussions with the anaesthetist and my gynae, we decided to go for a spinal instead. It's a stronger dosage and should last definitely longer than the epidural and the c-section should not take longer than an hour. We decided to take on the c-section with a spinal so that we could at least experience something out of this birth. So the c-section was done and the gynae still had a problem getting the fella out! So they used a vacuum suction to pull him out! Jeez, he must have been having too good a life inside me to wanna come out!! So after around 24 hours, we finally got him out. Unfortunately the many contractions stimulated caused him some stress and not only did he poo, he also ate some of it :( So he had to be sent to the ICU to be monitored and I was wheeled away to be monitored for about an hour to see if I get back all the senses after the spinal. It was then that my gynae came over to me and told me that Seb was 4085gms!!! Wallau eh, I was about 3.8 kg when my mom gave birth to me and Hans was about 3.5kg so I guess we have some sort of big genes lah... :/ Also, Seb was in a posterior position and was sitting on my backbone and on some nerves there, that was why the painkillers didn;t work so effectively on the right side. Oh well, I will not deny that it was an ordeal and a very testing one at that but it was over.

15 July (Tues)
Lots of checks and monitoring and I could barely take a few steps to the wheelchair to be wheeled to the neonatal unit to see Seb. As pic above. The rest, I think aren't so interesting but I would like to thank everyone who wanted to come visit. Sorry if I sounded abit aloof but there were just sooo many things happening with talks with the neonatal doctor, my gynae, checks on me, checks on Seb and I was still feeling like a wreck.

16 July (Wed)
Seb was still in ICU. They were checking on his heartrate etc and I was visiting him 3 times to try latching him on for breastfeeding. Was also getting stronger and had less checks done.

17 July (Thurs)
Was told that Seb is ok and that he'll be able to come up to be rooming in with me at noon! :) My new roomy... and somehow I still feel like he's a stranger, despite being in me for 9 months. Thankfully Hans was able to stay with me throughout this whole episode... sure needed all the help I could get. We spent the day attending the baby bath, breastfeeding etc lessons to prepare ourselves abit. The rest of the day, we had the nurses and consultants coming to us to give advice on baby care.

18 July (Fri)
We're finally back home in the evening ... and then another episode starts. That one.. I'll leave for later to update. But for those of you with kids, you know, the erratic hours, feeding, pooing.. all in the works ;)

Think i'll leave out most of the gory details or pessimism in this post. Like they say, hindsight is always 60/60 so we leave this episode being alittle wiser :)

Will post more pics of Seb soon. Meanwhile, will be busy not only with taking care of him but also with the numerous checkups for both baby and mommy.