09 May 2011: The birth of Elliot

Warning: I'm trying to squeeze my 22hrs of labour into 1 blog post, so what's coming up is gonna be a super long grandmother story. Bear with it ok!

It happened on a friday morning around 6.45am, GW's alarm clock went off and I woke up with a warm little gush below. Yeah, my waterbag broke and I began leaking water constantly like a broken pipe. Went to the hospital in the afternoon and the midwife confirmed my waters broken but since my contraction wasn't 5min apart, they have to send me home to wait.

Mild contractions kicked in on the next day, however they were not powerful enough to ring the hospital. I had loads of mucus plug discharge but no sign of blood. By night time, my contractions grew closer to 10min intervals and I had GW to time my contraction patterns for me just to make sure they are not Braxton hicks.

The 5min intervals came on Sunday and the pains were much stronger. I took a super long shower and was ready to check in to the hospital.

I was hooked onto the CTG monitor and the midwife came by at 4pm to check my dilation for the first time. I was 4cm dilated! I thought to myself  "6cm more before I can push.. I can do it!"

I got up and swayed myself diligently on the gym ball, hoping to fasten the dilation process. The contraction pains got worse as the time goes by, I took a 1hr warm shower and felt better. After dinner at around 8pm, the midwife popped by to check my dilation progress. My heart was beating super fast as she examined me, the anticipation is machiam like waiting for O levels result.

"It's still 4cm", she said. My heart sank.

She advised me to walk more and make good use of the gym ball to help the cervix dilate faster and she will drop by again at 11pm to examine me again. I took her advice and started pacing up and down in the delivery room. It's not easy to move when you are in so much pain but I was hoping to dilate asap so I don't have to take epidural.

When the midwife came to check my dilation for the 3rd time, I really want to go bang my head against the wall liao. What 4cm still!!! How can it be?? After so much walking and gym ball! Why so stingy don't even want to let me dilate 1 more cm?!?

I went to lie on the bed and took my next pain relief option, the laughing gas. The gas that makes you high and distract you from the pain. I was tired and relied heavily on the gas to get some rest. But who knows, I fell asleep with the gas mask, suck in too much and threw up my dinner. I was in a big mess and GW helped me change into a new hospital gown.

The rest of the night was awful. I keep having that hangover feeling and I threw up whatever I eat or drink. I was on the gym ball and crying at the same time as the pain now is getting worse. It's like someone digging hard into your gunshot wound.

The midwife came in at 1am to check on me and I'm still at 4cm. I cried like a mad woman!!! GW hugged me and I told him I don't know how much longer I can tahan, I'm very tired liao. I'm really hesitant to take the epidural cuz it's not part of the plan but looking at the cursed 4cm situation now, I have no motivation to hang on.

The doctor came in at 2am to perform epidural for me and I slept til morning 6am. I couldn't have any breakfast cuz I'm still feeling nauseous but at least I'm not in pain anymore.

Midwife came again at 6.30am, I held my breath and hoped for the best... Please let me be fully dilated. PLEASE!!! Sorry, only 5cm.. improved by 1cm nia. Oh man, I can't describe my feelings in words, I'm like @#$%^&*(!@#$%^&*!!!

I was soon induced as its almost 72hrs since my waterbag broke and I've still yet to deliver. By 11am, I was 10cm dilated and had the urge to push. I keep repeating to GW, my sai wanna come out liao. The midwife could see baby's crown but no matter how much bull strength I used to push, I still couldn't get him out of the birth canal.

This went on for another 2 hours and I heard from one of the midwife that baby's heartbeat rate had dropped and we gotta get him out quick. It sounded crucial and a doctor rushed in to assist me with a metal vacuum cup and Elliot finally slide out with a bullet shape head!

I always have the image that I will weep gently when they throw the baby into my arms. But I didn't.

I WAILED OUT LOUD!!!

Totally unglam.

Couldn't get enough of my precious little cutie pie. I'm a mummy now!

Home sweet home!

I wonder if I will miss being pregnant

My 7th visit to the midwife.

The checkup everything chop chop currypok all ended within 15minutes.
She gave me another appointment during my week 41 but she's confident she won't see me again. I hope so too but there's no signs of labour yet leh. There's one time I thought I was having contractions but it went away after I pungsai. *roll eyes*

Updates from the checkup:
1) gained 2kg, adding my total weight gain to 8kg.
2) check blood pressure (normal)
3) check iron level (good)
4) baby's heartbeat was 148bpm
4) length from pelvic to top of uterus increased 2cm to 33cm
5) baby's position: head down and position is fixed liao
6) baby's weight: midwife estimated my baby is around 3kg

Ending my post with my (most likely) last bump picture for this pregnancy and meet our new friend, Broccoli Obasan :)

The Bump @ Week 38
Not very big for 38 weeks preggie hor?
Bobian leh, I tried my best to stick out my tummy as far as possible liao.

Our Brio Sing is here!

Didn't expect the pram to reach us so quickly.

The guy got all excited and began fixing the wheels to the chassis the moment he got home.

Love our new ride!

My fifth visit to the midwife

Just got home from my week 34 appointment with the midwife.

Updates from the checkup:
1) lost some weight due to stupid pneumonia (total weight gain now: 9kg - 3kg = 6kg)
2) check blood pressure (normal)
3) baby's heartbeat was 154bpm (why is it getting faster and faster huh?)
4) length from pelvic to top of uterus increases 2cm to 31cm. (Glad that baby is growing despite weight loss!)
5) baby's position: head down
6) baby's weight: forgot to ask!!! I know I will miss out something.

Had a little chat as usual, advised me to go to the hospital when I get three contractions within 10 minutes or when the waters break, and must remember to ring them before heading down. Asked about my wishes on how I want my delivery to be done and what kinds of pain relief I have in mind. She named me a few like the laughing gas, hot tub and epidural etc. (I tot the hot tub will be nice)

My ideal delivery is of course to have a natural birth with no need for C-section or epidural. But you know lah, these kinda things very hard to say mah. If really pain until kanasai how? If I go through a difficult first labour now, will I develop a phobia and resist having a second child in the future?

I can sense my fear for labour getting intense as the EDD draws nearer. Haiss but what's going to happen will happen, overthinking will only give us unneccessary stress. I just want our baby to be healthy.

I realised my bump is kinda small compared to the angmoh preggies I saw in the hospital. 

Theirs look like it's gonna explode anytime!

One more month to go. 

Keep a positive mind. If everyone else can do it, so can I.

A very dreadful week

It all started when Monchitchit returned from the Poland trip... He came into the room and told me he got me something from Poland! I was mad happy cuz I thought he tabao-ed a family bucket of KFC crispy chicken thighs for my lunch but instead he flashed a Ipad and I tiok stunned.

Yeah I wanted the Ipad like super long time ago but then I heartpain the $$$ and plus I don't really need it. He got it as a gift for our upcoming 3rd wedding anniversary day :) Thanks dear! I'm very happy but next time don't splurge $$$ on gifts liao okay. We must save $$$!!!

Then on that very night, Monchitchit had high fever between 38-39.5 degrees every single night for 7 days. I have never seen anything like this happen to him before, the fever seems to come back to haunt him every night...

He ate alot of panadols til I'm worried he's overdosed. So scary lah.

I was having a little cough and flu but I ignored them cuz it's bearable and so minor at that moment. And plus I was skeptical about taking medication during my pregnancy so I had none.

My terror began on 12 March, Saturday night when it's MY TURN to have fever. It's like the same case as GW's, I kena the fever which came back without fail every night. My cough worsen and I get stabbing pains in my back whenever I take deep breaths or stretch or cough. My MIL calls me everyday to give me tips to fight against my coughs but nothing seems to work.

I had to sit up straight in order to suck in more air and I spent my nights trying to fall asleep sitting up straight, which was impossible! I managed to catch only 30min - 1 hr sleep every night, lost my appetite, living like a zombie and dropped 3 kgs in 4 days.
 
On the fourth day, 15 March (our wedding anniversary day!), GW came back from work and insist to send me to the hospital. I was reluctant to go because I know how the system works here. They will send me home to eat panadol and drink coke. I don't wanna go! But in the end I went because I wanna make sure baby is okay.
 
We waited at the A&E, and after waiting for 1 hour at the reception (mind you, there's only 1 person before my q-number) they finally attended to us. I told the nurse about my condition and true enough, this was her reply:
 
"Oh you have come to the wrong place. This is the Accident and Emergency department, we only attend to A&E stuff like broken leg or fractured arm. For your case, you should go to the clinic."
 
My heart really sian half. But all the clinics close liao what. I don't know where other places I can go. Then I told her my baby hasn't been moving much since yesterday and I'm worried about it. Is there anyway I can check on my baby?
 
The nurse then connect us to the delivery ward in the hospital, told them about my situation and I was so glad that they were willing to see me! And we got referred to the delivery department upstairs immediately.
 
 

They took my temperature, I was burning at 39 degrees and face was flushing red.

They then monitor my baby with the CTG.

(me look very chui so I cover my face)

My baby's heart was beating mad fast at 181 (normal range is 120 - 160) and I get regular contractions.

I was hospitalised on the spot.

They ran some tests with my blood and confirm I was infected with Pneumonia - a kind of lung infection which I have never heard before cuz I was too swakoo. Apparently it's affecting quite a huge area of my left lung and I didn't have enough oxygen in my body and this oxygen tube thingy really is heaven to me.

At least, it made me feel alive once again.

The nurses were very nice and attentive to my needs.

I get my dosage of 3 bags antibiotics fluids dripping into my body everyday and it's causing my body to swell alot. My face is quite swollen (thats why i'm hiding it) from all those antibiotics and I've got gozilla hands and feet!!

I'm happy to be back home after so long... Though I'm still coughing away but I breathe better now and I wanna thank God for all the blessings and also my friends and family who supported me through this difficult period with prayers and sms-es :) I felt so loved and blessed.

P/S: Special thanks to Shuwen for cooking my lunch and dinner everyday during my hospital days. Yeah swedish food too salty for my liking liao - cannot eat. I am really super gandong (until can cry) that you went the extra mile to do all these things for me. And also to my dear Monchitchit who juggled between work, home and hospital.

Love,

Cindy

My fourth visit to the midwife.

Warning: Hello! This post is for recording purposes and may bore you.

Baby is very active now. I can tell he is a potential workaholic cuz he does his fair share of OT flippings and kickings throughout the night.

Yup I'm will be making more frequent visits to the midwife now, like once every 2 weeks until the day I deliver. Yesterday's visit took like 15 minutes only.

She did the following routine check for me:
1) measure my weight (extra 1kg since last visit, making it total 9kg weight gain)
2) check blood pressure (normal)
3) listen to baby's heartbeat using the doppler -my fave part! (148bpm)
4) measure the length from pelvic to top of uterus (increase 3cm to 29cm)

Then she pressed my tummy here and there and concluded my baby's position is upside down now and he weighs approx. 2kgs. WAH LIKE SIBEH PRO RIGHT. But not sure how accurate it is lah.

We had a little chat and I can tell she's a little concern about my speedy weight gain. She said on average preggies should gain around 10-12 kg throughout the whole pregnancy and went on to remind me that I have another 10 weeks to go.

My wakeup call!

Midwife suggests that I bid goodbye to my chocolate, cookies, chips and soda indulgence and increase my daily power-walk to 1hour instead of the usual 30min. Seriously. I've got a feeling she hates me.

It's not fun to go walk out there when it's so cold. I realised I walked super fast to get home just now because the wind was freezing and makes me wanna pee in my pants. Boohoo, I'm so not looking forward to my comfort food abstain.

Hello, long time no update hor.. Sleepy...

Just when I thought winter is coming to an end, it started snowing all over again. I'm not doing much walking (which is not good) and procrastinated collecting a parcel from the post office just because I can't bring myself to face the cold outside.

I'm now in my week 30 of pregnancy, which means I'm left with only two more months of freedom before baby pops out and torture us with his non-stop cryings. Pray hard that baby can guai guai stay in tummy until EDD cuz if he pops out early, we may not have move in to our new apartment yet or lagi worse in the midst of moving!

Recently, there's been some hormonal changes in me - like getting super emotional.

I cry when I see mothers going through a difficult labour ("One born every minute" on TV Channel 5) and shed bigger tears when the newborns finally squeezed their way out to see light. I even weep during one of "The Biggest Loser" elimination lor. Kua zhang right... Hopefully my system will tune back to the normal settings after baby's out! I don't wanna be a pathetic emo ah-soh leh!

Our weekends were spent shopping around for baby prams :) Not much choices here, didn't know baby prams so expensive one. We managed to narrow down our research to Brio Sing and Britax Bsmart, will be purchasing one of them by next month.

We are also having a hard time deciding on baby's chinese name. We've gone through a million characters and nothing seems to work for us. Hopefully we can "poot" out a name soon!

Okay I'm going to sleep liao and shall end this post with my latest bump picture..
It's my favourite one so far :)

Week 30 - My eggplant has evolved into a pumpkin!

His kungfu kicks are getting more powerful now and he loves working on it when I'm trying to get some sleep.

Weight gain maintains at 8kg though tummy is extra 1 inch now.

Love xiaohuamao so cute :) *miff miff*

My third visit to the midwife.

I was scheduled to screen for gestational diabetes today and was requested to fast overnight prior to the screening. I don't know if it's a psychological thing or what, but I especially crave for food when I know I can't have any. Tsk tsk. Just like how I was dying to have coffee for the past few months when I wasn't even a coffee drinker during my pre-pregnancy days.

So when I was there at 8am, the receptionist took me to a quiet room and handed me a glass of glucose water. She said "You may add a drop of lemon concentrate to the solution if you want, it will taste better."

The moment I was left alone in the room, I went against the one drop rule and jitao added four drops into my drink, hoping it will taste abit like lemonade.

But sorry lor. That glucose drink was so sweet, there wasn't even a hint of lemon when I was downing it.

I spent the next 2 hours reading in the room until the midwife came for me. Okay lah, not totally hardcore reading, I fell asleep for a while. Pregnant woman very sleepy one, you duno meh?

My midwife came at 10am to wake me up. Very punctual hor!

Pricked my finger to get some blood samples. I don't know what is the healthy range for this glucose test but she said "Mycket Bra!" (which means very good in swedish) when my readings showed 5.4 and I assume everything is fine. My iron level also scored a "Mycket Bra" then she said something that left me pondering.

She said "okay you can now go home to sleep."

Why did she say that huh? Did I snore in that room just now? 

It's a mystery...

Starting my 3rd trimester today!

Week 27 - Showing off my washboard abs (i wish)

I've been eating extraordinary well, as you can see from my fat face, flabby arms, big round tummy and thunder thighs. It's only the begining of my 3rd trimester and I've put on 8kg already.

I can't see my toes anymore. Sigh.

My second visit to the midwife.

Hello peeps, I went to see my midwife yesterday and she needed to get my blood sample to check my blood group. I really hate needle stuff and will try to avoid if possible. I said I was a B positive and even tried to convince her by showing her my ID with my blood type imprinted on it but it didn't work.

"It's part of our procedure." she said.

I stretched out my finger as she rummaged through the drawers and I almost fainted when I saw her taking out a syringe.

Need to withdraw so much meh!? When I did the blood group test back in my schooling days, the nurse only use a stapler-like-gadget and punch it at our middle finger to get ONE DROP of blood leh.

Okay enough of ranting.

Here's a video of my baby's heartbeat at week 26 with the aid of a audio doppler.

I know I may sound silly doing this, but I replay and hear it over and over again like a million times.

Heart beating at a steady pace of 148bpm.

P/S: Pardon my oily tummy, I slapped tons of moisturising cream on it cuz I don't want stretchmarks.

The grandmother story about me being halfway there

Hello everyone! It's been a while since I'm back in Karlskrona and I've not been updating because there's nothing much going on here, except me growing bui-er and bui-er every minute.

Hmm, some of you guys must be wondering why we kept mum about the whole pregnancy even though I was way after my first 3 months... Well, I didn't even know I was pregnant and the signs were not even obvious.

1) Yes, I did miss my period but I thought it was just "LATE".
2) I started pee-ing alot but it was winter and people pee alot when it's cold!
3) No morning sickness at all.
4) Last but not least, I'm not ready for a baby lah!


It was only until I missed my second period that I decided to face the reality and went to buy a test kit.
Sian - I got 2 lines so it means that I'm pregnant? But what if this test kit is faulty?

I guess I was still living in denial.

I was almost into my 3rd month when I did that test. Sherin and Shuwen were the first to know about my "not-sure-pregnancy" but they sure kept it well.

At my week 13, I went for my first midwife appointment at Trosso clinic in centrum. I thought it was going to be a thorough check to assure me that I was truly pregnant. But it turned out to be merely a chat about my family medical history and some blood samples to send for lab tests. No other forms of tests was carried out to confirm anything. I'm really confused. Erm, so am I really pregnant or not huh?

One month later on a cold and drizzling Tuesday afternoon, I drove myself to the nearby hospital to do my week 17 ultrasound scan. I don't know why I was super nervous about the whole scanning thingy, maybe I wasn't ready for the moment of truth?

I stoned alongside with two other extremely pregnant mothers for 20 minutes before my name was being called out. I was greeted by a smiley old angmoh lady. She led me into a dark room and asked me to lie on the bed. There's a monitor screen mounted on the ceiling in front of me and I was startled as she applied cold gel on my tummy. Then she lifted an electronic handheld device (it looks like what NTUC cashiers would use to "ti" the canned food at the check out counters) and pressed it firmly on my womb area.

What I saw next was phenomenal. It was so amazing to see something so alive inside me and the heart was beating at a super fast rate like machiam heart attack like that - BOP x 1000 times. The sonographer took time to explain where's my baby's eyes/nose/mouth/heart/bladder but it sounded more like a voice fading away slowly into the background as I gaped dumbfounded at the sight of a very active baby on the monitor.

Wow... I'm really pregnant... I'm going to be a mother.

I couldn't wipe away the silly grin on my face as the sonographer passed me 2 pictures which she captured during the earlier scan. I quickly drove home and carefully pasted the filmsy picture on a thicker paper. My heart was pounding fast with excitement, when is GW coming home?

Needless to say, the next few hours were spent staring at the pictures.

My baby's first picture -week 17 :)

Okay, you must be thinking why we still didn't announce at that time since I'm confirmed pregnant.

Not my fault okay, it was all GW's idea because he wanted to surprise his family in person when he's back in Singapore the following month. It wouldn't be nice if everyone else learns it before our family members right?

So it's been 2 months since that first ultrasound scan and the bump is showing alot now.

I've gained alot of weight from all the food I ate when I was back in Singapore for holiday last month.

Til date, I've piled on 6kg and I'm hoping I wouldn't exceed 10kg but I think it's quite impossible.

P/S: If you have the urge to discuss about my fattiness, please do me a favour and discuss in an inaudible whisper behind my back ok. If not, I think i will emo and cry myself to sleep! Only I can call myself fatty!!!

Yeap, I could be so contradicting at times.