Blessings from Above

With God's grace & blessings, we welcome #2 to our family on 10 Aug 09 (lunar birthday: 20th day of the 6th month) - 0501hrs. Chace (meaning: Hunter) weighed 3680gm and measured 54cm at birth. see how happy Claire is, with her new sibling! The Birth Story I started feeling contractions around 2am on the morning on 10 Aug 09 - not knowing how regular or frequent the contractions should be, I decided to log onto the Internet to find out. I found a useful contraction timer online and used it to monitor my contractions for an hour. At 3am, I decided that I was indeed already in active labor and proceeded to wake dh up. fortunately, it was a public holiday and dh's mom was able to come over to watch Claire till morning while we headed for the hospital. by the time we reached the hospital, it was just past 3.30am. The nurse on duty did a VE for me and determined that I was 4cm dilated while dh saw to the hospital admission. Not knowing how long more I have to go and decidin...

its almost a week since my dear princess made her grand entrance - my day/nights are now topsy turvy and for the next few months, i will NEVER have the opportunity to sleep my regular hours (10pm - 7am) again. yet, i can't complain; she's such a joy - i love it when she smiles, enjoy her blissful expression she finishes feeding and when she stares at me in the quiet of the night with her big, beautiful eyes. i promised to share the story so here it is... as per doctor's orders, we admitted ourselves to the hospital on the morning of 09/04/07 @ 7.30am, after each having a plate of bee hoon and nice, cold drink @ the foodcourt on level one. on admission, i was immediately strapped onto the CTG machine to monitor princess' heart beat and my contractions. dr. appeared @ 9.30am (he was supposed to appear @ 8 plus!!) and seeing that i was only 1cm dilated, he made arrangements to induce me with pitocin, after breaking my water bag. the "unbearable" wait then b...

in another 2 days, i'll be 40 weeks pregnant... obviously, its good that i've reach full term without any hiccups so far but i'm also getting worried. dr tan is not about to let me wait out for natural birth to happen. he deems it is 'medically necessary' to induce me this thursday because i have lost 1.2kg in the last two weeks and he's concern that its either because 1) the placenta is not working well or 2) the amount of amniotic fluid has decreased. this is despite a normal CTG done today @ his clinic and princess putting on another 1+kg bringing her estimated weight now to 3.2kg. sigh... i've been hoping for a TOTALLY drug free birth and its becoming seemingly impossible now. i will have to return to the clinic on wednesday to do another CTG in order to delay induction to next monday. princess claire, you have TWO days to make your grand entrance so please... be a good gal!

we finally saw dr tan after a 2.5 weeks wait... apparently, i lost 700g but princess gained 200g and now weighs in @ almost 3kg (a good weight according to dr tan). we are getting closer to the finishing line and dr tan wants to do induction on 05 april if she still doesn't make her grand entrance these few days and that is making me really nervous because i really want to birth her naturally, WITHOUT the use of any drugs AT ALL. so my dear gal... i know its warm and comfortable inside mummy's womb but its really time to meet us so be good and quickly complete your 'descent' ok? we love you and can't wait to meet you!

its week 38 and still no sign of princess... been feeling surges on and off but definitely not regular and progressive (not according to Ginny's definitions anyway). i've moved in with my in-laws and chewy has been an absolutely devil - he's been barking every single night (no need to sleep ah?!?) and i think nobody in this household (or even the other households in the neighbourhood) has had a good night sleep. i am contemplating of moving him back home and let him stay there by himself. we could check in on him every day. obviously since i'm getting closer to D-day... DH has 'refused' to let me go out. its thursday and i've only gone out once on my own; on tuesday, i went to do some shopping (ok ok, quite a bit of shopping, i'm not known to be a shopping queen for nothing). my happy purchases - a exercise ball, which i'll use as a birthing ball for now. its handy to have during pregnancy, labor and beyond! see what they say about it. so instead of...

the visit to OB y'day marks the 36th week of my pregnancy... i put on 0.6kg since the last visit (2 weeks' ago) but our little princess experienced a growth spurt! she put on 0.7kg which means she now weighs in @ 2.7kg (yippee! all the weight gain went to her!). the nurse commented that she's of a good size so even if i have to deliver her earlier, everything shd be ok. obviously, last visit's estimation of her weight @ birth doesn't stand anymore (dr tan put it @ 2.8kg on full term). her head diameter is now 8.3cm *this no. i'm worried about because the cervix can only stretch up to 10cm (medically) so if she is too big, i am either 1) going to tear 2) have an episiotomy performed on me and neither scenario fits into my birth plan!* in any case, we have been religiously listening to the birthing affirmations cd and practising the techniques taught in our hypno-birthing class. we have another 2 classes (2 more sats!) to attend so my sweetheart, don...