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This is a seriously outdated post! I have no idea how I’m going to catch up…she’s now going into her fourth week!

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How is Elena doing?

Elena spent the whole of Saturday and Sunday in the incubator, hooked up to an IV drip, poor girl. Her eyes were still swollen due to the delivery, but we could see that she’d definitely inherited hubby’s eyes…big and round with prominent double eye-lids and lovely eyelashes that curls up on its own!

She’s still covered with lanugo, a soft downy hair that marked her as a premature baby (full-term babies would’ve shed this in the womb). Her fingernails are pretty long, and we noticed that she’d already scratched herself on her face! Despite being so small, she’s one active girl…just like when she was in my tummy – her arms and legs are constantly on the move, stretching…kicking…

On Sunday afternoon, she was finally taken out of the incubator and placed in a normal cot, and her IV drip was removed. The nurse also taught me how to begin breastfeeding her…luckily, she latched on really well! However, they had to supplement the breastfeeding with formula (premature Enfalac) to ensure that she was getting enough nutrition due to her size.

Although I was officially discharged from the hospital on Sunday, we decided to continue staying on as a lodger as I’d started breastfeeding and had to breastfeed her every three hours. Our days there were spent going to and fro between my room at the maternity ward and the special care nursery. I would breastfeed her, then go back to my room to express the rest of the milk (or rather, colostrum), get some rest, eat, and then go back to the nursery to pass the bottles containing the colostrum to the nurses and breastfeed her again.

On Sunday evening, the nurses noticed that she was turning a little yellow…a sign that jaundice is setting in (despite all the coconut water I drank!). We were told that with her being a borderline premie plus the fact that the delivery was vacuum assisted, it’s quite common for jaundice to set in at this time, and some time spent under the photo-lights will be able to bring it back under control. This was confirmed by the paed on Monday morning, so our girl spent Monday tanning herself under the UV lights!

Finally, on Tuesday morning, we were told that we could bring her home! Her jaundice level had dropped below 10 (at 9.5, it was still rather borderline, but the paed was comfortable letting her go home). Of course, we were elated!

She took some time to settle in when we got back home…I suppose the surroundings were unfamiliar to her. The subsequent days and nights passed in a blur of diaper changes and feeds…night became day and day became night as I struggled to cope with keeping her fed and happy. She was still passing meconium, and boy…it’s super sticky and tar-ry! Water-soaked cotton balls definitely works better than wet wipes during those early days!

She had her first bath at home on Wednesday morning, and did she cry her lungs out or what! One thing we’d noticed early on about our girl is that she doesn’t like getting undressed. The minute we remove her clothes…her mouth will go into the now-familiar pout and a few seconds later…waaaaaaa! Luckily, the nurse that I’d hired to bathe Elena for the first 2 weeks is really experienced and unfazed by all the crying and struggling. On Thursday, bath time went much better, and Elena even got an oil massage at the end of her bath (she really seems to like it as that’s when she’ll go into a deep state of calmness!).

On late Thursday evening, Elena’s umbilical cord stump dropped! I didn’t know what to do with it at first, until the nurse told me that her culture has a belief that we should keep the stump, and if we have subsequent children, we should tie all the stumps together with a string (any color except red) to ensure that the siblings remain close! I found this really charming, and so, decided to keep the stump in a small plastic bag labeled with the date that it fell!

How is mommy doing?

Week 1 really passed by in a blur!

The stitches and hemorrhoids due to the delivery started to hurt once the epidural wore off, and I can honestly say I shuffled instead of walked in those early days. Doc gave me some painkillers to take the edge off the pain, and I took those till Monday. The stitches healed surprisingly fast, and by the time I went home on Tuesday, I was feeling pretty ok and walking like a normal person again. I’ll write more about everything down south in a separate post since not everyone would like to know the gory details!

Nothing prepared me for the sight of my now-empty tummy though. My goodness, it’s like having the skin of a basketball and the filling of a tennis ball…sigh. What really cheered me up was that I made it through the pregnancy without any stretch marks, woohoo!! Yes…NO STRETCH MARKS…I really kow-tow to the Clarins Tonic Oil that I’ve been religiously applying!!

My breasts started to feel engorged on Sunday morning…I woke up in the morning to find that I had two hard rocks on my chest! Luckily, it wasn’t all too painful, and after taking the midwife’s advice on placing hot compresses and massaging my breasts, followed by trying to express the colostrum, the engorgement went away within the same day. My Medela PIS breast-pump really came in useful then…I can’t imagine how much time I would’ve spent (or rather, wasted) if I used a manual pump…

Although I’d felt really miserable on Friday, I managed to go to the special care nursery on Saturday to see and touch Elena, and that really lifted my spirits. I also managed to successfully breastfeed her on Sunday…seeing her latch on correctly and knowing that she’s getting that all-important colostrum made me forget about the pain and discomfort post-delivery. The days at the hospital passed quickly as I had something to look forward to…cuddling and breastfeeding my daughter every three hours!

Physically, I did feel rather tired, and I thank god that my parents and hubby were around…I had home-cooked food and lots of TLC. My mum cooked all sorts of nutritious food and boiled pots and pots of red date tea and they went to and fro between home and hospital to supply me with my daily meals. Unlike the traditional confinement, I strenuously avoided all Chinese herbs and ginger as it was not advisable to take any of these while breastfeeding. I also couldn’t stand the thought of not bathing or washing my hair till god knows when…so yes, I took my first bath post-delivery on Sunday, and first hair wash on Monday! That was the longest I could go without feeling all icky!

The subsequent 3 days on the first week after Elena was discharged was physically draining for me. The outside world ceased to exist during those days, and I really struggled hard to cope as the lack of sleep caught up with me (hence the late response to all the congratulatory SMSes, emails, and Facebook messages)! Seriously folks…getting four one-hour naps is NOT the same thing as one four-hour nap, lemme tell you. Totally zombie-fied would be an accurate description of how I felt and looked at that point in time!

At the very least, I didn’t have to worry about bathing Elena as I had signed up for a 2 week nursing service from DSH (I wasn’t fully confident of being able to bathe Elena by myself although I did get a crash course on Bathing Baby 101 on Monday morning at the special care nursery). Hiring the nurse turned out to be a great decision as the nurse who came was really experienced, and she not only taught me how to bathe baby and clean her umbilical cord, but also gave me many tips on breastfeeding and how to schedule the feeding time (ie. do not let more than 3 hours elapse between feeds - I’ve read about all these facts in the books, but my mind would turn into a sieve the moment I hear Elena cry!), what food to eat to increase milk production and what food to avoid (eat broccoli, snow peas, papaya soup; avoid kangkung and cabbage as it’ll give the baby wind; drink lots and lots of fluids - red date tea and Milo will help to keep your energy level up especially during the night feeds), what cream is good for sore nipples (Medela PureLan - works like a charm), etc. She also taught me how to massage Elena after her bath, how to swaddle her (the nurse’s swaddling never comes loose no matter how much our girl moves!)…all in all, invaluable lessons for a first time mommy!

As for time for myself…well, such a thing doesn’t exist anymore…at least for the next few years! I know it sounds weird, but I was really unprepared when it came to this particular aspect of motherhood. I’d been so focused on the pregnancy all this while that I never really thought ahead to how much life would change once Elena arrived! It was in those early days that reality really hit me, and hit me hard it did! It was then that I realized that couplehood has indeed waved bye-bye and flown out of the window, and that I’m now fully responsible for this little human being (pregnancy is wayyyyy easier since you don’t have to worry if she’s hot or cold, fed or not, poo-ed or pee-ed or not, etc.).

Re-reading what I just wrote, I know it sounds as if there’s a twinge of resentment, but I can honestly say that there isn’t. How can I feel resentful of this tiny and innocent little girl that has captured the hearts of her parents and grandparents? It’s more of…I never thought it would be so hard! I will admit that during one of the nights when I was halfway breastfeeding her alone in my room, still sleepy from being roused every hour, with my body aching in placed that I never thought could ache, and nipples sore from breastfeeding (this girl suckles like a barracuda!), I did give in to self-pity and self-doubt and cried quietly to myself. I wondered how I would be able to make it through this relentless cycle of feeding, diaper changes, expressing milk without going stark raving mad, and at the same time, felt angry at myself for being so weak-willed to feel this way when not even a week has passed since I delivered! A dear friend who not too recently became a mommy told me that things WILL get better, and I took heart in that…and in my heart of hearts, I KNOW it WILL get better and the rewards of being a mommy will outweigh everything else. I just have to remind myself of that whenever I feel tempted to give in to self pity.

What happened next to Elena and me? Stay tuned for Week 2!