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…to see Elena smiling at me gives me such great joy.

I’d been busy the past few nights, following hubby out to search for stuff for the house. On Tuesday night, my darling girl was taking her evening nap when I got back from work, and by the time we got back from house-stuff shopping, it was already past her bedtime and she was asleep again. My mom told me that she was very agitated when my mom was putting her to sleep at night…it was as if she was already used to seeing us during that time of the night and couldn’t fall asleep (this happened another time as well when I was out late…she would close her eyes, nod off, and then wake up, look around and make some noise…then close her eyes, nod off and wake up again…).

Yesterday, I left work at 5pm sharp and made it home by 5.45pm. The minute I popped my head into my mom’s room, Elena turned and looked at me and my heart really felt like it was going to burst with joy. She was so very excited, smiling widely and as I got closer (my mom was carrying her), she waved her arms wildly and tried to touch my face (and ended up hitting me instead… ) and kicked her legs as if she wanted me to carry her. You cannot imagine how happy I felt at that moment (and guilty too, for not being able to spend more time with her!). I cuddled her and buried my face in the crook of her neck…gosh, I love that sweet baby smell…and gave her kisses all over!

That night, after we got back from house-stuff shopping (again) and after her last feed, I carried her over to the bed to sleep with us. She lay in the crook of my arm, turned over sideways and kinda ‘hugged’ me (I say kinda coz her arms are still so short… ). I held her close and patted her…and when I peered down at her to check if she was asleep, I saw that her eyes were still wide open, but she was just laying still in my arms as if she was enjoying being held (and those who know my girl knows that she hardly ever stops moving). And then after awhile, she gave a little sigh, closed her eyes and went to sleep.

So you can imagine how hard it was for me to get up this morning, leave her in bed and go off to work…

Have been so busy these past few weeks that I haven’t had any time to update my blog. Elena - week 26 is still in draft format, photos are still in my memory card…sighsighsigh.

We’re finally moving to our new house this Saturday! Hubby has been so busy liasing with the contractor in the past few weeks, poor guy. I think he must be thoroughly sick of renovations and such by now…

Workwise, things are pretty ok. I enjoy the environment (jeans every day, yo!), but getting up at 6.30am everyday is a pain in the behind. Well, at least I get to leave a 5pm, and knowing that my precious girl is at home waiting for me is always an incentive to leave early!

At night, I spend most of my time playing with her if she’s not asleep, hence the lack of time to blog nowadays. This week will be totally taken up by packing and doing all the last minute shopping before we move.

There are just so many things I want to blog about…sigh…

After a bout of sore throat, followed by cough, followed by flu (it’s funny how my sore throat almost always progresses on to a cough and then flu), I’m almost fully recovered, yay!

The hardest part about being sick? Not being able to hug and play with Elena! I don’t mind the sniffles, I don’t mind coughing my lungs out, and I don’t mind not being able to eat alot of things…but it’s absolute misery to see Elena smile at me yet not being able to carry her and hug her close (I know there’s something grammatically wrong with this sentence yet I can’t figure out what’s wrong…).

Finally, I’m on the mend and tonight, I finally could play with her, lie down on the bed with her and let her run her fingers over my face, carry her and rock her to sleep. Gosh, I could feel my heart melting as she wrapped her arm around my neck, lay her head down on my shoulder and went to sleep. It felt SO GOOD that I carried her for a few more minutes before reluctantly putting her down on her cot.

My darling darling girl, I love you so!!

I think this is the first time I’ve posted something like this on my blog.

I read Karen Cheng’s recent post this morning.

I clicked the links, read about Charmaine’s illness, and how much it would cost to send her to US for treatment.

Here are the facts that I garnered from her website (most of which I’ve copied directly so that I don’t get any of the facts wrong):

1. Charmaine Lim is four years old.
2. She has a rare form of cancer, neuroblastoma.
3. She is currently in the 4th stage and fighting hard.
4. She has undergone chemotherapy.
5. Charmaine’s doctor said that with treatment in Singapore, Charmaine has only 10% - 20% chance to live.
6. Charmaine’s doctor told Cynthia that a drug in New York will double up her chance of survival to 40% - 50%.
7. Unfortunately, the drug is not available in Singapore and is not yet approved in Singapore.
8. USD$350,000 would be required as the upfront deposit to bring Charmaine to the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Centre (MSKCC), New York for the drug.

If you have a child in a similar situation, and there is even a slightest chance of survival, what wouldn’t you do to grasp that chance as tightly as possible? No mother would ever give up. And that’s what’s Charmaine’s mother is doing…fighting alongside her daughter.

I’m not asking you to donate if you don’t want to. But if you have a blog or any other means of letting people know, and you’re willing to spend a couple of minutes, do help to circulate the story.

If you want to donate, click HERE.

If you want to find out more about Charmaine, click HERE.

Skeptics and critics, refrain from making comments here as I will personally delete any negative comments. There’s nothing wrong with a mother doing all she can to fight for her child’s life. That’s what parents do.

As with most birth stories, this is a long and detailed one (more for my own record, actually!)…

It was supposed to be a routine checkup with the doctor at 10am, Friday morning. My so-called regular contractions had been getting less regular even after stopping the oral meds, so I didn’t expect that baby would come out so soon (although I’ve been bugging her non-stop). She was really active on Thursday night though…I could hardly sleep as she kept on moving, stretching and kicking!

When Doc did the ultrasound scan, we asked him if he could see her face. He replied, no, as her head was already engaged in my pelvic area (Darn! I never got my 3D pic!). He proceeded to do a vaginal examination to see if my cervix had dilated further…and surprise surprise, I was already 3cm dilated!

I asked the doctor…”So does that mean she’s coming out today?”

Only to get the reply…”Do you want your baby to come out today?”

You mean I get to choose?

Hubby and I looked at each other for a minute and said in unison…”OK”!

Doc gave us 20 minutes to go home to pack (luckily I packed my hospital bag 4 weeks ago!), and off we went. I felt strangely calm and excited all at the same time and I think hubby felt the same way. On the way back to the hospital, I remember him telling me that the important thing is that I do not panic (coz I’m a pretty panicky type of person)…and that if he panics, I should tell him the same thing…

When we arrived back at the hospital, we headed straight for the labor ward. I was taken to labor room #3, while hubby went down to admissions to settle the paper work. After changing into a hospital gown (an ugly yucky green coloured gown…why can’t they make it pink??), the nurse came in to give me an enema. Won’t go into details here…I’m sure most of you mommies know what happens after that… On hindsight, it’s a good thing that they did that as doing a #2 is really the last thing you wanna do when you’re recovering from stitches and hemorrhoids!!

When hubby got back, he settled in and began taking photos of the room, etc. I waved him away when he tried to take my photo…I looked like a mess in the hospital gown and spectacles with my hair all tied up…(yes yes, vain vain).

After strapping on the CTG sensors, the midwife asked what kind of pain relief I’d decided upon. I told her I wanted an epidural, but not immediately as I wanted to see if I could tolerate the pain. After she left, hubby advised me to just take the epidural straightaway…after all, I’d already decided to have it if I can’t take the pain, so must as well just do it early before I pass that ‘point of no return’, ie. it becomes too late for an epidural! After some hmm-ing and hawing on my part, I sent hubby out to tell the midwife that I’ve decided to do the epidural now, and she proceeded to call the anesthetist. I was also given a form to sign to declare that I’ve been informed of all the risks that comes with the epidural, yadda yadda yadda, and was also told of the same risks by the anesthetist (”There’s a small risk of paralysis, etc. but don’t worry, I’ve been doing this for 20 years and it has never happened to my patients“). Honestly, that last minute talk almost made me change my mind!

The procedure of inserting the catheter for the epidural didn’t hurt as I was given a local anesthetic to numb the area. I did feel an ‘electric shock’ kind of feeling in my left leg when the catheter went in, though.

Surprisingly, the anesthetist also did the blood withdrawal needed for the maternal blood testing (it’s part of the cord blood banking procedure). However, when they tried to take the blood from the IV inserted in the vein of my left hand, they found that the blood was so thick that they had to manually massage my arm and wait for the blood to drip out drop by drop! It wasn’t painful, but agonizingly slow! Finally, he managed to collect enough for two vials…phew!

Not long after that, doc came in and proceeded to break my amniotic sac. The procedure wasn’t as uncomfortable as I expected, but gosh, the feeling of the warm liquid gushing out is Just.So.Weird. And it’s A LOT of liquid! And all throughout the 3+ hours of labour, I could feel the liquid leaking out intermittently especially during a contraction…not very pleasant, let me assure you!

After those two procedures, the rest of the time was spent waiting and waiting. I could feel the epidural setting in, but the dosage was abit too much for my liking as I felt my left leg go all heavy and asleep (I wanted more of a walking epidural where I could still move my legs), and I think it affected my bladder as well (I wanted to go, but couldn’t!). My right leg, however, felt perfectly fine and I remember commenting to hubby quite a few times about it. I figured that the epidural was probably lopsided and worried that they might have to do the whole procedure again! As I still had feeling on my right side, I could feel the slight pain from the contractions, but it was pretty bearable…very much like period cramps and a bad backache when each contraction came.

We told the midwives about the lopsided feeling I was having from the epidural, and they asked me to try lying on my right side (probably to get whatever liquid that’s going in to flow towards the right). However, it didn’t really work as I could still feel the cramps. Finally, another anesthetist came in to check on me and said that it’s possible that baby’s head is pressing on some nerves in my pelvic area that isn’t covered by the epidural! Anyways, the pain still wasn’t too bad at that point so no choice la, just tried to tahan. I remember thinking…what a waste of money asking for the epidural!

Although my contractions were regular, the midwives said that it wasn’t intense enough, so I was given a small shot of labor-enhancing drugs to strengthen the intensity of the contractions to help baby move along further into the birth canal. The midwives also helped to manually dilate my cervix whenever they did the internal examinations, so I suppose that helped things along too.

Pretty soon, I was already 9cms dilated! Surprisingly, I still had the presence of mind to SMS a few friends and update them… The midwives came in and asked me to try some practice pushes (which will also help push baby down further into the birth canal), but boy, it wasn’t as easy as I thought…it’s not like you can just push…you really have to focus all your energy on that particular area!

Finally, it was REALLY time…ie. 10cms and doc came striding into the labor room, put on his gown and gloves, and the surgical instrument tray was rolled in.

And the hard work really begins!

With hubby standing on my right, and the midwives telling me when to push, the active phase of the labor wasn’t all that bad. I do remember feeling the cramps on my right side getting really painful at one point though, but once baby’s head had moved past that area, that pain subsided soon enough.

Again, the pushing wasn’t really easy, and funnily enough, I got somewhat distracted as I could see what was going on down south as everything was reflected by doc’s glasses! Although baby was moving along well, I wasn’t able to push as effectively as doc would’ve liked, and he finally decided to assist using a handheld vacuum device, though he did tell me that I still have to push.

Between trying to focus on pushing effectively, and the anxiety that I won’t have anymore strength to push, AND periodically asking if baby’s heartbeat was ok, it was a HUGE relief when I felt the pressure of baby’s head ease…I knew at that very moment that she was out! One more small push, and out came her shoulders!

In the confusion, we forgot to tell doc that we wanted hubby to cut her umbilical cord… …so by the time she was placed on my tummy, all slippery and wet and confused, her cord had been cut and clamped already.

I got to hold her for abit before the midwife brought her to the warmer situated next to the bed and proceeded to clean and weigh her (2.16kgs…so small!), and wrap her up. While waiting for them to pass baby back to me, I started shivering…apparently, it’s a side effect from the epidural.

Baby was passed back to me while the doctor proceeded to collect the cord blood and stitch me up (just a small tear, no episiotomy…doc said not to worry, he was giving me 4 stitches in two layers, whatever that meant!). I honestly wasn’t aware of what was going on at doc’s end as both hubby and me were so absorbed with our new bundle of joy!

After the doctor finished up, he congratulated us and left. Baby was taken away for her first bath, while I was left in the labor room for observation before being transferred back to the maternity ward.

How did we feel? I can’t speak for hubby, but I felt an overwhelming feeling of relief above everything else. Yes, relief! Elated and happy was definitely high on the list, but I was relieved that after 4 weeks of worrying, baby was finally out…safe and sound, healthy and whole.

And so, our journey into parenthood has begun…

What happens next? To be continued…