Baby's First Christmas

Today is Christmas day, the original due date of Phoebe. We thank God that she is here in our life, healthy as can be. She is God's Christmas gift to us this year. There is nothing else I need nor want.

Being that it is our first Christmas as a family, I just wanted to give thanks to our God whose love and grace has given us this baby girl. She is changing my life day by day, and I'm always so excited to develop my role and husband and now father. God knew in our hearts that we wanted to have children, and in our prayers, we asked God for a healthy child that we could love, care for, and grow with. God answered our prayers this year, giving to us this child, Phoebe. Both Mimi and I pray that God's wisdom be with us as we learn what it means to be Godly parents and raise up Godly children. Thank you God, for Phoebe.

I also wanted to thank God for Mimi. She is the perfect partner I could have ever asked for. We share our various loves, whether it be food, fun, good friendships, each other, and most of all our mutual love for God. This Christmas, I'm especially thankful that she is willing to share in the Christmas experience with me. I know that growing up, she has been taught in her local church that Christmas does not exist and therefore to not celebrate it. This is something that her mother still holds to. However, Mimi, having stepped away from the local church, understands that it is not simple the date of December 25th, but the meaning behind Christmas, the celebration of the birth of our Savior, that is most meaningful to those of us Christians who do celebrate it.

Being from Chicago and the majority of my family still residing there, I am having a touch of homesickness. Seeing a tree that is packed with presents and a living room that is overly decorated with Christmas stuff that my mother always does year to year. I mean, if she could set up a snowy town to help get into the Christmas spirit, she would. Even though one may think this is bizarre or weird, this is Christmas for me. Then there is the Christmas day dinner with more food than anyone could imagine. The table is busting out because there are more people than it can hold. The grandchildren sitting at another table eating more kiddy food rather than grown up food. Christmas music playing in the background. The warmth of the home sheltered from the bitter Midwestern cold. All of what I'm describing here is what I remember Christmas to be. In the years that I have been alive, I can only count two Christmas seasons that I did not go home to celebrate with my family, this being the second. For the most part, I or Mimi and I have been there to celebrate. This year however, since Phoebe is so young, we're opting to stay put and celebrate on our own.

A celebration is not complete with some people to celebrate with. Luckily, Ton and Cynthia offered to come over and celebrate with us for lunch. We decided to make a brunch out of it, and so Cynthia cooked her breakfast casserole and I cooked and prepared the remainder. It was a simple meal, but with good food and even better company. Afterwards, we just hung out in the living room, passing Phoebe around from person to person, talking about the present and the future. Of course, what would our get together be like without a little talking about investing and purchasing real estate. As much as I feel bad that we talk and talk with Ton, I know that when the time comes and we purchase, Ton will be there to help us and make the deal for us and himself. We are very lucky to have good Christian friends, whom we can call family now since they are the God Parents of Phoebe.

Now I am waiting for our dinner to finish cooking. I was thinking about a ham, but in the end opted for the ribey roast. Oh it smells so good as it cooks up. I will make some potatoes, Mimi's mother will make shrimp, and we'll also have some Brussels sprouts with ham. I guess that is our vegetable for the day. Then after dinner, I've rented National Lampoons Christmas Vacation to cap off this Christmas, and I hope that Phoebe will join me in her sleep in the living room.

All in all, this has been a very quiet Christmas. I'm glad my family called and I got to speak to most of them before they started their dinner.

Oh, I forgot one more thing about our dinner tonight. As the head of this household, I intend to set the tradition of reading the birth of Jesus every year. This tradition is something that my father did, not necessarily the reading of the birth of Jesus, but he would always have a time of reflecting on God's word. I agree with this and hope that this tradition holds firm in this household as well.

Even though I am homesick, I do feel that it is our time to set this family's Christmas traditions. I'm not out to make it seem crazy or wacky in any way, but to have us reflect on the birth of our Savior who gave us eternal life and so much more.

Thank you God for your gift of your Son Jesus to this world, and thank you for the gift of Phoebe this Christmas 2008.

December 11th Changed our Lives

This blog has tracked the pregnancy of Mimi, and the birth of our daughter, Phoebe Sone-En Lin. She was born on December 11, 2008 at 1:06 pm. She weighed 5 lbs and 11 oz, with a height of 18 inches. She is our pride and joy, our love, God's gift to us. What a wonderful Christmas gift we have received.

Let me back up a little bit since it has been almost two weeks since most of this has unfolded. On the night of December 10th, it was just like any other night. We went to our final small group for the year. Everything was the same, from the study, to the prayer time, to hanging out with good friends. We went to bed thinking tomorrow would be just like any other day, but we were totally mistaken.

That night, Mimi woke up around 2:30 am to use the bathroom. She had started feeling contractions similar to many she has had during her third trimester. I had read that the Braxton Hicks contractions were those where the uterus contracts to prepare itself for the eventual delivery of the baby. I typically thought nothing of them, and in fact I distinctly recall having the conversation with Mimi as to when and how would one know that you're about to deliver. The general concensus of those who have delivered before was, "You'll know". Needless to say, she woke up and could not fall back asleep. I however, slept through everything until about 4:30 am when I woke up to the computer on and Mimi pacing back and forth in the room. I lifted my heavy head and tried to clear my blurry eyes to see what she was doing, and feebly asked her, "Are you ok"? She replied that her contractions had gotten closer together and more intense. Within about 15 minutes, I could see her bending over when the contractions came, as if someone had just punched her in the stomach and she doubled over.

Now as the husband and one who had just woken up, I may have been a bit oblivious to the world, but even I could tell there was something different about this presentation. What were the clues? One was the pacing, she had never done that before. Two was the concern she had on her face and that she started timing the contractions. Three was that her own physical presentation was such that she was doubled over and in a lot of pain, more so than I had ever seen her before. Finally, my own adrenaline kicked in and I could sense that this day was not like any other day. Today was the day our baby was going to be born.

After waking up, rubbing my face, and grabbing my phone to help time the contractions, I saw what she had recorded so far and it looked like they were roughly five to ten minutes apart. We kept watch over this for the next hour, and when she was not in the middle of a contractions, we discussed whether we should call the on call doctor or not for her OBGYN. After an hour of deliberating, we decided it would be best to call rather than feel rushed in the end. By 5:30 am, we made the call and spoke to the on call nurse. Mimi gave the description of the situation, explaining that over the past two weeks she had gone from 1 cm dilated to 3 cm dilated. Her most recent doctor's visit was two days ago and she was making progress. The nurse advised her to go to the hospital. With the green light to make the treck, we grabbed her packed bag and jumped in the car.

In the last minute, I grabbed a bunch of things for myself and had to remember to bring the car seat. As we were heading out, Mimi let her mother know that she was going into labor and her mother, being the mom that she is, grabbed some pineapple cakes and clementines in a bag and gave them to us as we were rushing to the car. Of course, since Mimi was going into labor, she was not allowed to eat, so this food would have been essentially for me. We loaded up the new van, with pregnant mom, car seat, and wide awake father to be, and off we went to CPMC to have ourselves a baby.

On the drive over, Mimi was still experiencing pain of the contractions. I tried to drive carefully, playing classical music in the background to help soothe her, and luckily, it was about 6:00 am when we got on the road and it was for the most part clear. We made it to CPMC California campus by 6:45 am, and went to the labor and delivery reception center. There they took Mimi into a room and had her hooked up to a fetal heart monitor. They did an examination to find that she was now 4 cm dilated. Now what was interesting was that Mimi was afraid we would be turned back and sent home until she was further dilated. I too was concerned since by that time traffic would be building and I would hate to have to sit in traffic with a pregnant wife who is about to deliver. Luckily, they admitted her at 7:30 am, and we were transferred to room 205. When Mimi asked why they admitted her, the explanation was the old rule stated she had to be almost 5 or 6 cm dilated. However, they no longer go by that rule, and as long as she is making progress, they will admit her for delivery. Believe me, we were so happy to be admitted, and Mimi was even happier to know that she was going to get her epidural shot soon.

Once we were in room 205 of labor and delivery, our nurse for that day came in. For some reason, her name escapes me, but she was great. From the moment we got to the room and the time we were transferred to post pardum, she took care of us, had a positive focus, and walked us through the whole process. At the next examination, Mimi was 6 cm dilated and we knew it was time for the epidural. By 9:00 am, the anesthesiologist came in to administer the epidural, and Mimi was happy after that. We had her connected to the fetal heart monitor as well as something to track her contractions. I would tell her that she was having a contraction and her response was "Oh really? Can't feel a thing". So now for a Dad moment, I was there in room 205, starving from not eating yet, and very hungry. Yes, I had clementines and pineapple cakes to eat, but I wanted something with more substance to get me through the day. I was thinking about going to the cafeteria to grab something to eat, and the nurse said, "Oh, just order room service". I was like, "What, they have room service at a hospital?" She handed over a menu to me, and I ordered myself a meal. Now Mimi was under a no food order, so unfortunately I could not bill it to her, but I figured, what the heck, I don't want to leave her side, so I went for the room service. By 10:30 am, my food did not come and Mimi was resting in her bed. The nurse came back and noticed that I still had no food and called to find out what was happening. As it turned out, the food was delivered to another room and they had to redo my order, but not specific to what I had originally ordered. Oh well, food was food.

By 11:00 am, the decided to add potosin to her medications to help induce the labor. They did so and then by 11:15 am checked to see how far along Mimi was. To their surprise, Mimi was fully dilated, and informed us that the potosin was probably not even necessary. Now being fully dilated, the time was coming soon for the pushing to begin. Mimi was resting up and I was eating to get my energy up.

By noon the nurse got Mimi to start pushing. Rebecca Yes, the OBGYN was coming over to deliver the baby herself, so the nurse started the process. They started with slow pushes at first, with the stretching of the vagina. I was standing on the left side of Mimi and had my camera in hand to catch every moment of this delivery. At one point, Phoebe's head started showing. I was not sure what I was looking at, so I asked the nurse and she pointed to her hair, which was long and black. I had no idea our baby had such a full head of hair. The whole time that Mimi was pushing, more and more of her head started appearing and I could see just how full her head was of this black hair.

By 12:45 pm, the pushing was getting more intense, and the baby's heart rate would drop here and there. It might have been because of the baby's position and the umbilical cord was being compressed and therefore, she was not getting as much oxygen. With some quick manipulations the heart rate returned back to normal, and the pushing continued. By 12:50 pm, it was clear this baby was going to come very soon. Rebecca Yee arrived and the last stretch pushing began. With three or four more sets of strong pushing, Phoebe came out of Mommy and she popped out head first.

Here is another father moment. Standing there by the bed side watching all of this, I was just amazed at how quickly she came out. It was less than 45 seconds from the start of that final push to when the baby's head came out and her entire body followed quickly there after. I was also amazed at how long she was. Rebecca seemed to keep pulling her out, first head, then torso, then you see her hands, and then legs, and finally the feet came out. Just amazing. Of course she was covered in stuff, but that was quickly taken care of when the nurse grabbed her and cleaned Phoebe off with a blanket and immediately put her on Mommy's chest. Again, from that push to chest was less than 45 seconds.

Once the baby came, things started slowing down for everyone. It were as if this flurry took place, everyone is on their toes, and well, adrenaline is running through the room. I remember Phoebe crying when she first came out, but then being on the chest of Mimi for just a brief moment, she calmed down and just layed there shaking, probably from the stress of just being pushed through a small hole and leaving the comforts of her home for the past 9 months. Welcome to this world that was cold and full of energy. It certainly is different.

After a while, Mimi was stitched up by Dr. Yee, with minimal tearing inside. The place was cleaned up, baby given her first bath, and Mom and Dad started making phone calls to let family and friends know baby Phoebe has arrived. Everyone was so happy, but most of all, Mommy and Daddy were thrilled. We stayed in room 205 for another two hours, soaking in the newness of having our first baby. We were then transferred to post pardum where Mimi was going to rest up and heal with baby in room for the next 48 hours. I was allowed to stay as well and they provided a cot for me to sleep on. It was not the most comfortable cot, but it did the trick to get sleep.

The next 48 hours:

The next 48 hours was a little bit of a blur. After Phoebe arrived, the adrenaline started wearing off and fatigue started to set on both Mimi and I. Mimi definitely more so after that physically exhausting event of giving birth. Me for gettting a few hours of sleep and well, having been so excited. Phoebe was sent to the nursery for some tests and Mimi and I decided to get a little rest. That first night though, we wanted Phoebe with us. Of course the hospital encouraged it so that Mommy and baby could bond, but we also wanted her with us because she was ours. We wanted to see her, be able to touch her at will, and of course, Mimi was trying to learn how to breast feed her.

We often found ourselves a little blurry eyed from lack of sleep, and thinking about what was going to be our next meal. I did go home the next day to pick up Mimi's mother and bring her to CPMC to visit Mimi and Phoebe. In fact, that took the majority of the day. I also stopped by on the way back to the hospital to pick up some sashimi for Mimi. In fact, that night, Phoebe's godparents, Ton and Cynthia, were coming to join us for dinner and to see the new baby. They were the only ones outside of immediate family that we really wanted to come and visit, plus, we wanted to formally ask them if they wanted to be Phoebe's godparents. The hospital was also going to provide for us a steak dinner, something that they do for all the new parents who deliver at CPMC. They lay out this nice table cloth with sparkling cider, and its a nice set up. That dinner, in addition to the sashimi that I bought was just the perfect amount for each of us to enjoy. Then we took turns holding Phoebe, who was just this little tiny girl, and both Ton and Cynthia had the chance to get some face time and picture opportunities with her. As I'm thinking back to that, it is only fitting that the closest people to us, Ton and Cynthia, be there with Phoebe. It just made the entire event so much more complete. We had the grandmother visit first, and then the godparents afterwards. I just wish that some of my family members could have been there from the start.

Let the Effacing Begin

Getting ready for a new baby is a little like getting married. There is this day that you have lingering in the future. It is a big and special day. It will change your life. There are terminology that you need to learn, and the more you hang around it, the more you'll pick up and understand. There are people, companies, and everyone trying to sell you stuff or give their two cents of advice. The only difference between a wedding and having the baby is, there is this little precious life, a part of you and your wife that is now totally dependent upon you. It is no longer two people, but three. It is no longer where we will be able to pick up and go at a moments notice, but rather stay home and eat because of convenience. There are some major changes that are about to happen and they will happen very soon.



Soon is a little bit of an understatement at this point. Effacing, from what I've learned from reading these books, is the thinning of the uterus as the baby is preparing to make her entrance into the world, i.e. give birth. This week, the fact that the baby is now full term and able to come at any time has become more real for me than ever before. I was at work on Monday, and Mimi had her now weekly OBGYN appointment with Rebecca Yee. She text me to see if she could call. I was in session, but after that session was over I called her and asked her how the appointment was. She definitely sounded excited, as she told me, "Rebecca Yee told me I was 1 cm dilated". That really got my attention as I did not realize that she would start the dilation process this early. The dilation process signifies the first phase of labor, which is essentially from 0-3 cm. I heard my voice get excited, louder, and I felt a twinge of nervousness inside of me. I remember Joe telling me that it really was not until the 9th month that things got real for him and he had to pack the bag. In the same respect, that is exactly how I felt. He predicted that quite well. From that point on, I was very excited to go home and be with Mimi and talk more about what we needed to get done to prepare for the baby.



By the time I got home, my mind had already been thinking about how unprepared we were. There were so many things left to complete that I did not know where to necessarily start. We started by making a list of things we needed to purchase and do. For instance, we had no newborn diapers. We had no baby monitor. We did not have so many items that it became clear we had a lot of work to do in the short time before the due date, roughly 21 days.



I also became very curious about the signs of labor, since it really is hard to pinpoint what to expect. I also have to comment that the book, What to Expect When You're Expecting is a good book for information, but it just leaves things so vague and non specific that it gets annoying after a while. I suppose if we were robots then it would be very easy to state exactly how to do things like a manual, and in this way it covers the author's butt. As a reader and a new parents, I was frustrated because I wanted to know exactly how things were going to happen, and that is part of my own problem as a control freak. In fact, I now recall having this conversation with my intern Janele about wanting to control the situation of when the baby will come. She also had the same problem. and when it came to her appointment with the OBGYN and her baby had changed positions again into a breached position, she persisted in having the doctor perform the C-section on her.



So Monday night was crazy with preparation and doing baby laundry for the first time. I have to say that baby laundry detergent smells really good and I wish I could use that on my clothes all the time. We also made our lists and made it a point to go shopping this week. We are also looking for a dresser where we can store the baby clothes and also put a changing pad on top to make it easier and less back breaking to change the babies diaper, which we are told we will do almost 12 times daily.



So then comes Tuesday night. I'm beat from doing baby prep work. I went to bed around 11:00 and Mimi was using the bathroom. I distinctly remember her making a slightly larger sound because she had a jelly like blob that had blood tinge in it. This my friends, is the mucous plug. Yes, another term that to the person who has not had kids or is not yet there, may just sound nasty and well, too much information. The mucous plug essentially acts as a cork while the baby is developing in the uterus. It helps to prevent bacteria or any infections to invade the area where the baby is growing. It also means that for us, no more sex since sex might lead to infections. Believe me, I was sad to hear that, and yet excited that this baby girl is on her way.

Mimi has been struggling this week with the effects of pregnancy. In fact, I think most nights this past week she has struggled to get enough sleep. She will wake up at night, use the bathroom to pee, and then be unable to return back to sleep. I only know this because as a light sleeper, I am waken to the movements of someone else. When I notice that she is awake, I feel so bad for her and part of me wants to be up with her to join her as she struggles with sleep. She is great, allowing me to get back to sleep and not letting me join her in her struggle. I love her for how she loves me in this way, but inside, I just want to be with her. So Mimi, if you're reading this, thanks for letting me sleep these past few nights during pregnancy when the baby kept you up. It means a lot to me.

Not only has sleep been an issue, but she has been having other problems, as little as moving around. With the enlarged belly where the baby rests, she has been unable to get up from the bed, sofa, or sitting down on the floor as easy as she used to. I try to help her by pushing or pulling her up, and I can see how she would want to have this baby girl out sooner than later. I also can see how those who have had kids say that in the third trimester, especially the last month, you just want the process to be over. It certainly is not an easy time for anyone with an extra 30-40 pounds on you. Even yesterday, I saw Mimi struggle with an eye problem, most likely an inner sty. She also had diarrhea last night, but she says that it might be due to something she ate, but I think we ate pretty much the same things. She is also complaining of some back aches, typical for the amount of weight she is carrying on her belly. As I sit here and describe the process she is going through, I think any husband who has paid attention to his wife's pregnancy, can't help but loving her all the more for what she goes through to have this healthy child.

I think this is it for this week and we'll see how the baby is on Monday when Mimi has her next OBGYN appointment. We'll keep praying for them both and seek God's blessing on the continued pregnancy.