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.
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