update

thanks for all your blessings. heather was discharged after phototherapy for one day but we're still struggling with the jaundice and breastfeeding.

her jaundice situation seems to be improving but the progress has been slow, which is common among breastfed babies. we've been in and out of the hospital for blood checks to monitor her situation and luckily we got daddy to be our driver.



bottles were introduced to heather starting from the hospital stay and she has got some nipple confusion which led her suck even worse while nursing. with the help of a le leche league leader, i am using this straw-like lactation aid to give supplement of expressed breastmilk to heather while she was nursing. hopefully she will learn to latch on better and drink more at the same time so her jaundice situation will improve further and she will get back to her birth weight soon.



for my part, it means waking up heather round the clock for nursing plus pumping 8 times a day to keep up my milk supply. it was a complete chaos last week but as you can see me finally updating this blog, we can proudly say that we've already got used to this crazy routine. i even got the energy to read through all my google reader subscriptions plus online newspapers this morning. :P

will need to monitor heather's jaundice situation for a while. no more blood tests for our little girl i hope. fingers crossed.

hospitalised

heather is admitted to the hospital because of jaundice, and i have problems with breastfeeding.

having nursed rafael for more than 2 years, i thought i'm pretty much a veteran breastfeeding mother and i thought it's just going to be smoother this time. while rafael was such an avid drinker and cried for hunger every hour, heather has decided to give us a peaceful mind by not crying at all and sleeping through the night from day 1. of course her mother tried every method to wake her up to nurse more, but she's just so determined to sleep and put on a hunger strike, actively sucking for only one or two minutes each time and not swallowing even when she's cupfed with expressed milk.

nothing in, nothing out. and that's why she's not able to get rid of the jaundice-causing bilirubin which needs to be passed out in her stool and urine.

we're hoping that the light therapy will help her and the nurses would be able to make her drink more at the hospital. meanwhile, with too little stimulation from my dear girl, i need to rely on regular pumping to increase my milk supply.

remembering those sleepless nights when rafael was a newborn, i was so eager to finish the book "no cry sleep solution" before heather was delivered, little do i know that sleep turns out to be the last thing i wish my girl to do now.

thanks for all your blessings and kind wishes for heather and us, i'm sure this difficult period will pass by in no time.

the labour game

晚上跟auntie queenie通話後，我告訴靖愷，星期天看到auntie queenie你要不要摸摸她的大肚子？她肚內有個bb啊，說不定你可以感到bb在踢！

靖愷說不敢。我問，你知道你也曾住在媽媽肚內嗎？我給他看傷口，說：醫生就是從這裡拿你出來。

我將小熊塞進衫裡示範，靖愷興奮莫名，跟著便和馬騮仔輪流捐進我的衫內，三數分鐘下來我便生產了幾個人仔，幾隻馬騮仔。

靖愷，明天，讓我給你看媽媽懐著你的照片。

first birthday!

rafael's first birthday

our dearest boy rafael
it is your first birthday!
the once tiny and fragile infant
is learning to toddle today

your innocent smile, your baby babble
bring us the simplest joy in life
and watching your every little new move
is now our biggest drive

we wish you love and peace
in the many days to come
our love will never change
no matter what you become

from mom & dad

(i know it's a bad poem, but it's mommy's little gift for rafael :P)

one year ago

dear rafael, one year ago, you were still inside mommy's tummy, getting ready to come out and see this world! can you believe how fast time flies?

靖愷，一年前，就在媽媽坐在這青草地上的時候，你已在媽媽的肚內靜靜地敲著敲著，準備來到這世上．待氣溫回升了，我們也再到這青草地玩，好嗎？

birth certificate

daddy applied for a birth certificate for rafael today and his chinese name was finally fixed. it's 麥靖愷. 靖 means 平定，恭敬，清靜 and 愷 means 和樂，和善. hope baby rafa will like his name and live up to the meanings! and the coincidence is, his initial is the same as his father's - CH Mak! :P

birth announcement

finally got the time to make a decent birth announcement for little rafael today to inform friends who don't know about his birth yet.

made this with photoshop and fd's flickr toys. check out fd's flickr toys (http://bighugelabs.com/flickr/) if you haven't done so. it's really useful and interesting. you can turn your pics into andy warhol's signature paintings, movie posters, magazine covers, calendars and even billboard advertisements. and the good thing is, you don't even have to be a flickr member to use the tools.

welcome home rafael!

baby rafael is finally home today! and finally we can put a full-stop to our daily commuting to the hospital. : )

rafael usually sleeps right after a feed at the hospital, but today he kept opening his little eyes to explore the surroundings as this is the first time he left the special care baby unit! he fell asleep pretty soon though after returning home. hope he likes his crib! : )

day 7 at the hospital

what a yawning baby! baby rafael yawns a lot after having a feed!

and it's so cute to see rafael grabbing daddy's robe while being winded. and see how tiny his little hand is compared to his daddy's!

oh btw, rafael had another "first" today! his first tea-pouring! when we changed diapers for him this morning, he suddenly had another pee pee and he almost wetted his baby neighbourer!

some more updates

the nurse told us today that rafael's eye swab report was out already and the result was negative! meaning that no organisms were found in the eye discharge. now, rafael should be able to go home after finishing the antibiotics shots, which should be the coming tuesday (feb 13). so happy that rafael can come home in time to celebrate valentine's day with us! he's surely mac's and my valentine now : )

rafael's injection needle point was changed to his left foot today! it's really surprising he can still eat and sleep with the needle on! we're sure he will be a strong boy after going through so much pain and hardship in his first week of life!

poor little hand

this is the injection needle point currently on little rafael's right hand. isn't it sad just to look at it? the nurse told me today he will have to take the antibiotics shots until either feb 12 night or feb 13 morning. wish it will be earlier!

update about rafael

yes, poor little rafael is still at the special care baby unit now. on day 2, the doctors found that he's not breathing too well and had an x-ray on his lung. he's suspected to have caught pneumonia but luckily the blood result was already available and he's doing fine.

another problem is his little left eye, which had kept passing some yellow discharge. test results are not available yet.

and what's more, he's on a course of 7-day antibiotic treatment, which means he can only be discharged the earliest by feb 12. it's really saddening to see such a tiny being like him having an injection needle on his little palm! i had the needle on my hand for two days during the hospital stay and my hand was painful and swollen!

right now we're travelling to the hospital twice a day to feed him in the morning and evening. hopefully this will end by next monday! wish us good luck aunties and uncles, sisters and brothers (for those who refuse to be called aunties and uncles) : P

note of thanks

i must thank my dearest and sweetest hubby mac for being the perfect husband and daddy, both during my pregnancy (accompanying me to the check-ups, antenatal seminars and classes whenever he could; bearing my tempers, negative emotions and irrational behaviour; giving me all the emotional and physical support, massages etc) and during and after labour (travelling to and from our home, his parents' home and the hospital daily to take me all the soup and nutritious food; offering to accompany me in the labour ward though afraid of blood; doing all the cooking and household chores now).

we must also thank all our friends who have shared our joy, offered their advice, given us blessings and pampered us with gifts since we knew about the pregnancy! thank you so much! : )

my birth story

feb 4

1 am
we arrived at the hospital shortly before 1 am and it was already 1.20 am by the time mac finished the admission procedures (we know the exact time as it was shown on all the labels, my bracelet, etc). mac had to leave soon after and the nurse started to do some checks on me, monitoring the baby's heartbeat and frequency of my contractions (pains) etc. the docs and nurses told me that i was having regular contractions (about 10 minutes apart) but as a rule of thumb, i had to wait till they were about 3 minutes apart until i'm ready to get into the labour ward! that means i will have quite a long wait...

4 am
i think i got about 30 minutes of sleep after the monitoring was done, but by about 3.30 am, i was asked to move to another bed and then around 4 - 4.30 am, i was feeling stronger contractions (that means more pain) every 5 - 7 minutes and i couldn't get back to sleep...

10.30 am
the doctors had a check on me and found that my cervix had dilated about 1 finger (1 cm i suppose) but it's still about 1 cm think. (note: the cervix has to get all thin and dilate 10 cm until the baby can come out and i can push.) the docs and nurses told me to walk more because that will help to move the baby downward.

lunch & dinner
mac came visit me during the visiting hours at lunch & dinner, but honestly i could barely talk to him because the contractions were really quite painful! they were still about 5 minutes apart. but mac accompanied to do the walking and helped massage my back because my back really hurts when the contractions came.

feb 5

1.30 am
the nurse had another check on me and said my cervix had only dilated about 1.5 cm but the good news was, it had got very thin already. she even said i should call my husband because i could probably get to the labour ward in a few hours (another note: we can get to the labour ward when the cervix is 3 cm dilated).

4 am
i walked the whole night and only rested on the armchair once in a while, hoping it could speed up the process... the nurse had another check on me... but there was no progress!

8.30 am
the doctors came and found my cervix had only dilated 2 cm (only 0.5 cm more in 7 hours! normally people say for first delivery, the cervix will dilate 1 cm each hour) and the bad news is, it had beome swollen (which will hinder the dilation). they asked if i wanted to be induced and yes! i couldn't really wait for another day because i couldn't walk, sleep or eat because of the pain!

10.30 am
i was finally moved to the labour ward and mac was allowed in to accompany me as well. i started to inhale entonox ("the smile gas") to relieve the pain but honestly i don't think it helped much... and 1 or 2 hours later, i asked to have an injection of pethidine and neither did it help much! and by 3.30 pm, i had an epidural and after that, i could finally talk and chat with mac properly! :P

9 pm
the doctor had another check on me and found that there was no progress at all (only 2 cm of dilation) and what's more, i'm suffering from a fever and she suggested i had a caesarian section to take the baby out.

10.14 pm
i was taken to the operation theatre shortly around 9.30 pm and rafael was born at 10.14 pm, weighing 3.09 kg and measuring 51 cm! : )

the paediatrician told me that rafael had taken in some meconium (baby's first poo poo) at birth and said he has to be observed for a day! i was only able to kiss him at the forehead and he's taken away...

11 pm
the operation had finished and i was taken to the recovery room. the docs said i had lost 2 litres of blood during the operation (quite threatening, isn't it?) but i was given some blood transfusion right afterwards of course. i was still having a fever and had to be on injections of anti-biotics.

feb 6

12.30 am
i was able to meet mac who was anxiously waiting outside and i was then taken to my room for a rest after a long day's work! : P



here's a pic of little rafael taken right by his daddy right on the first night.

feb 3 - labour starts?

only 1 day to go before the due date! since my maternity leave started, i've received numerous calls and IMs about when rafael will come out... but honestly i don't know and neither do the doctors (i tried to ask them too)!

but about noon on feb 3, while mac was at the gym, i started to feel some abdominal pain, sort of like period pain, every 20 - 30 minutes... but since it's not getting more intense and frequent, i'm thinking these should just be braxton's kicks (baby practising coming out) so we actually went out to our favourite gogo cafe and had lunch there and went to victoria park to test our new camera - canon eos 400d!


the pains were still regular and by dinner time, they had become more frequent - 15 minutes apart. at around 10.30 pm, they were about 10 minutes apart (though not getting more intense), and after consulting the nurses at QMH, we decided to go to the hospital (after taking a shower : P). see this pic taken before we left home at around midnight on feb 4, i could still smile! (the pains were really not that intense at that time.)