Road To San Michelé: September 2012

And she's almost 2 months already! :-) So much has happened since my last blog entry. I went into labour at 37 weeks one evening at 18:00. Contractions were 10 minutes apart, but so weak. I decided to wait until they either get stronger or closer together before I go to hospital. I didn't sleep much that night. Probably about 2 hours, but when I woke up, the contractions were irregular and still weak. I spent the morning in a bit of a daze. By noon, contractions were regular again. I went to fetch the kids from school and phoned the dr when I got home. She asked me to come in. A friend came to fetch the kids and I drove myself to the dr where she monitored me. She confirmed that there were loads of contractions, but very weak. I wasn't dialating, but she said she could feel the baby's hair through the uterus!! It was stretched unbelievably thin. Three days before, I had my check-up and the uterus wasn't that thin, and there were still loads of water and the placenta was calcified by a 2. Now, the water was almost all gone and the calcification grew to a 3. So the dr decided not to take any chances with that thin uterus and sent me off for the ceaser.

The ceaser went without any complications. Baby was born screaming. A very short, beautiful, brown-haired baby girl weighing 2.9kg. Soooo tiny and gorgeous. I didn't really believe the dr when she yelled "It's a little girl!!" I repeatedly asked "Really?", LOL. When the dr showed her to me, I just noticed how extremely short she, and especially her legs, were. So I still didn't believe she was a little girl. Until my husband asked me if I think the dr was lying to me!

When the older kids came to visit an hour later, we showed them the baby's face, and asked what they thought baby is. All three declared baby to be a boy, with Boeboe adding "but I wished he was a girl!". Then Grandma took baby, unwrapped her and peeked inside the nappy - crying "it's a girl"!! Boeboe's eyes just lit up and she kept saying "I can't stop smiling"! And she literally didn't. :) It was such a sweet moment. Mr N said "Oh no! I thought it was going to be a little brother!" but afterwards declared her to be such a beautiful, sweet little thing and that he was really glad to have her in our family. Monkeyman was just overjoyed for Boeboe's sake. He is so close to Boeboe, and he wanted her to be happy. So when she wished for a little girl, he wished for her wish to come true. Every now and then he'll tell me that he's so happy Boeboe got the sister she wished for. :) How sweet are these kids? Gosh, I love them to bits!!

Baby is the sweetest thing ever. She just sleeps and sleeps and sleeps. She had no jaundice problems like her siblings. And she needed no oxygen or any help. Though they had to test her sugar levels multiple times until it settled. She picks up weight beautifully, despite puking thoroughly after every feed, LOL. I'm pretty sure I must be the first mom ever who's happy that her baby throws up!! It's been such a struggle for me in my life, to throw up. With a non-operational valve, it's almost impossible. So what happens is that when I was supposed to throw up, the stomach acid and contends would just rise up in my throat, making me so nauseous but unable to throw up. The same has happened to all three the eldest kids. And especially with Boeboe, causing her sleep apnoa episodes when she was a baby. We call this condition silent reflux. It's awful, thinking that the milk and acid rose inside my baby's throat, lying there, literally choking her to death. With this baby, she throws up!!! Yes, it's been nice to almost never needing to clean vomit from any of the other 3 kids. Even when they had tummy bugs, they would rarely throw up much. But that's probably the only advantage. This baby now seems so normal. She can vomit! She doesn't have silent reflux!! She most definitely has reflux, but with that we can deal. I'm going to the pead in this week, hopefully returning with a script for medicine.

My own recovery has been difficult. I absolutely hate c-sections. I'm struggling with the inside stitches that gets infected constantly. Or maybe, like with Monkeyman's birth, I'm allergic to these stitches as well. I don't know the cause, but it's been awful and painful. But, we're getting there.

Here's my baby - Meet little Peanut!!