sarahkhooyw: The Birth-Day Story of Alex Koay.

It has been a month (chun-chun) since the little man came out of my womb and into this world. Yes, at times it still feels surreal that he is already here but most of the time, it's super realistic. Especially during the night when we have to wake up every 2-hours to feed his little stomach. Hah.

Anyways, here's our little story of what happened on the day he decided to come out.

I will try my best not to leave any details behind.

It was 4:20am when I felt the first wave of contraction but decided to sleep it off as it was not unusual to experience one or two episodes at night, but then the second one came not long after that and I was like, "Could this be it?"

I remained lying on the bed and waited for the third one to come and truly it came.

That's when I got up and went to the toilet to check if got bleeding or mucus plug. None of that.

Then, I prayed because I was genuinely confused. Not sure if this is really it or not.

I walked around the room , waited for more contractions and with each episodes, I timed them.

Then at about 5am, I shook Adrian and said, "Baby, I think this is it!"

He jumped out of bed and started putting on clothes and getting all excited. I was excited too but I needed to get a shower first. Need to wash my hair first knowing that I may not be able to do so for the next few days. Heh.

By the time I finished with shower, I started bleeding so we wasted no more time to eat or whatever already. I was a little hungry but never mind that.

By the time we got to Adventist Hospital's Emergency Room, it was about 5:40am (I think) and I was wheeled to the Delivery Room while Koay went to do registration et cetera.

At this point, the pain became more constant but still bearable. I thought to myself that I didn't need epidural whatsoever if it's this kind of intensity, only to have few nurses telling me that the real 'labor pain' not yet start. G.

I was 2cm dilated and since we just have to wait for the dilation to grow, we rested a while in this room before being taken to another room.

Alex was not moving so much at that point but his heartbeat was strong and constant.

I kept walking around so that I could get dilated faster and didn't need to wait for like 12-hours for the delivery to begin. I was ready to pop this one out.

Then, when Dr. Soon came in to check at 9:30am, I was only 4cm dilated. Oh mannn. A bit too late for all the walking exercises heh.

He took a long stick and poked the water-bag inside and immediately after that, he realized that Alex had pooped inside and his face changed.

That face.

He waited till Adrian came back from the bakery and broke the news to us.

Sometimes, babies poop while they are still inside the womb but it is not a good thing because we do not want the babies to inhale the poop into his lungs where it could partially or completely block the airway and potentially cause respiratory distress and pneumonia - not life threatening but can cause health complications.

This first poop of baby is called meconium.

Since I was only 4cm dilated, Dr. Soon highly recommended that we go for the Cesarean procedure to take Alex out instead of waiting it out because the meconium inside the bag was pretty sticky and there were quite a lot of them.

He noted that this would be a semi-emergency C-section because by 10am (which was 30-minutes later), I had different tubes in and out of my body and was wheeled into the Operating Theater.

I was completely naked and cold in the OT and more tubes on my body and machines everywhere - really like Grey's Anatomy moment hah.

Once the anesthetic specialist inserted all the necessary drugs into my body, that was when I started having a very mild anxiety attack. I could not move anything below my chest - it was super scary.

I was wide awake and I could not even move my hands.

At this point, Adrian was still outside the OT.

I felt better when Dr. Soon came in and started talking to me and I was like, "Ah, a familiar voice yes".

Then, Adrian walked in and sat next to me.

The moment I was being cut open, Adrian stood up, wanting to see every single thing but only to be told by the nurse to remain seated. Hah. But he was able to see the whole entire thing. How the cut was done, and when Alex was being brought out of my womb and stuff. It was insane. I thought he would freaked out.

The moment Dr. Soon carried Alex out of my womb, he started screaming already. I said screaming because please, he did not spend 9-months inside me to come out crying.

Have to make a grand exit okay. Even the nurse who cleaned him up said, "Wah, so loud har you"

That's our son, alright. Hah.

So, there you go.

Our first family photo.

Adrian left the OT with the baby while I was still being explored on the operating table. They were looking for the fibroid but after 10 minutes of searching, they could not find it and to avoid more bleeding, he thought it was best to stop and stitched me up.

I was being put at another place to rest for an hour before brought back to the 3-bedded room.

It was about 12pm when everything was over and I got to hold my son for the first time. I was feeling a little too tired and overwhelmed and was still in a lot of pain to enjoy the entire hold-my-baby-for-the-first-time but looking back, it did feel amazing for a while - before the pain kicked in again.

If you ask me, of course I would prefer for natural birth but his safety matters most so we did the right thing.

We spent four days and three nights at Adventist Hospital to make sure that the c-section scar is okay and everything else is accordingly. The few days in hospital also allows us to check and see if Alex has jaundice as it may come later on.

Good news is Alex never had to go under the photo-therapy for jaundice because his jaundice level kept going down day by day - he pooped a lot fyi so that helps.

I remembered feeling so nice on the day we were allowed to go home - of course I didn't wait till that day to shower and all but I was so looking forward to sleeping on my own bed already.

Yep, we spent the first night back at our own little house, then only headed over to my mom's the next day and started the "confinement" period. Heh.

Will blog more on that next.

So, that was it - our very first giving-birth experience. Nothing dramatic like water bag broke in the middle of a meal in a mall with strangers everywhere heh. Phew. I always thought that Alex would be a midnight baby but turns out, he became a morning baby.

We are so thankful that you guys have kept us in your prayer for safe and smooth delivery so thank you so much, prayer warriors!

Also, we want to thank all of you who have visited us at the hospital, the gifts and angpows that were received, the lovely messages on social media and thoughtful phone calls - please do know that we appreciate every single one of them. We feel the love for sure. Alex is so blessed for real.

So everyone, please do meet our firstborn son.