D- Day

After a restless sleep, at 6:00 am the alarm clock marked the beginning of the day when Amandio Gabriel was born. Apprehensive yet strangly calm, I went through the motions of preparing for our departure to the hospital. The taxi ride there was excruciating. I hated that we were sitting in morning traffic when we could already be there and starting the process of finally getting to meet our son. With a cheery 'good luck' from the nurses in the Fertility reception area as we passed by, we entered the labour room. The staff there sprang into action, urine test, blood pressure check, temperature, blood tests, hospital gown on, IV inserted and hooked up to the fetal heartrate and contraction monitor. Lying in the bed with Amandio sitting beside me, the labour process was induced. 60ml.. then 80 mil of oxytocin. Wham.. my stomach tightened, sharp pains but still manageable when I focused on my breathing. I distracted myself successfully by reading 'Country Living' magazine and its peaceful garden photos and beautiful home renovation projects transported me to a very calm place.. which particularly helped when the time between each contraction shortened to 2minutes and the pain intensified. After almost five hours of this, I decided to lie down to get some rest (relatively speaking!) to conserve my energy for delivery. Imagine my letdown when after 10 hours of battling with the pain and being 'courageous' knowing that the end would come and was worth it, when the doctor informed us that I was still only 1cm dilated. Knowing of my preference for natural birth, he suggested we continue for another few hours to see how things progress. However, when I questioned him in detail about what he anticipated would happen, we decided to throw all my notions of natural birth and its benefits out the window and not delay the birth any longer. The doctor thought that at that rate I could be in labour for at least another 10 hours, but still may only reach 8cm max.. by which point the baby could be so distressed (my blood pressure soaring) that we would have to go for c-section anyway. Put that way..operating room!! I insisted on showering first..I guess as a kind of way to mark the end of one idea/stage and prepare for a new one. 15 minutes later the operating team was ready. Then, lower body numb, legs like heavy rocks, suction sounds, kisses from Amandio (who was wonderful and not at all phased by what was going on), eight hands on my abdomen, a heavy pushing feeling on my stomach (people say this lasts only a few seconds.. well, for me it was two minutes cause the doctor had been so careful to make a small incision that it took four people to push the baby out) and out he popped. FIrst thing I heard wasn't his cry but 'look at his big scrotum'! LOL! Needless to say, I know of someone who was pleased :-) Then, came the cry... weird feeling but beautiful too. The doctor placed Amandinho next to my head, photos were taken. The whole thing was magical, but in a surreal sense (hard to describe really as it all happened in a total of 15 minutes with plenty of jovial chatter in the room - hard to take it all in. I did feel my eyes well up when I saw him and it was probably Amandio's face while looking at his son that touched me most. For him it must have been easier to really 'live' the experience.

One of my concerns about c-section was the fact that I would only see Amandinho again after two hours in recovery and one hour in my room. This posed a huge problem for me and was one of the main things we discussed with the doctor prior to making the decision to go ahead with the surgery. It is proven that a baby who doesn't start breastfeeding within half an hour of the birth may have problems with breastfeeding. True to his word, the doctor made sure that as an exception Amandinho could be taken to me in recovery (depending on my condition of course). I requested them to 'send me to sleep' while they sewed up my insides as the feeling made me extremely nauseas. I woke up to find hands and faces above me, holding Amandinho to my breast which was being poked and squeezed at vigorously. It was actually quite comical :-) I just went with the flow, all inhibitions lost.

So, Master (the title printed on his Birth Cert and all other hospital documents)Amandio Gabriel Martins was born on Tuesday, May 19th, at 18:37 with the 11th Waning moon in the year of the Ox (also on his Birth Cert!). He weighed 3.43Kgs and measures 52cms.

Pre-eclampsia

It is official.. my pregnancy-induced hypertension has now a high risk of becoming pre-eclampsia with traces of protein in my urine and blood pressure of 160/192. This is a disease occuring soley in 8-10% of end of term pregnancies and can be quite dangerous to both the mother and baby. The only known treatment is delivery (to rid the body of the placenta). It is related to a condition within the placenta which restricts blood flow and thus reduces oxygen and food supply to the baby. In my case it is only mild, but nonetheless the doctor is concerned because during the stress of labour it is likely to worsen. Therefore, the delivery date has been set - Tuesday 19th May - if it doesn't occur naturally prior to that day. Having a good look at my cervix today though indicates that this isn't likely to happen tomorrow.. but we are leaving a window of two days open for it to occur naturally.. hence the wait. This is due to the fact that though my cervix has softened and thinned (2cm to 1cm), it still hasn't lifted from a posterior to an anterior position nor has it started to dilate. The more time given for this to progress naturally, the easier labour could be.
How do I feel? Quite relieved to finally have a date to look forward to and definitely more relaxed. At the same time, I am sure that on Monday evening it'll be difficult to sleep in anticipation of what is to come. Sometimes it is better not to know .. :-). We have to be there at 7a.m and the doctor predicts that, provided there are no complications (blood pressure, oxygen levels) it could all be over in 8 hours. He will be keeping a watchful eye on the pre-eclampsia symptoms and did warn us that we may need to do c-section if labour doesn't progress as it should. I'm fine with this.. all notions of natural birth for me have blown out the window.. I just want our baby - with the least trauma possible :-)
As for the date, for some reason I was fixed on the 18th.. no real reason why, but it just 'felt right'. I like the fact that our baby will be Taurus and also the Chinese year of the Ox (highly compatible with Leos and the year of the Snake which both Amandio and I are).. of course, I don't read into astrology all that much but I do find it interesting. Amandio, forever the 'numbers man', made an interesting observation too; the 19th lies exactly in the middle of both his birthday (08th) and mine (30th) meaning that 11days separate all three of us. What is he like!!? In addition, 9 is also the luckiest number in Thailand. Right, now we know - Amandio Gabriel is due on 19-05-2009.

The journey so far

journey so far
Video sent by footprint-s

From 13-08-08 to 14-05-09

The above is a link to a movie I made with all the photos and ultrasounds from conception to now (lol.. I am bored of waiting!).

Did I mention that I am ready!?? All the baby clothes are washed and ironed, the bedding in the craddle, the nappies and all the baby products in place on the changing table, my hospital bag packed and mentally geared up for labour.

Amandio bought me three South Sea pearls (silver white) for the birth from a wholesaler/ jewel trader colleague friend. Despite 'birth presents' being a tradition in his family, I wasn't expecting anything seeing as we already invested a lot in the IVF treatment and I had already received the blue sapphire ring at the beginning of the pregnancy. My sweety had saved for it though and of course I was very chuffed! The next surprise was that I had to go to our jewellers and design the ring itself. That was fun and I am sooo pleased with the result. Now I just have to wait until I can actually wear it.. another reason (though, of course, not the main one) for Amandio Jr. to make an appearance!

Most of these past two weeks I have spent my time 'nesting' a medical term coining the period when the mother organises her house and decorates etc. In my case, I am permanently in this condition as I love making home :-) Preparing my parents room did take up quite a lot of my time. I had nothing else much to do anyway and as I was feeling good and mostly energetic, browsing through fabric shops (in the end I designed an embroidery pattern on Thai silk to create a frame and hang above the bed), bedding departments, plant nurseries etc was a perfect way to pass the time. I've also continued teaching private students at home and completed Season 6 of 24.

Still waiting...38.5weeks

The past three weeks my blood pressure readings have been high.. reaching a peak last Saturday of 153/80 along with low iron levels (slight anaemia). This coupled with two days of severe headaches last week has caused slight concern that I may have pregnancy-induced hypertension, which can happen at the end of term. The fact that the lower reading is still below 85 and that I don't have any signs of protein in my urine makes it less worrying (it isn't pre-eclampsia). However, we are watching this carefully and I did a NST test to monitor the fetal heartbeat and movement over one hour. Thankfully, the baby is healthy. During this test, the monitor also picked up on pre-labour contractions spaced 25 minutes apart!! This was very exciting and I could really feel them. Our doctor was also visibly pleased and expressed that he wouldn't be surprised if things didn't happen in the next week. Previously, I had been having the Braxton Hicks contractions which were more subtle and erratic. These were definitely stronger (to ripen the cervix) and continued for the rest of that day and into the night. Naturally, I started getting excited but knew to remain calm and just go about things normally as they could be false. The frustrating thing about these pre-labour contractions is that you never know if they are early-labour or false/pre-labour contractions until they actually stop! The best thing to do apparantely, is to change activity, but that night it didn't help - pretty persistant. I went to bed, keeping my head, knowing that even if they were real there was still a long road ahead and the best thing to do was to try and get some rest to prepare. That night, all signs pointed towards the coming of our baby. Imagine this, a full moon (which has strong significance in that both me and my brother were born on a full moon) and a raging thunderstorm, torrential rain and an orchestra of frogs outside my window. The whole scene was so dramatic, it just fitted perfectly with the exciting magic of childbirth. My bag was packed...
I woke up at 2:00am to go to the bathroom only to discover that the baby had changed his mind. This has been going on now every day this week, making the waiting game next to impossible! I feel ready now. Another thing is that my Vietnamese friend had her baby last week (36+ weeks) by c-section. She suffered a lot of pain in her pelvis when the baby dropped and decided to bring back her scheduled operation date from the 18th to 8th, despite doctors wanting her to wait a few more days. I suppose the fact that she is more petite in build and hadn't been doing any exercise throughout her pregnancy made the pain unbearable for her. We went to see the baby the same day as our doc visit.. well, I just want to have mine now :-)
The plan is that if by next Saturday I still haven't gone into labour, my blood pressure continues to be high, and the baby's weight is still the same or decreasing, we may need to induce. Only time will tell...

The Countdown

What was probably one of the easiest pregnancies has developed a few 'minor' (not sure yet) complications. Admittedly, getting pregnant in the first place was more of an ordeal for us with hormone injections and surgical proceedures. Therefore, I guess it was only fair that I didn't suffer from much nausea, and completely avoided vomitting, embarrassing flatulence, linea negra, hair growth, skin rashes, vaginal infections, body swelling, gestational diabetes, stomach upsets, cravings, ligament pains, major discomfort when sleeping etc.. and despite a 20kg weight gain (57-77kgs), my face, arms and legs look the same as before. Naturally, my stomach is big as are my upper thighs and hips.

The sudden drop in the position of the baby onto my pelvis alerted us to the approach to the final stretch. It was actually quite a relief to have more room for my lungs to fill properly and made finding a comfortable sleeping position much easier. It also meant that there is now more pressure on my pelvis and bladder again - night time bathroom visits have increased again. Another indication was the onset of slight contractions 'Braxton Hicks' to prepare my muscles for labour. I have also been religiously doing my pelvic muscle exercises to strengthen them.
Increased tiredness and the urge to go to bed early may also be a sign. I have continued swimming but less regularly and with less effort - enjoying the buoyancy more than anything else.

The past few weeks the frequency of visits to the doctor have also increased from once every three weeks/month to every week. I have been using these as a chance to ask all the questions I have about childbirth and his policy on labour. What I like is that he only administers the epidural when I request it and only minimal levels which can be regulated according to my pain. That way I can still feel the contractions and be actively involved in labour. Mobile epidurals are also standard here (I can still move about as it doesn't paralyse my lower body and I am attached to an IV). Episotomies are also not practised prior to delivery. It is a last minute decision made during crowning if the doctor sees that the head is too big and tearing will occur. Fingers crossed that neither one nor the other will happen.

The complications are related to my high blood pressure readings of late and further tests tomorrow will shed more light on the problem. Next post...