A long and lengthy update about Karyn Jie Jie

It's been 3 weeks since Kayla was born and Karyn has been a loving big sister to Kayla.

I suppose we've done a good job with the early psycho-education during my pregnancy. I also attribute it to the fact that she had witnessed my SIL's pregnancy and arrival of her baby boy Kayden (her 9-month old cousin whom she adores and plays with every weekend at Ye Ye's house) that she was able to understand the concept of pregnancy and birth.

Although she did stump me one time when I was about 7 month pregnant, by asking me, "Mummy, how come Mei Mei can be inside the stomach?" GULP. I was stumped. Don't tell me it's time to begin sexuality education at age 3???

Luckily, I remember my "super Dad-friend-cum-ex-colleague Uncle" James who has a 5-year-old and a 18-month-old, both girls too. When we were working at the previous workplace, we had often traded stories of our kids and parenting techniques.

At his sound advice, I explained to Karyn that because Mummy and Daddy love each other, so we got married; and then have baby inside stomach. No need to talk about the birds and the bees, she's too young to comprehend. I thought, "you mean that's it, so simple?" Whew! Luckily Karyn was able to accept the answer and didn't ask further.

Okok, I have sidetracked once again. Back to Karyn's recent updates. But before that, let me put down on record her reaction to Mei Mei when we first came back from hospital.

During the first few days, we had difficulties with her sleep and behaviour. She couldn't understand why she had to stop sleeping in our room. Although my mum has been here to stay with us and sleeps with her in her own room, she had a lot of difficulties staying in her room and falling asleep. I think she made like 8 rounds back and forth, to my room and back to hers before she managed to sleep. And it was unrestful sleep somemore.

Behaviour-wise, it was quite tough for everyone in the first week. Karyn got shouted at and scolded for things like playing with Mei Mei's sterilised bottles, messing my bed up, refusing to keep her toys and stuff, refusing to finish dinner, etc. The list went on. I suppose we were all adjusting to a new member in the family and to the new dynamics. Personally, I think I was pretty high strung in the first week, maybe my hormones at fault too. Anyway, I'm glad everything fell nicely into place from the 2nd week onwards as we gradually adapted to our new way of life.

Actually I started this entry wanting to share about the technological advances that Karyn has made in the past few weeks.

First, she started with MS Word. She always asks to type on our computer and we had rejected her before. So she had to live with typing on her toy laptop. Then one fine day, I relented and let her type on MS Word. She first started typing in the default black Arial font 12. Within days, her documents became as colourful as the rainbow! She had learnt how to change font, change colour and type smiley faces. I taught her the first two and her daddy taught her the smiley faces. And amazingly, with just one round of demo and one round of hands-on trial, she could do it independently already! Do I have a whiz kid or what??? But of course, one entire document is one colour and another document another colour. We haven't taught her to highlight portions and change yet.

Before long, I discovered that apart from MS Word, she had learnt from observation, how to open the Picassa software and view photos on her own. All because she had seen her daddy do it (she always pesters him to show her her old photos and videos) umpteen times.

On top of MS Word, she also loves to play games and print colouring pages on the Internet. After her daddy went through the games with her once or twice and we had helped her bookmark her favourite sites, she is able to start the games and play independently. Her favourites are Sesame Street (on PBS Kids), Bob the Builder, "Ladybird game" (of which I don't know the URL) and some random Barbie/Princess/Dora/Hello Kitty colouring pages which her daddy will source for her.

My "alien baby"

On the day that we discharged from hospital, Kayla did a blood test for jaundice and the results were too high for her to be discharged - 10.8.

Luckily, I had seen from Yvonne's Facebook that there's a phototherapy machine that can be rented home to use on the baby. So we immediately made arrangements at the PD's clinic to rent the machine home. It cost $430+ for 3 days' 2 nights' rental. I thought it made good sense as the baby's hospitalisation bill would even be higher than that.

It was quite a distressing experience for both baby and I. Once we put Kayla in, she would wail at the top of her voice. Firstly, she doesn't fancy being unswaddled. On top of that, we had to remove her clothes. We were told by the staff that babies would definitely cry when placed inside and we just had to turn a blind eye and deaf ear to it. Anyway, if they had been in the hospital nursery, they would also be crying, just that we wouldn't be there to hear and see it. I kept psychoing myself with that thought but it still is heartbreaking to hear the little one in such distress.

After the second day, we learnt that she could sleep long and well after a good meal. So we made sure that she was fed some formula (to supplement while waiting for my milk to come in) and was full and fast asleep before we placed her inside the "capsule".


We also made a startling discovery about Kayla when we placed her on her tummy. She could actually lift up her head and turn to the opposite side. And she was only 4 days old then! On day 6, she was propping her butt up in the air and trying to shuffle her body forward! Way to go, gal!



By the way, don't you think Kayla looks like an "alien baby" when she's wearing the eye mask? Haha.


It wasn't until Day 7 (after 2 visits to the PD and 2 blood tests) that Kayla's jaundice level was declared safe to be taken off the phototherapy.

Kayla's birth story

Didn't blog about Karyn's birth story in 2006 as it was quite a traumatic experience. Kayla's too was traumatic at a certain point during the labour but the sweet ending was too memorable, so decided to put it down in record before my memory fails me.

Sat (02/01/2010) morning

• woke up at 8.30.

• went to brush teeth and felt a sudden gush of water flowing out. but not continuous. so quickly put on a pad and went out to announce that it's time!

• then waited for hubby to pack his bag. called the labour ward in the car to tell them to we're on our way.

• reached hospital at close to 930

• strapped on CTG. given enema. told to hold it in for 10 min if possible. could't, went to poop after 4 min.

• went to lie down. nurse did VE, already 4 cm dilated. was very surprised that i couldn't feel any contractions at all.

• during karyn's time, was alr bending over in pain at 3cm.

• then nurse asked if i wanted epidural now. i said ok, since anaesthetist will take time to come and contractions will intensify.

• by the time anaesthetist came, alr started feeling the contractions, felt like menstrual cramps.

• anaesthetist gave epidural, told me tat he wun give too high dosage, just numb me a little.

• few hours after epi, contractions felt stronger and more painful. until cannot bear anymore and started moaning louder and louder uncontrollably and squeezed hubby's hand tight and tighter. deep breathing also didnt help. told the nurse to get doc to cut me up and take baby out. nurse called the anaesthetist to come back.

• he was quite surprised as he increased the dosage but i didnt feel any effect of the epi. said something about it being a rare case. most people would be totally numb by now.
  

• so we decided to redo the epidural. that time was alr 7cm dilated. and i was screaming uncontrollably in pain as the contractions came fast and furious at every min or so. pretty much like Karyn's time. kept feeling the urge to push. and (WARNING: graphic details follows hereafter, skip to next bulleted point if you're (1) a visual person, (2) not ready to read about the ugly side of the labour process) a lot of poop kept coming out as the anaesthetist redid the epi.
  

• apparently the enema didn't help clear the bowels. so it was like, enema AND epi didnt work. GOSH!!!
  

• anaesthetist told hubby that probably during the first injection, he didnt find the exact spot. i rem him telling me when he first injected me that if I were to have a 3rd child, i will need to control the weight gain. otherwise, will have problem injecting the epidural. something about the needle being too short to reach the right spot.
  

• when he did the epi the 2nd time round, i felt my legs jerk suddenly and cried out in pain. dr said good, epi working. then gradually legs became numb.

• by then was about 4+ p.m. alr. or was it 3 plus? cant rem.
  

• anyway, it was blissful after that... couldnt feel the contractions anymore.

• nurse did VE and said 8 cm but baby still very high up. so we waited and waited for baby to descend.

• next VE, 9cm, baby still high. nurse said big babies will take some time to move down... so more waiting..

• finally at about close to 5pm, was finally 10cm dilated. nurse said can call gynae alr...

• when she came back, she started practising pushing with me.

• we did it abt 3 rounds and she said i was doing a great job, passed with flying colours! baby's head was crowning alr, can stop practising and wait for doc to come. all the constipation that i used to have seemed to come into good use during labour - i though aloud.
  

• when doc came at 5.18p.m., we went for it. pushed and pushed.

• huffed and puffed 6 times and Kayla slipped out. i could even feel her slipping out from inside of me, quite a pleasant and memorable sensation.

• immediately, Kayla was put onto my chest.

• 

• slight tear at perineum, so doc gave me a few stitches.
  

• started breastfeeding once Kayla was brought back into the labour room after having her measurements taken - weight: 3.84 kg, head circumference: 36cm, length: 50cm.