*HAPPY 1-WEEK BIRTHDAY!*

yay, we made it to one week! while the shock of ethan's early arrival has wained, the new shock of being parents 24/7 is just starting to set in! the past week has been pretty amazing. ethan is pretty amazing :) he just so darn cute!! it makes waking up every 3 hours round the clock almost a joy.

we've also been blessed with visits from friends and family and neighbors bringing us food, which has been extremely helpful. thank you everyone!

aside from the fun & excitement of being with our little peanut, there was also the inevitable problems of sore stitches and nipples, as every mother would tell you. i thought the latter was tolerable for the first few days, until the blisters started getting bigger and the pain got worse. it got to a point 2 days ago when i really couldn't stand it anymore and had to pump instead, because the pain of pumping was at least controllable as opposed to ethan's voracious sucking. but then he began needing more milk (the hospital said about 80 ml each feeding) but i could only pump about 60ml. this made everything very frustrating becuase i knew that ethan was hungry, but i couldn't do anything about it.

so this morning derek finally went to get some formula so we could supplement. hopefully this will ease the pressure off my nipples a little and give them some time to heal. linnet and peta both tell me that it'll get better, but right now it's hard to imagine.

as for the stitches, i went for a check-up on monday, and the nurse said everything looks good. great, but it's still damn sore! but at least they look good. that's important.

this is a season of lots and lots of babies at the Vine, but the male-female ratio is highly imbalanced, which means that ethan is going to be spoiled for choice when he grows up! he had his first hook-up yesterday, when matt and peta visited with lily. right now, she looks like she could throw him around like a yo-yo, but i'm sure in a few years he'll catch up ;)

*an early christmas gift*

well, the pregnancy blog will have to turn into a baby blog early, because our little peanut arrived 2 weeks ahead of schedule!! if you're taken by surprise, you're not alone... i am just starting to get over the shock of it all myself. here's the scoop on how it all went down.

thursday, dec.11:
being in the last month of pregnancy, i had my weekly check up at the local maternal health clinic at 9am. i woke up in the morning and discovered that i had a bit of bloody show (blood tinged discharge, one of the signs of the onset of labor. but most of the books say this comes a few DAYS before labor... yeah right!). at this point, i remembered seeing some extra gooey discharge 2 days ago, which i now realized was the mucus plug. anyway, i went to the check-up, and told the nurse i had bit of bloody show, but it was quite faint. she said that i could observe it and if it gets heavier then i should go to the hospital. so i went home at about 11am and figured i should start making sure the bags are all ready, did some last minute grocery shopping, took out our huge load of recycling, and waited to see how i felt.

by about 12pm the false contractions that you get in the last few months were starting to feel a bit stronger, and i really wasn't sure if they were the false ones or real ones, so i tried to call linnet, but she didn't answer. at this point i still didn't believe i could be going into labor so soon, so i took out all our baby books and tried to see if i can find out what's going on.... at about 1 i decided that it was probably a good thing to at least make my way towards central, just in case.

by the time i got out to the Tung Chung mtr station at about 1:30, i was pretty sure that the contractions were real because they were starting to hurt more and more. so i called derek to meet me at central. the reason i didn't believe i was really going into labor earlier was because as soon as i started timing the false contractions at home, they were already about 5 minutes apart. now with the real ones, they were about 5-7 minutes apart. how could they be so close together right from the start?!?! anyway, got on the mtr, and the contractions were getting pretty painful... found derek and we fei dik (read: "took a super fast taxi ride") to QMH.

we checked into the maternity ward at about 2:30pm, and by now i was really in pain - like screaming out loud pain. but the nurses just put me in the waiting ward. i asked one of them when i should be getting the epidural, because it was really really getting unbearable, but i was thinking "is it still too early??" she just said it was up to me (read: no help at all) and walked off. by the next contraction, i think they realized i was for real and got me ready to go to the labor room. this was about 3pm. i asked for the epidural again, but this time the nurse told me that the one and only anesthesiologist at the hospital just went into surgery and won't come out for a while. she said that since it looked like i was going to deliver pretty soon, there was probably no point in getting the epidural anyway. this is what i told her in my head: "what the *#$*@?!#$!*@!!@#!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

after getting strapped in and prepped, and derek came in, and the real show bagan. i was just starting to get used to the deep breathing to get through each contraction that when the midwife told me to start pushing i didn't know what she meant. it took a couple more contractions and everyone telling me to push and me not pushing before i realized that this was it - the baby had to come out! once i started pushing (basically trying to poop out a huge melon...) the contractions weren't as painful because you're focusing on getting the baby out. this was actually easier than getting through the earlier contractions. towards the end though, there weren't anymore contractions coming (i still don't know why) and i didn't feel like i had enough energy to push without the contractions, so it felt like forever. ethan's head had partially come out, but it took me a while before i managed to muster enough energy for a few more pushes to get him fully out.

of course, the thrill and joy of finally seeing my son in person was amazing, but honestly that was a pretty disgusting moment when all the warm gooey stuff was coming out along with the baby... i mean, there was a LOT of "stuff". i hope this is not too graphic for some. anyway, after the nurse shoved his butt into my face (because i had to self-declare the sex of the baby), they took him away to be cleaned and checked. then i had to deliver the placenta and then sewn up.

this next part was probably the most painful hour of my entire life. delivering the placenta wasn't too bad, except the midwife had to push and rub my stomach really hard to stimulate the placenta to detach. when it came out, she realized there was a chunk missing and had to push my stomach some more to get the rest out.

then came the stitching. she had to make a small incision (called an episiostomy - a pretty common procedure) in order to help the baby come out easier. but besides this, i also managed to tear something else inside... if you know what i mean. so she had to stitch my my inside and outside as well. now, let me remind you had i have not had ANY anesthesia, except for a few gasps of entoxin, which i'm convinced is just a placebo anyway. she gave me a local anesthetic, but then both my legs started cramping real bad from all the pushing, and she couldn't stitch until i could relax my legs. that took awhile, so by the time she actually got to the stitching, whatever anesthetic she gave me i'm sure had worn off. then she proceded to pull and yank on me for nearly an hour..... down there, with no anesthesia.


so, that's the story. under 6 hours from start to finish. yay.

i'm so glad that ethan is out now. he's a lot more fun outside than in :) we'll upload more photos very soon!

*thus begins the countdown*

ok ok i know i'm horrible at updating this blog. not that it matters because i don't think anyone reads it.... but i guess this is more for my own peace of mind knowing there's some sort of record of this time :)

i'm now 37 weeks, which means the baby is fully formed and is ready for the world! but there's still 3 weeks to go til my due date, which also means 3 weeks til christmas!! yippeeee.... of course, this year there's a good chance i'll be celebrating with grouchy nurses at the hospital. but without further ado, photos of the evolution of my bump in the last month:

29 weeks


32 weeks


34 weeks


36 weeks


as you can see by my expression in that last one, i'm not a very happy camper by this point... by now i'm just feeling super huge and moving around is not a happy event. i can't get a comfortable sleeping position, and i can't walk any faster than snail's pace. i also get these round ligament pains in my right hip that is really really NOT fun, mostly because i can't figure how to stretch it out.

so here you go. 20 days to go. have you done your christmas shopping yet?