Friday, September 16, 2005

The Birth of Little "Skywalker" - Ep 6 - The Wait

Slightly more than a year ago in a hospital not that far away....

J’s grandma was here to stay with us although J was still in the hospital. When I came home after leaving J resting in the hospital, my phone beeped. It was my MIL, she told me to do something to my bed and mattress with the help of J’s grandma. According to her beliefs, we must have put our son’s life at risk when I decided to install our heated shower in my room’s bathroom near to J’s pregnancy. We need to do this small ritual to lift the curse or something.

I am not a superstitious person, but I rather kill myself than to live with this on my conscience for the rest of my life. Hence, I made the desperate move to complete the ritual, I think it involved lifting my whole king-size mattress up and let it stand at the end of the bed and put some leaf (olive?) in water under the bed or something. Anyhow, we got it done for the sake of our son’s survival.

J got discharged the next morning, we went to see our son again before we left the hospital. This is the first time we totally left him to the miracle hands of the doctors in NICU. Apart from us, my parents (my mum specifically, since she was the only one allowed in other than us because she knows the doctor there) went to visit our son few times a day, leaving behind a rosary and bible near his “bed”.

J’s parents came all the way from Skudai, JB to look at their (my parents’ as well) first grandson. We tried to smuggle them into the NICU ward to see our son, but only one managed to sneak in for one minute, and that is only my MIL, before the doctor warn us about their strict policies. However, I was given permission to bring in a camera to take snap shots of the little guy for everyone’s eyes. I borrowed a digital camera from one of my dear friend immediately the same night and plan to bring to the hospital later.

I went back to work three days after our son was born, and managed to take some time off during lunch hour to visit the little guy. He was still “sleeping” in his little plastic bed while the rest of us were waiting anxiously for our son to open his eyes for the first time.

The doctors reduced the medication on the third day, allowing him to “wake up” slowly. J was advised to express his breast milk into milk bottles and to be fed to our son via the tube to his stomach. However, J had difficulty expressing milk since there was no sucking sensation from our baby (gee.. why I didn’t volunteer?) but she managed to do it using the pumping machine that was available at NICU.

Feeding our son with breast milk seems to have the effect of stopping his hiccups, which occurs almost concurrently with his fits. Hence, I printed a few online articles to help J to pick up breast feeding into a bottle and to calm down her stress because she was so worried not being able to “produce” that much milk. The doctors also encourage her to continue trying as it was normal in the early stage of breastfeeding without a baby.

I took a snap shot of our son while waiting for him to wake up to the world…

continue to Ep 7 - Miracles Do Happen
Jotted down by Egghead :: at around 9/16/2005 01:45:00 PM :: and invited 1 Blah(s):

1 Blah(s) by:  littlegirl,

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