Friday, September 16, 2005
The Birth of Little "Skywalker" - Epi 5 - First EncounterSlightly more than a year ago in a hospital not that far away....
After putting J to sleep, I was asked to go home and have a rest, so that I can deal with whatever that comes my way in the morning. I disagree at first but finally relented as there is nothing that I can do now but to pray for our son’s survival.
As I came back to a house with no one in it, I could hardly close my eyes. I took our my rosary (never use it since I got married and moved out) and say a whole rosary by myself on the bed, praying that our son will make it through. After that, I managed to drift into sleep as my brain was overwhelmed with everything that has happened.
That was undeniably the worst day in my life!
Slightly more than three hours later, I got up, hoping what had happened the day before was just a nightmare. But when I saw J was not next to me on the bed, it finally hit me that I am living this nightmare. I took a bath to clear my thoughts before heading to the hospital.
J was so anxious to see our son that she was already prepared before I arrived. As I push J to the NICU ward, I reminded J not to cry in front of our baby boy as I think he has already suffered enough. What he needed was not our symphathy, but our strength and courage to guide him through the whole ordeal.
At the NICU ward, we were reminded to wash our hands thoroughly with chemical foam before touching our son to prevent any form of infection. J finally saw our son clearly for the first time. The doctor came a few minutes later and briefed us about the little guy’s development so far. I guess Malaysian doctors aren’t really trained to “break the news gently” as what we see on TV. They will just go ahead and tell you to prepare for the worst, even though they were talking to a mother who had just given birth less than 8 hours ago. Or I guess Malaysians are just much tougher than those in the developed countries.
That said, we were not as tough as we thought we were. We just began sobbing in front of the doctor, and worse, in front of our little boy, as if he is never going to make it. The doctor told us that the drug will keep our son asleep for three days in order to keep him brain activity at a minimum, so that whatever fluid we saw earlier will clear away themselves (without going through surgery). He also gave us a few (bad) scenarios on what is going to happen in the next few days. Suffice to say, it did not look good at all even if our son managed to make it through and wake up!
We spent a few private moments with our son, allowing him to feel his parents’ touch of warm and caring hands. We also spoke a few words of encouragement to his ears to help him overcome his fear. It was really breaking our heart to see tubes being fed down his throat as well as his belly button. He was still showing signs of fits. The shape of his head was like a cone, due to him being squeezed a long time between J’s pelvic bones, but the doctor said it was normal and it will start to regain the roundish look within a week. The back of his palms and feet were showing signs of bruises because the nurses need to take quite an amount of blood to test for disease and infection earlier.
We came out of the NICU about half an hour later to allow the doctors to do their work. J just burst into tears as soon as we got out the door. I guess she can’t stop blaming herself for what happened to our son although the cause of our son’s lack of oxygen was still unknown to the doctors. I managed to calm her down later and tried switching to other topics which are not as heartbreaking such as deciding on a name. We also discussed about how we are going to provide unconditional love and care to our son no matter how he grew up to be.
Behind my head, the thought of our son not surviving the whole ordeal haunted me , but I managed to keep this from J…
continue to Ep 5.5 - The First Encounter (J's account)
Jotted down by Egghead :: at around 9/16/2005 09:13:00 AM :: and invited 0 Blah(s):
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