Jared's 3rd birthday

I'm gonna deviate from the hospital saga and give an update about the rest of my life that is happening. Otherwise, I'll forever be backlogging...

So we had a mini celebration of Jared's birthday on 1 Sep Monday. He knew it was his birthday because everyone in the house kept reminding him of it and we also called him on the phone to wish him a 'happy birthday' since we couldn't spend the day with him (had to go to the NICU in Mt E to deliver milk to Cadence then).

He chose his own birthday cake. No prizes for guessing what design it'd be...

He picked this from the Polar cake brochure. I tried to sway his choice to a somewhat nicer design but he had his heart set on this already...

We went to my mum's in the evening and after dinner, he kept asking for his birthday cake. When we finally brought it out, he was the happiest!

My poster boy! Nice smile there right??

Before we brought out the cake, I told him that after singing the birthday song, he would have to make a wish. However, before we finished singing the song, he already blew out the candles and couldn't wait to cut the cake!!!

Nat just as excited as her brother.

Jared wanted to eat Thomas's face...

I kinda choked while singing the birthday song. Blame it on my post delivery hormones but I was feeling all warm and fuzzy inside. My boy is THREE! And I've three kids!

Pressie time!

Jared posing with his birthday pressie.

He sure is one happy boy! I really like his smile!

He tore apart the wrapper in no time... It cost GG $1.20 per piece and we had to use 3 pieces. Why did we even bother???

Thomas and friends set complete with Bulstrode. His current favourite.

GG set up this for him and he had a fun time playing with it.

Next, we'll be looking forward to Cadence's full month celebration, my 30th birthday and Natalie's 2nd birthday!

The '20-10' story

Cadence was born on 27 August via emergency caesarean at 6.08pm weighing 2.010kg.

Before I go into more details about her birth, I absolutely have to tell this '20-10' story. Do the numbers '2010' look familiar? It's because, that's Cadence's birth weight as recorded (refer to picture above).

On the afternoon of 27 August, my parents brought the kids to visit me in the hospital (as usual). The highlight of each visit for Jared and Natalie was the food. For Jared: sweets that his father buys for me and for Natalie: my tea time food - croissants, cakes, sandwiches, etc.

That day, I didn't really want to let Jared have any sweets since my mum mentioned that he already had one in the day. So to distract him from asking for sweets, I told him that I'd only give him the sweet if he could count to 30.

The sweet-toothed boy immediately started on his task.

For some odd reason, when he counted till '14', he skipped '15' and went on to '16'. I caught him at that and said "Uh-oh, nope. You have to start all over again because you missed '15'." Without so much as a delay, he started counting from '1' again. He actually counted in the cutest fashion. I simply can't imitate it here and I haven't made a recording of it. Well, if I were to try to describe, it involved him bobbing his head up and down with each number he counted, and a cheeky, dimply smile!

So he started counting for the second time and when he reached '14', he once again, skipped '15' and went to '16'!!! What was the matter?? Again, I said I wasn't gonna accept that so if he really did want the sweet, he would have to re-count again.

And, so he did.

This time round, I really didn't have the heart to make him redo the whole thing again should he fail to count '15', so when he was reaching '14', everyone started reminding him that he ought to count '15'! Geez!

Thankfully, he got the obvious hint! And sucessfully got through '15' and went on to '20'. Then he counted '21', '22', '23', '24', '25', '26', '27'... All the while when he was counting, his eyes were darting here and there, looking at me for approval, giving us his cheeky smile. He actually got through to '27' all on his own and then when he was supposed to say '28', he paused, went "errr" '28?' then went "errr" '29?'.

Everyone in the room was waiting eagerly for him to say '30'.

He didn't!

After saying '29' he paused again, went "errr" and said '20-10'!!!!

He said 'twenty-ten'!!!!

HAHAHAHAHAAHAHAAAHAHHA!!!

We all broke out into an uproarious laughter, to which when Jared saw us laughing, laughed out loud too.

It was truly hilarious. I thought he knew how to count to '30'!

So that's the '20-10' story! It's like a prediction of Cadence's birth weight.

After my surgery and when florence woke me up, the first thing I asked was how heavy Cadence was. She immediately told me that Cadence was born weighing 2.010kg. Even in my coma like state, I wondered why they bothered to mention the '0' figure at the back of the weight measurement. I thought it was pretty redundant. But then now you see, these things happen for a reason. No?

So when I got to know that Cadence weighed 2.010kg, I immediately thought of Jared who said '20-10' in the afternoon! It was so coincidental. And there I was, just woken up from my drowsy sleep, and I was already recounting Jared's '20-10' story to the nurses, much to their amusement. (Later on when I went back to the clinic for the one week checkup, Florence told GG I was talking so much after she woke me). And after a GA, I was not even able to speak properly, but there I was, retelling it to anyone who bothered to listen!

It is perhaps not that much of a coincidence that Cadence was born looking absolutely like Jared when he was an infant and even has dimples like he does, on the same side!!!

Presently, I can't really imagine how Jared would look like as a girl... I can't wait for Cadence to grow some more and soon, so that we can all see their resemblance.

The Great Escape!

If I still do not finish up with my hospital 'saga', I'll never never be able to blog about anything current!!! And my friend Kei actually sent me a message to ask me to update! Hehehehe. What better joy to have a waiting reader!!

So, here goes...

I was admitted into hospital on a Thursday. On Saturday, I was wheeled in a wheelchair to Dr Sim's clinic. Then on Sunday, when Dr Sim came to see me, she said I was to go for another checkup on Monday (at 12 noon) to see if baby Cadence's weight had gone up. She specifically instructed for GG to go along as well because she needed to discuss the next course of actions with us both. So after conveying Dr's instructions to GG, he decided to take leave on Monday to see Dr Sim with me.

So after my normal routine, I fell asleep and woke to have lunch. However, I had a really really strong craving to eat Ajisen Ramen's volcano ramen that day. So I told GG about it. The intention initially was for him to dabao the ramen to me in the hospital. But then he slept in late that day, and reached the hospital at 12.30pm.

Once he reached the ward, the nurses told us Dr Sim was ready to see us, so told us to walk up to her clinic (she needed to see if I could maintain a good bp with normal activity).

In her clinic, we did the scan and found that bb Cadence was about 2kg. So that was a good sign. So we basically had to observe her movements in me then and decide if she needed to be delivered early.

Soon, we were able to leave the clinic. On the way out, my tummy growled and I told GG that I still had the ramen craving... And he said he hadn't had his lunch yet, so... hehe!

While we were on the way out, Florence and Doreen were also on their way out to lunch. So they casually asked where we were going, to which silly GG said 'She wants to go Taka for lunch.'

Pengsan!!! How could he tell them??

Of course the nurses were like 'huh? how can? cannot cannot. must go back to the ward immediately' blah blah blah. So I just went 'orh orh orh'

But can you understand how I felt?? I was in hospital since Thursday and had hospital food for all three meals!!! That's like 4days x 3meals = 12 hospital meals!!!! CRAZY!!

So the ploy was: GG would go to my ward and drop off Dr Sim's notes to the nurses. I stay at Guardian pharmacy to 'shop shop', GG comes back and we'd walk to Taka together for lunch!

I suppose he was rather hungry so he left quite quickly after our little discussion. By the time I remembered that I wanted him to bring my mobile and wallet along, he had disappeared.

Well then, off we went to Taka. To tell the truth, I was really afraid that the nurses would get rather gan jiong that I wasn't around so I told GG that perhaps it was a better idea to dabao the food back. But he was famished and when I saw the food right before my eyes, I really couldn't argue otherwise...

A little while after we placed our orders (done so quickly), GG's phone rang.

It was a nurse from my ward!!!

She asked GG where I was and told him that they couldn't get me on the phone. Then they went on to ask him if he was with me and he said NO!!!

You're not gonna believe this but he actually told the nurse that I was given the 'go ahead' by Dr Sim to walk around a little bit, so perhaps I was shopping in Guardian Pharmacy and that I'd be back real soon. And he said that he was hungry so was having lunch alone and wasn't with me!!

That kinda got me a bit worried... Thankfully the food came quite quickly. My idea then was to devour the food in 10 seconds flat and race back to the ward!

BUT...

GG's phone rang again. This time round, it rang only 3 minutes after the first phone call. AND IT CAME FROM DR SIM'S CLINIC!!!

ARRRRGH!!!!

ALL I WANTED TO DO WAS TO EAT RAMEN!!! Why were there so many people calling for me????

GG told them the same story he told the nurses, but this time round, under my instigation, told them that I could perhaps have gone to visit my friend in the next ward who had just given birth. When asked which room number, I told him to say 'I don't know'.

I guess the nurses were just really worried and didn't expect me to take soo long to get back to the ward. Personally, I think it was a wrong idea to drop off doctor's note first. They must have realised that I was done with the doctor and went galivanting!

In any case, though I was slightly anxious to get back to the ward, I was revelling in the joy of walking and shopping in town (since I was staying right smack in the middle of it). However, there was ONE problem: I was in BERMS! And I had that silly hospital tag round my wrist! Hahahahahha!!!

I did have some essentials to get since I was in hospital for so long, so we went off to Watson's to get shampoo, snacks and some drinks before heading back to the ward.

Perhaps I was so confined to the bed, the walk from Taka back to Mt E was strenuous! In fact, I was panting by the time we reached Lucky Plaza. So take heed pregnant ladies, exercise is of paramount importance when you're expecting.

Back at Mt E...

I sneaked into my friend's ward in room 4426 and chatted with her, while GG went to Guardian and came back slightly later (just to show that we were not together in this). Because my friend needed to breastfeed her son, I had to leave the room. As I was walking back to my room, the nurses saw me and started bombarding me with questions. 'Where were you?', 'We tried to call you but you didn't bring your phone!', 'Are you ok? Any headache?'

Aiyoh, I was only away for slightly over an hour!

So I said 'I was in room 4426 chatting with my friend who just gave birth yesterday.'

Then this nurse who happened to be taking my bp when the friend came over to visit said 'Oh, the one who came this morning to visit you?' Then I took the opportunity to say yes and said that I was there the whole time! Hehehe.

You see, though I was in room 4424 and my friend was in 4426, we were in two different wards: 4A and 4B. So that was why my idea worked.

Subsequently, upon chatting with my gynae, did I realise that even my gynae heard about my 'escapade'...

That was the only exciting thing that happened throughout the stay.

My hospital stay

The ensuing hospital stay was rather boring I must say. It actually even settled into a routine.

In the night, the nurses come and take my bp every two hourly. It came to a point where I was no longer anxious or worried about it coz they just kept checking my bp. Even when they took it in the night, while I was SLEEPING, the bp still managed to go way up so high... like 153/108 kinda high. So as long as the diastolic reading goes above 100, I have to take that offending capsule which I ABHOR!!!

So once the nurse leaves, I'm conked out again.

Each time the nurse comes round in the morning, I seem to have more medication to take. And it was only on the 3rd day when I realised that Dr Sim had prescribed me with Valium to sooth my nerves, just in case I got into a fit because the bp was so high.

No wonder I was knocked out after all meal times.

Alright, here's what I do in a day...

5.30am: Nurse will come into room to take my bp. Readings never normal. Take the horrible capsule. Nurse will also remind me to pee into the pan and measure how much I pee. Then leave a bit in the cup for them to do urine test.

6am: Nurse will remind me to pee if they don't see my pee... So pee time. I hate having to pour my own pee into the measuring cup so I just estimate how much I pee each time and record it on the paper. Else I'd press the bell and get the nurse to do it for me.

6-8am: Wait for breakfast while watching CNN and reading the papers.

8am: Chow time! Nothing fantastic but I do like their chicken bee tak mak/bee hoon soup. Then there's also milo, orange juice and bread.

8.30am: Medication! Two different kinds of medication for bringing down my bp, one valium and... can't remember if there's anything else. After this, I go off to the toilet to wash up and to put on some foundation. I refused to look like a patient. After staying in hospital for 2 days... I actually did begin to look sick.

8.45am: CTG. It's one hour. I'm strapped there with nothing to do except to watch tv. But the valium soon kicks in so I fall asleep... all the way till lunch.

12pm: Lunch time.

After that, I fall asleep again and am woken when the kids come visit.

I only had to share the room with someone else on the first night and after that she was discharged and I had the room all to myself.

I was really bored throughout the hospital stay and so resorted to taking pictures of myself...

Looks horrible. Weird smile... So,

took again... hehe.

Ok... not tooooo bad. Hair's messy but at least no double chin!!!


and of the CTG...





The only excited thing to look forward to was Dr Sim's visit coz I often asked her when I could go home... But it was always a negative answer...

Believe in the unexpected.

Sometimes I really ought to watch what I say...

Just a couple of weeks ago when I was on msn with my msn kakis, I said that I couldn't wait to see baby Cadence. And for once, GOD decided to grant me that wish way in advance...

I saw some very faint, pinkish blood stains when I went to the toilet. That was on 17 August if my after-birth brain has left me some semblance of memory. I kinda ignored it and only mentioned it to the msn kakis the next day. So they mentioned that it was nothing to be treated lightly, because I also had such high blood pressure. It could be placenta abruption you see... So under their urge, I called the gynae the next morning and was told to go down to the clinic immediately.

So on the morning of 20 August, after a call to the gynae, I sent an sms to GG informing him about the gynae's visit and went off to Dr Sim's clinic.

I must admit I thought lightly of the matter coz the blood stains did not return and I did not seem to spot any of the placenta abruption symptoms.

However, since Dr Sim was quite afraid that things with me might repeat as did her patient who gave birth when baby was only 30 weeks, I was told to take the steroid jabs to mature baby's lungs. How glad I am now that she did that!!!

The next day, I remember meeting GG for lunch at paragon, after which I was supposed to just go to the clinic for the second jab and wait around for GG to come pick me home.

Alas, GOD had other plans...

Perhaps I couldn't sleep the night before (see the post at 3.33am...) and had very little sleep when I could finally do so, I ended up with a headache when I was at the clinic. The nurses seemed to think something wasn't right with me and asked if I was ok. So I casually mentioned that I had a headache and Doreen (one of the nurses) asked how my blood pressure was. So I told her it was scarily high when I took it that morning... like 160/110. So all three of them gasped in horror and I was asked to go lie down and PJ (the new nurse) took my blood pressure. She couldn't believe her readings and told Florence to take my bp. Which was the same as what PJ read. So they IMMEDIATELY called Dr Sim who was away at a conference.

Under her instructions, I was given this orange pill to suckle on to lower the blood pressure. From the initial looks of the pill, I thought 'hmm, orange colour = orange flavour. Shouldn't taste that bad.' How freaking wrong I was!!! It's this horrid, plasticky capsule, which the nurse has to poke a hole with before squeezing the offending liquid into my mouth!!! It was bitter, yucky and more yucky!!!

The sad thing was, after that, my blood pressure still did not go down...

Because the diastolic reading was really high (above 100), Florence called back Dr Sim, again, and this time round, I heard 'admit', 'immediately' and 'observation'. In my mind then, I was like 'Oh dear... admitting into Mt E?? That's gonna be costly!'

So after Florence got off the phone with Dr Sim, she came to tell me that I had to be warded immediately. I was in such a daze that all I could do was 'orh'...

I left the room to wait outside for them to instruct me on what to do next. I knew that GG was in a meeting so he couldn't pick up the phone but I called him anyway... No reply. So I sent him a message.

Then came the scary news...

From where I was seated, I could hear PJ on the phone and she was obviously talking to Dr Sim about me. I heard 'delivery suite' this time round and my tears couldn't have darted out of my eyes quicker! What??? Was Dr Sim going to deliver me on that same day??? I was scared, confused and worried! My baby was only 33 weeks, weighing in at 1.8kg at the last check! She wasn't ready to be born!!!

I teared and in the midst of that, somehow, I managed to message Dee (one of the msn kakis). I actually didn't expect her to read the message quite that soon but she almost immediately called me back. I really needed some encouragement and assurance so that phone call to her did me some good.

Plus the nurses must have sensed that I was scared and worried so they assured me that the only reason why Dr Sim said I was to go to the delivery suite was because there would be nurses to attend to me and all equipment was there for them to observe me.

I did feel slightly better after that.

Soon I was placed on a wheelchair and brought down to the delivery suite. Perhaps I was too anxious and all, I missed picking up GG's call. I only called him back when I was at the delivery suite and he sounded worried and in a slight frenzy. I told him that he needn't rush down to the hospital so he only reached at about 5.45pm after his meeting/workshop ended...

If I continue writing some more, this is gonna turn out really long. To cut this short, Dr Sim arrived at about 6.30pm, said I frightened her and the nurses, checked my bp herself, declared that I was to be warded to check for pre eclampsia symptoms...

And there begins my stay for the next six days in Ward 4B room 4424...

That, was certainly highly unexpected.