Having a baby from start to finish is a very sacred mission that is assigned only to the toughest of human race - mothers.
Raising a child from birth to independence is a wholly challenging mission, definitely not for the faint-hearted.
Emmanuel and I are in the deep blue realms of these 2 missions, having completed Mission no. 1 twice successfully and still struggling through Mission No. 2.
Although our elder son Theoden is only 2 years older than Coralie, memories of how to take care of a newborn were already ebbing away in the back of our minds.
We have already forgotten how puddy-cat kitten small the newborns are, how tiny and fragile just like Cinderella’s glass slippers. We forgot to burp her after breastfeeding. I vaguely recall what is the “football hold”. I’ll bet there are a lot more things to discover in the days to come and we eagerly await them all.The day before Coralie arrived, I was getting kinda desperate since she has already reached her 40weeks and is still not out yet. Not even a twitch. 2 months before, I was ordered on bedrest and every spasm caused me a mini-heart attack thinking that my baby will be 2months prematurely delivered. And now that the time has come, she has decided to stay in and order Chinese. Hrrrrmmmphhh…
So, I tried every trick in the book that is recommended for a natural induction. Pineapples, spicy food(chicken curry and roti prata! Mmm…), walking, nipple stimulation and the you-know-what. At the end of it, one of the above must have worked cos I started having contractions at 2.30am. Yippee!!! Or…, maybe it was just time to come. We’ll never know…will we? ;p
At the hospital, my doc told me I am still only 1cm dilated, like I was 3weeks back. The possibility of a VBAC seems like 5 planetary solar systems away. Despite the waves of contractions that seem to tsunamise me as time passes by, I knew we had to proceed as doc had already strongly advised us – a caeserian delivery.
We had wanted so much to do vaginal delivery for Theoden but ended up with a c-section cos I had an infection and high fever. The whole c-section process and recovery was every mother’s nightmare, only 20x worse with the infection. And so, we wanted to avoid it if we can the second time – and still, we lost the battle.
Docs had already advised us against vaginal delivery cos the incision scar from my previous c-section was very stretched out and the uterus may rupture if I do a vaginal delivery, i.e. may or may not lost the uterus, a risk which we honestly didn’t want to take since we still wanted more children. Ok, I know what you are thinking: I am not doing a “20 kids and counting show” but I think 3 kids would be nice. ;pAlors! So, into the OR we go and pop comes Coralie, all hairy and furry like a little baby monkey. Still didn’t stop us from raining kisses all over our baby girl… Alas! It’s over! Mission No. 1, I mean. And now, on to Mission No. 2, the tough part.
I have to add that the recovery process this time for a normal c-section(w/o infection) was super-duper smooth-sailing. Not that I am doing salsa dancing right now but at least the trip to the toilet the next day was not Mt. Everest daunting. I guess I should have just followed doc’s advice after all and take the c-section appointment instead of suffering the contraction pains for 6 hours for literally... no reason at all. Oh well, no pain, no gain.
