Arrival of Brendan and my rollercoaster emotions over the month!

Information of our new baby

Name: Chan Hao Hian, Brendan 曾浩轩
Date of Birth: 26 Feb 2009
Time of Birth: 2.37 p.m.
Place of Birth: Brigham Women Hospital, Boston
Birth Weight: 3.17 kg (7 pounds 0 ounces)
Birth Length: 19 inches (49 cm)

After waiting nervously for about a month, we have finally welcomed the arrival of our second baby boy, Brendan. At the beginning of my 36 weeks pregnancy, I was already beginning to get nervous and excited about the birth as I was going to try out for vaginal birth after a C-section, commonly known as VBAC. We were briefed about the risks and complications many times during the prenatal visits and have discussed all the possibilities with my Ob-gyn before we signed a consent form for our VBAC. Everyday since 36 weeks, I was becoming increasingly paranoid over any small little cramps and was worried that my mother would not be able to make it to Boston in time for the birth as I really wanted K to accompany me during the labour which I knew would not be possible if no one was around to care for Ry.

Fortunately, my mum made it safely to Boston on 17 Feb and my Braxton Hicks contractions started kicking in immediately the next day. On Thursday, 19 Feb, during my 38 weeks Ob-gyn visit, the doctor informed me that I was already 2 cm dilated and proceeded to strip the membrane around the cervix, hoping that it would initiate the labor soon. So for the following days, I was strutting around with trepidation while trying to get Ry comfortable with his grandma whom he had not seen for the past 6 months and also getting my mum into the routine of things around the house. I was getting more contractions after the stripping of the membrane but nothing really happened over the week. So, K and I were a little disappointed and we were quite prepared for another scheduled C-section on the due date, 2 March as days went by.

On Wednesday night, I went to bed pretty early at 10 am as I was very tired after bring Ry to his usual gym activity in the afternoon. In the middle of the night around 3 am, I was woken up by a sudden and consistent pain that is similar to a menstrual cramp. I thought it was the usual false contractions that I had been having for the past week, so I duly ignored it. But, the cramps continued and became regular at 5 - 10 minutes interval after they kept me awake. So I woke up K at 345 am and informed him of the possible onset of labor but told him to continue his sleep. At 430 am, I finally woke K up and asked him to call the Ob-gyn hotline to see whether we can go to the hospital. The nurse called back and after confirming that I was having a VBAC and my contractions were 5 minutes apart, she then advised us to go to Brigham Women Hospital. This is not the usual practice in US here as most mothers who are having their first labour would usually be advised to wait for another 3 hours before making their way to the hospital but since I was having a VBAC, I could go in earlier as they need to put me on monitor throughout my whole labor.

I bathed and packed my bag and left for the hospital at 6 am and reaching there around 6 30 am. The Ob-gyn on shift came and examined me at around 6 45 am and informed me that I was around 4 cm dilated and 100% effaced, which means that I could go into the delivery suite immediately. I was escorted to the delivery suite 505 and was hooked up onto the various monitors. The cramps were still coming in between 3 - 5 minutes apart but my water bag hasn't break. I was previously told by my Ob-gyn that I must have epidural so that I could go into emergency c-section immediately if there's a need so I need to inform the doctors when I felt the need and the pain becomes unbearable. So on the delivery bed, I was constantly debating whether should I ask for the epidural now or is the pain still bearable.

Me still in the observation ward when we just checked into the hospital.

Finally after a long wait till around 9 am, the next Ob-gyn on shift finally came in to examine me and said I was already 7-8 cm dilated and she was surprised that I had not ask for the epidural yet. She commented I was very stoic and had very high pain tolerance. So things went into a frenzy then, epidural was given and the doctor broke my water bag. Immediately, my contractions started picking up and I felt I was ready to deliver by 1 pm. By 2 pm, the nurse and the Ob-gyn got me to push and within 30 minutes, Brendan was delivered safely. He was crying even before he was completely out and everybody around me commented that he has a lot of hair. The only unfortunate event was that I had a low grade fever after birth and the doctor and pediatrician were worried that Brendan maybe infected too so they had to wheeled him away to the observation ward immediately to draw his blood for bacteria culture and putting IV drip on him so that they could administer antibiotics. Poor daddy hasn't even carried the baby yet!

Baby Brendan ready to be wheeled to the nursery for observation!

Daddy, my mum, Ryan and baby Brendan!

Ry's first interaction with baby! Simply adore him as he's been such a good boy ever since baby is here!

Baby Brendan is so much more chubbier than Ry at birth! We are definitely surprised with his weight as we have always assumed that he'll be in the same range as Ry at around 5 pounds plus.

Baby getting ready to leave the hospital! We'll definitely keep the blue hat in our family as it has sort of become the Chan's family heirloom since it has seen 3 baby boys out of the hospital. Hopefully, it'll be put to use the 4th time in the Chan family!

Personally, I never regretted opting for VBAC this time and I find the birth of Brendan more fulfilling and touching as compared to the C-section for Ry. The other plus side definitely is the shorter recovery time as I was up and about within the next 5 hours as compared to my C-section which I could only start moving after about 14 hours on bed, which thus made breastfeeding more difficult.

Hurray! No More Pacifiers!

Finally, at Ry's 23rd month, he is officially rid of his pacifiers. But, the process comes with a small price ........

Last Wednesday, after watching an interview with a nanny on the morning news show about weaning off bottles, pacifiers and co-sleeping with parents, I decided to heed the advice and go for the most effective method - cold turkey, meaning that we'll just totally removed the presence of the pacifiers all at one time instead of slowing weaning him off through other methods. 

Why did I suddenly decide to do it out of the blue on that day? Well, it was because I was getting more and more worried recently that Ry will be jealous of his baby brother when the second one is born. And therefore, I am getting worried that Ry will become angry with us and think that we do not love him anymore if we start the weaning process only after his second birthday.

So the weaning process started with me going straight to hide all Ry's 4 pacifiers while he was engrossed in his Mickey Mouse show. When he asked for it later, I simply told him that they were thrown away and brought him to the usual place where I kept the pacifiers to show him that there were no more pacifiers. Definitely, he howled and cried pitifully and even attempted to knock his head against the wall to coerce me into giving him the pacifiers. I nearly gave in but I quickly carried him and tried to coax him with his toys and sing to him to soothe him. He stopped wailing after a while and later, I find that he tried to distract himself by taking out his toys to play.

During nap time, there was another struggle and I have to spend more time putting him to sleep but somehow, he managed it without the pacifiers. Probably, he was already tired out. Needless to say, the first night without pacifier resulted in him waking up in the middle of the night crying and searching for it and it took me at least 30 minutes to sing to him to lull him back to sleep. On the whole, I was pretty satisfied with his behaviour as I expected worse from him and his tantrums only limited to mainly sleep time. 

Throughout the second and third day, Ry occasionally looked for his pacifiers but he soon realised that they were absent and since stopped looking for them. So it was a pretty quick process that we managed to wean him off the pacifiers. 

However, the funny thing I observed was that he sufered from withdrawal systems like drug addicts denied of their drugs. He had lower concentration and was more clumsy, so he fell down more often while walking and climbing. All in all, he accumulated a total of 7 bruises throughout his whole body. Some of them were pretty severe especially the one on his right rib cage by which he bruised himself when he fell from the dining chair and knocked himself against the side of another chair beside it. It was really heartbreaking to see him crying while I tried to apply ointment and pressure to disperse the blood clot. K joked that if we bring him to a doctor now, we'll probably get sued for child abuse. Probably, I'm really abusing him since I denied his sanity and concentration when I removed his pacifiers!

See the big red bruise on his right forehead and there are more of these bruises on his whole body! That was the result of him knocking himself on the stair while climbing the slide at the gym on Wed, which had never happened before as he's a pretty good climber!