Friday, April 15, 2011

Post Natal..


this is my Oswald boy.. can u believe it, i m typing this sentence n carrying him in my arms.. he started crying all of sudden! n when placed down prematurely, he wld start to cry..


It has been 17 days since Oswald came into this world.

Its tiring for me as I seek to recover my strength from the delivery.. Lots of blood loss allow me to experience for the first time the feeling of being faint.. I was just bleeding and bleeding on the hospital bed after the labor..

I had a 13 hour labor. I calculated it from the time i experienced my mild contraction to the time when Oswald was finally born. I remember my contraction became really unbearable from 7am in the morning and I was groaning in pain.. I guess I might have scare the other ladies in the room. They were either undergoing epidural or having c-section, so no groaning pain from them.

Anyway, I seem to lose track of time from 7am to 1pm. the next time I know is that the nurses came periodically to update me on the dilation. It went on pretty well, otherwise I would suffer longer time in pain. Finally, at 1pm, my gynae said that I am ready to go into the labor theatre. N it was an hour of bleeding, pushing on command, n breathing.. At 1.59pm, Oswald is born!

I remember in my grogginess that the gynae apologize to me because he didnt expect Oswald to be 4.18kg! He thought he might just be 3.5kg. Otherwise he would recommend for C-section. I am kinda of glad he didnt know so that I dont need to go thru c-section.

There was supposed to be a final contraction expel the placenta, but none came. Gynae decided that my placenta was too exhausted from the labor, therefore he had to vacuum my placenta.. It was then more pain while he massage my tummy to expel the placenta. As he stitch me up, i was glad i was too groggy to feel anything anymore.. but i am glad i could still carry baby and breastfeed him because he became hungry in his first hour of birth and was crying so bad.

I have completed a milestone in life. Nothing I have done in the past, or may do in the future could match up to the labor experience. (Maybe the sleepless nights, diaper change, examination of his poo-poos can match up to that)

It has been stressful. Though I have the help of my mum n sis-in-law, but I know I got to learn to cope with it on my own with Paul somehow. Their help is merely short term, so I need to learn the skill of coaxing baby to sleep, reading his signals.. N it does not help that he gets impatient quite easily and soft cries turns to loud screams rather quickly. N during the day he is rather active, which means I cant catch up on my sleep lost in the night..

Some progress have been made, such as, he seem to be able to differentiate between day n night and my night duty has been rather easy. He wakes for milk and goes back to sleep after diaper change. But my confidence level is still kinda low. What will happen when my mum n sis-in-law returns to M'sia.

Other than coping with him, I also have to learn to cope with my own changes. Change in body shape (eager to get back into shape), change in lifestyle (felt so coop up at home), change in the number of family members at home, learning to stay with mum n sis-in-law.. So many changes taking place at one go! I nearly went mad with the changes.. Thank God for his sustaining grace that brought me through the challenging first 10 days.

O God, pray for your all sustaining grace to help me cope with the Gift you have given me. Give me your patience that I may learn to take thing easy. Help Paul and myself to get to know Oswald more and more. Sometimes I forget he is only 17days old...

Challenging though it may be, Oswald is God's gift for me n Paul.. n His grace will abound..

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