Recovery

So I was a little hesitant to write over the last few days, but now that I've had some time to not be in pain & reflect, I thought I'd post an update. We got home from the hospital on Thursday. I had been off of vicodin for 36 hours and was not in a lot of pain. By Friday afternoon I was feeling uncomfortable sitting, and by Saturday night I was sobbing in pain and Sunday was not much better. Saturday evening, I called the doctor and he basically told me a bunch of stuff that I should have been doing to speed the healing process & make it more comfortable. None of which I really got from my nurses or doctors when leaving the hospital. All I remember them telling me to do when I went home was take 800mg of ibuprofen every 4 hours. Sunday morning, I was ready to have Wei Yan drop me off at the hospital again just so they could give me some pain meds.

Got a prescription for vicodin on Sunday from the on-call doctor but didn't seem to work well (was told to take it every 6 hours, but I was in enough pain that I was hurting by 4 hours). The on-call doctor suggested that I come in on Monday. Monday we went to see the doctor - last minute appointments were only available with the oldest partner in the group who no longer delivers babies, but has the most experience. He checked out the stitches & said everything looked ok - hard to say if the swelling was part of the normal healing process or because of an infection. He thought that I probably had an infection based on the amount of pain I was in. My blood pressure was really high, which I knew was because I was in a lot of pain.

Started on some antibiotics and vicodin (every 4 hours) and continued with the other care measures for the stitches. I've been feeling better - at least not in continuous pain or crying because of the pain. Not sure if I could have avoided an infection or not, but I'm sure if the nurses/doctors had given more more information on what I should have been doing to take care of myself I would have at least been in a little less pain. Or maybe all of the pain really was because of an infection, I'm really not sure. I think had I not been feeling so good upon discharge, I wouldn't have been taken by such surprise and perhaps the nurses/doctors would have given me more instructions or at least know when things weren't going well right from the start of the pain.

I definitely have learned a lot from the last week or so.
1. Always ask the doctors what to expect and what to do if something happens that you don't expect and when to call them.
2. Make sure that you have people taking care of you, so you can take care of the baby. They will end up taking care of the baby too, but make sure they are people who will tell you when your maternal insticts are making you do more than you should. It's best to have a woman you can call who has been through what you've been through, to help tell you all the stuff other people don't tell you.
3. Pain is good in that it tells you when something is wrong and makes you slow down when you need to. Pain meds are bad in that they do lie to you and tell you you can do more than you should be to recover. Pain meds are good if they help lower your blood pressure below 150/120 and stop the sobbing.
4. Have your baby at the end of the week so that you don't have to be in pain over a whole weekend if something goes wrong once you go home ;-)

It's weird how there was so much information given to me on the pregnancy and even how to take care of the baby once he arrived, but I had virtually no education on what I should be doing to take care of myself after the pregnancy ended. I have had a lot of folks tell me some of the normal changes, but not a lot on what I should or should have been doing to take care of myself. And yes, this post is at 4am. Christina told me that she was more tired during pregnancy than once the baby arrived, and I would tend to agree. I have not been able to sleep all the time, so I sleep when I am really tired. Luckily my mom is here now, so she's taking care of the baby when wei yan is at work & I'm tired & can actually sleep.

Introducing Maxton Takahiro Chan

It has been a couple of long nights. We finally decided on a name, Maxton Takahiro Chan. We were released from the hospital yesterday around 5pm and suddenly we were on our own. Things have been a little crazy since. No more room service. No more calling the nurse for help with Max. No more sending him to the nursery for some rest. Yeah, the hospital was nice.

Our first night at home was sleepless to say the least. Max just would not sleep on his own. He would only sleep if someone held him. So Robin and I took turns holding him last night while the other slept. I think I actually dozed off a few times holding him... luckily I didn't drop him!

We took Max to the doctor today just for a quick check up and they said he has gotten more jaundiced. He is reading 12.4 on some jaundice scale, up from 7.5 when he left the hospital. We have to bring him back to the pediatritian tomorrow to see if it is still going up. If so, they will place him under some lamp or something.

CC has been a great help these last few days. She's been over here helping us watch Max and even got us food and did some grocery shopping for us. Thanks Sis!

I would also like to thank everyone for their well wishes in emails, text messages, voicemails. I have read and heard them all. I apologize for not responding back but it has been very crazy here, lots to adjust to. Max has been taking up all of our time and energy!

Tekelec released their earnings yesterday. Numbers were good. Yay! Stock goes down? Boo! Bonus is 140% Yay! So that's a wash I guess.

Anyway, here are a few recent pics:

Resting

Mother and baby are now sleeping. We got moved to our postpartum room. This room is even nicer than our last one. Rex just renovated this wing, so everything is brand new. We even got a decent HDTV (looks like a 32" LCD) to watch the Duke/UNC game tomorrow night.

We will be staying here until Thursday evening, I believe. I think that's standard these days to keep the mother/child for 2 days after the birth to make sure there are no complications. They also have to give him his shots and circumcizion.

The rest of the pics can be found here: http://picasaweb.google.com/weiyan8/BabyChan

I'll have to warn you, tho, some of these shots are NWS... there are some penis shots in there. :-)

Baby Chan is here!

Our healthy baby boy was delivered at around 6:30pm today. Everyone is doing fine. The boy ended up being 8lb 13oz, decent sized baby. I will try to post some pictures soon, I've got tons. He's got chubby chubby cheeks. :-)

Fully Dilated

Robin is fully dilated now! Time to start pushing!

Progress

Wow, we've had alot of progress the last few hours. The doctor (Dr. Zimmerman, UNC Grad!) just came and checked the cervix. It's 8cm dilated now! He said it should hit 10cm within the next few hours and then she can start pushing. Getting close!

Epidural

We decided to go ahead and get the epidural, so the doctor just came in and administered it. Robin is feeling much better now. :-) Just resting right now waiting for her to dilate some more. The goal is 10cm. She is still 4cm.

In Labor

The doctors came in this morning around 7am and started the Oxytocin drip to induce the contractions. They also went ahead and broke her water so the baby will have to be delivered within 24hrs of that no matter what. The contractions are varying between 1.5 - 3 min apart so not real consistent yet. The pain is increasing now so we are talking about going ahead and getting the epidural now. She is 4cm dilated.

At the Hospital

We are in the hospital now. The room is pretty nice and spacious with our own bathroom. They prepped Robin for the induction and gave her some ambien to help her get a good nights rest. They will be giving her some petosin(sp?) at around 7am to kick start the labor. The labor/contractions should begin shortly after that. It is unclear how long after the contractions starts before the baby comes but they said it varies anywhere from a few hours to a few days! Hopefully, we will be on the lower end of that spectrum.

I'll try to keep you guys posted on the progress and maybe post some pictures.

Go Baby!

We're off to the hospital tonight! The doctors will try some stuff to try to get me dialated to ~3-4cm so we're heading in tonight. Then tomorrow morning (EARLY!), they will induce and hopefully we will have some good news for everyone very soon!

Please keep us in your thoughts and prayers that we will have a safe and healthy delivery of our little boy! Lots of love to everyone of you who are reading our blog and pulling for us. We appreciate all of your support and prayers for us as we enter this very exciting new time in our lives!

No news yet!

No news yet. We have a scheduled induction for Tuesday Feb 5th - so unless the baby decides to come before then, that is the date. Wei Yan says there is wifi at the hospital, so we'll be able to post some updates here when the baby arrives. I'll have my last check up with the OB on Monday and that is when they'll make the decision to have me go in Monday night or Tuesday morning.

Today is the baby's due date

Yup, today, Jan 28th is our baby's official due date, and yes, there is no baby yet. We'll see the OB tomorrow and see what she says. He's still moving around in there and I don't feel much different. I'm supposed to be sick of being pregnant by now, but I don't think I'd say that I am. I might start getting sick of being asked if we've had the baby yet or folks saying, "so when is he coming?" (as if I know this.) I guess I must be used to being so big & clumsy & tired, cuz I am not really sick of being pregnant yet. I may get sick of wondering when he's going to decide to come out and what I'm going to do with myself as we wait....

Oh, and yes, we must just be wasting time because we went to go see Rambo yesterday evening. Talk about violent...terrible movie, but if you just want to see some gore, and violence for violence's sake then yes, this is the movie to see.

Shoyu Weenies!

We have 1 more week to go, and I can't remember the last time I had a hot dog (pregnant women are supposed to be careful that they get heated up enough to kill any lysteria and also the nitrates are not supposed to be so great for babies/kids). But after reading this story, I'm craving some shoyu weenies!

Anyway, if you've ever wondered why Japanese Americans love hot dogs and ketchup, read that article! I can't eat eggs without a LOT of ketchup...I mean, no ketchup = I'll pass on the eggs. Pretty interesting story and I guess I never wondered why other asian americans or americans seems so snobby when it comes to spam, hot dogs and canned corned beef. I guess I've got no qualms because I grew up eating it and it's all because of the forced introduction of such foods in the internment camps.

12 days to go

 

I was measuring a little on the big side, so the doctors decided to do an ultrasound to make sure everything was ok. Everything looks fine, and they concluded that I'm measuring big because the baby is big. The ultrasound is not exact (they give estimates plus or minus a pound) - but the machine calculated that the baby is 7 lbs 8 oz and about the 61% percentile. That lines up with the 30 week ultrasound that said he was in the 60th percentile. Course they also said his head is measuring in the 86th percentile - so I told Wei Yan that was his fault. But, yeah, could be any day now. The ultrasound lady was nice enough to switch it over to the 3D ultrasound and print out a few pictures - the quality is not that great, but you can see that he's got some very chubby cheek and we could even see his poutty lips in the profile.

They said next week that they will go ahead and schedule an induction for sometime in the 41th week just to have the appointment booked, but that a lot of women go into labor by then. So at the very least, we'll be having an avergage to larger than average baby - if he comes out at 8 lbs, I guess that means that all the newborn clothes will be packed away right from the start!

More outsourcing to India

Now I know that reading through pregnancy magazines that there are a fair amount of "crazes" or "trends" that really aren't much of a widespread phenomenon - just some hyped up way to sell magazines, but this article was is pretty interesting.

Kickin' it!

Today, while sitting at my desk, I felt a couple thumps in my belly. "Definitely not lunch!" was my first thought. I was able to put my hand on my bare stomach, and sure enough, a couple more kicks! I think I have felt the baby before now, but really, it was nothing definitive. Today, was the first time I can say that I definitely felt the baby move and it wasn't some fleeting weird feeling that I may or may not have ever felt before. Very cool!

1st prenatal massage

So after a hectic day on Saturday, and the mother of all cramps in my left calf, I treated myself to a mother-to-be massage on Sunday. Actually, one of my girlfriends and I were planning to go in a few weeks, but had to reschedule for a little earlier - and it worked out. My left calf is actually still sore from that cramp I got on Friday night, so I think I'm going to have to look into some prenatal yoga/pilates classes to get back into stretching. Went to Umstead spa to use the gift certificate hubby gave me for my birthday, but wasn't able to use, cuz I got pregnant right afterwards (massages in the 1st trimester aren't recommended). It was really relaxing. I came home and fell into a deep sleep for an hour before Wei Yan woke me up for dinner. The spa is on the small side, but very luxurious and the therapist was good. I'll definitely be going again for another massage!