The Jaundice Battle

As I'm writing this now, my baby is still in the hospital undergoing the phototherapy. Yes, she has neonatal jaundice, and her level is rather high. When we were discharged (it was Day 2), her level was 9.8 (or 166 in another type of measurment). Since it was a public holiday, we need to go back the next day for checkup and get her blood test report.

When we went to the hospital for checkup on Day 3, her jaundice level had gone up to 13.8, so we had to admit her. I breastfed her and passed her to the nursery. Then I managed to pump out 1 ounce of breast milk for her.

First time's expressed milk

I requested the nurse to spoon feed her formula (since I don't have any stock yet, my milk only came on Day 3). Later, that evening, I passed ~4 oz of EBM (expressed breast milk) to hubby to take to GMC for my baby.

The next day, I called to check on her level. She had to stay another day. Hubby took me to breastfeed her around noon. She was still asleep and refused to drink despite a lot of coaxing. She had been fed slightly earlier, so maybe that's why. However, I could not arrange to come during her feeding hours since hubby could only take me during his lunch time and I don't have a car with me. I then passed my EBM to the nurse. I managed to pump out ~25 oz for her since last night.

The next day, I was expecting her level to go down. It did, but stayed at the marginal level - at 11.3. Her paediatrician advised us to let her stay another day. It might drop another 2-3 points so we would not need to come back for follow-up. We agreed. Again, I was not successful in my attempt to breastfeed her. I passed my EBM to the nurse again. By now, I could already expressed a full bottle of milk at one go. It was the first time I managed to get a full bottle, and I took a photo of it for my own satisfaction :) Not so much colostrum this time...

On the 3rd day, I expected her level to go down. It did not, but stayed at 11.3. Since her level was below 12, she was allowed to be discharged, but we need to bring her back for checkup after 2 days. She went back with me on Friday, and I took 2 days to re-train her in breastfeeding. After returning from the hospital, she refused to suckle but was waiting for me to spoon feed her instead. It took a lot of patience and determination because she would cry everytime I tried to nurse her. It broke my heart to see her cry, and after some 'fight' with her, I gave up and bottle-fed her instead. I was afraid she no longer knew how to suck so I offered her bottle to see how she responds. She took to it immediatly and could suck really well. For the next feeding, I took another attempt to nurse her. Anyone would think that I was torturing her since she cried so pitifully everytime I tried to breastfeed her. I was devastated at first, because I have a lot of supply this time, but not much demand. It was not easy, but after much struggle I finally managed to train her again by Sunday. It was such a relieve, because I thought I was going to fail this time.

While she's back with me, I did all I can to reduce her jaundice level. MIL said that giving her sengkuang juice would help, so I extract a teaspoon of the juice and gave her twice a day.

I also asked the confinement centre where I was staying to bathe her with a type of herbs (air kuning) which is a traditional way to reduce the jaundice level. Apart from that, I put her under the sun for awhile.

And, I've also tried drinking goat's milk since they say that it is good for breastfeeding mothers especially if their children have jaundice. I even gave her some formula since some said this would help the jaundice level to drop faster. I have stopped all my intake on the chinese herbs like soh hup and ginger as advised by the paediatrician.

Come Monday, I took her for checkup. Her level was at 14.2. It was alarmingly high, so we need to admit her again. I asked the paediatrician if I should stop breastfeeding her and use formula instead. He said no. According to him, if this is due to breastfeeding jaundice, then it is not risky. He went on to say that it's not fair to ask the mother to stop breastfeeding since we're stopping the child from getting all the nutrients from breast milk. Furthermore, he agreed that when we switch to bottle, it is very hard for the child to adjust to the nipple again later, which was one of the major reason why mothers failed in their attempt to breastfeed. He also said that we no longer follow the traditional way of sun-bathing our child, since the UV light is more dangerous to the skin, and it's not as effective as the photolight therapy. I also asked him about feeding our child with goat's milk directly. He wouldn't recommend it, nor stop us from doing so, since he said that although there were studies that show goat's milk could reduce jaundice, it might have other effects on the child, such as liver problem, etc. Furthermore, goat's milk is rather new, compared to cow's milk which has longer history of a proven record.

It's Tuesday now, which is my baby's Day 10 since birth. I called the nursery this morning, and was told that her level has dropped to 12.5, which was still considered high and could not be discharged yet. We asked the doctor why is it that she still needs to undergo the photolight therapy since she's already Day 10 (he told us yesterday that this photolight is only effective for babies less than 10 days old). He reasoned that it's still better for her than nothing at all, and for babies over 14 days, the threshold level would increase accordingly. The older the babies, the higher the acceptable threshold would be and we might not need to admit her anymore, but the next step would be to find out the reason behind the prolonged jaundice.

Hopefully her level would go down tomorrow and she would be discharged soon. My heart ached everytime I see how she cringed and cried when her blood was taken, and she seemed to be able to sense it even before the nurse pricked her.

The Birth Journal of My 2nd Princess

I did not expect my baby to come so early. My last checkup was on May 16th, and Dr. Yeoh told me that she's not even engaged yet. However I was asked to do a fetal heart rate monitor and she detected some contraction in the graph, although I can't feel anything yet. Dr. Yeoh told me that if by next week I still do not deliver, I would have to schedule for induction the latest by 10 days after my due date.

That evening, my parents made me do some walking. They said that it would help to deliver faster, since I hardly did any exercise for this pregnancy. And that night, I really felt the contraction coming. I was putting Sze Yi to bed, and she still did not want to sleep. Hubby quickly took over and smsed his mom to say that he might be sending Sze Yi over anytime. He later quickly charged the camera and camcorder. After that, he asked me to rest and continued entertaining Sze Yi. However, after some time, my contraction pain went off and Sze Yi wanted me to put her to sleep. So hubby passed her back to me.

The next day, I didn't feel anything. So hubby took us, together with my parents who came over to accompany me while I'm on maternity leave for breakfast and we did some marketing. Everything was normal, until I started to feel slight contraction pain at 5 minutes interval at 4.30pm. We quickly sent Sze Yi over to MIL's place. She was asleep by the time we reached there. I wanted to have coconut water and bought durian for my parents to try. However, after some dilly-dallying at my MIL's place (she made me eat some sourish stuffs, so that I could deliver easier), we decided that we could only go for durian since I wanted to go to the 6pm Mass. Hubby went to buy some durians while I waited in the car. I timed my contraction and it's still regular at 5 minutes interval. We reached home at 5.30pm, ate the durians and then hubby dropped me and my parents at church. I brought my hospital bag together with me, just in case. I was advised to stay at home, but I reasoned that it's nearer to rush to the hospital from church instead of my place. Futhermore, Dr. Yeoh said that since my first one was delivered via caesarian section, the second one would not come so fast.

In Church, the contraction pain was getting more intense, although it's still 5 minutes apart. Later, it became rather unbearable, so I told my parents that we need to leave after receiving the Holy Communion. By then, I smsed hubby to come right away. By the time he arrived, the priest was giving us our final blessing. We left during the final hymn. It was ~7.10pm then. I told hubby to send my parents back first and then only send me to the hospital (my mom had prepared dinner before coming to church). However, they decided to go with me to the hospital straight away. And since I was rather hungry, I wanted to have dinner first. It's also partly because I knew if I went straight to the hospital, my parents and hubby won't be able to have dinner (my parents have rather bad gastric problem). So we went to Maple Gold for dinner, which was very near to GMC. Co-incidentally, there's a wedding dinner going on, so we need to find some other place. Hubby then took us to YMCA for dinner. My contraction pain was getting more intense. When they still haven't serve the dishes, I told hubby to cancel it. But they told us it's been prepared. So I ate in between the pain - I have to stop for ~1 minute in every 5 minutes when the contraction came.

After dinner, we quickly rushed to the hospital. I had to wait for my contraction pain to go off before quickly dashed to the car, because I could hardly walk when it's coming. Before that, hubby has phoned GMC to inform them that we're coming in a while. So, when we arrived at the hospital, they asked me to sit on the wheel chair while hubby settled the admission process. It was about 8.20pm then.

When they wheeled me to the labour room at ~8.25pm, my water bag burst. Immediately, the pain lessen. It was such a mess that they discussed how to clean the wheel chair and the place. They then got me up to the bed and put on the fetal monitoring machine. I remembered Pei Sze told me that she didn't manage to get the painkiller in time, so the first thing I requested the midwife when I was in labour room was to have the painkiller injection. At 9pm, she administer the Nupain injection for me. I could still feel the contraction pain after that, but I was getting drowsy. I asked the midwife why was it that I could still feel the pain. She told me it won't help much, unless I had epidurial. She said normally they won't give this painkiller injection so early, but since I requested for it, they gave it to me. I was only 1cm dilated then.

When my water bag burst, it was greenish in color (I thought i saw it as yellowish, but the nurse told me it was greenish). That means the baby has passed motion in my womb, and it was a sign that she was in distress. I told them if it's necessary to go for C-section, then please go ahead as the baby's condition was the most important. They called Dr. Yeoh, and she asked them to give me 4 hours until 12.30am to try. If I did not have much progress by then, they would have to put me on the drip. I told them that there would be a risk of uterine tear if I was put on pitocin since my first delivery was a C-section. They agreed, and assured me that they would give very little dose initially.

By 9.15pm, the pain was unbearable, hubby told me that the level could go up to 99 when it came. I was given the laughing gas to relieve the pain. I started to feel very drowsy, so I tried not to take too much of the gas. I asked the midwife to check on me again. I was 4cm dilated then. My mom came in to look at me, she rubbed my hand when the pain came. I found that very comforting. So later, after she had left, I asked hubby to repeat the same thing and it helped. Later, I found that it would be better if he rubbed my back when the pain came. So, when we felt it coming (I could sense it while he would monitor the graph), he would start rubbing my back and that really helped to relieve the pain. By 9.35pm, my dilation increased to 7cm. Hubby callled Stemlife to inform them about my progress (we decided to store our baby's cord blood).

At about 11.45pm, I started to feel the urge to push. I told the nurse to get the doctor to come. I thought that I can only push after she arrived. But they told me to push until they can see the baby's head before calling Dr. Yeoh. I was almost fully dilated by then. Hubby called to inform Stemlife again. I didn't really get the pushing rhythm at first, and got scolded by the midwife, because I was pushing to relieve the pain rather than according to their instructions. However, after sometime, I got the rhythm and could push very well. Still it took ages before they told me that they can see the baby's head and they started to call Dr. Yeoh. She came in at 12.35pm, and performed the incision cut on me. I think I pushed twice before the baby's head finally came out. Then they sucked all the liquid and blood from her ear, nose, etc. and I started to hear her cry. After that, with another one last push, I felt the whole body came flying out and something thumped on my bed. It was slightly past 1am then. All the pain just vanished instantly, and I felt so relieved. Hubby was given the honour to cut the baby's umbilical cord, and then Dr. Yeoh started collecting the cord blood. A few minutes later, I needed to push again to get the placenta out.

I could feel her stitching me up, and then sucked out all the dirty blood from me. And in between all these, they put the baby on my body and we managed to have a family photo.


It was indeed a very different experience from my previous delivery. I had prepared to be operated again this time, but praise the Lord that everything went on so smoothly. I never expected everything to happen so fast. Although the pain was unbearable, it was not like what I imagined. I have finally realised my dream to be able to deliver naturally and it was indeed a very special experience. And I was so proud of myself that I did not take the epidurial or need the vacuum's help.

And that's how my little princess is born on Trinity Sunday, just 1 day before my due date.

Starting all over again...

I will be posting at this site for now. I'm not sure when I'll have the time to migrate all my previous posts over, but for now, you can refer to http://ablogaway.wordpress.com/ first for those old postings.