Hi Everyone
While, the details may be fuzzy and some facts not 100% right, here is the long night endured by Shyanmei that started with a nice walk to the hospital and ended with adorable little Rosie in our arms.
Shyanmei was really amazing through the delivery process. She thought she might be in Labor Tuesday am so we went to the hospital but got sent home about 4 hours later. Mid-day wed Shyanmei's contractions were at about every 8-10 minutes. They stayed there most of the day and we did a lot of walking in hopes of helping her feel better and to accelerate the birthing process. We had a nice dinner (and Shyanmei had a glass of wine too!). As we were getting ready for bed about 10pm we measured the contractions getting to every 5-6 minutes.
At this point, Shyanmei was feeling really good so we decided to get ready to go to the hospital We knew it was getting close. We both showered and as we were feeling good, we decided to walk to the hospital. (Note, the hospital is less than 1 mile from our house). We had an enjoyable walk in a beautiful perfect summer evening. We arrived at the hospital just before midnight and the contractions were every 3-4 minutes. Everyone thought we'd be having the baby pretty soon!
We had talked about having a drug-free childbirth for a long time and Shyanmei was pretty intent on trying it. During the pregnancy Shyanmei did not so much as take an aspirin). After 2 or 3 hours of active labor and some of it painful we (she) decided to get some pain relief for Shyanmei. We were deciding between an epidural and something else and ultimately chose epidural. Once we decided though, there was an emergency c-section so we (she) had to wait for about 20 minutes. At the time she got the epidural she was dilated to 8cm (10 means you can have a baby). The anesthesiologist told her that she might actually have the baby before the pain relief came. Everyone thought it would be really soon. This was probably 3:30 or 4:30am?
Shyanmei was not quite at 10cm at 7:30am but she did start pushing about 8am as the doctor noticed the baby's head was not quite in the right position and the head need to turn a little if the baby was going to come out. So we (Shyanmei) spent some time pushing while the doctor tried to adjust the head. This went on for a couple of hours (with break periods in between). Also during this time we talked about the possibility of a c-section. Both Shyanmei and I were in agreement that a c-section would be fine, but we wanted to avoid an emergency c-section so as to not push the vaginal birth so far that it would cause problems later on.
So, Shyanmei continued pushing and the doctor would adjust the baby. But, every time the baby moved forward and got in the right positon, the baby would go back up and in the wrong position. It was a story of two steps forward and two steps back. Finally, at about 11am we made the decision that this probably wasn't going to happen and to have the c-section.
The hospital team prepped Shyanmei and I also got my hospital scrubs on. I entered the operating room about Noon or a little after. It did not take long for the doctor's and nurses to bring out a new baby - a baby girl! Shyanmei and I were both overcome with happiness and so excited to finally see our Roselyn Mei.
The nurses took to making sure Roselyn was okay and did a little cleanup and thenI got to hold her for the first time and also bring her to Shyanmei to see.
I was pretty content to hold and stare at Roselyn. Meanwhile Shyanmei was still under the knife. I could tell that something wasn't quite right as the doctors were talking under their breath. They told me that there was more bleeding than they expected and so were cleaning that up. Shyanmei did a great job as at this point she had been basically awake for some 30 hours straight (I don't count the sleep you get in between contractions as "high quality"). Finally about 130 or 2pm the c-section was done. Shyanmei and I went to recovery and Roselyn went to get some tests. Fortunately, before they took Roselyn away, we were able to get her to breast feed even if briefly.
As it turns out, Shyanmei had a small hole in the back of her uterus that they noticed during the c-section and this was causing the bleeding and they spent time finding it and cleaning it up. No long term implication from this but perhaps fortunate they found it as if it tore more it could have caused severe bleeding during child birth.
We are completely overjoyed to have Roselyn in our lives. Calum is a good big brother and he's gone from "She's not as cute as Boomer" to "I don't want to let her go" when he holds her.
And, since a few people have asked, her name came as follows:
We really wanted names that had meaning to us and reflected our family hertigages. Shyanmei means "elegant plum flower' so we thought having some sort of flower in the name wold be great. Since "Rose" is Dad's Mom's name that was easy. We then added "lynn" from Mom's middle name to get to "Roselyn" (pronounced more like Ros-eh-lyn as opposed to Rose-Lynn). Mei is from Shyan-mei and ties it to Shyanmei.
Our new baby also has a chinese name for use in Taiwan. In Chinese, Rose is something like "MeiGway". Shyanmei doesn't love this name (chinese think it sounds ugly) so we instead are taking the sound Roselyn and using that for her chinese name. It's hard to spell in English but it sounds like Wang Si-Lynn (so the last 2/3rds of Roselynn). In Chinese, "si" means "to miss' so the Chinese meaning is "we miss Lynn or "we miss Pete's Mom". Shyanmei came up with this one and all the Chinese speakers think it sounds beautiful.
Thank God our baby was a girl. It took us 10 minutes or less to come up with Roselyn Mei many months ago. Meanwhile, we were still debating and changing boys names even at 5am the day Rosie was born. Fortunately, a son named "Thorny Thistle McNamara" was not meant to be.
Thanks to everyone for all of your support and messages and we cannot wait for you to meet Roselyn in person.
Love,Pete, Shyanmei, Calum, Boomer, and Rosie
留言列表
