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Entry: Elyssa - my little fighter Thursday, January 03, 2008

Assalamualaikum everyone,

I've always wanted to tell you guys about my delivery experience this time. But I didn't have much time, with struggling my life back to normal, with these two precious lil girls. And plus the experience was kind of sad+traumatic+happy ending + all the feelings mixed together. But I'll try to put all these into words, hopefully I all the events will come back to me slowly...

We went back to Malaysia a few days before I'm 36 weeks. I think maybe around Week 35.4 . So after we arrived in KL, the next 2 days we straight ahead went to Johor, to my parents-in-laws' house, so that I could deliver and spend my pantang days in KL. But one day after we arrived in Johor, I found there's a show (few drops of blood) showing it's already signs of labour. I was scared and confused, because I knew it was only around 36 weeks plus. I called my mum in KL, she asked me to go to a hospital or clinic nearby to make sure whether it is a sign of labour or not. But I didn't dare to go, because I knew if I went to the hospital, and the show was really a sign of labour, I would be admitted and would have to deliver there. So we took a risk and straight away drive back to KL at around 7pm and arrived in KL at 11 pm, and we straight ahead went into Ampang Puteri Specialist hospital's emergency department. And after I did the checkup, the nurse said I was already 3 cm dilated. Lucky for me, although I didn't do one single check up in Ampang Puteri, Dr Fauziah agreed to be my gynae because I had some records of my first pregnancy with her.

So, we spent the night in the labour room. The next morning, the checkup was as usual. I was quite disappointed when Dr Fauziah came at 10 am, and said I was only 4 cm dilated. What???? All those hours, but only 4 cm dilated. So Dr Fauziah decided to break the water bag and she went off to her clinic leaving me to wait for labour. And she also gave me a shot which is meant to strengthen the baby's lungs. And I also took an epidural shot so that I wouldn't have to feel the labour.. :P

All of a sudden, the nurse came and looked at the heartbeat chart on the CTG and said the baby's heartbeat had gone low. It was 120 before and suddenly went down to 60. And she called Dr Fauziah to come to the labour room. Once Dr Fauziah arrived, she looked at the chart and said this is not good. She panicked and said the heartbeat haven't gone up in 5 minutes, so we need to do an emergency cesarean section immediately. She gave me an oxygen mask to breathe in, she said it's not for me, it's for the baby. So I was brought to the operation room, once more, and my husband didn't get a chance to see me deliver for the second time.

The operation went on, and all is well. After the operation, they sent me to my VIP room (hehe) and I rested for a bit, and met all my family there. A few minutes after that, 2 nurses came and send me the cutest little baby for me to breastfeed. But I didn't have much milk, so the nurse said she would bring back the baby to the nursery for formula feed, and would return her back to me at the next feeding.

But the next feeding, the nurse told us the doctor had to observe the baby because her skin was a little shade of blue and had to be kept for observation for another day.

The next day I went for breastfeeding, and Elyssa breastfed for the first time, and I noticed it was very hard to breastfeed her, because she keeps stopping for breath. After an hour of on-off breastfeeding, I sent her back to the nursery room with the other babies. But as we arrived to our room, the nurse called and told us to go back to the nursery because the baby is still hungry and crying. So we went back to the nursery.

I breastfed her again, and after that the nurse told me the doctor wanted to see me. So I went outside to call Asno and we both went to see the doctor. The doctor said Elyssa was a little bit blue, so he needs to give he an antibiotic shot because he believed that maybe the baby has a little virus infection.

Suddenly, after the antibiotic shot, Elyssa suddenly stopped breathing. As soon as she closes her eyes, she will stop breathing. We had to wake her up, everytime she sleeps. The doctor then decided to put her in the incubator with an oxygen head box for oxygen supply, but she still stops breathing everytime she dozes off. The doctor then made the decision that we had to put her in NICU at that very instant.

I went back to my room, and Asno followed the doctor to the NICU. An hour after that, Asno came to fetch me and brought me to the NICU. It was a very sad moment for me, when I saw my daughter. She was lying only in her diapers, and there's a wire coming out of the right nostrill, and the wire went right into her trakea - this is for her oxygen support. And there's another wire coming out of the mouth, and the wire goes right to her stomach - this is for her milk feeding. And there are more wires coming in and out of her body, I was crying most of the time I saw her. I 'tak sampai hati' to take any pictures of her in the ICU, I didn't want people to see the sad memories that I experienced.

She stayed in the NICU for 7 days. Everyday we would come to the ICU to bring her breast milk and we will stare at the monitor looking at the graphs of her heart beat and breaths per second, and everytime she stops breathing, we would panic and wake her up. We suddenly learnt a new word we hadn't known before - SLEEP APNEA. It is a state where someone stops breathing for more than 20 seconds. All those days in NICU we would spend time to look up about sleep apnea in the internet, and how to take care of a baby with sleep apnea.

To cut the story short, and not go into too much details, on the first ramadhan (13th September) Elyssa was discharged from the NICU and moved to the nursery. Alhamdulillah. And one week later she was discharged, and we brought her home.

We still keep a very close view of her, we put a monitor to monitor if she stops breathing in her cot. To me, Elyssa is a fighter. She fought her way in my womb, and she fought again in the ICU. There's nothing more meaningful to me than to see my two girls grow up healthy and happy. It's what we as parents are here for them, to give the best to them.